Second Life: Testing a new home page this week

Applications? A home page is not an APPLICATION. It's a DOCUMENT. It may be an active DOCUMENT, but it is a document first and foremost. It has to support the casual browser, and that means small, lightweight, accessible, navigable, and static.

Look at what is the most famous and recognizable home page on the web today: Google.

No flash. Hardly any active content at all. It contains exactly what it needs to give you the information you need.

i m new in second life i like what you are doing for us to have fun and injoind visiting your world.it is a great idea like this web to existe .
my question is why we pay the tires for residents when they sale us the land for very smale place like mine i pay 16000 lin by month for 5600sq .it is excyting to be there and by and sale things and set another life but for me in my country i dont have any vat . maybe is different in your world but at list they must be faer for the tirs like for certain time we must pay this ex:6 months or one year but not for no limit time .
for me its for fun and i would like to learen more about second life i love the game i love to be there for me again i have no benifit only injoied . i would like if you tell us for begginers how to choose the right decision to start step by step speciale for people how dont have any experience how to use the features of the net or the web to make more easy for who cannot indersatand well the english. thank you so much and sorry for my english im not realy good in the language.i hope the successuful for your web and
merry chritmess
sincerly
sinddy

you want to be successuful in my region you need to have opion in your web in arabic like this people here can enjoind signing in and can learn more how to use the second life correctly in our language i hope you can do this for us .
thanks

BIG spaceship caught you Lindens eh?

the figure of the day still is

Islands Added
Month Islands Owned
(End of Month) Islands Added
(During Month)
December 2008 - MTD 23508 -1054
November 2008 24562 -1977

and not shiny homepage dingies

flash? nonsense, I always skip these intros if possible otherwise I leave the site

good luck, LL

Only for a few hours?

How will testing for just a few hours provide any valuable data on the traffic impact in a realistic environment? If I were in the captain's chair I would surely be testing the website over a fortnight and generating my graph based on that data. A few hours, in my estimate, is not sufficient amount of time to gather data on how this will impact 1) The New Resident and 2) The Current Resident.
Sure, everyone who reads the blogs or these posts will be curious and visit the site, but what of the 1000's of people who don't read the forums or check the website blogs every day? I think before any permanent decisions are made the website should be put through a much longer test.

As for the design itself, (speaking from a Designer's point of view) it looks refreshing, but is largely generic in nature. Though I do like the way it was set up to put the emphasis on the content.

As for the....scuttlebutt regarding the relationship between the upcoming 'revamped' Orientation Island and Help island and Big Spaceship, I find this to be a slightly hypocritical position from Linden Lab. Namely because Linden Lab has always paraded the 'user created content' as being the forefront of the uniqueness of Second Life. Pushing forth the fact that everything in Second Life is created by its users. Yet, when it comes to projects such as a new OI, Linden Lab brings in an external company (what do you pay the Moles for?).
In my view, Second Life as a community has evolved to the kind of standard where Linden Lab should be placing its trust in the Content Creators and perhaps improving its relations with the Residents by allowing THEM to create such things as a new OI. There are HUNDREDS of talents builders in second life who have a far better idea of what a New Resident really needs out of their first hour in SL than any external company every will. I remind you that the other OI's were constructed by external companies and look what a disaster they became.
Linden Lab should have reached the point where it is placing increased reliance on its residents to keep Second Life afloat, rather than hiring outside companies in what is largely viewed as a complete waste of money. Any skilled builder would be proud to contribute to Second Life in such a magnificent way for a fraction of the cost that Big Spaceship are no doubt charging. This, in turn, would free up money to put into such projects as better back end resources.

[/endrant]

Well, I would love to give you some honest feedback, but it's impossible to properly give feedback on a Flash website based only on a screenshot.

From what I can see, I'd give the concept a D Minus or an F. It looks like some individual's personal photo gallery. There is no focus. There is no clear "front door". The black background is VERY bad practice...

