Announcing the $10,000 (USD) Linden Prize

And why wasn't this caught in testing? I mean heck, it was right there on the screen in front of your eyes! Do you guys even test these web apps or just throw them out and hope for the best?

Art for arts sake seems to be eliminated from consideration.

I don't know about you, but $10,000 sure would be nice in my pocket right about now. I honestly think that LL's timing could be better on this, but this program's managers like Everett et al probably weren't responsible for the OS fiasco, so let's at least cut him some slack.

The Linden Prize is a decent idea with its heart in the right place; even if it DOES benefit Linden Lab by bringing in extra residents/respectability, won't that be better for all of US in the long run? I myself am not especially keen on seeing LL fail in its quest to be the best virtual world it can be (and take note, LL! You should be marketing yourself as an ENTERTAINMENT platform and not a business platform. It's your best hope for the future, esp in this economy) so I'd like to see an influx of interest and new blood. The Linden Prize could potentially do that, if the selected project really is good enough.

I loved Nika's idea with Oxfam. I'd be willing to help do something like that; there are other charities out there like Heifer International, Doctors Without Borders, Engineers Without Borders, etc, that do work on micro-projects. Small donations earmarked for specific projects are always welcomed by those organizations.

Relay For Life is great, don't get me wrong, but we could start up an ongoing donation system that continually injects real world money into these micro-projects, and hey, wouldn't LL look GREAT for that. If LL looks great, SL looks much improved. If SL looks much improved, we ALL benefit with new residents as friends, creators, and customers. Please let's just drop the Open Sim crap from this discussion; there are hundreds of threads dedicated to OS stuff; keep it there.

That should be written on page one of the TAO, and also emblazoned on a heavy brass plate which can be used to bash M and M over the head with repeatedly untill the letters are sunk into their foreheads.

Otherwise, I don't think their is any nefarious purpose behind the timing behind of this announcement beyond the usual Keystone Cops act that goes on at LL World HQ.

Cool idea there Lindens but um, you guys just don't seem to have the math skills one would expect from computer people. Or perhaps you do and think everybody else is a dolt.


10,000 USD buys 2621114 worth of lindens at todays exchange rate (according to the buy page https://secure-web12.secondlife.com/currency/buy.php)

NOW

Sell 2621114 lindens and you get back US$9,265.12 (according to the sell page https://secure-web12.secondlife.com/currency/sell.php)

So, dear future contest winner, kiss $733 goodbye if you plan to take your winnings out world - or EVEN if you just wanna pay your tier on your soon to be overpriced OpenSpace sims. AND you are limited on how quickly you can pull it out anyways.
https://secure-web12.secondlife.com/currency/describe-limits.php

/me scoffs and wanders away shaking head in sad disgust. Color me UNIMPRESSED.

I'm sorry, but I must speak here. This Openspace issue is so vast and far-reaching that there is no place where it can be off-topic.

Right now, in every corner of Second Life, we are seeing widespread anger over what this policy is doing to Second Life- and what it represents. This anger is caused by "residents" (customers who are responsible for making SL what it is) feeling like they are loosing SL.

I've seen some of the biggest names in content creation not only express anger, but act on it, making plans to leave SL and beginning to act of them. The very creative individuals which are the fuel of SL are not tolerating this outright abuse.

This is a ton a straw that is breaking the camel's back. It represents the final act by Linden Lab after a history of utterly ignoring the people who make SL what it is. It isn't just about policy, it's about the failure of Linden Lab to understand Second Life itself.

Despite this massive issue, we are seeing almost zero communication, zero conversation from Linden Lab. And then we get this blog post, this contest which is so trifling in comparison to the huge issue that threatens SL's survival that it almost seems like a joke.

Any minor capitulation- any minor change in openspace policy- will not solve this problem. It will just make it worse. There absolutely must be a complete backtrack of the current openspace policy, and even then it will not be enough. Linden Lab needs to utterly change its relationship with its customers at the most basic level, to put the desires and needs of customers first as there is perhaps no other company where the interests of its customers and itself are so fully intertwined. We make what SL is, not you. Either you both realize and ACT on that, or you will see the people who make SL what it is leave, and wash their hands of a company with complete ignorance of itself, and its customers.

