Second Life: Testing a new home page this week

Grendels' fantasy avatars ARE good clean fun.

And their sims are gorgeous.

You must be 'shrooming.

Flash is the kiss of death for a website. People see it and they click away. I put a Flash-based intro on one of my sites as a test, and visits declined dramatically. I had to take it off -- and that was just a short, 1 minute intro that you could SKIP.

If they're telling you to go Flash, they're holding out a bag, telling you there's a pig in it, and saying "here, buy this. No, you don't need to check inside to make sure there's a pig in it, you can TRUST us!"

Don't do it.

Just how many of you at Linden Lab or at Big Spaceship have accessability issues?

I'm glad you've "thought" it through, but perhaps you should have some of your less-fortunate customers WORK it through and take their feedback to heart. No need to rush into anything, the Second Life website has been around since the beginning, I would rather you get Website 2.0 RIGHT the first time then say, "We'll make changes after we go live".

Although I understand that's just how Linden Lab thinks.

I noticed that several verbs were pods and wondered...is sex going to be a pod?

I just have to say, I'm 50 years old a graphic designer in real life and have been so since I was 18 and have to use the web a lot to source information about the contemporary artists I work for and I ignore flash sites like the plague.

My contemporaries in the design world sell flash sites to make MORE money not because it's a better format, it's all whistle and bells and by god don't the punters take it all in, in this case I worry you've been such a punter, ohh and those who sell flash sites really do have the gift of the gab, they'll convince you of anything, as long as it pays

As a graphic designer one of my prime goals is to convince the client that whatever I present "has been very carefully thought through".

Others have possibly said it better, but flash on a home page is stupid, irresponsible, a complete waste of resources, and the biggest turnoff possible!

Personally, I completely avoid sites that use flash on the home page whenever possible.

Qie, you hit the nail on the head in syncing between HTML/Flash. Staff doesn't understand the reality of this until they have to get into the weeds. In one of the projects I coordinated, we worked with one of the leading UK companies in building 3D conference centers/tradeshows for educational programs in 2000. These folks really knew what they were doing in Flash and were very leading edge. Long story short, we started with an all Flash homepage and rapidly evolved to a Flash/HTML combo like the new home page. The page ended up being more HTML with some Flash with a skip to HTML version before we finally discontinued the design. We discontinued the design for many of the reasons already articulated in this thread. The major take away lesson learned for me was the difficulty in syncing content. The web demands immediacy in content changes. Even if we don't use or like tools like Twitter, that immediacy is what people want. This is especially true in the age demographic LL should be targeting. The other take away lesson learned from that experience is one we humans have to re-learn all the time. No matter how well we believe we have thought something through, it all changes when the project goes live. And while we all believe everyone has Flash installed, it is the correct version of Flash that is needed...much less the security holes.

Personally, I would have been impressed if BS would have advocated some of the Web 2.0 tools that many of the creative developers are bringing into SL. When someone like Cranial Tap develops a way to show Weatherburg's panel in SL....that's good integration with these tools. While I don't use Twitter, building in Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and even LinkedIn capabilities would be ideal. If the goal is to bring in new residents, you want these people to work their networks to have others join in with them as they explore SL. Leveraging these technologies would enhance new resident's experience in broadcasting to their network what they find as they explore in SL. If positioned correctly, they could use these tools for scavenger hunts and group exploration reporting.

And then again, maybe I totally misread the entry and this page is nothing more than a brochure page with some Flash elements designed to entice prospective new residents to enter SL and explore...and that it will go away as they get immersed in the 3D world.

Since this project is being put together by Big Spaceship, I can't help but wonder:

Whose in-world builds will be featured on the Sl home page, Flash or no Flash? Will it be all builds created by the Big Spaceship team, or will they actually use builds by other real SL residents and customers?

I'm afraid they're going to focus exclusively on their own works and ignore valuable, even better, content created by others.

Any precise idea about the release date of the new community gateway opening ?

I remind you that this program was closed in June 2008 for an update, and we don't see any official announcement about it.

"Some weeks" can be some monthes too...

Same for the website translations in local languages. Any release date for French, Spanish... ?

We are expecting Linden to give reliable dates and fulfill these goals.

Thank you

Gotta chime in with the Anti flash crowd. As someone who spends most of my "Web" time Not in-front of a computer and more commonly with mobile devices, Flash is a no go. Unless you find the time to write a Flash plugin for the ipod touch and iphone.

For instance i can not visit your Showcase as it uses a bit of Flash. The more Flash you add the less of your site i will see =/

If you haven't already considered this, I suggest a verb pod on buying / renting property. I think real estate transactions are a significant part of SL. Getting your own virtual place to call home and furnish with prims may not be life changing, but it is entertaining. (and optional..

The level of opposition to flash on this forum at least is quite astounding. This will be a very interesting test for LL. Obviously they have to go ahead with the trial over the next week or whatever, presumably it's already paid for and scheduled and unavoidable.

The real question is whether LL stick with flash in the long run. If they don't acknowledge this level of complaint then it's more evidence that this whole feedback process is total BS and that LL are just stringing us along by pretending our opinions matter.

