In June last year, people logging-in to SL and who hung around while the progress bar was displayed caught a rather unusual Message of the Day (MOTD), thus:
(with thanks to Ciaran Laval for this image)
At the time it caused a mix of teeth gnashing and speculation. When pressed, there were mutters from some inside the Lab that the Azure MOTD was a “pilot” (or “beta” or some such), and that others would get the opportunity in “the future”.
Well – it seems the future has arrived.
On the surface, it comes across as a reasonable idea – those running businesses in SL can have the opportunity to reach a wider audience by having their very own Message of the Day displayed on people’s Viewer log-in screens. Of course, there have been the inevitable howls about “more advertising” in response to this post – but lets be honest here; LL have taken something of a shellacking of late for the manner in which they’ve used the MOTD to promote their own in-world content (vis-a-vis Linden Homes, etc.) – so one might argue that this is an attempt to redress the balance and put residents on the same footing.
Well yes. Apart from one small detail. Anyone wanting to use this “service” is going to have to shell out a minimum of $1500 for each 11.5 hour block of advertising space they want to book – with the “peak” rate (07:00-18:30 PST) being hawked by the Lab at a staggering $4500 per 11.5 hour block.
(Technically, each block is 12 hours – but LL “reserve” 30 mins in each block for “administrative purposes” – which suggests your MOTD may not be actually displayed during this period.)
Ciaran Laval has rightly called out Linden Lab over these charges from the perspective of the more modest estate owners in SL – as it is fairly obvious that the rates are only likely to be within the reach of the largest land barons. However, and while acknowledging Ciaran’s call on behalf of the smaller estate owners, I’d say the matter goes further than just the ability of estate owners to use the MOTD as a channel to market – the pricing structure virtually excludes all content creators from any participation.
Given this, one can only assume one of three things; either:
- LL is increasingly playing to a minority within SL, or
- LL is indeed in financial difficulties, and this is an act of desperation to generate income, or
- The offer has been skewed by LL’s continued belief that the future of the platform is inevitably tied to the use of the platform by “big business”, and as such, the rates have been set in a belief that they’ll be seen as a “serious” “opportunity” for “big business”.
Inevitably, most will go with (1.). But the FIC theory is all too often rolled out in response to LL’s actions whether or not they make sense. (3.) has merit in that those who consider themselves “serious” businesses (aka the GSP group) pushing for the ability to market themselves “professionally”, and LL seem to determined to tie aspects of activities on the large grid into their SLE offering.
(2.) Is also possible – and certainly, if one leaves out (1.) and (3.), the “offer” does have more than a whiff of desperation about it.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m going to be very interested to see just who takes up the offer.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 