Month: January 2011

Frank ends the silence

Posted on by Inara Pey

Frank Ambrose (FJ Linden) ends the long silence from Linden Lab, with a newsworthy posting on upcoming technology improvements. It makes welcome reading as it spells out the upcoming quarter.

First up, Group limits are raised with immediate effect to 42. Many have been grumbling about the “non-arrival” of this ever since it failed to materialise at the end of last year; hopefully this announcement will finally put a stop to the complaints and confusion. It’s not clear what overall impact the change will have in terms of system performance, and FJ again warns that if there is a major adverse impact, the option will be throttled back to 25  – although those with more than 25 won’t suddenly lose any groups: they simply won’t be able to add more and those below the 25 limit won’t be able to go beyond it.

The danger here, of course is that every suddenly rushes out and just a gazillion Groups as a whole, and SL starts reeling around in shock. Of course, LL will be anticipating something of a surge, so this won’t lead to an immediate turn-off of the facility – but one can well imagine the rumour-mill churning, “Quick! sign up to X,Y Z, A, B, C before they stop you from doing so!”

We’re also promised a new Group Chat system by the end of March. Quite what this is – and how it integrates into the existing Viewer options – remains to be seen. However, and with due respect to FJ, I cannot help but shudder when I read “industry standard” in a press release – and doubly so when it is associated with Linden Lab. Let’s face is, the blogrum software was supposed to be “industry standard” and they still cannot entirely get their collective heads around it…

More improvements to teleporting are being promised – and are needed. I wagged a finger at FJ on his last technology blog, wherein he was suggesting such matters were now a thing of the past because “the software sez so”. That LL are prepared to admit there is still an issue to be addressed and rectified – while blindingly obvious to those of us who use their platform – is actually very welcome news.

So to is the news that LL will continue to tweak and improve matters around the infrastructure in general, and will be once more looking at the Asset system. The latter in particular has long needed a good long, hard look – although again, as FJ has in the past posted, it’s not something that will have an “easy” or even short-term fix. All we can hope for is steady improvement. And this is fair enough.

That said, one thing LL could do with sorting – and granted, this is not precisely in FJ’s bailiwick – is providing full and proper assistance for those suffering inventory losses as a result of Asset system failures. Far too many people are in a position of finding vast tracts of their inventory either vanishing or sitting in an inaccessible part of their inventory (on the same level as the MY INVENTORY and LIBRARY folders). That every ticket and JIRA raised on the matter is closed by a Linden employee with a curt “contact support and request an inventory fix” does not help matters. The fact that some people have been chasing “support” for nigh-on a year to try to get said “inventory fixes” is utterly unacceptable. So even before getting to the nitty-gritty of technology fixes, it’s about time someone at LL looked into the matter from a customer services perspective.

The one thing – when it comes – that is liable to cause some grumbling and growling is Viewer 2.5, with its “ties” to Facebook, etc. It looks like the roll-out of Viewer 2.5 will also herald an official notification about the “new” web Profiles that are already available, as I and others have already reported, as well – certainly FJ hints at them. But it will be the Facebook (Twitter, LinkedIn) tie-in that is liable to provoke negativity – even though this is already effectively there with the web profiles. All I can say in response to any complaints is a simple don’t like? Don’t use!

All-in-all, some good news from FJ – and open and to the point. As someone in the comments states, he really is one of the better communicators in LL.

Communications

Posted on by Inara Pey

Ciaran Laval – as I’ve previously mentioned – raised a post about LL needing to listen to its users, a point of view most of us would agree with. Certainly, it would appear that changes in LL’s communication’s policy are on the horizon.

Said Michael Linden, in one of his recent Office Hours:

OH is to an end because many of them are. Change in communications policy”

No link available. A blog to come out “soon” (by month’s end).

But some OHs are going away/changing, Twitter accounts by individual lindens are losing the “linden” name (so they are not “official comm)

And there will be changes to the blog*

Now…this could be seen as both good and bad.

On the one hand, far to much has, in the past, been “leaked” as “official” communique through the use of Twitter accounts by Linden staffers wishing to gain that extra “cool” factor in their name (and/or possibly build-up a fan base). Stripping the “Linden” last name from these will remove some of the “official” nature of the leaks – although I doubt very much if it will stop such games altogether unless the company’s internal communications policy is also re-written.