I don't care if it takes 6 months to get it out, that's still over $9,000 cash money I wouldn't have before. I'd be happy to take it. That's like people scoffing over winning "only" a million dollars because The G takes a third in taxes. The remaining 2/3 isn't exactly milk money.

Not if you do a Limit Sell. Sell that L$10,000 at 262 L$/USD and you get $10,312.97. Take off 3.5% transaction fee ($360.95) and you get a grand total of $9952.02. You've only lost roughly $48 in transactions fees, not a bad deal.

If you wanted to be patient and sell at L$360/USD you'd actually be making roughly $30 on the deal. [Edit: You'd make a profit of $28.57.]

I cant understand most of the peoples here. On one hand you cry that LindenLab doing nothing and want your money from rising up your costs of opensims and on the other hand you are bleating now because they offering you to win a nice sum of money and you calculate how much you will spend into transfer costs.

I think 10,000 US$ are a good stimulation for using your brain. But much more as only money is the task you create something new which is useful for everyone. I think this is a good challenge for innovative ideas. I think also, this means not that you are selling your idea to LindenLab. If this idea is sexy enough you can earn much more than only 10,000 US$. And if you want to create a new real life business you must also present your plans to the lenders of your bank.
Perhaps it will be also a showcase for LindenLab/SecondLife but you earn also enough by promotion.

Compelling results in real life is a hard challenge in this time. I doesnt know what it means. Could it be a rollplay, a marketing platform, a dating service or a scientific project? All of this producing real life results, but it is hard to planning, creating and promoting this in only 60 days.

May the challenge begin and the best win the pot. Im out now to phoning with my old mentors. ^^

QFT

how about a prize for whoever can stop inventory loss or how about one for the guy that figures out how to enable vehicles to smoothly cross regions without spinning out of control and causing client crashes.

I'll have his prim babies

Who or what is deserving? Who is making life better for others with the platform? Have been thinking about that hard last night and today and still keep coming back to the same answer. Someone has already done all of this and more. I was gravely ill for over a year when I discovered SL to the point that I had even started cutting myself off from the rest of the world fearing I would not survive, shutting out even my daughter and family. I found I was able to express myself though to people who I could not even really see or touch or hear. Rediscovered humanity through a virtual world and then I discovered scripting and eventually found I could help others learn as both my brain and body recovered. Because of helping others in the forum I found a sense of worth and purpose I had not had in over a decade and it prepared me for going out and rejoining the work force.

There are a multitude of stories just like mine in SL, guess we all know about the person with Aspergers. I have known people here with so many conditions including even some rape victims that were able to start the healing process. I personally have 3 friends that have met and married both here and in RL. One was from New Zealand who met her soul mate in England. In some ways, being separated by computer screens and even thousands of miles we are able to connect closer to people then if they lived down the block. No matter what the reason is that we have built walls around us to keep the world out or protect ourselves, this virtual space and separation offers a safety net to start exploring the world around us again. It is just pixels and typed words but my tears, laughter, rage, joy, frustration happen in RL.

Yes I do still get incredibly frustrated with some of the things some of the employees do or even some corporate decisions themselves. Don't much like it when the platform doesn't behave itself either. But I also know some incredibly dedicated employees at LL. Hat's off to everyone in QA, Dan, Beast, Milo, Vector. Then there is Kelly and Torley and Robin of course and many more.

So yes I may even say a word or two every now and then that I am not supposed to say here in the forum in fleeting anger but I still love what Phillip created. To say that if there was no SL that I might not still be alive probably would not be an understatement and what is truly amazing is that my story pales in comparison to so many others here.

You are looking for someone who is using the platform to change the lives of people for the better yet this has already happened countless times over, but it has been happening individual by individual.

I guess he isn't eligible but yep, Phillip was the name that kept popping into my mind.

Who judges.
How will they be chosen.
Will the judges be introduced before or after?

