Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld
Second Life, virtual worlds and virtual realities
Avination have launched a “try a sim” promotion. you can pick-up a 15K prim simulator for $40USD for the first three months, rising to their standard $60USD a month thereafter.
The offer starts today and runs for an indefinite period. Builds from one discounted sim cannot be transferred to another discounted sim (so no $40-a-month sim hopping!).
Rumours are churning in-world and now on Twitter and Purk that both Courtney Linden and Amanda Linden (Amanda van Nuys) have both departed Linden Lab. And the rumours are true.
Courtney, who was most recently in the driving seat for SL8B, is said to have left as she has another job. I never had many dealings with her – but in those I did (around the MoM events and other activities) she always came across as enthusiastic and helpful.
I can only wish her all the best for the future, and hope that her departure (said to have been on the 10th June) hasn’t left a hole in the last-minutes arrangements for SL8B.
Amanda Linden joined Linden Lab from Organic – Mark Kingdon’s old haunt prior to his coming to LL as well. Originally holding a marketing brief, Amanda was responsible for push SL towards the world of business, and as such seemed at times to have a openly hostile attitude towards users in general; she was one of the first to push the envelope with regards to SL / rl identify linking, and she gave support to Justin Bovington’s view (Rivers Run Red) that LL should consider turning swathes of Mainland over to corporate-only use and ban “everyday” users from it.
Certainly, it must be said that Amanda has frequently had that unique LL ability to simultaneously promote the platform and shoot herself in the foot while doing so. I doubt few will forget her post from February this year in which she announced the forthcoming “Community Platform” which would encourage greater communications between Lab and users – and then promptly told everyone that if they really want to engage with LL and find out what is going on, they should all go to Facebook. Not exactly the most sparkling way to get people enthusiastic about using a platform you’re about to roll out.
My own dealings with Amanda were, it has to be said, unedifying. “Spin” seemed to be her watchword when it came to responding to genuine questions. As such, I found her hard to take at face value, which is perhaps unfair of me, but I couldn’t help but take anything she said with a pinch of salt and an eye on the possible hidden meaning. That said, I wish her well for the future.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 