The reason I find this particular subject especially interesting is because the choice of flash is not forced by business circumstances. i.e. let's assume the openspace thing was driven by actual cost factors beyond LL's control. The decision to use flash is pretty much arbitrary and could easily be dropped in favour of something less reviled.

Further, I'm pretty sure LL did not expect this many complaints about flash. They opened this up to the discussion process very early on. They mentioned flash only in passing in the announcement. Presumably they thought everyone would be onboard with the general idea of changing the front page and would have only positive things to say. This has given residents an unusually large amount of time to make their opinions known about a topic that hardly any existing resident really cares about.

In short, LL should do whatever they want, the whole thing hardly matters to me and most other people in this forum who will almost never see this new front page. However, you asked for input. We delivered it. Will you act on it?

The issues of flash and accessibility were raised in the thread regarding the initial announcement of the partnership with Big Spaceship so they shouldn't be that surprised.

I do think it's a tad unfair to form too much of an opinion until we see the site in action however.

From what I've seen already of "Big Spaceship"s own website, and some of their previous clients, laggy, flash heavy, migrane inducing websites, I will be very very surprised if I can think of anything positive to say about what they are going to come up with.

But you completely ignored the overwhelming dissent about the unjustified price rises and messing about with openspaces, why should you bother about anything we say in this thread?

Second Life is incredibly easy to get in to, if someone's PC isn't up to spec then no amount of flashiness on a website is going to get people in; if they can't figure out how to download free software, create a free account and figure out how to use the arrow keys to move around once they get in, then how do you expect them to operate a Flash website?

Look at World of Warcraft. 8 million actual active players, not whatever figure it is you're using these days for 'residents'; you create your character (which actually has more effect that SL; in SL you can change everything but your name, in WoW you have to pick a class, race, etc) and only change it if you start a new account. But people get by, and a lot more successfully than in SL. Why are there so few people over a couple of years old in SL?

The basic flaw in SL is one you aren't addressing - the simple fact that, unless you build/create or find some other way to make money, it gets very boring very quickly. Unless you own land, there's very little you can do without spending real money buying game money, and getting hold of land is a fair chunk of change that is way way above the cost monthly of any other online game. An issue that won't be resolved unless you take action to cut monthly costs significantly, and you seem unwilling to do so.

I saw the test flash page yesterday... my first impression was "oh, it looks like the SL Dating Service". It was an immediate turn off and embarrassing.

Premium account: $10.00/month.
512 square meters tier: $5.00/month.
World of Warcraft account: $15.00/month.

So for the same cost as a monthly Warcrack account you can pay rent on 1024 square meters of land *and* get over $4.00 back in Linden Dollars for buying other stuff in-game.

Oh, Warcrack's cheaper if you pay quarterly:

Premium account (quarterly): $7.33/month.
512 square meters of tier: $5.00/month.
Warcraft account (quarterly): $14.00/month vs $12.33/month.

Now you're paying less, and you still get the Linden Dollars.

Let's go for an annual account. Warcraft has a 6 month account for $13.00: Now it's $11.00 versus $13.00 per month.

Right now that 1024 square meters will probably cost you an extra $20-30. At one point it might have been over $100 or more, but it's been a while since those insane prices held true. You can reasonably expect to get most of that back. If that bothers you, give up on the premium business and for your Warcraft $15.00 a month you should be able to get 2048 square meters on an island estate, easily.

If you want a LOT of land it costs more, but the entry level isn't crazily expensive.

Because they didn't open up the game to people without a credit card until a couple of years ago.

Really this should be of no major concern to anyone / what I would really like to see is that LL dumps QuickTime as the default in-world video media transfer format and replace it with or allow a choice of either the former QT & Flash as an option.

thank you

JayR Cela :_)

Oh time for everyone to dump their wish list?

How about llTeleportAgent()?

More Shiny's, more bandwidth, a new download required, more lag .......
and that is just to see the Home page, wait till you get an account.

Definitely fits in with LL thinking so far, pity I can't actually see the new home page for myself but that is what comes of not living in a country with T2 lines to the door step.

llParcelSay, top scripts on parcel for mainland dwellers, slurl maps less than 18 months out of date, custom damping for physical object movement, object-object coms.

Back on topic: I've been avoiding this thread until I see the changes..

I'll vote for that... wait, I think I already did.

Then vote again!!

Please take the "flirt" thing and the woman with boobs that could each fill a sim off ... SL has a reputation as it is.

Secondly... it looks ok, but nothing that a junior designer couldn't have done for probably a fraction of the cost. Your eye doesn't know where to settle because of the pods (really just photo squares), and instead of providing a cohesive "what is it?" answer, it's a fragmented "who the @@%$ knows" feeling you get.

If I can't figure out the purpose of a web site or company with a few seconds looking at their site, I leave. I could be wrong, but this seems more like a secondary or third page rather than a homepage. This conveys nothing to me that answers my questions if I don't know what SL is. Rather, it looks like someone's virtual photo album with no central focal point for my eyes.

I hope it didn't cost too much.

Note: Revised the blog post to add a screenshot of the new home page design being tested.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/12/15/second-life-testing-a-new-home-page-this-week/

(and scroll down to the bottom for a link to a larger version of the image.)

Thanks for your patience! (We didn't want to release it too early and spoil the test data on the first day.)

-- Katt