Bellisseria JulyFest in Second Life

Having been inaugurated on July 4th, 2019, the Bellisseria Fairgrounds will play host to its second major event on Saturday, July 6th, when JulyFest is held.

Running from 12:00 noon through until 18:00 SLT, JulyFest carries on something of a July 4th celebratory feel, while inviting residents of Bellisseria and their friends to come together for events and entertainment  – and Second Life residents are also invited to join in with the fun and meet those on us living on the continent.

The fairgrounds are located on an island within the eastern “bay” of Bellisseria, and can be reached via boat, using the moorings on the north side of the island, or by air using the adjoining airstrip (note that boats and planes will be auto-returned after arrival). For those who prefer, there’s the direct teleport, as given above, that will drop people at the entrance to the fairgrounds.

For the event, the Fairgrounds offers booths promoting groups active within Bellisseria, together with games and challenges (including a pole dancing challenge!), located either side of the main stage and sandy dance area. There’s also a fun fair with a Ferris wheel and other rides.

JulyFest: music, entertainment, games., information and a fun fair

As well as events on the Fairgrounds island, there will also be a parade of boats that will sail around some of Bellisseria’s waterways before arriving at the fairgrounds island.

Departing from the vicinity of the Calm Waters Lighthouse, the parade – or “floatilla”, as it is being called – will depart at 12:00 noon and proceed westwards, passing along one of Bellisseria’s main rivers before looping back to the east to anchor off the fairgrounds island. Those wishing to see the boats, the map below marks the route, and the parade will include motorboats and sailing craft.

The route of the parade of boats

Entertainment for the event will also start at 12:00 noon, and will comprise (all times SLT):

  • 12:00 noon – 13:30: DJ North Crannock.
  • 13:30 – 15:00: DJ Scottish Sarah.
  • 15:00 – 16:00: Live music with Ry Anne.
  • 16:00 – 17:00: Live music with Wolfie Starfire.
  • 17:00-18:00: DJ NoisyApp.
JulyFest offers Bellisseria residents and those hoping to move to the community the opportunity to discover the many active groups within Bellisseria, which cover a wide range of activities, including horse riding, sailing, boating, and more

The Fairgrounds aren’t the only place where events talk place in Bellisseria. There are several locations across the continent that feature music, horse riding and more. Keep up-to-date with activities via the Bellisseria Happenings events page.

SLurl Details

Jeeves with ice and a little poetry

Seanchai Library

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home at Holly Kai Park, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, June 30th 13:00: Tea Time with Jeeves

A new series just for summer, featuring Reginald Jeeves, a well-educated, intelligent valets of indeterminate age who is employed by the amiable young man-about-town, Bertie Wooster, whom Jeeves routinely has to benignly rescue from the consequences of his idiocy.

Created by author, humorist, and lyricist (working with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern) Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (October 1881 – February 1975), Jeeves and Wooster are perhaps his most iconic characters, although they didn’t arrive until he was into his “second” period as a writer, which commenced in 1915 (the first having ended in 1908). They appeared as Wodehouse turned his hand to a more farcical style of writing through what would become his other popular series of stories that documented the goings-on at the fiction English stately home of Blandings Castle.

Jeeves and Wooster had their first outing in the short story Extricating Young Gussie, published by the Saturday Evening Post in September 1915. However, it was arguably not until Leave It to Jeeves, published in 1916, that the pair were recognisably “themselves”.

Both the Blanding Castle and the Jeeves series came at a time when Wodehouse also enjoy Broadway success through his partnership with Bolton and Kern (1915-1919). However with the popularity of his stories increasing in both the US and back in the UK, Wodehouse started to focus more on his stories and novels. This allowed the Jeeves series to eventually grow to 35 short stories and 11 novels, the majority of which are first-person narrated from the perspective of Bertie Wooster.

