SL CSI Promo...will the grid survive Oct 24th?

Once again I don't understand the big deal here. So there's a "shop" button. BFD. So what if it links to Onrez? What did you expect it to link to, SLX? What is it supposed to link to? The Search button in the SL client doesn't show you classifieds either. And if the "shop" button did go to SL Classifieds, how is that fair to all the people who think Classifieds is a waste of money and don't advertise there? Not to mention that both SL search and classifieds only show you STORES not products within the stores.

Just list your stuff at Onrez - which is free - and get on with life.

lol - that's an interesting way to endorse a product.

That's not an endorsement, just simple common sense logic. I list at SLX, Onrez, SL Shopper, SL Classifeds and Search. I want people to be able to find me where ever they choose to look. I can't control where they choose to look so I list everwhere people are using to shop.

No different than submitting your web site to all the major web search engines....

It wasn't really what you said that I found amusing... it was how you said it. No offense was intended.

No offense taken. I'm just having my usual reaction to "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" forum drama. Where others see an outrage, I just see opportunity and another way to market to potential customers....

There are definitely plenty of holes in my metaphor, I agree. We want to enable information to flow better, not bottle it up. I hope LL releases more APIs so that it gets easier to do so.

Look, I just tried to dispell some myths. If anyone wants to believe Prokofy's speculation about the awful things we are doing, I cannot stop that from happening. However, Hamlet took the time to sit down with us at the virtual worlds conference and really see the viewer. Prokofy did not, yet he's still screaming up and down about things he hasn't seen. I'm not going to argue with groundless speculation. Everyone will have access to the Viewer next week. I have no fantasies that those who are predisposed to dislike us are going to convert just because of a redesigned interface to SL.

I'm sorry that Colette lumps my words into "corporate speak" -- yes I am trying to be careful with my words, but I'm also being straight about what we're doing. As I've said a million times, I think SL is big enough for all kinds of engagement and activity.

I admit: I think it's the first hint of something that's a *huge* deal. And I'm not against the change that's coming; but that change has a commercial and technological imperative that may be getting overlooked by ESC/OnRez. If they don't understand that they *must* be the "Google"--not the "Times"--they'll be steamrollered by somebody who actually "gets it" (to say it in the virtual vernacular).Not quite sure what this means, exactly. Clearly "Search" is how one accesses the "Classifieds"--such as they are--but as a vocal critic of SL's Search I can take it to mean that the b0rked functionality leads advertisers to place copy in their "Classifieds" that's far from optimally effective (and in no way structured like old-media classified ads). That's certainly true.

Oh, I'm totally with you there. SL "search" is pure crap, which is why I find this "shop" thing so exciting. I *LOVE* the idea that I can hit a button and type in Hair as a keyword be taken to a page of PRODUCTS rather than having to wade through 50 listings of garbage and then TP to 10 different places to see if they might actually have anything I want to buy. Right now I can seach Places or Classifieds, have no way of excluding keywords such as "camp," "sex," or "mall." It takes half an hour just to find the places I'm wanting to shop at and then I have to TP over and wait for stuff to rez only to discover that the store doesn't have anything I like.

A "shop" function that shows me products instead of 4 pages worth of "CAMP, ROMANCE, SEXY, CLOTHING, HAIR, MALL, ANIMATIONS, HOUSES" --- bring it on!

Its Thursday and the sky is definitely falling. It is made of a 6500000 x 6500000 prim with fleecy clouds that look like lambs and sailing ships.

When it falls, millions of newbies will come pouring out naked and massively appendaged and ask questions about free accounts vs. premium, where is first land, do you want to have sex, how to set up a group, is it cheating if I date a lama and my partner is a mystic fox, why does my computer with 512 of RAM keep crashing, where are you from....etc.

Residents will run screaming but get taken down by huge swarms of creative griefers who turn out to be secretively employed by a Linden who just can't take it anymore cause she really can't stand the rest of her team and the aggression had to come out somehow.

