Introducing T Linden. What would you do to improve Premium subscriptions?

The blog post from T Linden:

Hi there, Tom Hale aka T Linden here, the new(ish) Chief Product Officer.

That’s a mighty lofty title, especially considering that my avie is a rather short, very cute green frog. It’s a bit like the Michelin Man and Keroppi had a love child. Chalk it up to “Frog” being my childhood nickname.

From a software genetics point of view, I come from the graphics and multimedia space and spent most of my career at Macromedia, and later at Adobe.

I started in image editing, did a stint in 3D (remember Extreme3D? No? You are not alone), worked on web tools like Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash, helped to make Flash a platform for applications, voice and video, then built a collaboration and training application, called Breeze, on that platform. Along the way I learned a lot about how to involve communities in the development of the software they use.

I joined Macromedia when it was roughly the same size as Linden Lab, and being here feels a bit like coming home to a new house that feels strangely familiar.

It’s been an eventful 40 days since I got here – Openspaces, a global economic meltdown, strong Q3 growth numbers for Linden Lab and a fun and fascinating deep dive into Second Life.

M said my goal here is to bring a product focus to Linden Lab and to Second Life. What does “bring a product focus” really mean? IMHO:

* Listening to the market. Cluetrain says all markets are conversations, and this is probably more true for Second Life. Understanding the needs of our current Residents and the people we’d like to be future Residents is necessary to tailor the product to meet the needs of our increasingly diverse audiences. Second Life is enormously rich, so we need more than a one size fits all experience. Today, we have many channels of feedback from Residents in the pJiras, forums, SL Views, and inworld, and as we make our way forward, we’ll be looking for new ways for us to interact.

* Striving for delight. Driving for a level of simplicity, consistency, and quality that will result in a great user experience. Software ergonomics, fit and finish, design and interaction models in the viewer and the web experience will make a tangible difference to the way Residents interact with Second Life. Think Mac OS X versus Windows 3.1.

* Developing our foresight. Predicting the future is a dicey proposition, and Second Life is as complex and unpredictable as, well, Real Life (if not more so). I can’t predict the future, but one way to predict the future is to invent it. In order to do that, we need to develop our ability to plan and invest over a longer time horizon to make revolutionary as well as evolutionary leaps.

* Thinking holistically. When we think about the quote unquote product experience we will start to segment the wonderful complexity of Second Life into component parts. We’ll have to think about these components as part of a cohesive whole, one that extends well beyond the screen into every place that noobies, teachers, land barons, currency traders, fashion designers, socializers, office workers, Residents of the world (virtual and otherwise) touch Second Life and Linden Lab.

* Balancing priorities. Tradeoffs are hard, that’s why they are called tradeoffs. The business has needs. Residents have needs. There are laws of physics that come into play in terms of resources and schedules. Wonderful people and wonderful products can lead to great businesses (as measured by two consequences of user delight, growth and profit), but it takes lots of heavy lifting to make sure that both Second Life businesses (ours and yours) are successful enough to enable investment for the future.


Of course, I am not alone in this. Designing and building and delivering and supporting and participating in the “product(s)” and businesses of Second Life is what all Lindens do.

And of course, it’s an undertaking that we will do in concert with you, gentle reader and passionate Resident. In future blog posts, we’ll share our ideas and directions, and look to you for feedback and answers to help us choose what path to take.

So let’s start with this. One of our products, the premium subscription, is ripe for improvement. It’s been neglected and there have been many conversations, forum threads, pJiras, surveys and plans to improve it, leading to some great ideas. It’s even been the topic of a Massively post by Tateru Nino who speculated about what we might do if we were going to improve the product or make smart business decisions. But what could make a premium subscription truly premium? What would make the experience a delight for you? Let us know in the forums.