As the popularity of the series grew, so too did it start to be translated to film, radio and, later, to television. In the latter regard, the comedy team of Hugh Laurie (Wooster) and Stephen Fry (Jeeves) in Jeeves and Wooster, is perhaps the quintessential representation of the pair. Airing from 1990 through 1993 in the UK, the series set all the stories in a period spanning the 1920-1930s, with each 50-minute episode taking its title from a Jeeves story, but often combining two or more of the tales into its plot. It is not unfair to say the series introduced Wodehouse, Jeeves and Wooster to a new generation of fans.

For their outing in Jeeves’ world, Seanchai Library delve into My Man Jeeves. Published in 1919, it draws together four early outings for the series, all originally published in the Saturday Evening Post:

  • Leave It to Jeeves, first published in February 1916.
  • The Aunt and the Sluggard, first published in April 1916.
  • Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest, first published in December 1916.
  • Jeeves and the Hard-boiled Egg, first published in March 1917.

Join Da5id Abbot, Kayden Oconnell, and Caledonia Skytower as the read this delightful series at Ceiliuradh Glen.

Monday, July 1st 19:00: The Ice is Coming

Gyro Muggins reads Patricia Wrightson’s 1977 novel.

Frost is seen in summer and ice patches form in spite of the hot Australian sun. To the Happy Folk, living on the continent’s green edges live the Happy Folk. For the Inlanders (Wrightson’s fantasy view of the Australian Aboriginals), however, the frost was once seen as a warning that an ancient foe, the ice-bearded Ninya, were on the rise – and so it might be that they are again.

The first to recognise the rise of the old threat is young Wirrun of the People. He leaves his job and sets out to meet the Ninya, taking with him as a sidekick, the petulant Mimi, and for protection, the Power bestowed by the first of the creatures in their path.

To assist in his quest, Wirrun sends for the men from Mount Conner to sing the Ninya down and keep them in their caves. But he must also beat the Ninya to the Eldest Nargun, source of fire, and use it to hold the Ninya until the men from Mount Conner arrive. And so his adventure begins.

Tuesday, July 2nd 19:00: The Penderwicks in Spring

Springtime is finally arriving on Gardam Street, and there are surprises in store for each member of the family. Some surprises are just wonderful, like neighbour Nick Geiger coming home from war. And some are ridiculous, like Batty’s new dog-walking business. Batty is saving up her dog-walking money for an extra-special surprise for her family, which she plans to present on her upcoming birthday. But when some unwelcome surprises make themselves known, the best-laid plans fall apart.

Filled with all the heart, hilarity, and charm that has come to define this beloved clan, The Penderwicks in Spring is about fun and family and friends (and dogs), and what happens when you bring what’s hidden into the bright light of the spring sun.

With Caledonia Skytower.

Wednesday, July 3rd 19:00: Poems For America

With Caledonia Skytower.

Thursday, July 4th 19:00: Closed

The Library is dark as people mark July 4th.

 

SL16B Among the Moles of Second Life

Courtesy of Linden Lab

On Friday, June 28th, 2019 at the SL16B celebrations, the last of five Meet the Lindens sessions took place at the SL16B Auditorium. This was a special session, featuring as it did members of the Linden Department of Public Works – aka, the Moles.

A veritable host of Moles surfaced for the session, along with Patch Linden, comprising Abnor Mole, Naughty Mole, Squeaky Mole, Missy Mole and Alotta Mole, all of who can be heard in the video. They were joined by Glowing Mole, Quartz Mole, Spiffy Mole, Lost Mole, Squishy Mole, Glamorous Mole, Ancient Mole, Garden Mole, Paranor Mole, Shimmy Mole and Magic Mole.