My normal reaction on arriving at a flash-based home page is "Cute fluff. Where's the button to skip the fluff and get to the real home page?" As soon as I find that "Cut out the flash whizz-bangs" link, I am out of there. If I can't find that escape in 5 seconds or less, the site is history, and I am unlikely ever to return.

You've gotten almost 100% negative reactions to this test from concerned residents. Based on past Linden Labs decisions, I guess that means it's 100% certain you will proceed with this plan, and ignore those Resident concerns. I'd be very pleased if you would prove my pessimisim wrong, and actually LISTEN to your CUSTOMERS once in a while.

By the way, website design and systems administration is my professional full-time job. And if any web coder working for me handed me that site as an example of how a home page should look, I'd schedule them for a remedial training course on user interface design for the Web.

Oh my god.

I just realized that ... I've seen this before.

http://www.zombo.com

On a serious note. I just looked at the screenshot.

It appears (from the tiny picture on the blog) slicker. It may capture more escapists, but ... honestly?

It is completely the opposite direction from my recommendations on page 1 of this thread, and exactly the opposite direction that Linden Lab's marketing should take it.

Sorry!

Spending money on marketing is useless when you don't have a product.

I know you have raped and pillaged most paying customers and creative people out the door, however i think this marketing is still a giant waste of effort. Instead you should have used this gold to update your 2 year old hardware spec that limply powers the sims. You know, the ancient server class that has had it's actual cost drop into the floor to almost free while you guys have raised (gauged) the rent and number of sims per server through the roof? Now that's marketing! Are you stunned?

Less blahbalh spinning things, blinking lights and BS(both uses). More actual platform. k?

We'll handle the marketing and create the need to be here...if you all can just make the game not suck so much and stop pissing us off with intense stupidity and short sighted greed.

Focus on retention, not the endless waterfall of in/fleece/out noobs. Get a little vision some time...though it's hard to argue when the officers of LL will have a happy landing no matter how this thing decays.

edit// and i fully agree with Hiro. The name second life is a non-starter. Dump the stupid name as a first step in marketing.

The trouble with Second Life, Linden Lab and the fact its using IBM blades when everyone else has moved on to HP servers is because the whole show is at the mercy of the Investors. The investors have never been on Second Life. They have no interest in the product, you or any of the user created content. They're interested in how much money its making and continually push Linden Lab to MAKE MORE MONEY! I'll stick up for LL on the point that there are ALOT of Lindens out there who are so FRUSTRATED with the fact that they can't fix a problem because the investors wont release the cash to do it. Now, the trick to REALLY getting Second Life's big problems sorted, is to get the investors INSIDE Second Life, and not sat behind their desk counting the amount of 0's that precede $1 so that they can EXPERIENCE what they have funded for themselves and, importantly, the major failings that make Second Life, in the long run, a bad investment while it wont work properly.

Black is a triple no in webdesign. or have you in mind to make people cry, depressed, sad, down, unhappy, near at commiting suicide?

And what is this? Dance, Shop, Flirt, Play, Learn...

OMG! These are the "verbs" ... the "teasers"? No, no and again: no!

Please, we have a few pro designers in game. Even all around the globe. Fire BS and hire some serious people. From in-game or from outside, but hire them.

No, not me, I have no time...because my own rl-biz runs like a beetle-motor and never stops - but some more pros are in game. Much. Muchmuchmuch. Very much. From all continents and all countries.

I have a kilometers/miles long list of all sorts of pros in my rl-inspiration-list about designers and tool samplings, who are able to do the job perfect in any meaning. Usability pros, typo pros, texting pros wich we can call biz poets and customer relation philosophers, color pros, css-ahtlets, xhtml-olympics, corporate-biz-design-acrobats, graphics-artists, some very smart people who know exact how to lead new customers into the right direction, but no clowns. They are really pros. And some of them *twinker* are allround pros.

Maybe use google and some design/webdesign-magzines, because you will sure not allow to link them here...

Or use the in-game-search function. I actualy think - for example - on a specific italian guy and his international team, I am sure you know them...

And if not:

You will find them.

