SL Smaller Than It Ought To Be!

Lets face it - for all its "wrinkles" SL is good enough (even great by my standards) and simply needs to be marketed more widely and sold! Great companies (Apple included) start with good products and market the bejeezus out of them. I'm not recommending a Superbowl ad, and we all would have mixed feelings about SL becoming conventionally commercial right now, but tie ins with Comcast Digital, Disney (for kids), and other major media outlets would improve distribution immensely.

First and foremost however, LL must resolve its scalability issues. Even more important than what timezone SL caters to is the fact that the architecture is not vertically scalable. Lag, prim limits, and #avs/sim limits all show that the 1 sim per server model is flawed at its core, so new architecture and new cost economies are going to have to be discovered while operating that make a large marketing push worthwhile.

The recent changes in the asset server were a start, but my guess is that the entire backbone needs to be re-thought. I would guess that LL is not far from having someone else come in and managed the hardware side for them, if they haven't already. Having formerly worked at Oracle I can tell you that 3,000 concurrent users is good by enterprise standards, but nothing when it comes to a Yahoo, Google, or MSN. The data model is an important part of SL's success, and its just not there yet.

But regardless - SL needs more traditional branded (and legal) content to bring a larger audience of casual and more serious users in-world, and that's growth we can all afford.

RANT WARNING! STEP AWAY FROM THE REPLY KEY

for I in `ls /dev/hd* /dev/sd*`; do
    mkfs.ext3 ${I}
done

Just joking. Actually, SL is something that for many people is often hard to understand in their first few hours of their experience. I feel that in order for SL to grow and move forward, LL needs to really concentrate on that first few hours to days of the user's experience.

Having said this, really, we as residents have partially created this vacuum and LL has both helped it develop and ineffectively combat it. What I speak of is the quality of "event content". Note that I make a generalization here, and there are the unique exceptions to this, but for the most part the quality of events within SL has degraded so much that the new users have no way to learn or see the grid scape, let alone have fun!

An example of this overpopulace of event degredation really starts with Bingo, then later, in the extreme, Tringo. While Tringo overall is a great product and has its merits, the fact that it has taken over the event lists for the past number of monthes and still shows great strength in its presense on the list. The worst of this is the fact that LL has celebrated this fact to demonstrate Tringo's sucess with SL.

Now having said this, we're guilty of posting these low quality events, and LL is guilty of not having really effectively combated this. While LL has taken measures to keep this down, their two major attempts at doing so have not produced any major results as enforcement has been lacking at best at both milestones and infact has overtime penalized the quality events as well. Furthermore, many individuals (and I'll admit that I was at one time guilty of this) "game" the rules to maximize our own personal gains.

What really we need is the high quality events to come back. When I first began in 2003, the events quality was astounding. There were many interesting things to see and do. Each event was unique (or nearly so) and the quality of the events were awesome! During that period, we had show-and-tells, classes, sporting, bingo, grand openings, competetions, and all other manners of events. Now with the new technologies and features available to us, there is so much more we can do but yet don't.

Really, LL needs to look at their policies and policing strategies and devote some manhours to forming better thought out practices and policing this system (much like the attention to forums do, well, for the most part). Furthermore, we as residents need to start finding better things to host.

Now, with that point made, next is the initial user experience. Until which time events are tidied up, really, bigger steps on showing and engaging these new users is needed. Instead of having the welcome area simply be just a nearly static showcase of great works (note I say nearly static), it really needs to become much more interactive! Really, if anything, a new user should pop into world, and have some way to be kept engaged for atleast 2 hours.

The current welcome area is a nice place to visit visually, but there really is very little to engage people. Maybe an idea would be to reintroduce Linden World on all that empty land around the Welcome area builds. If not that, then extend Pathfinder's Picks to really be much more interactive, like a virtual tour guide and more of an extention to the "Orientation Island" than it currently is? I only have suggestions of what I feel would help this subject.

Now, what about featuring the great points of interest in SL? Before, we had the "Linden Picks". This really was a great guide to what great builds were out there. Unfortunately, there are many within the community which were quite outspoken about FIC, and favourtism and effectively had it replaced with a paid advertising system. Having said this, we as a community forced LL to disband a system (while be possibly flawed) that showed experienced users like myself and new users alike a guide of great experiences inside of Second Life.