Meet the Moles: front row (l-to-r): Abnor Mole, Naughty Mole, Saffia Widdershins, Patch Linden, Squeaky Mole, Missy Mole and Alotta Mole, all of who can be heard in the video. Behind them (l-to-r) are: Glowing Mole, Quartz Mole, Spiffy Mole, Lost Mole, Squishy Mole, Glamorous Mole, Ancient Mole, Garden Mole, Paranor Mole, Shimmy Mole and Magic Mole. Screen capture via SL4Live – TV

The nature of the event, with so many people available to answer questions makes producing a summary a little difficult; instead, I offer an outline of what the Moles are, and the feedback of the key speakers on how they became Moles, and notes based both on comments during the session and the LDPW wiki page on how to become a Mole. For the rest, I recommend watching the video in full!

Who or What the Moles?

As surprising as it may seem, lot of SL users are not aware of what or who the Moles are.

Officially called the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) the Moles are SL residents from all over the world who have either applied to the Lab, or have been asked by the Lab, to work as paid freelance contractors. The LDPW is specifically geared towards enhancing the Mainland, as noted in the official wiki page, but they actually do a lot more than this.

The Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) is a programme focused on improvements related to the experience of living on, or visiting the Linden Mainland. The LDPW will organize teams of Resident builders, artists, and scripters (the Moles!) to create new content on Linden Lab’s behalf and to the benefit of all.

– From the official LDPW SL wiki page

Today, the nominal “home” of the Moles is Meauxle Bureaux, where you can – among other spaces – visit Ye Olde Abner Mole Pub

The LDPW initially formed in 2008, and so is now in its eleventh year, and many of those involved in the programme today were recruited back then. The team is managed be Derrick Linden, the Product Operations Manager for Second Life, who reports into Patch Linden, and the team includes a number of Linden staff as well, including Guy Linden, Madori Linden, Kona Linden and Izzy Linden.

Within the Mainland, the Moles are probably best known for their infrastructure work – the roads, the railway lines, general continent layout, and all the many elements thereto. There have also been responsible for the development on Mainland projects such as the infrastructure within Nautilus City and, perhaps more particularly, the development of Bay City – which in their honour hosts an annual Mole Day festival.

The Horizons Experience (November 2016) built and scripted by the Moles

Most recently, the Moles have been responsible for – and perhaps most visible with – the new Linden Homes continent, Bellisseria. They also produce the infrastructure for Lab-led events, including SL16B, the Lab-run shopping events, the town hall meeting spaces. But they also do far more than this, and work in many different areas, for example – and as a short list:

  • They produce content such as the Premium gifts.
  • The build and script the Lab-provided games such as Linden Realms, Paleoquest, Horizons and the grid-wide Tyrah and the Curse of the Magical Glytches – all accessible via the Portal Parks.
  • Their work is often used as an example of what can be achieved in SL, particularly with regards new functions and capabilities.
  • They work with multiple teams at Linden Lab, such as Marketing and the engineering team (Moles participated in projects such as Bento, for example, producing test content used in the development of Bento capabilities and in testing the Bento skeleton).
  • Helping with QA activities.

As residents, how much time Moles spend on their resident  / personal accounts understandably varies in accordance with the work they’re engaged in. Some of the longer-serving Moles perhaps tend to focus predominantly on their Moles accounts / personas, while those who have more recently joined the team might spend more time split between their personal accounts and Mole accounts.

As freelance contractors, Moles also get to pretty much choose their hours of work – providing tasks are completed on time. An advantage here is that as the Moles are based around the world, some projects can at times move forward on something of a round-the-clock basis.