In the ensuing rubble, only two sims survive...Caledon and...?

re: Google versus Times, don't read too much into a metaphor I pulled out of a hat in the wee hours of the morning!

Hey, it was corporate speak though.

I didn't claim you were lying or not being straight.

I didn't repeat any claims about viewers recording people or anything. I don't have any knowledge about that stuff. It of course seems far fetched to me you would use your viewer that way - when the legit uses of the viewer seem pretty obvious.

If I had a company thats existance basically banked on Second Life becoming the 3D web (Or part of it) I think I'd want a viewer that gies me an edge in business too.

The classified example. Why should you by default always link to LL classifieds? You aren't being paid by those ads. I don't see that part as sinister.

I dont see any of it really as sinister. Its just like the search bot, which you compared to google spiders,

The more SL resembles "the Internet" some of what made it Second Life to me is lost.

I agree 150%

I don't see any need to use anything other than the official (and officially supported) Second Live viewer developed by the people most familiar with it. Alternative viewers are a gamble. No guarantee that they are secure, no guarantee against adware/spyware/malware, and what kind of support can you get using one?

Thanks Colette.

I guess I am optimistic that SL will continue to be amazingly diverse place with different locations and different rules. There's no reason why someone could not create a continent for renters who want to have very strict privacy from outsiders or bots -- might be a business opportunity there. I definitely believe that one can build a private utopia inside of SL and ignore all of this activity.

Perhaps, but thats different from say 2005 when we all came to SL and that was provided by LL.

It probably isn't in Linden Labs best interest to remain that way. Theres a lot less money in keeping corporations out, in limiting bots, in maintaining a seperate virtual life, etc.

Not to mention it would put a limit on growth.

So the 3D internet direction makes sense.

And some company providing a haven also makes sense. Of course so does some company opening a competing virtual world that is niche driven to not include those things.

Maybe you can help me understand something here. What I don't get is how "including those things" or not could possibly affect a user who chooses to ignore them.

In RL, if I don't like a particular part of the world, I just don't go there. I don't like most fast food, for example, so I don't go to fast food restaurants. The fact that there happens to be a McDonald's down the street doesn't make me feel like fast food has in any way invaded my life.

Similarly, I feel I can choose "just don't go there" as a perfectly vaible option for keeping MY second life the way I want it to be, just as I do in my first life. So how could it be that some people don't see the same principle as equally applicable in both lives? To me, it can't get much more simple than if you don't want to experience something, don't go where it is.

As I see it, this theoretical "competing virtual world" of which you speak, the one that would keep corporations out, absolutely can and does exist within SL already. All you need to do to be a part of it is live in an area away from corporate builds and don't participate in corporate events. It couldn't be easier.

That seems way too painfully obvious though, so I feel like I must be missing something from what you were saying. Maybe you can explain it to me like I'm a six year old here. How could the very fact that XYZ corporation happens to own a sim affect you if you'll never visit it? It doesn't make any sense to me that it could.

Maybe it would help for me to explain my own SL experience. Maybe you can pinpoint where mine differs from yours, and thus show how you're maybe more susceptible than I am to forces of which I'm maybe unaware.

My own little corner of SL is the NW quarter of Indigo and the NE quarter of Crimson (neighboring sims, both on North coast of the old continent). I've had the Indigo part for 4 years now, and just recently acquired the neighboring land in Crimson. I can promise you, neither the appearance nor the atmosphere of my place has changed in any way as a result of RL corporations started taking an interest in SL. The same appears to be true of all my neighbors' lands as well. Things basically look the same now as they always did.

The types of events I used to attend 4 years ago are basically the same kinds of events I can choose to attend now. There are just a lot more of them to choose from. (Well, no more gambling, but that's a different subject, and I never did that anyway.)

The people I meet these days when they happen by my place are more or less the same kinds of people I've always met.

So what's different now? How does the fact that CBS and NBC and Showtime and NBA and so many others now have a presence in SL affect me as an individual? I can't think of a single way that it does. Unless I want it to, in which case I'll head over to their sims, and/or participate in their events.