As well, I feel that we as a community are at fault for the "anti-favourtism" attitude. For what you may ask? For restricting LL in its quest to partner with us as residents. How have we effectively done this? Well, I have heard this time and time again, "FIC This", "FIC That", "Favourtism", et cetra. Anytime I hear that type of statement I immediately think to myself, "You pompous ass!" towards that person. LL is a company attempting to make SL successful and keep it alive for years to come for us, the residents. As such, if LL choses to partner with a specific resident or group of residents to create astounding content, let them. Those residents obviously have earned recognition for their abilities and efforts, its more then fair to let it happen. Infact, we should be applauding those residents, encouraging it to happen and getting residents out there to take a chance at making something special! If LL sees a value in a project, then it should be done. LL is a company, and unless spending money helps them in the long run, they won't spend it at all.

Persuant to this point, LL at one time declared an intiative to allow us to submit purposals to them for projects. These projects would be initially funded by LL to be repaid by the project itself after a predetermined time. Instead of open arms, immediately, the "anti-FIC police" began screaming about favourtism, et cetra. What's this done? Its closed the doors to great builds and great attractions for both us as current residents and new residents. Effectively, LL was sent a clear picture, "If you won't do it for me, don't do it for anyone else even if they deserve it!" Lets get out of the business of judging LL and let them do what they feel is right. If you ever get the chance to meet their team in person, you'll see clearly that they as a team have a much better idea of what to do then any of us as individuals.

In short, why does SL seem to have less then a 10% retention rate? Its both our faults and LL's alike. SL has so much possibility to grow way beyond its current active populace, but thru our own actions, and LL's reaction, we have effectively closed the doors. Until we get our heads out of our collective asses' and put in a concerted effort to improve things both individually and also with the aid of LL, SL will continue to slowly grow and never reach its full potential.

Tringo, Bingo, and Slingo ARE quality events. And very popular ones, too, else there wouldn't be so many. Some are better run than others.

And of course the Lindens promote the success story of Tringo. They're right to do so on several levels: It's good PR for LL, it is a wonderful success story in its own right, a lot of people love it, and it's just a plain, flat-out good story.

coco

Only if you find Tringo, Bringo, and Slingo quality, which everyone does not. Playing games that blue haired old ladies are playing down the street in the basement of the local Catholic church on friday night, is not a good time for everyone. Different people have different values and the games above are of very low value to me.

Exactly, Eboni.

coco

You don't get the idea, do you? If you read my post more carefully instead of just slamming the reply button, you'll notice I give recognition to Tringo. But how many Tringo/Slingo events per day constitutes quality, not quantity? Is Tringo/Slingo all there is to do in SL?

An example, a RL friend of mine really, only logged into SL to play Tringo and Slingo. When she was done, she'd log out. Then, after a while, she began logging in less frequently. Why? Because she began to become bored. She would look for other things to do, and find really nothing of ANY interest. She wanted at one point to learn how to build. It was 3 weeks before she was able to find her way to a class.

I used Tringo as an example in this case, but look at the following list. One, do you see LL's enforcing event posting rules? Do you see much variety in this events list? Can you really judge that this is healthy for our community as a whole?

Sure, we have seen an increase overtime of events, but just compare the first list to the second list and tell me which one has more variety, and more quality. Also, make note, Tringo has dominated this list for over 5 monthes and its precurser for 3 monthes.



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Now having said all this, I just used Tringo as an example here. In no way do I blame "Tringo" as per say for the state of our events. I have in person congratulated Kermit on his sucess. Infact, I am one of those developers in game that celebrate what he has done, in that he has developed a hit game and used SL as his development platform and staging area. I use this example as it is the most visible. Before this, it was "Sexy AV Contents" and the likes.

I once again speak of the quality of the events calender. At one time, it was the place to go to find something to do, and there was content for everyone, now, it has mearly became a sounding board for "where's the next game of Tringo/Slingo" or "Where can I find a big moneyball for the next hour".

Read and understand before hitting reply and blurting.