Over the years, the Moles have to deal with a with a lot, starting with selecting their Mole name. For this, they have to put forward three preferences, and either are award the one that’s available, or get to pick from those that are available – although there can be opportunities for them to change their names. They also have to deal with the more unusual in Second Life, as Abnor Mole explained:

With the games, we’ve had a lot of people who try to find a lot of creative ways not to play the game as you’re supposed to … In the Paleoquest game [in which tasks must be completed against the clock] … at the end, where you’re supposed to take a giant swab and you have to go and find the dino DNA, and you do that with the giant cotton swab … we found that somebody was going around and they would always find the “good poop” to swab the very first time, and we were, “how are they doing this?” And we’re looking and we’re looking and we’re looking, and finally we realised there was a time stamp on the creation of the object that was a  little bit different on the “good” ones … they had gone that deeply into it to tell that that was how to do it [find the right item and complete the task]

– Abnor Mole on one of the weird things Moles sometimes have to deal with

Cape Ekim is an oft-overlooked Mole surprise in Second Life – although as it is on an “old” Linden Homes mini-continent, it might eventually disappear as those mini-continents are retired

How Did You Become A Mole?

Abnor Mole: read about the formation of the LPDW in 2008, put in an application – back then this could be done via the Second Life website (and later the wiki), was interviewed by Michael Linden, who at that time managed the LPDW, and was accepted – so has been a Mole for 11 years. Among his many roles as a part of the team, he produces some of the videos associated with the like of the Paleoquest game.

Naughty Mole: was approached by Jack Linden (who used to manage the SL land team) as the LPDW was being formed with the aim of improving the Mainland, and he asked her if she’d like to join. One of the first projects she worked on was Barney’s Bay.

Barney’s Bay, one of the first LDPW projects, and which also includes one of the first examples of trying to add a little “history” to the world in SL, with a statue dedicated to Captain Bernard “The Navibator” McSchnott (you can read how he got his nickname by visiting the statue! Note that like many LDPW locations across SL, Barney’s Bay is a destination you can also visit when playing the grid-wide Tyrah and the Curse of the Magical Glytches (read here for more on this)

Squeaky Mole: is one of the “youngest” Moles, having joined the LDPW just over a year ago. He was “discovered” as a result of exhibiting at SLB, and the Lindens visited his region after which he received an invitation from Patch to become a Mole – and initially thought it was a joke!

Missy Mole: is also one of the “younger” moles, having joined the LDPW on June 28th, 2018. Also like Squeaky, she was approach by Patch to join the team, specifically in taking photos in support of Marketing work. She and Squeaky are two of the Moles who have done a lot of the work on SL16B.

Alotta Mole: like Missy, was approached by Patch as a result of his in-world photography, and joined the LDPW initially in support of Marketing work.

What Does It Take To Become A Mole?

  • Drop your resume (note card) on Derrick Linden or in-world or to Patch Linden. Include your areas of expertise and any links you have where the Lab can see examples of your work (in-world, Flickr, You Tube, etc).
  • Fully rounded content creators are encouraged to apply, but the Lab will also accept specialists.
  • Be outgoing, communicative, willing to work within a team.
  • Have a genuine passion for SL.
  • Remember, it is an actual paid job, and is treated as such. You will be interviewed, you’ll be expected to have a résumé (c.v.), and be able to demonstrate your SL-related work.

Everyone on the team has their specialities, what they’re strong with … we do have Moles who specifically do scripting; we have moles who specifically so mesh content work and texturing or just texturing; we have Moles who do texturing and photography; we have Moles who do sound work, animation work. So, if you can think of each thing, or each area you can do content creation work for Second Life and in Second Life – we pretty much have to cover every single one of those areas, and in some of those areas we need more than one person.

There’s folk that specialise in terraforming, folks that do region décor work [trees, road, etc] … people who have got an eye for putting that stuff together and out there, being good with Land Impact … maybe they don’t have a lot of capability in making that stuff, but the other people in the team that make that content do that for them,  and then they’re the ones that carry through that next step.

– Patch Linden on Mole skills

Catch the rest of the session in the video below.

The 2019 Blake Sea Raft Up for RFL of SL

The annual Blake Sea raft-up will be taking place on Sunday, June 30th, and SL residents are invited to go along and help raise money for Relay for Life of Second Life.

Now in it is 7th year, the event will take place on a special floating stage at Blake Sea – Haggerty, beneath the iconic floating racing grandstand. It will run from 09:00 through until around 15:00 SLT, and feature a host of activities, including music, a demonstration and spectacular raffle prizes.