That Office Hours are being run down should come as no surprise to many. As it is, many have left LL and few of those who have departed and who held OH meetings have had their slots filled by other members of staff. BUT the OH have always been an invaluable means for residents to put forward constructive and well-founds views and suggestions to Linden staff, which have then been carried back to senior management for review.  Not all have been listened to – much less acted upon – but others have; and this is important.

Of course there is also a downside to Office Hours as well – the temptation for Lindens to play groups off against one another, to drop hints that others are getting a more favoured treatment (something Jack seemed to like doing), and so on. They could also be utterly undisciplined, with residents more concerned with shouting and screaming and being somewhat abusive, rather than taking the time themselves to listen and engage. They could also be draconian – viewed as a means to lay down the law (Pink Linden), by specifying what “could” and “could not” be discussed. BUT – overall, Office Hours have been generally useful and productive – and one cannot help but be concerned as their removal, and is concerned as to what might replace them and provide the same immediacy of input / feedback.

The blog changes are even more uncertain. Does this mean more channels for specific types of communication? This could be a good thing – to a point, but is still no substitute for the immediacy of the OH meetings. Does it mean more actual Linden interaction in the blog post commentaries? This undoubtedly would be beneficial – providing again, we’re not left with a cherry-picking approach: Linden responding to the “positive” posts and largely ignoring the “negative” posts.

Some have theorised that “blog changes” could mean an end to the General Discussion forum. I’m not certain it will – although LL were, when the new blogrum software was introduced, less than favourable towards the idea of including a GD area of the forums. In some respects, one can understand their reluctance to support a GD. The current area has, in so many ways, become something of an ugly mire with far too much in-fighting among egos and people with far too great a sense of entitlement and righteousness when it comes to determining what should and should not be “accepted” by the forum community as a whole.

BUT – despite the drawbacks, the GD forum is a good tool for resident communications at least, and to lose it would, for all its faults, further break a means by which people can communicate with one another where in-world meetings and offline IMs are less than practical.

The worry here is that, overall, these changes are going to further stifle resident-to-company communications. While on the one hand, it will be good to see LL take a more professional attitude towards PR releases, announcements and the like, and properly channel them to the right outlets at the right time (without all the back door Tweeting and the like) – nevertheless there needs very much to be an expansion of two-way communications between company and residents that is both pro-active and immediate. Having a “communications manager” and a “conversations manager” would have been excellent innovations, if only Katt and Wallace had been employed to engage with and listen to users, rather than simply hand down corporate directives, muddy the waters (Katt’s famous attitude of tossing an untoward comment into the forums, followed by a “/me sits back to enjoy the popcorn”)  and confuse issues (a-la Wallace’s foot-in-mouth post on conversational identities)…). But they weren’t, and an opportunity (or two) was lost.

LL don’t have the most stellar record for interaction with their user base, and while one hopes that the indicated forthcoming announcement / changes will be for the better – especially given there is also a new bum about to take up residence in the hot seat – but it has to be said that a major change of heart towards residents on the part of the company seems somewhat unlikely. As such, it’s very probable that any good coming of the changes is going to be adversely balanced by the bad…

Profiles on the web

Posted on by Inara Pey

Despite the “silence” reported on earlier, Linden Lab actually slipped out a new “feature” last week. Open a new tab in your web browser and type:

https://my.secondlife.com/First.Last

…and replace “First.Last” with your own name (including the period) – and voilà: your SL Profile (in part) is right there on the web – searchable and shareable with the likes of Twitter and Facebook.

What’s more is – if you log into the web profile, you’ll be able to edit it – and the edits will appear in your in-world profile. You can also change your Display Name from the web and see it reflected back in-world. When viewing other people’s profile, you’ll also see a button called ACTIONS, which lists options to IM them, pay them, etc., – but sadly, all these actions currently require you to launch the Viewer; you cannot say, simply pay someone directly from their web profile without going in-world.

Additionally, things like URLs included in your profile and any Groups you have openly displayed in your profile become clickable.

All of this makes this new feature rather clever, even though – like just about everything released of late by LL – it is apparently still “beta”.

Overall, I like it, despite some people crying out (already) that it is an open door to “data mining”; certainly, the arrival of such a capability explains (at least a little) as to why Avatars United went nowhere.