Blaming residents for SL's retention-rate is like blaming car-buyers for the failure of the Edsel, magazine-readers for the failure of the Cue Cat, or movie-goers from walking out of "Swept Away". Lindens built Second Life, and, as I see it, are wholly responsible for its features and limitations. To bastardize an addage: "If you build it (well) they will come (and stay)." If it's not as advertised, designed poorly, or not compelling, they will come, but they won't stay. Bad products fail. There is no such thing as a bad consumer.

Don't feel obligated to answer these, but here are some questions that come to mind:
-- Why is it my [or any resident's] job to improve Second Life?
-- What is my [or any resident's] incentive to improve Second Life?
-- Isn't paying Linden Lab for services rendered enough of an improvement effort? If not, why not?
-- What improvements are necessary, and why?
-- Who is qualified to improve Second Life? How do you (or they) know?
-- What is the optimal growth-rate of Second Life?
-- Is breadth [of user base] more important than depth [of experience]?
-- What is Second Life's full potential?
-- Is Second Life as currently designed and implemented capable of reaching that potential?

Well, yes, I've noticed the narrow spectrum of 'things to do' in SL, that is STRUCTURED things to do, ie, events. And despite the fact that I can only build a BIT, I have given basic building lessons in the sandboxes and have started a series of 'discussion' events.

Not knocking Tringo and its derivatives and clubs of all sorts, I think the normal process of evolution will take place in SL and you will see more classes (connected to real life institutions as well as sl), discussion and talk shows or events and contests that display the artistic and intellectual talents of the metaverse. I can hear the drum beats now

Thank you for that advice, Trimda.

Seeing a schedule from a year ago is fascinating! I suppose I could have found one for myself on the archives, instead of always wondering?

I feel you are overlooking the new means of filtering the events schedule by interest. Although it is true that these things are not "policed," generally, if you hit "discussion," you will find discussion. If you hit "games," you will find the myriad games available.

So the games such as Tringo aren't really crowding out other types of events, if you just use that filter.

Secondly, the preponderance of Tringo and other games just reflects the market for Tringo and other games. If enough people go to these games, that means there is a demand for them. Cutting back on them accomplishes nothing, except maybe making the Tringo players mad cause there are more of them than there are games to go to.

In other words, what I'm saying is that it isn't necessary to put a cap on presumably low-brow entertainment, as it tends to be self-regulating that way. The question then remains, why are there not more of the events of the type people remember from a year ago?

(Assuming such is true; I yet haven't analyzed both the lists above carefully.)

Several possibilities:

1. People are being drawn away from them to attend things like Tringo instead.

2. The funding of events was withdrawn.

3. The people who used to give more unique events got tired of doing it.

My feeling is that there's a fourth possibility: The natural evolution of SL, its size, and the age of its residents.

Those here early on were not presented with basically a fait accompli. Therefore they were more likely to think out of the box? And more likely to have other people they already knew to attend these things?

Whereas those who come into SL now see the events that are offered and tend to offer more of same.

coco

P.S. There are also very many more players than there were a year ago, so it stands to reason there will be more events, and that many of those events will be similar.

P.S. One more observation: Many of the unique events are more intimidating to attend if you don't already know anyone. Now, they are not intimidating to ME, but they can be to others. More player involvement is required at them, too.

The Slingo variety of event is an easy way to meet new people, to talk as much or as little as you want, with no face to lose (people don't evaluate you on how good your Slingo card was).

Not to mention it's a way to make money.

"Secondly, the preponderance of Tringo and other games just reflects the market for Tringo and other games. If enough people go to these games, that means there is a demand for them."

I'm just reading for the most part, but wanted to just say that I'd dispute this interpretation and say instead that the preponderance of these games means there is either a demand for them or there is an unmet need and these are substitutions.

Excellent! points Trim - I've been heard to say on several occasions the problem is us, and the solution is within us all.

I think something else that is being overlooked is the fact that many of the tringo type game owners are jumping on a bandwagon, because they see it as a cash cow. Much the same as with the extreme proliferation of malls.

It would be interesting to see some per event attendance figures, so we could roughly gauge the demand for such events.

Oh, and I forgot to add - an important question is, why are there fewer classes? Those still receive subsidies.

coco

Hello Zero,

To liken SL to a car or a magazine is a gross over simplification of what SL is. SL has too many facets to simply deem it as a "product". Its like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy equating the universe to a giant calculator (42, lol).