The full schedule of events is as follows – all times SLT.

  • 09:00-11:00 – DJ Joy Canadeo
  • 11:00-13:00 – DJ Luke Flywalker
  • 13:00-14:00 – DJ Benny the Boozehound.

During his set, Luke Flywalker will narrate a special rescue demonstration by the Second Life Coast Guard (SLCG).

In addition, the event will feature raffles – all proceeds to RFL of SL – with a range of stunning prizes:

  • ANY bandit of the winners choosing.
  • ANY Mesh shop boat of the winners choosing.
  • 1 Endeavour barracuda.
  • 1 Endeavour Trident boat.
    • Paint of their choosing.
The 2018 Raft Up SLCG demonstration

This is always a popular event, and the advice is for those wishing to join the fun is, “Come early!” You can catch a video of the 2018 event via Flickr.

SLurl Details

SL16B Meet Xiola and Strawberry Linden

Courtesy of Linden Lab

On Thursday, June 26th, 2019 at the SL16B celebrations, the fourth of five Meet the Lindens sessions was held at the SL16B Auditorium. It featured Xiola Linden, Lead Community Manager and Strawberry Linden, Marketing Content Specialist.

The SL4Live TV video of the event is embedded below, with a couple of brief biographies on Xiola and Strawberry, based on comments they made during the session and in Xiola’s case, at past events.

An alternative video has also been recorded by  Pantera Północy.

About Xiola and Strawberry

Xiola Linden

Xiola is the Lead Community Manager at Linden Lab. she originally came to Second Life in 2006, and joined the Lab in 2011. Her role is broad-ranging, including elements of customer support,  through blogging and social media output for the Lab, to organising events such as the in-world get-togethers. For a period of time she was also responsible for community management work on Sansar, but has been back working full-time on Second Life for around 18 months. She will celebrate her eighth anniversary with the company in November 2018.

Born and raised in California’s silicon valley, she naturally immersed her career in technology, working for the likes of Yahoo!, with a particular interest in creative communities. It was a friend’s invitation that she try Second Life that got her started on the platform, and she remains active in-world on her personal account. Her engagement in the platform led to an interest in joining the Lab as an employee, so she started keeping an eye on the Lab’s career page and when a community related post to opened, she applied and was recruited.

Strawberry and Xiola Linden. Credit: Strawberry Linden

Strawberry Linden

Also known as Strawberry Singh, she is one of the more high profile lab recruits to come from the ranks of Second Life residents, thanks to her work in building her own brand – blogging, vlogging, fashion tips, tutorials, etc., – that has been hugely popular among Second Life users, particularly those with a focus  / involvement on the fashion aspects of the platform.

It is her personal brand that played a role in her decision to carry her fist name over from resident to Linden in becoming Strawberry Linden – although she notes that she had advice from Patch Linden and others to keep her Linden persona separate from her personal SL persona and admits to perhaps regretting not heeding it!

As a Marketing Content Specialist,  she is focused on Second Life (no involvement in Sansar), her current focus is on tutorial videos to help incoming new users, starting with the basics: signing-up, walking around in-world, etc. From here she plans to move onto more intermediate subjects and onwards to more advanced topics, covering a broad range of subjects: buying Linden dollars, editing the avatar shape, dressing, use mesh avatars and mesh heads, etc., with videos aimed at more established users, rather than being purely for newcomers.

She had no major preconceptions about working at the Lab prior to joining, but has been impacted by the degree of love staff have towards the platform. She also loves the fact she can continue with a lot of what she did as a resident: dress avatars, create looks, take photos and make videos, and hopes to be able to carry over her blog challenges to the Lab.