Going to be interesting to see how this one develops.

As the (virtual) world holds its breath…

Posted on by Inara Pey

We’re once again in that weird state of suspension: the old year is now behind us, the New Year is opening up in front of us, and we’re all getting back to “the usual” routines.

Some twelve months ago, this was a time of Great Optimism within Linden Lab; or at least within Mark Kingdon’s “pod”, as he enthusiastically posted not only about the next year in virtual worlds, but the next ten years. As I reported in my review of 2010, when it came to the 12 months directly in front of him, not all M hoped for came to pass. Indeed, there was much he didn’t – nay, couldn’t – predict.

This year, by contrast, those within LL remain resolutely silent. In around a week’s time, this is liable to change, given that Rod Humble “officially” starts-up as the new CEO around the 17th (next Monday) – so doubtless we’ll be hearing something around then.

In the meantime, the lack of news from LL is weighing on us all; although some are feeling it a lot more than others.  Tateru Nino is theorising that there is more to the silence than meets the eye – speculating that the silence is that which comes before what she calls the “Big Surprise Announcement” and hinting that it may not be A Good Thing. Ciaran Laval is taking it more lightly, pointing out that if there is one thing LL should do in 2011, it’s to listen to its greatest resource: those of us who use their blessed platform. Elsewhere, others seem to be caught-up the idea that the General Discussion forum should go; recently saw a completely useless thread on this very topic started by one of the forum’s regular naysayers & borderline trolls; but others such a Que Niangao – altogether more respectable – have hinted something my be in the offing where the forums are concerned. Where the information comes from, however, is anyone’s guess.

For my part, I’m actually not at all surprised by the silence; there is a new CEO; the company went through a wave of cutbacks mid-year, and the losses are still accruing: Jack Linden went just before Christmas, as did Joe Linden (Joe Miller), and it appears Wallace Linden (Mark Wallace) has gone after a heady time as the Conversation Manager that is equalled only by Katt’s tenure as the Communication Manager…

Ergo, it is unsurprising that little has been said, either blog-wise or, it seems, through the few remaining Office Hours meetings. For one thing, who knows whether the “restructuring” has reached a point of being “restructured”, and for another, people are liable to have one eye cocked pensively on the door to the board room and the other cocked pensively at the door to the new CEO’s office, waiting to see which way the wind is blowing.

The majority response to Rod Humble’s appointment has been positive: whether this remains so has yet to be seen. There are certainly a lot of people who are going to be disappointed – especially those calling for the scraping of Viewer 2.x; sorry, kids, ain’t gonna happen. Equally, those that believe Rod, with the best will in the world, will have a free hand in matters are also going to be disappointed; he’ll no more be able to push and pull LL as freely as Mark Kingdon did during his tenure. There will be requirements from the Board he’ll be expected to oversee, just as things like the Adult Content Changes came from the Board, and not did not spring solely from Mark Kingdon’s forehead.

Doubtless, there is a Big Announcement coming next week – but I doubt it’ll be as earth-shattering as Tateru implies. I also hope that 2011 will bring about a resurgence in LL’s ability to listen to its users as Ciaran states they should. Certainly, Rod Humble is perhaps more user-savvy than the likes of Rosedale, Kapor, Kingdon et al – but whether that is enough to really make a difference is going to be something that only time will reveal.

40 Groups – a little update

Posted on by Inara Pey

Back at the end of last year, I questioned whether the new 40-Group limit would apply to 1.23.5-based TPVs such as Phoenix and Imprudence. Innula Zenovka posted a comment indicating that Phoenix may already have such support.

….So I did some digging and found out that it does indeed. The code can be enabled via a Debug Setting (PHOENIX40GROUPSUPPORT).

However, before you get too excited over this, bear in mind that in order to actually work, a server-side change still needs to be implemented by Linden Lab, and the nearest to a date we have for this is “sometime” in January 2011 (if other matters don’t intervene) – and until this change has been rolled out, enabling the 40-Group limit on your Viewer will not actually change a thing! Your limit may say “40” – but you won’t be able to subscribe to more than 25…

Indeed, such are the rumours about the 40-Group Debug Setting in Phoenix that Selene Gregoire from the Phoenix Dev Team has stated in the Phoenix Support Group: Re: Rumor about 40 groups support in phoenix…To be clear, while Phoenix does have a debug setting to enable 40 groups this is NOT enabled server side! We added the debug setting for when LL DOES enable it server side some time in the new year. Currently enabling 40 groups in Phoenix will do nothing! It will not work.