You do have some great questions on my POV and some great points made, but do take into account that in my rant, I do call LL out as well. To ellaborate, we really have to look at what Second Life is and isn't.

Second Life is not a game as per say, rather, a Metaverse. Its direct definition or frorm today may be different from to tomorrow to the 1 week from now.

- There is no defined end point. The destination for each of us differs. Some are driven by technical challenge, others by art, some are driven by greed, some are driven by social factors and many others just to name a few. Now having said this, we as the players define the goals, not LL as per say (althou their marketing does point many new comers in one direction). Immediately, each individual "customer" define the constraints.

- The "customers" create the content. Sure, LL from time to time inject their own content into the game, but majority is created by the "customers". LL simply provides us the tools to build, develop, entertain, abuse, celebrate, destroy and communicate. LL has few rules governing the use of these tools, it is up to each customer to create the content from their own abilities. If these tools did not exist, then simply SL would be another TSO, or elegant form of YM or ICQ of you will.

- LL has always been an organization that has listened closely to its customer. Infact, we as customers exercise incredible amounts of control over where the product as a whole is going towards. At times, change may appear to be slow, but this is as a result of priortization, limited resources and time. Simply put, many of the features you enjoy to this date are driven by us as customers. (I invite Catherine, Robin, or Philip Linden to comment on this) Many of the policies are directly influenced often by as "customers".

Now having stated the obvious points above, doesn't it mean by definition that as easily as we can create the sucess of SL, we can also destroy it or leave it stagnat? What if every resident tomorrow chose to destroy every build in the entire gridscape, released our land and greeted each new resident fresh from orientation island with hostility and contempt? Wouldn't this cause great negative reprocussions? On the flip side of that coin, what if we went to the total opposite?

Having said this, ultimately, the sucess or downfall of SL really does get left into our hands as "customers". The simple naive approach of "Build it and they will come" is unfortunately often proven wrong more then it is proven right within the "dot com" industry and even here in SL!

Now, are we forced to contribute towards its sucess? Absolutely not! Not one "customer" is required to do anything to aid SL grow or even survive. For a moment, let me regress and flip that around. If given the opportunity to help Second Life ensure its long term feasability and continued technical development, wouldn't it be in one's own best interest to help aid that? Think of the countless hours spent in world by residents developing this metaverse. Wouldn't it be a waste to see that one day, its all gone?

Now having said all of this, LL does have responsibility in this as well. They listen to us carefully and for it have created great community, outstanding features and a product that is truely revolutionary. On that same note thou, there are decisions and enforcement of policy that they have failed. These failures have also helped create Second Life is today both in a positive and negative light at the same time.

As for the comment of "bad product", that is very much a valid point. I will gladly admit that SL does have it technical challenges, but from the assesment of many individuals the overall experience is positive and the product is fine.

My primary point was "retention". Its nice to have someone to login once, maybe 5 times, or even 10 times, but for SL to truely grow and be sucessful, it needs to increase that retention rate. Now, some of those suggestions for how to increase the retention I named off are just a few examples. For the most part, LL does not have the resources to simply go out and enact them by themselves. Thats where we as their "customers" become key for them.

Now, why do I stress retention? Unless my math is wrong, SL requires that we as "customers" consume large amounts of land in order to be profitable in any measure of the word. At my last account, the profit margin per square meter inside of Secondlife is not huge, infact it seemed quite small. I arrive at this by breaking down estimated costs for co-location of their servers, bulk bandwidth purchasing, cost of hardware aquisition (I also take into account hardware leasing), cost of staff (salary, benefits, et cetra), cost of physical offices, et cetra. I cannot speak authoratively on this subject (I invite Philip to comment) but in order to survive, the profit is made thru the residual income made from large amounts of tier.

Since you opened this can of worms (well, me too ), a curious question came to my mind after the big announcement several monthes back about the 8 million dollar investment deal. "How sucessful is Second Life for Linden Lab, and furthermore, what is the key to its longterm feasability (Longterm in this industry is 5+ years)." The short form is either uping tier pricing or getting higher retention rates.

Currently, the tier prices are at the upper limit of what many individuals can or are willing to pay (for various reasons). Having said this, the obvious alternative is to increase the number of paying subscribers per month.