In short, my sense of reality is that I've got the option to pay attention to that stuff or to ignore it completely. It's entirely up to me. I really cannot fathom how anyone else could possibly think they don't have the same choices and the same freedoms.

The only thing that has changed due to corporate presence is my professional life. I'm one of the lucky few whose career now exists fully in the virtual world. Surely if I, who work on those corporate builds all day long, can so easily forget all about them when it's time to punch out for the day, then those who don't actually need to go near them can ignore them utterly if they so choose. Why does anyone think they can't?

Isn't it just possible that this stuff in actuality makes no difference to anyone's personal life at all, just like it makes no difference to mine, and that the real truth is the following? Some people happen to have been born with an unusually large supply of high-octane ready-burning super-charged fuel in the "complaint centers" of their brains, and corporations make for conveniently large targets at which to aim flame throwers.

The fact that I quoted you in the beginning, Colette, does not mean I'm implying in any way that you either are or are not one of those people. So please don't think I am. You seem to be one who sees the complainers' side of it more easily than I do, so if you (or anyone else) can explain it to me in non-complainer terms, I'd be grateful.

I think the problem is that the "3D internet" LL and some others want SL to be is complex, but the answer you are looking for is a simple one.

In Theater the Fourth Wall is an imaginary wall that exists between the Actors and the Audience. The Actors don't know the audience is there. They live in their own little world.

To many Second Life's charm as a virtual world is a version of this fourth wall. You hear Second Life is Second Life, Real Life is Real Life - repeated a lot.

Many from your side of the argument think this means primarily refers to anonymity, but really thats not it.

They want Second Life and Real Life to be independent of each other. For Second Life to be their escape from the mundane world.

It shatters all that to bring the Real World to them in Second Life. Which is exactly what turning SL into the 3D web does.

Sure you could set up havens. Thats one alternative.

Another one is a virtual world tailored to what drew people of this opinion to Second Life in the first place.

Both are possible ways to address it. To mention one without the other is just trying to sell Second Life.

All code is a gamble, LL wouldn't be the first firm that put a release out the door with an accidental payload of malware; not that I think it likely, just not unprecedented.

Similarly, any other binary you get from anywhere might make monkeys fly out your butt, but that is rare.

I happen to use the Nicholaz client patch (BE-p) currently and am as confident handing my password to his client as I am LL's. That Nicholaz posts his source code (like most open projects) gives additional credibility; you don't trust his binary? Compile the code for yourself after examining it to your satisfaction. Incidentally, I have no ties to Nicholaz, I just use his client.

And I don't think I can ask this question non-sardonically, but what kind of support can you get on third party client? What kind of support can you get on an LL client? Not server issues, but client bugs? Seems to me that "support" doesn't exactly apply to LL's client.

Thanks for the answer. I think I sort of get it now.

One major difference, I think, between the two sides lies in the definition of a "haven". To me, the only haven I need is my own outlook on the world. It simply doesn't matter to me that the guy down the road might be doing or thinking or seeing things differently than I am. His second life is his, and mine is mine, and that's great. The two never need to collide unless we both want them to.

It sounds like maybe you're saying that some people are not so easily able to dismiss the actions and philosophies of others. To them, the Second Life world is one single entity, so anything that happens in any part of it affects their vision of the whole. That's interesting. It's really not something I'd ever considered before.

Emotionally, my gut reaction to that philosophy is just to say "relax, grow a thicker skin, and mind your own business," but obviously that's a completely one-sided, arguably self-serving, response. Intellectually, I can't help but marvel at the fact that two such completely different views of the world can and do exist.

You're right. The subject is complicated. I have no idea what could be a good answer, or even if there can be an answer at all, that will appease both senses of reality.

Thanks for the insight.

Well how do you dismiss someone that decides to impose their vision of Second Life on you?

If you go shopping and are greeted with Corporate spam.

If you are socializing and you are chatted up by a would be Eharmony type.

