New front page

Some just have extraordinary insight and attention to detail. Some are folks of rare understanding, instincts and ethics, unadulterated by the twisted excuses others put to their vulgar pleasures. Their own virtue intoxicates them.

I think Lewis is talking about how LL sell SL to people in general - not just in that one picture. Maybe reading his post would clarify that to you.

*giggle giggle*

i love the new front page... I just think the scene could have been made a lot nicer and more professional. To be honest, they could have used some nice poses and photoshopped somthing onto it... Why don;t they have competitions to let us residents create pics for the front page?

"A picture of a few avatars (of which there are probably a thousand clones running round in the same shop-bought skins, clothing and accessories) does not show the full potential of Second Life, neither does the Business Week article."

That's his exact words that i quoted. So i think he is talking about the picture on front page not being up to his idea of SL and standards, at least to some degree...

I don't claim to be a graphic artist... but surely there must be something more than just a bit of expensive off-the-shelf avatar design and accessories to SL.

Why just one picture? Why not a slideshow for example, with things like:

- Customise your avatar (the current picture would do for that)
- Build (picture of an impressive build somewhere)
- Socialise (picture of a club or something with lots of people having fun)
- Roleplay (picture of a group of furries or something similar)
- Commerce (picture of a store)
- Have fun (a game of some kind)

... and more along those lines. Do you get the concept I'm trying to portray? Second Life is so many things to so many different people, you can't sum it up in just one picture, so my concept does give more flexibility. It's especially useful to attract more people who could find enjoyment in SL rather than those who just see the "make money" bit and wander off, having never seen the potential of the rest of it.

Lewis

Because there is so much more to SL than making your avatar by wandering round a few stores, as I just tried to explain.

Lewis

Sex sells, and I suppose all of the features of SL can't compare in marketing value when you pit them against digitits.

Well, in the picture you have custom looking avatars, a group of people (who seem to be having fun, with the guy holding mic and all), a furry and a robot guy (roleplay) and their items highly likely came from shops. So pretty much 5 out of 6 covered there -.^

Now, personally i'd probably prefer it to be not one picture all time, but more like series of slides with each of them loading randomly when the page is visited, so it gives more chance to show different things? But on its own that picture isn't bad at all for first impression... and i think if it was something like slideshow instead then it could wind up as annoying to people as the original map was, because of all data that'd be loaded o.O;

I saw it completely differently - Cow, whore, fag, whore, griefer

What should be in that avatar collage space is a flash slideshow. At least that doesn't trigger my security dialogs and it also loads pretty fast.

Maybe every couple of months LL should run a contest for pics showcasing SL, and they pick maybe 10 good ones to put in the slide show. Past slide show pics can go into a site gallery.

To make the pics coordinated they can name the categories for example: avatar , scripting, building, events, business.

Excellent idea. Let's hope a Linden reads this.

Lewis

Amen!
*Please take not the following lines are MY OPINION, don't go pin/bash me, just talking here*

The two girls wear clothes that ARE (sadly, to my opinion) representating of what a LOT of people wear in SL, wich is fine I mean, do what you want to do... Well anyways the one on the right is a well known designer and it's actually a really good, well-made outfit, and not so much whore-ish, just extreme sex-fetish. Left one I have no opinion. Anyways, but there is also a LOT of us who dress really different then that, I mean all of us who use hand-drawn!! It would have been waaayyy more accurate, assuming you have two girls in there, to have one wear the more slutty/fetish-ish outfit and another dress in everyday wear clothing because it IS a big market and living-style for lots of us.

Also, not wanting to bash anyone's work but that bull-thing on the left if soooo NOT the best furry/anthro ever made. Same thing for the robot dude on the right! This one is actually not bad at all, but if LL wants to go for impressive, have you ever seen the mechas sold out there?! You need to! Some stuff can make your jaw fall. As Nyx pointed out earlier, I know it's all a question of taste but there IS a difference in the shading/texturing/details put in each of them and it DOES change the quality, taste-speaking or not, unless you are blind or don't know there is "better" out there.

The guy in the middle is GREAT tho. Not even my style, but I am not stupid enough to go say he's not cool because of that. He represents SL well enough. Canimal's tattoos, Lost's male skin wich was/still is a CRAZY hit amongst the males in SL, prim hair, a VERY NICE animation pose, I don't care for the photosourced leather pants personally but hey, yes, many many guys wear them in SL... Like it or not but it's a 69% good rep of guys in SL.

Over-all, nope, you are right, the image absolutely does not feel professional. I am not sure I would have actually hand-modified these people, as your proposed, because it needs to be very accurate for people that are planning to reg to SL, what you see NEEDS to be what you get. But it's better if it teases you enough you actually WANT to reg, and to be honest, with THIS picture, nope, I know I would not. And anyways whenever I regged a year and a half ago, it was because some friends twisted my arms by saying I could actually *make my own* stuff, because I had seen many many snaps of SL and I was disgusted a tad. But the potential of doing what I want excited me.

Anyways I could go on and on, but I think the fact that this represents SL resident only about 60% true, and that it looks not very professional, not so cool.
So I am going to totally agree with you on that one Alan, they SOOOO should have made a resident-based CONTEST. YES!! We are SL. Why not? They do it for trailer!

I must be the 1% then.

I wear jeans and a t-shirt, or a business suit. In fact, most of the people I know are similar in their choice of apparel. I can think of only 2 guys I know in SL that fit the image on the front page.

I would personally have liked to see a more diverse "look" than what is represented, but the front page loads much faster now though, which is definitely a bonus.

Then read the rest of my post!!... Because I am saying same thing as you.
Needed to add more "normal" people in there.
But I said that about the guy because there is JUST ONE, but girls there are TWO. Then they need to put two guys and two girls.

rotfl i was too blinded by the oiled up guy in the front

(that village people thing feels very accurate, though ;o

Does anyone have a copy of the old home page from early 2005? They had a picture of a woman, half of her face was her RL photo and the opposite half was her avatar's face (which matched almost exactly), and it was just so well done. I wouldn't mind seeing something like that back up on the home page again.

i *WANT* to see that! If you find it Cory pass along, please?

I read your whole post

I was simply adding my 2 cents, I didn't mean to imply I was thumping your views.

Aaaaggh, you made me realize I wrote 99% HAHA, well in that case you are right, 99% IS wrong. Sorry XD

Someone posted a link to it quite recently in this forum, i think... if someone remembers the name of that fake person then the search should find it. For that matter, that whole pic was very nice and captured idea of SL nicely. Would possible satisfy even the ones with highest expectations o.o;

Kinda wish they had picked a better furry AV.. But that's just me. I do think they should have multiple pics. But maybe this is just the first pic of many? Hopefully they'll do something creative with that space.

is this the one you mean?

http://www.web3dnews.com/images/stories/SecondLife_01.jpg

I have a checked shirt and brown slacks. Works for me.

Unfortunately you are right in saying that "sex sells", which will possibly bring in people thinking that's all that SL is good for, dragging down further things for those of us who can see beyond that and realise some of the true potential of SL.

Lewis

I think I missed the cigarette in the picture. Let me look again!

So is the Guy. Or rather.. Undressed. Is that Fred Garvin?