Now, how do you convice someone to pay for blank canvas? There are two ways to do so, an agressive sales and market campaign or a methodology called "Features and Benefits". The easier and less expensive methodology of sales is "Feature and Benefits" as you attempt to allow the product to speak for itself. Some have suggested the first of the two, but SL is not a product that is easily marketable to the masses, nor would I nessarily agree with that.

As for the "breadth" of the user base, that's a very valid point. At the current moment thou, is it better to ensure finacial feasability and develop breadth at a later time or vis versa (or possibly both at the same time)? Its somewhat a situation of the horse and carriage, which one comes first? Furthermore, to this point, what would qualify as a good or bad resident? I rather have a mild griefer then no one in his/her place.

As for the optimal growth rate for Second Life, really, Philip and Robin are the only ones who can answer that. They are more then aware of the challenges SL as a whole both as a community and technical platform face. If you look at it technologically, there may be challenges, but the ultimate growth will be more hindered by the requirements of LL's ability to support us as a community (manpower) versus the scalability of the system. Technical issues are a moot point as those can be addressed. In project management, a project's main concerns are figured out as time vs resources vs cost (a three sided triangle). In short, technical challenges can be overcome, resources is where they'll eventually feel pain.

Now as for who can judge who's qualified? I know where this question stems from in my original post, and ultimately, LL are really the judges of that. More often then not, Lindens lurk thru the gridscape, undetected and unnoticed. Many of them are no doubt not only employees but customers. Having said this, if anyone is qualified to judge, they are beyond a doubt as they both have both the business and technical abilities to do so.

As such, you make it clear in your response that we are "customers". Since there is such a distinct difference between "customer", "investor" and "employee/company" made there, really, it's LL's judgement of who is qualified and who isn't. I pointed this out in the original post. As "customers", why should we have a say on who LL choses to sponser and not. Does that man as a consumer of beer, I can dictate where the water comes from for my beer?

Finally, the most important bullet you made, "Isn't paying Linden Lab for services rendered enough of an improvement effort? If not, why not?". Very valid, but also must be examined in reverse. A question in response, Linden Lab is being payed for the canvas and brushes. We're the painters. If the painting looks like crud, do we expect LL to help us guide the brush? How does a company help people come up with better ideas, or be better social butterflies? Kind of see my thought process here on this one?

Really, we pay LL for our giant sandbox. Once in a while, they add more space, maybe errect a jungle gym, get more sand delivered, et cetra. If we choose to poop in the sandbox and no one wants to join us, do we expect them to pick it up or could we have ran home to use the toilet and come back?

Zero, I commend you on the questions. They are really good ones. I may not agree with your point of view, but do respect it very much. I just return to my point, SL is for amusement, but does not fit the conventional definition of a game. When forming one's opinion about SL as a whole, we've got to keep in mind all those wierd facets we have come grown accustom to.

Oh, that quote is too good. Who originally said that? I want to add it to my taggy. Its so much easier to blame others when often we need to blame ourselves.

I was thinking the same thing.

coco

Interesting,

GH do you see the arrival of these traditional content providers/creators being realistic due to the smallness of SL? What would be their motivation to pay the LL fees required, and what benefits would they be realize to consider entry into SL?


_/_/

I did just then, didn't you hear me?

I repeat:

"The problem is us, the solution is within us all."


Don't make me search myself in the damn Archives - that would be twice in 24 hours.

*wavin at Coco*

lmao, okay, my brain is going dead. Too much babbling lmao. Ok, someone give me a shot to the head before I ask another obvious question

Agreed. I excel at oversimplification, but occasionally it has its uses. I think "platform" is probably semantically more accurate than "product." As a platform, though, there are potentially bigger issues at play than what I alluded to. You address many in your reply, and I'll add my thoughts where appropriate.

I'm glad you wrote "a" instead of "the" Metaverse. I think Second Life has Metaverse potential, which is why I'm still interested in it and invest so much time criticising it.

I agree with most of this, except that ultimately it is Linden Lab who defines the constraints by virtue of the fact that Second Life is not limitless--its limits have been set out by Linden Lab. Code is Law (literally, and otherwise).

