Lauren Linden and I have been working on land projects for the past few months. The purpose of this post is to clear up some misconceptions about the communities of Blumfield & West Haven, to state our next steps with house and land projects, and to share some of the direction that Linden Lab is taking with land sales.
Background
In September 2005, Linden Lab began offering one free Basic account to each new Resident. Doing this signaled not only a shift towards a more open model like the Internet; it also placed a greater emphasis on Land Ownership and Premium Accounts. We created a series of tests designed to increase our understanding of the factors governing whether or not someone will want to own land. During these tests, we explored a broad range of variables and incentives ranging from Linden dollars to inventory items and finally a Free House & Land (free “first land,” which usually costs L$ for a 512 m2 parcel).
Phase One: Blumfield & West Haven
Blumfield & West Haven are two Regions created in the Free House and Land experiment in an effort to answer the following questions:
1) Does offering a house within a community add to the perceived value of land?
2) How does usage (number of hours in Second Life) affect Premium upgrades?
3) How likely are landowners to refer friends to the plots around them?
After performing the tests, the results showed what we had suspected; allowing direct access to a house and community DOES add to the perceived value of land. In addition, we found that the newest and the oldest Basic Residents are most likely to upgrade to Premium accounts, and landowners are very interested (and likely) to refer their friends to nearby plots. We also learned that these two Regions took a great deal of time to set up and maintain, and that providing houses in a particular style led Residents to believe that there would be “zoning” in Blumfield and West Haven, which there was not. During the planning of this project, there were economic concerns about giving Residents free land, and allowing them to flip it for a profit right away, so we made a “no transfer until February 20th” rule to prevent abuse.
The “Blumfieldiers” and “Westies” are very eager to preserve their neighborhood and are nervous that speculators will rush in and buy up all the land on February 20th. Because this was a unique situation, we have given them the option to buy plots of land prior to the 20th for L$1950 per 512 m2.
Next Phase: Shermerville
This week, we are scheduled to run a test called Shermerville, which will utilize 8-10 Regions in the Blumfield/West Haven style. The experiment will try to answer the question: Will allowing Basic Residents to experience land ownership before upgrading improve Premium upgrades after a set amount of time (21 days)?
The Future
The Shermerville test is the last such test we have scheduled. Our intent is neither to keep filling the grid with the results of experiments nor to test forever. Instead, our goal is to take the data we have gathered and create a scaleable system that can be operated by Resident business owners. The core problem we encountered was that today:
• The owners of Mainland Regions can resell land, but cannot provide zoning
• Island Estate Owners can zone but cannot resell land
These tests are the starting point in creating a system to give Resident entrepreneurs the ability to:
• Set up and operate Neighborhoods and Communities
• Parcel and sell the land in those Neighborhoods/Communities
• Have a direct relationship with the end-user and provide support and zoning for them
We believe this model has enormous promise because of the degree to which it democratizes Second Life as an entrepreneurial platform. Today, one must possess fairly technical skills in order to make money creating objects and selling them in Second Life. This type of system would allow anybody who has an established community - or anybody who wants to create a new community – the ability to construct spaces and profit from them in a way similar to how Linden Lab currently profits from landowners.