SL16B Meet Ebbe Altberg- a summary with audio and video

Courtesy of Linden Lab
On Wednesday, June 26th, 2019 at the SL16B celebrations, the third of five Meet the Lindens sessions was held at the SL16B Auditorium. It featured the Lab’s CEO, Ebbe Altberg, aka Ebbe Linden.

The following is a summary of the session covering the core topics raised, with  audio extracts where relevant.

Table of Contents

Note that there are three videos of this event that I’m aware of:

When reading this summary, please note:

  • It is not a full transcript:
    • Discussion points have been grouped by topic, and not necessarily in the order raised during the session.
    • I have focused on those topics liable to be of the most interest to readers / generated the most informative answers, so this is not a summary of all comments. etc..
    • Topics are give as bullet-point highlights for ease of reference.
  • Audio extracts are provided.
    • These have been cleaned-up in places to remove repetition or pauses, etc.
    • Audio extracts may concatenate comments on specific subjects that may have been made at different points in the discussion, and so do not always match the chronology of the video.
  • Timestamps to the SL4Live – TV video are provided for those who would prefer to listen to Ebbe’s comments “in the raw”. This video is also embedded at the end of this article.

About Ebbe

[Video: 2:40-11:55]

Note: the following is taken from both Ebbe’s comments and my own research into his background, carried out when he joined Linden Lab in 2014, and which also included input from Ebbe.

Swedish by birth and still by nationality – he is still working in the US on a green card -, Ebbe graduated from Tärnaby Skidhem in 1983. His time there was focused on skiing, as he wanted to be a ski racer, with his eyes on the Swedish national team and the world cup. Unfortunately, a back injury stopped him pursuing that particular career option, and so he crossed the Atlantic to study Middlebury College, Vermont, USA.

Ebbe Linden, aka Ebbe Altberg. Credit: Strawberry Linden

Founded in 1800, Middlebury is regarded as one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. While there, he “spent a lot of time in the art studio and the computer lab in an extreme left brain / right brain type of education”, before graduating with a degree in Fine Arts and a concentration in Computer Applications.

From Middlebury, and with the clock ticking down on his visa, Ebbe “slipped into Microsoft on a random banana peel”, where he spent twelve years. Joining in the pre-Windows era, he was particularly involved with the Office products (Word, Mac Office, etc) and multimedia products.

In March 2000, he moved on to Ingenio, a company that created marketplaces for people to buy and sell information over the phone. While there he was responsible for managing the engineering, program management, operations, and quality teams, and served as the company’s interim CEO before taking on the mantle of  the Chief Product Officer. And while he doesn’t often mention it due to not being a huge fan of the patent system, he “racked up quite a few patents there.”

After Ingenio, Ebbe joined Yahoo! n February 2008, filling out a number of senior roles, including Vice President, Head of Audience for the company’s EMEA division, being based in Rolle, Switzerland, managing some 180 people and multiple products across six countries. During this period he also served on the board of Yahoo! SARL (Société à responsabilité limitée) – think the equivalent of a Pvt Ltd company in the UK or a limited liability partnership in the USA, before returning to the United States to become the Senior Vice President for Media Engineering at Yahoo!  with global responsibly for Media Engineering, a position that involved managing an organisation of more than 600 engineers, architects, program managers and quality engineering staff, as well as having dotted-line oversight of some 150 product managers and designers.

Linden Lab’s chairman of the Board, Jed Smith, is a long-time friend of Ebbe Altberg, and had previously tried to get Ebbe to join the company prior to his appointment as CEO in 2014. (image: Owl Ventures)

Following Yahoo!, he took up the challenge of turning around a small tech company called BranchOut, based in San Francisco. Around two years old at the time of his joining, BranchOut had been through a roller-coaster ride with its product, a Facebook oriented application designed for finding jobs, networking professionally, and recruiting employees. Seven months before Ebbe joined the company, the app boasted 25 million users across 60 countries – but by the time he came on board, the user base had shrunk to just 3 million. Under his guidance, the company pivoted the BranchOut app into a new workplace messaging application called Talk.co, launched in October 2013.