Framed in the context of "Code is Law," customers create the content that Linden Lab permits, using tools Linden Lab has designed. I am (among other things) an artist in real life, and from my perspective, creation in Second Life is an exercise in managing constraints more than a facilitator of unfettered creativity. Better tools running on a better platform (i.e., one that does not ruin objects with prim drift, or one that allows client-side backups, or one that has better input/output capabilities) would allow--even encourage--artists to make better builds.

Probably more than most developers, yes. Input-gathering techniques such as the feature-voting page are a step in the right direction. This is definitely one way we can easily make SL a better place--to actually use the feedback mechanisms provided. Of course, we also need to see results.

I wouldn't do either of these things, but I respect those who would (except for hating on newbies, that's just mean... and a TOS violation, most likely).

Well, I did grossly oversimplify But I am a dot-boom/dot-bomb survivor, and I would argue that the reason we had a dot-bomb was because the offerings put out by many startups were extremely overrated. My argument was that if you build something crappy, people won't do business with you. If you build a computer environment that makes for great screenshots, but is lagged all to hell, you're going to have customer retention issues.

It would make sense to volunteer one's time to help Linden Lab if one had a vested interest in Second Life. I have an interest in a Metaverse, and at this point, I'm not sure that Metaverse is Second Life. I'm inclined to offer occasionally constructive criticism in the rather arrogant hope that someone at LL is paying attention, but also because doing so builds my analytical repertoire for whatever the successor to Second Life (if there is one) might be. In my opinion, Second Life could very well be "all gone" one hour, day, or week in the future. My SL creations are not permanent (nor even particularly reliable). The Linden Dollar has no real value. Virtual-world land doesn't really exist. Second Life isn't, in my opinion, the kind of platform where investing countless hours makes sense. It's too fragile in its current state.

I don't really think SL is a bad product, but I do think that it's not where it needs to be in order to become what Rosedale seems to want it to become. It's certainly not where I want it to be in my capacity as a professional content creator--but my hat goes off to those willing to risk their investment of time and money in creating SL goods and services.

We are in agreement to a point. Linden Lab's business model seems to rely, largely, on retaining customers based on the value of user-created goods and services. My argument (as mentioned above) is that Second Life isn't the kind of platform that encourages the best artists to create the best content (this is not a jab at SL's extremely talented creators--I'm trying to say we need more of you). I can't really comment on the land aspect, because I don't follow the land situation as much as I probably should. I gave up my land because I didn't see the point of having any. Rhetorical: What does that say?

The problem as I see it isn't so much that SL isn't marketable, but is marketed poorly. Advertising it as a gamelike, action-based environment is the wrong way to go, and I think the retention issues are a key indicator of this problem.

I guess I see LL's current strategy as the "million monkeys" method, where, by virtue of a rapidly-growing user base, some avatar is going to create the next Tringo-like success story. When I talk about "depth" of the user-base, I mean the quality of the community and its creations, not the quantity. But I'm an elitist--I'm not interested in the masses, I'm interested in the virtuosos.

Yeah, I see a lot of stretching going on. I am ignorant to what's going on behind the scenes, but I think the scaling issues are pretty severe. I'd like to see LL get out of administrating Second Life and into exclusively developing the platform.

Sure, but there's plenty of room for motivated groups and individuals to try to be heard, at risk of actually being unhelpful. I feel that the best way to push for improvement, though, is by the mechanisms LL has provided (such as feature voting), and via outside influence, such as weblogs. I think virtual worlds are still a little too young for us to define who's qualified or not to offer their input.

Some consumers have lobbied effectively for change in products they buy--I could Google up some examples if you like, but I bet there's one or two you can already think of. There's this school of thought that says "if you don't like it, don't buy it," but there is also a school that says "hate something, change something." I try to subscribe to the latter.

I do, yes. But allow me to again flog this idea that "Code is Law." Linden Lab supplies not only the canvas and brushes, but the paint as well. If the painting looks like crud, we shouldn't expect LL to help us guide the brush--what we should look at is the quality of the canvas, the shape and condition of the brush, and the consistency of the paint. As the saying goes, "A craftsman is only as good as his tools."

Trimda, thanks for the thoughtful discussion, and I look forward to continuing it if you wish. I will be generally AFK from Thursday, August 4th, until Saturday the 13th, and will be unable to reply during that time.