They are there.

Tasteful minds and technical and site-architectural up-to-date.

Black, cheap verbs and flash = trashcan.

The whole www has not a single successful website in black. Cool sites have to be clean, simple, intelligent, optimistic colored, not overloaded, useful, css and xhtml driven, good linked, blablabla. Even amateurs knowing that meanhwile.

I am completely disappointed about the "new website".

We have 2009 in front, not 1995.

All said.

I agree. Dear Big Spaceship. Stop making generic designs that clearly took you a week to think up and half an hour to make in flash/photoshop/illustrator. Live inside SL for a bit and then build us a website.

Black is not indicative of SL's vibrant and rich culture's and communities.

SL "economy" is in the mess as direct result of your incompetent decissions and policies over last 2 years and you come up with a new homepage?

Every single day, as different networks of private scanners show, land equivalent of app 15 sims is abandoned by SL residents. Just imagine what is going to happen in coming months with hyperinflating US dollar collapsing in RL. I predict that soon nobody will be willing to buy a single sqm of virtual land - it will be essentially given away for free to reduce tier liability. At least 3/4 of Americans who represent app 60% of the SL community will be forced to focus on real life again.

I do not have to be a rocket scientist to understand, that in February at the latest you will have to start cutting off the mainland (servers paid not by the residents but paid by you) to reduce your fixed and operational costs and start moving people closer to the core of the continents.

I have doubts about your ability to listen to your customers but I will say that anyway: Your only chance to survive is to reduce the size of your company, cut tiers to half, stop regulate and interfere (you are not the state but the private enterprise which is obliged to follow the law and US constitution), stop charging the VAT (relocate your business if necessary) and do everything possible to get new people to the system, especially non-american customers who will be able to pay you in currencies with at least some "intrinsic" value.

Time is running out.

Not to mention the amount of residents out there running illegal clients that allow them such things a free texture uploads - the 'stealing' of other people's skins/clothes, etc contributing to a gradual decline in SL's economy in of itself.

Item by item I'll go down why that's wrong



They are not against the law, they are not banned by LL and in general with very few exceptions software itself is not illegal although software can be used for illegal uses.



That is a physical impossibility based on the fact that the upload system is server side so no client can possibly get free texture uploads.

the exception to the above is a handful of cases where server bugs allowed this but to my knowledge that has not happened in a very long time and it still wasn't an intentional hack.

]

Again, you don't need a hacked client to do this, for textures at least Glintercept which isn't a client does the same thing just fine and in-world scripts can copy mod objects easily. Also not to go into too much detail of it since it's been stated on these very forums time and time again but there are very few things because of the nature of the open source viewer and allowing any properly coded software to connect and of course the nature of graphics in general to prevent anyone who wants from stealing textures. Which is just the reality of it.

They *are* hacked clients. Client Hax are becoming very popular among custom clients.

If you want to use the actual definition from dictionary.com



Then even using it very narrowly that includes every custom client that connects to SL, every custom program that uses SL data. You can not read motive into that without being inaccurate and I'd ask you to at least do some basic research to get your facts straight.

The good:

--I like the idea of refreshing the initial web page for new/potential residents
--I really like the idea of dynamic video clips (or whatever) that you're planning - conveys being inworld much better than static pix (don't know anything about the technical issues of Flash, tho...)
--I like the simplicity of single verbs to catch someone's eye & interest(s) - I think you're hoping one of them will be the major reason they came to the site so they'll pick that pod to learn more and hopefully sign up - seems reasonable.

The bad:

--Why have pods without verbs? Keep the pod/verb combos which convey something and lose the plain pods - there are too many cluttering up the page.

--Suggested verbs for pods:
CREATE>
EXPLORE>
SOCIALIZE> (not FLIRT> - very juvenile)

The ugly:

--Hate the black background - would have been a turn off for me as a new person on the website. I get that you may be trying to appeal to the "cool gamer crowd" - the screenshot reminds me of a badly done version of the World of Warcraft or the Alienware sites. I suggest you be more inclusive in your design & lighten it up!