So let’s start with this. One of our products, the premium subscription, is ripe for improvement. It’s been neglected and there have been many conversations, forum threads, pJiras, surveys and plans to improve it, leading to some great ideas. It’s even been the topic of a Massively post by Tateru Nino who speculated about what we might do if we were going to improve the product or make smart business decisions. But what could make a premium subscription truly premium? What would make the experience a delight for you? Let us know in the forums.

Why not post this in resident answers, where it will have more exposure.

T Linden will be reading this thread Friday afternoon (Nov. 21) and will post replies then, thanks!

There is a link from the blog, but it's a good suggestion sable. I'll post a link there too.

Thanks!

-- Katt

First, why not give premium subscribers a bunch of "Second Life" bennies, things that are really quite cheap and low risk to implement? These are all things that would REALLY help people running businesses:

A home page on a Second Life sourced site. "residents.secondlife.com/ArgentStonecutter" could have out-of-world visible advertising, or a blog, or ... who knows. It wouldn't need to be big, or complex, just some place you could stick up a bit of HTML.

An email address so people can contact you from out of world. "ArgentStonecutter@residents.secondlife.com". This would be optional, and forwarded to an email address you specify.

Jabber/IM gateway, just for personal IM. No groups, nothing fancy, again, something you can use to help people run businesses in SL without having to BE in SL all the time.

These things wouldn't be in the critical path for ANYTHING in-world, and implementation would be largely independent of anything in-world, so they wouldn't block any core work.

Second, don't do this by cutting into what Basic subs can do, or by trying to trade off existing Premium benefits. You won't like the results. Really.

Third: more levels in tier, pretty please. ^^

Better get some suggestions in before the thread is unceremoniously locked:

1. Free uploads for premium accounts.

2. Graduated tier for premium accounts. Not these gigantic jumps, but increases for every 512. You'll see more land ownership if you do.

Good luck, guy.

Off to figure out why I can't log in.

Probably the simplest, easiest to implement (and maybe most boring but effective) change would be to go back to providing at least L$500/week or better stipends for premium accounts.

Linden Dollars cost LL almost nothing, ultimately.

Boring, simple, but I think effective.

How about increasing the "free" tier for every year that you're premium... that is, reward your long time premium members and provide an incentive to remain premium?

Year 1: Tier-free 512
Year 2: Tier-free 1024
Year 3: Tier-free 1536 ... and so on.

(oooo... in 128 years, I'd have a tier free mainland sim... woot! LOL)

I was just going to suggest the same thing - increasing tier exemptions for long service. But not infinite - maybe just twice, after 1 year and 2 years.

Here are a few suggestions many others have made in the past, to make Premium subscriptions more attractive.

1) Increase the land benefit from 512m to 1024m

2) Increase the number of groups from 25 to 50 or whatever. More groups is one of the most-wished for enhancements in the JIRA I think.

3) Some others have suggested free or reduced-costs for uploads, so how about L$5 for uploads instead of the L$10 that everyone pays now?

I really feel that you need to reward long-term customers for their loyalty and support, so I would like to see some increased benefits that kick-in after someone has been Premium for a year, two years, etc.

4) On every year anniversary of premium, add an extra 512m of land allowance. Yes this might cost money in that some residents will be paying less in tier each month, but for those who have premium without holding any land, it's a free gesture.

5) An L$ 'bonus' at the premium anniversary, say L$1000 or L$2000. It is a 'token' amount, but sometimes that's all it takes to make a customer feel appreciated.

There are a number of other wished-for features, which could perhaps be added as a perk or bonus for premium accounts. The following suggestions would require some technology in the viewer and server software before they would be possible, but if we're talking long-term plans then IMHO these should be considered too.

6) How about the ability to rez mega or micro prims, as a premium benefit?

7) How about enhanced control over the avatar 'appearance editor'? Like being able to make avvies 2x bigger or 2x smaller than currently possible?

Really, you could just go through the JIRA feature requests and the older new feature vote system to find what was popular, and flag them as premium-only options, and I'm sure you'd get a lot of people considering that upgrade for the enhanced inworld feature set.