Ebbe was actually aware of Second life  – and had experienced it first hand – a long time before joining Linden Lab in 2014. His son Aleks, had been heavily involved in SL, starting with the Teen Grid, making content and then moving to  developing a successful in-world business there (Aleks is now an Lab Employee, working on Sansar, where he is a regular at in-world community meet-ups and product meetings).

More particularly, Ebbe has had a long-standing friendship with the Chair of the Lab’s board of directors, Jed Smith. LL was one of Smith’s first investments when he became a venture capitalist, and through Jed Ebbe gained an awareness of the Lab, its product, and met Philip Rosedale.

So I fell in love with the idea, and understood what Philip and Second Life was trying to achieve, but it wasn’t until many, many, many years later – well, five years ago now – that it came up that they were looking for someone, and it was the right time and place for both the Lab and me to hook up and see how I could help keep things going here.

I have not regretted that decision for a second, it’s been absolutely fantastic; it’s an incredible group of people I get to work with. Having the Second Life team is just an absolute privilege … Everyone is just incredibly passionate about the product … that’s just been a very, very enjoyable ride for me so far.

– Ebbe Altberg, Meet the Lindens, June 26th, 2019

The Lab’s Battery Street staff (image: Ebbe Altberg, via Twitter)

One of the greatest rewards he sees in being with the company is diversity, be it within the people working the Lab or using Second Life, or the equally rich diversity of uses people find for Second Life – be it as a means of expression or as a platform for business, as tool for health improvement or an aid education, and so on, and the multiple ways Second Life can benefit those who engage with the platform.

He is also drawn to the technical aspects of the platform, including its multiple challenges, and the way it combines so many different capabilities: tools for content creation, options for social engagement, the ability to run a virtual economy, etc., all of which combine with the need to constantly discover / learn new things about the ways in which SL is being used, to continually refresh interest in, and enthusiasm for, managing, improving and expanding the platform.

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On Fees and the SL Economy

[Video: 12:16-18:16]

  • As a world Second Life has a huge diversity of uses, and there is no single “one size fits all” solution.
  • Has always and consistently stated a belief that virtual land in SL is too expensive [it has been a major theme from users throughout his tenure as CEO as well, and preceded his arrival at the Lab].
  • HOWEVER, Land fees generate the majority of the Lab’s inflow of revenue, even if it has been over-monetised by the Lab in order to meet that revenue requirement.
  • Therefore, if land fees are to be reduced, the Lab must find ways to move its revenue generation from virtual land to other opportunities that have previously perhaps been under-monetised in their ability to generate revenue. These include things like Premium fees and consumer-related revenue generation options.
  • Also feels there has been an imbalance in the way SL operates, as a merchant without any land can produce goods and sell them (via the Marketplace) without really paying for the opportunity to do so (just 5% commission on sales), and could then cash-out with very little cost to their revenue.
  • Unfortunately, both trying to broaden LL’s revenue generation options to decrease a reliance on land fee, and trying to correct some of the balance in where fee are obtained to help with that revenue generation, can result in some feeling hurt.
  • LL are attempting to be careful in how these shifts are made, as there are major risks involved (for both in-world business and the Lab itself), and so are progressing in small steps – the recent Premium and processing fee increases being the latest of those steps.
  • Believes there are still opportunities to further re-balance things, and to reduce land costs.
  • Also believes it is fair to say that while things like credit processing fees have been increased, they are still well below what might be regarded as “industry standards” for many digital transactions, which can be 30% and upwards.
  • Understands that the increases have impacted people, notably creators with very low margins, and who may have to make adjustments to their pricing, etc., and recognises that changes like those now implemented (as of June 24th) might make it tougher for some to survive, but believes the changes are necessary.
  • Points out that one of the consequences of high tier is that SL so often loses stunning public regions that have been built, and which people miss when they vanish.

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