Year: 2013

Second Life is ahead of its generation, but very traditional in the fact that it enables creativity, and I believe that that is the most powerful form of entertainment.

So speaks Rod Humble in the seventh segment of The Drax Files. which aired on Monday June 3rd.

The plan had been to keep the guest a surprise for as long as possible (I was sworn to secrecy back before the segment had even been filmed), but word started leaking out after Rod made several in-world appearances using both his primary account and some of his alts.

Featuring footage shot both in-world and at the Lab’s main offices in Battery Street, San Francisco, the segment is a rapid-fire overview of Second Life, its impact on the world and how senior management at the Lab view what is happening to the platform and how they think it is fairing. As such, it is possible that some of Rod Humble’s comments may come across as superficial and be critiqued as such. However, this is only a five-minute piece, and the established format of the show isn’t suited to any in-depth analysis or reporter-led interrogative, and to expect it to be so would be unfair.

What does emerge from the segment is a picture of a man who has both the responsibility for ensuring Second Life maintains a comfortable level of success which at the same time and who – contrary to popular belief in some quarters – does actually “get” Second life in many fundamental ways, even if he may not have a complete understanding of its appeal.

There is admittedly a juxtaposition here; on the one hand, Rod Humble has spent more than two years of hard grind at the helm of Linden Lab, and has steered the company into new waters of unknown depth while at the same time pushing for very real investment in their flagship product and driving forward a range of new technical initiatives for Second Life. All of this does speak of someone who has an eye on the future for the platform and who recognises its many technical weaknesses.

Yet, on the other hand, he talks with disarming honesty about the bemusement he feels towards SL’s continued success and longevity and the fact that why it is successful remains something of a mystery – and something which appears to be completely missed by the tech industry and media as  a whole.

There are some familiar themes in the piece which anyone who is reasonably familiar with Rod Humble and his past commentaries is likely to instantly recognise. His comments on matters of privacy and anonymity, for example, are pretty much echo what he said at the last of the Second Life Community Conventions in 2011.  Similarly, the numbers quoted are pretty much the same as we’ve been hearing for the last couple of years. But  repetition alone doesn’t invalidate what is being said.

Things like avatar identity and pseudonymity / personas are matters which concern many SL users, so the fact that Rod Humble hasn’t shifted his stance of the matter in the course of his tenure at the helm of Linden Research should be taken as a positive sign.

Similarly, while many of us within SL would like to see more visible moves towards getting more of the 400,000 monthly sign-ups to stick, we also need to remember that this video isn’t about dissecting Second Life this way or that: it is about presenting the world with a better understanding of the platform and why people enjoy it so much – and hopefully encourage people to come and give things a try. As such, Rod’s message is very much on topic and in keeping with past segments of the show.

Another aspect of the anonymity element in the segment is the way in which it serves as a reminder that just because we don’t people moving around and through Second Life wearing “Linden” tags doesn’t mean actually mean Lab don’t spend time in-world and among users.  As Rod comments:

I love flying around with my alts. Sometimes I’m dressed as a Greek philosopher, sometimes I’m a spaceship, sometimes I’m dressed as an animal! I mean, it’s great! And [in] each one of those personas you can fully engage in a way community in a way that you can’t when everybody knows it’s Rod Humble.

Obviously, this doesn’t mean Lab staff are in-world every minute of the day – but it is a comment which should be born in mind when critiquing the Lab with claims that staff are “never” in-world.

As noted at the top of this piece, the show also demonstrates that Rod Humble still intuitively “gets” the power of Second Life, even if he doesn’t by his own admission fully understand why the appeal is the way it is (something I think true of a lot people, even if we each have our own ideas and theories). Not only does he “get” it, he is actually leading the charge to make SL a better, more enjoyable experience for all of us, old and new.

The fact that LL have invested considerable time and effort into SL over the course of the last year or more should stand as a reminder that the company still believes the platform is viable – and that is good news for the platform and its future, even if the projects concerned aren’t that visible or what people might view as being “sexy” (which has been used at times as a reason to bash this work and the Lab). While such efforts may not solve all of SL’s woes, they do at least demonstrate that the Lab’s commitment to the platform is still there.

And as we approach SL’s 10th birthday celebrations, that really is worth while remembering.

Continue reading “The Drax Files: a Humble view of the world” →