For what its worth, this topic is very timely for me. My premium membership is due to renew next month, it would be my 2nd year anniversary as premium, except my plans right now are to cancel it. I plan to cancel because there is a lack of value in it, and because currently I feel that LL does not value its customers.

Katt, if you guys can announce an enhanced benefit in the next 2 weeks, I'll renew my premium. Seven suggestions here, any one of them would do it. What do you think?

-Atashi

Great minds think alike... beat ya by 2 minutes.

To late to do much with it.

Argent I think your ideas are not going to happen. LL can't even keep their own website running properly let alone 10's of thousands of websites and e-mail addys for premium members.... However some "Premium" advertising and exposer would be good. Then again it would just get gamed like everything else in SL.

Only thing I can think of is to remove premium all together, make tier based on 512 plots that anyone can buy and call it a day.

I posted my response, then I saw yours so I amended mine.

Also:...It runs as well as any other websites I use regularly.

Since land is always on Residents minds, why dont you consider letting premium residents buy the new Homestead or Open Space Sims without having to purchase a full island first.

That would be a huge benefit to paying the premium fees and I think you would see the land markets of all types, go up.

I said this a month ago! Thpppt!



From here: /352/13/284537/11.html#post2193420

-Atashi

No, because of the need to keep the L$ Exchange balanced, L$ cost Linden Labs exactly the same as they cost anyone else. L$ paid for prizes, or as stipends, are L$ that Supply Linden can't sell.

get rid of it, SL is becoming to much of a us vs them society

Off the top of my head...

1. Don't remove what premium accounts have now, or at least grandfather what little they have at current.

2. some sort of personal web or e-mail would be nice. While I'm happy with my [email]marianne.mccann@gmail.com[/email], having a "secondlife.com" or even "insl.com" would be a big bennie to me. Likewise, a www.insl.com or whatever web profile would be cool (nan you should see the cool web profile stuff SignpostMarv Martin has been working up).

3. A break on tier. I can dream, right?

4. Enhanced group slots. Give premiums 35-50 group slots, if the central DB can handle it (ironic to ask for such *now*, though!)

5. Some form of premium-level support enhancement or feedback "hotline." Something that shows *us* that we're valued for buying into SL.

6. Hey, we never did get that mule.

Mari

(EDIT: My, but we're all thinking along similar lines, aren't we?)

Then why am I constantly getting re-directed to the grid status page...

Awww man... and here I thought for once I had an original thought. Doh! Well... in this case, I agree with you. Its a good idea.

very simple but for all builders, solution providers etc. massivly helpful improvement: Increase the number of groups you can be in.

cu
Marissa

People with a premium account are landowners, nearly always true I assume. Owning land means you have to keep track of what is on that land and who come there. Perhaps you should allow premium account holders some more control over what they do with their land and gather more statistical information. (Unique visitors/period, traffic graphs, objects on land with option to return to owner from the web, etc.)

Also, personally I have an issue with my inventory. How about giving us a nice way to deal with huge numbers of "stuff". Like where you can store non-trans items in different tabs or whatever and have the option to search in one of your inventories. Perhaps premium members can make up to 10 inventory tabs. (I could do with one for products, building, and scripts aside from my regular inventory.)

I would look along the lines of tools and things that people who are not premium members do not really need and gives more involved users (I know that that is not fair to assume) some more options.

Been here two years already and I have two Premium accounts.

My biggest wish is the lower tier step up costs- I wd def own more land if it wouldn't increase my tier to such a degree. The anniversary bonuses wd be a nice incentive. Re groups- it shd be increased across the board- 25 is just silly, especially to shop owners who must have member status in various groups if besides owning land rent shop parcels.

I do not agree with the macro/mini prim suggestion if I understood correctly, it means non-Premiums could not have it- seems an unnecessary thing to do to Basic accounts.

Everyone posting here *is* premium, right?

You need to ask people who are *not* premium what might make them premium.