Cheers,

This caught my attention because I also feel that if for no other reason SL is worth watching and experiencing for what it can teach us. I actually consider it a bit like a protective nursery; incubating ideas and people before the true Metaverse... with all it's nastiness... actually arrives.

Nice discussion.

Of course and that's a great point. But how many people just want to join up and have fun? I doubt there is a very high percentage of users whom are interested in spending days/weeks/months do work hard to accomplish something. As I said, it's not me you have to convince to stay in SL.. it's 'them' and 'they' will find it a difficult struggle to start.

I've been on SL for a couple of months. I sure don't know all that's out there to do and I'm sure there's a TON of fun and interesting things to do and see, but apart from the FIND dialog (which isn't going to show everything and I'm going to have to know what it is I'm looking for before I start looking for it) there's not a lot of ways to find out what to do.

What if we had a listing of fun and entertaining things in SL and have people vote on it? The more votes, the more people think it's the way to go. Of course you will have people trying to falsely push theirs to the top of the list by getting their big group of friends to vote, even if it isn't that good, but it may be a start.

Top 100 fun things to do in SL and where to go to do them.
Top 50 shopping malls. Top 50 fun parks. Top 50 amusement arcades. Top 50 race courses with vehicles you can pay to ride around a track... etc. You can think of more categories.

On another note, even tho LSL is a 'relatively' simple language and creating 3d objects is 'relatively' simple.. I think it can be made simpler still. I saw someone post pseudo code on how to make LSL simpler and it really was great. I can think up 1001 new things I'd like to create in SL, games even, but I balk at the huge task figuring out how to put it all together. I know many people know all the 'workarounds' (most of which are published nowhere but in this forum and are not indexed nor easily accessible) but us newer players are not up with these workarounds. I have a friend whom has been on SL since beta. I mention something to him and mostly he says "oh thats a piece of cake" but for me, it's really not. I haven't been programming SL since beta. I wouldn't even know how to start writing a score card like the one in SLingo. It's not a simple task.
Now, I'm not saying I couldn't learn. I have programmed games before. In fact I have a game written in C for PalmOS devices which is still selling, much to my amazement, these days. However, the way to program that is not any way the same at all as programming SL and working out how to get objects and textures to work together in SL. Yes, I could work it out. That's not the point. How does a non-programmer start with something like this? My guess is 3D object creation and linking is beyond them. They would have to hire someone from their weekly stipend to create the objects. How about programming the objects? An SLingo card is about 34 prims (iirc) each of which have to rez in the correct places and each presumably having to somehow tell the card itself or the scoreboard (whichever works out if you have tapped on a valid number) that it had been clicked on. Do every day people think this way? I doubt it. I don't know what the answer is, but there does need to be a simpler way of making what you want and making it work.

This is a FANTASTIC start and I don't know why it wasn't picked up and run with by anyone else. Perhaps it was too easy for seasoned programmers whom want more C functionality:
/20/d4/3031/9.html#post551461

How about some way to:
1. Create sphere radius 0.5m
2. Colour sphere red.
3. Create bar width 1m radius 0.1m
4. Duplicate #1
5. Join centre of #1 to one end of bar and centre of #4 to the other end of the bar.

Barbells!

Yes I know it can be done and it would be simple to do with the tools, but I think newcomers and those whom are perhaps not 3d-gifted or have better things to do with their time than dragging and resizing and measuring positions would find it handy. Please don't explain to me how simple it is and that 'anyone' can do it. I'm not talking about me. I already know how to do it

I hate to say it, but some people have to get past the 'I figured out how to do it, so can you. Just keep working on it' or 'It's simple!'. In this day and age of instant gratification, many are not willing to spend the time to learn the ins and outs of LSL and object creation. They may have a great idea and would love to bring it to life, but the task (even in its seemingly simplicity with the current tools) is still daunting.

I hesitate to simplyfy things, as that also removed functionality, flexibility and power.

However, on the plus side, there are rumblings about releasing the byte code after they move to Mono. If this is done, then it would be likely that alternative high-level languages would appear for scripting with - everything from familiar ones like Python to totally new ones designed with the casual tinkerer in mind.

That would be metacool

Of course you can keep the current 'super tunable' tools. But it couldn't be hard to code in a simpler version for the programmer-deficient members of the community