--Way too busy and cluttered and you have to scroll down to get to all of the pods that have verbs in them - visually confusing.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents...

The new page look nice also, but it should be on a light background rather than dark background, which makes Secondlife.com more sinister when its made to be more lively.

I'm sure I'm in a tiny minority here, but I like the new design for the most part. I'm not even terribly annoyed by Flash--though I prefer non-Flash websites, too.

Why does everyone hate black? My store and my website have a black theme going:

http://www.vengeancestudio.com/sl/docs/ipa/InfoplasmaAvatar.html

I don't like the new SL site design but not because of the black.

Thank for giving us a chance to have an early view.

I understand that Flash is brought in to give potential new users a kind of offline experience in advance.
I'm not sure if the the new design really represents what SL is about.
The shot now shows pictures of SL confirming not their best image ( to say the least ).
More and more people are thinking that SL is a speed date site.
This shot more or less confirms it ( woman with huge breasts, flirt, dance ).
LL really will have to do something to change that bad image.
What i still don't understand is why SL has no marketing campaign.
I do understand that LL is a highly technical driven company, however your latest CEO should know better.

SL has much more to give. I have been in some very beautiful cultural and artistic sims, and ealier learned more about the work of several important scientists of the 19th and 20th century.

Furthermore i do hope LL will be not be too overwelming with flash.
I usually skip flashes, and i think many ( if not most ) people do.

Good luck with all the redesign

Because black and also white aren't colors.
Black means a full filtering of light (no light reflections) and white means all colors (full light reflections)

Anyone can design a black themed website, but really good webdesigners avoid black as maincolor. The first notion I have when i see a black themed website: it must be a funeral parlour or heavy metal band. But a respectable company should avoid a black themed and on a third party plugin based website - and IF they use it, spaceship have be more creative and not take a idea from another company (compare the webbrowser plugin CoolIris and the new look from the SL website).

My 2 cents.

CoolIris: http://www.cooliris.com

I think, to summarize. As a web designer I can safely say this website is uninviting. It will not make people stay. It has been poorly thought out and it is clear that the designer has very little into the insight of what SL *truly* is. I would suggest that big spaceship spend a month or so in Second Life as residents and then try to design a website. This one will not make people stay.

As for....recycling ideas. Designer have always done that and always will. Designers rely on taking reference from what is in trend to make fashionable web design as well as looking to the past to move forward. But! This is Second Life. Second Life is unique, incomparible. The website is the first thing New Residents will see and, so, the website should reflect this unique nature. The homepage should reflect this immediately.

Hey, Katt and Cornelius: Obviously you have been convinced that you need media to display what SL is about. I disagree. I don't you need to do movies or turn the front page into a mini Hulu with a black background.
I have a 11 yr old website, so I know alot but design. I think you should focus more on community interaction like in world news.
Have a Rss news ticker and money chart on the front page. Gain the rights to use peoples flickr images and have a section that displays them refeshing once every couple of minutes. Show a list of daily events (both sponsored and resident). Get permisson from the major fashion houses and showcase designs from them. This will show what SL is. This will attract new users who want to make stuff, buy land and be involved.
That demo says that its a movie site, a video site or a massmedia content company. SL is not any of those.
A machinama of things done in SL does not tell that much about SL. And pics don't allow it to rise above Kaneva, There and Imvu.

AS for Big Spaceship: I went to the the other sights they made and wasn't impressed. The GE site was your typical embed a movie into the page for a pile of pdfs about their products. The Espon site was no better. Neither site conveyed the product well although the epson site was better.
If you must have flash I suggest a small section of the whole page limited in scope. If you are looking for ease of update, my suggestions above can be done so the page will update itself. Mine does and is constantly fresh. Flash is inheriently inflexable.
Please listen to us. All of us here are trying to help you. Combined we have more interest in your profitablity than anyone else. We are as skilled as anyone on the outside and we have the benefit of being involved with the system.
And Blue would be a much better background choice.