All, this does (for the time being) is confirm that once the server-side code is rolled-out by LL, Phoenix will be able to support up to 40 Groups.

Hopefully, the code will also be available in Imprudence and elsewhere as well. Again, as Innula informed me, Henri will be providing a patch for his Viewer – so doubtless this will be ported (if it hasn’t been already).

We have a newsletter?

Posted on by Inara Pey

So… I’m sitting here, hiding from family as January 1st drones on to a wealth of movie repeats on the one-eyed monster in the lounge, when this drops into my e-mail.

Now, firstly, in four years of continuous activity in SL, I have to say I didn’t even know we had a newsletter – I’ve never, ever received a copy in the past. Secondly, I have to ask why what is clearly intended to be largely a marketing tool being sent – a-la coal to Newcastle – to existing users who are certainly savvy enough to know the majority (if not all) of the contents? Thirdly, I also have to ask why no adult roleplay?

Obviously, the third question is easy to answer: the newsletter is going out to *all* of SL’s residents, including 16 and 17 year olds, so we can’t mention the “a” word in front of them. So while it may (for all its multitudinous faults) be a valid form of role-play, Gor cannot be mentioned. Nor can we even have a perfectly vanilla overview of the “adult” rp sims out there. By vanilla, I simply mean a broad, PG-outline, no pictures of nudity and just a series of Surls – given that minors technically cannot access said sims, this really shouldn’t cause upset anywhere – especially if such a section is headlined with a reminder that Second Life is used by adults who are – and will most likely remain – its largest user-base, many of whom do come here for adult-related activities.

However, this issue of “Sandbox” isn’t really intended for the adult users of SL. It is aimed squarely at the teen market, and has been timed to coincide with the transfer of teen accounts to the main grid. As such, it is the second of two causes for concern this issue of “Sandbox” presents – and I’ll explain why in just a moment.

The first item of concern is that it again demonstrates how LL fail to grasp their own platform. For nigh-on two years they’ve pushed and pushed and pushed the idea that SL is primarily a “social networking platform” – right up to shunting users towards Facebook on a number of occasions. During this time, the idea that SL was also an immersive, creative, playful environment seems totally foreign to The Powers That Be. Now everything is canted entirely the other way: SL is just a “game” (hence the appointment of a recognised “gamer” as CEO) – and “social” and “network” now seem to be banned from being linked in the Linden vocabulary. Rather than recognising – as their users largely do – that SL is in fact both a gaming environment and a social networking platform, LL seem only able to pendulum between the extremes of both viewpoints.

The second item of concern is that in focusing on teens to almost the exclusion of everyone else, LL are once again falling into a familiar pattern of “if we build it, they will come” – almost as if the lessons of the past two years haven’t been taken to heart at all. Let’s face it, we’ve seen it all before; witness the New User Experience and Viewer 2 – both of which were supposed to see adults arriving in SL by the truckload. Witness the SLE product and the promotion of SL as a “serious” business tool that was supposed to see corporations the world over flocking to SL to run their collaborative apps, hold virtual meetings and generally put their business to rights.

In each of these cases, LL have repeatedly turned their collective backs on their established user-base, resolutely convinced they’re on to something “big” for SL – and LL as a whole – only to see it all go somewhat pear-shaped within a few months. I seriously doubt that trying to woo-in the teens will go any differently; we’ll see a mild upward swing in the short-term, but overall very little will change numbers-wise. The initial interest will fade and those at the lab will start scrambling around looking for the Next Big Thing that will “turn SL around” – and we’ll be right back (to use a quote from television this time) feeling that “all this has happened before; all this will happen again”.

So, if there is one thing  – OK, TWO things, given I’ve already written to him on one of them – Rod Humble can do when he arrives full-time as the new CEO, it is to get the company to start regarding its existing user-base as an asset, rather than a hindrance.

We – as much as anyone else – have made SL what it is today (and given the staff turnover at LL, possibly moreso than anyone there); we have made the investments in terms of time, effort. It really would be nice to see the new CEO recognise this and take steps to make sure the company actually engages with its users once more, rather than repeatedly patronising us.