I think many had already done that - e.g. Sailing community. Oh yes - LL has just efectively killed all of those by changing the OS rules. Is this a ploy to find out what people want and raise the prices there too.

What a great idea, there must be hunderts of terrific common sense ideas in Second Life. I bet a couple smart folks know how to turn them into ten thousand dollars too.

Make way for the like of Richard Branson, and other entreprenours.

http://rivers-rock.blogspot.com

From the Linden Prize FAQ site, "The judges are a panel of thought leaders from Linden Lab, Second Life and related fields. Judges serve confidentially..." So basically we have another corporate decision making process that's not transparent and does not involve the residents.

Well perhaps someone dumping OS can give him a couple, if it's that good an idea it would be worth investing a few months tier for $10000US.
Besides, I didn't see anything about a minimum prim requirement for the prize, you just keep kicking the wrong people in wrong departments and then complain later they don't like you

Pardon me,

I have a difficulty trying to find the level and match between the prize for the significance of the innovation project and LL's mission or goal which is generously idealistic.
Is it to involve innovative creative IT volenteers?
Problem remains, why spend so much time for a very complicated timeconsuming thing for USD 10,000.
Were the same person spending the same energy in RL than for SL, the rewards would have a more continuous base in her/his life and with a much higher reward.
But ok, for many SL is also fun.

I mean i have the impression now that LL wants a lot for very very cheap.

Were LL really serious they would announce an incentive that is in balance with the ultimate goal LL seems to visionair.

At this point i really doubt if SL survives. New accounts signing up keep on falling.
My experience inworld is that is a very very crude world and rewards for work are so dramatically out of balance with the time and energy spent. Meantime ppl get very very addicted to SL which is so unhealthy.

The ultimate goal is to connect people around the world. Hologram technique is the future maybe to travel to places fast and easy, and in the end even to walk around like a hologram and to interact with others at the place the hologram is visible.
A virtual world maybe too like a holodeck to create fantasies we like, but... being to handle ourselves to get back to the rl easy. The problem is, our brains are not created like that. One of the reasons why SL has such a bad image in the media.

SL maybe could have a future, but many other things need to be done for that.
Problem is, the speed of transition needed for an entirely new SL meeting the vision of LL is much too slow. And it can't accelerate due to so many different inworld stakeholders.
I really think LL does not survive 2010.

Maybe SL needs to be fased out... or keep it under development for the remaining few.
Meanwhile something entirely new needs to be developed.

Good luck with that. Really. Here are a couple of links that may help--in fact, they're probably what the Lindens have in mind for the future:

http://projectdarkstar.com/

https://lg3d-wonderland.dev.java.net/

They don't deal with the telepresence thing, but despite LL's belief--which you apparently share--that this is the missing secret sauce, that's a commercial dead end. Just ask John Chambers in a few months.

There's plenty of opportunity for SL or other applications to improve RL communications. Improving the veridicality of presence is just a failure of imagination.

Mostly I was commenting on the stupidity of forcing the winner to take Lindens rather than USD. Also consider the timeline, entries in January and decisions in APRIL???? I suppose that is one way to get people to hold on to their OS sims until next year, or to try to suck some people back in. But come on, something stinks here! Don't you smell it????

It really irks me that they bring this up now when the OpenSpace issue is so hot. More switch and bait IMO. Chances are this whole idea was thought up by a different department but the timing... bagh.

I think developing fundamental new physical principles are a bit beyond what Linden Labs can be expected to do.

Xcite...They help so many people around the world get off


Would be nice to see the in-world, resident projects like NCI, and TUI getting in there, although they don't help 'real life' directly, many people have started their SL careers there, some making a real living from this game as a result. Many ESL speakers have been made to feel welcome and well adjusted to the game in these areas and the friendly staff are always accomodating to those with disabilities. The cash could be useful to TUI in particular, who are unforunately closing down a place that once ran many classes daily for residents on all kinds of topics.

The UC Davis Hall of Hallucinations would also get a vote from me (should it still exist, not been for a while) it's an interactive walk through which aims to explain Schizophrenia, great for raising awareness and building understanding.

many people do not want SL in their RL.

Or RL in their SL.