If your private little house and furniture is plastered up on some third party website as a spider search results.

Sounds to me like some of those on your side of the argument also have an issue with dismissing the philosophies of others.

Side note:
I got confirmation on what data we are collecting in the OnRez Viewer right now -- the only things we are collecting are Viewer version number and the Operating System you are using. This is not tied to avatar names.

Should we start capturing anything else, we will certainly disclose what and how we intend to use the data.

Shop OnRez tracks things like visitors, sales, and all the basic things you would expect an ecommerce site to do, and our privacy policy in on the website.

many thanks

This doesn't quite ring true with me. I am a real corporate denizen and backer, but nevertheless I empathize with Colette's, and similar, apprehensions.

For me it is more a matter of ... charm. When I first joined last December, I was tremendously beguiled. I still am, though less so ... less so because I am seeing SL more through my RL professional eyes. SL is a place of immense charm, my ideal vacation spot, my getaway. My friends in SL are mostly people I would never meet, or perhaps meet but never talk to as equals, in RL. I treasure that.

The more that shared shopping/services sims become like RL, the less beguiling it is. If I go to Dollyrock and see an ad for a car that I'm thinking of buying in RL, it pulls me away from my getaway. If I go to a club and hear someone using voice in an accent that I think of as ... I dunno, something judgemental .. I probably won't speak to them. If I go to play a game in SL and I get a notecard telling me that I should upgrade my DSL with Verizon to get a better chance of shooting my opponent, it pulls me out of my getaway. If I went to Bondage Playground and found myself invited to join a RL porn group, I'd be scared away.

LL understands what they need to do to make their business viable. I think many there have lost sight of why people come to SL the game, though. The more precisely real you make it, the less magic. We are here for the magic.

I don't know if these are real fears. It seems to me that the current SL concurrency numbers are not large enough to sensibly market to, in the retail sense, considering how fragmented the population is, demographically. So I don't worry about it a great deal. But as I see advertising tools slowly being pulled together, I get twinges now and again ...

Oh, I understand where you are coming from... but LL is less likely to intentionally pork someone, or intentionally inject malicious code. I wonder how difficult it would be to bleed someone's account with a malicious client.

Thank you for bothering to come here to dispel the baseless rumors.

I look forward to trying the ESC client as it appears you've made some significant changes to the UI which have been sorely absent to date.

I'm one of those escapist players. I'm not interested in the RL companies or their offerings in SL, and so far I haven't had trouble avoiding the. As long as I can continue to do so easily, I'm not concerned. This viewer being discussed is of no interest to me , again I'm not concerned about it. If it gets to a point where I can't avoid RL Companies without it adversely affecting what I came here for, I'll move on.

Any attempt at 3d commerce that I've ever seen has fallen flat. So too for any attempts at 3d IT visualization, or 3d schematics, or even 3d multivariate analysis. I'm continually surprised that this tired chestnut keeps getting re-tried. 3d-RL stores are obligatoraly 3d as those are the dimensions of our universe. Except catalog and on-line (catalog) sales continue to displace conventional brick distribution channels, year over year.

I bumped into an example recently which is sort of telling. I saw some "sitting on the dock" poseballs at a merchant's place, I was able to get the creator from the balls, and from the creator's profile was able to look at his "picks" which led me to his Bits and Bobs store (which is nicely apointed and displays the wares in a somewhat novel and intuitive fashion) Despite a systematic search of the huge SL store, I was unable to find the desired object (I could have contacted the merchant, my fault there). The 3d space in many instances makes shopping more dificult than it would otherwise. Quick, tell me where you'd find the anchovies in your favorite grocery store.

I used to have an SLB account because 2d shopping with search and side-by-side comparisons is so much easier than groveling through a dozen SL stores whose descriptions are often wildly out of date. I don't have an onrez account because I don't shop much any more. However when looking for a specific product I do surf it up in 2d, get the creator's name and work from there.

3-space is just not conducive to virtual purchases.