Tag: Mark Kingdon

Redefining the message

Posted on by Inara Pey

Back at the turn of the year, Mark Kingdon posted a piece on his vision for the future – near and far. The piece received much discussion and critical feedback. As a result, Kingdon promised to hold a series of in world meetings with all who responded to his post through the discussion thread.

The first of those meetings has just been held – and to be honest, it is a real eye-opener.

Sadly, Linden Lab themselves, in what can only be described as a completely myopic view of the meeting – failed to even consider recording the event and making it available for wider consumption than the invited audience. This is because may of the issues raised have themselves been the subject of heated debate, angry forum postings and outright rumours over the last several months. This being the case – any opportunity to deal with them head-on should have been aggressively grabbed by Kingdon’s team, and every effort made to ensure what was said is communicated more widely to the community as a whole.

Fortunately, Angela Talamasca was not so short-sighted, and she recorded the event for playback – and it makes fascinating listening. Admittedly, the audio commentary isn’t always brilliant – but it is worth sticking with.

Much of what Kingdon says puts a lot of what has been going on recently into a more balanced perspective. Not only does it help allay some fears, it also clarifies a lot of thinking going on at Board / executive level within Linden Lab and gives one some encouragement that those in charge at the lab are not so divorced from the realities of Second Life as recent blog posts and activities may imply. Indeed, Kingdon goes so far to acknowledge that the choice of words and the phrasing of messages have both been poor. While this is not something that is going to go away overnight (indeed, his choice of words during the meeting was in places poorly considered, and gave rise to a lot of gnashing of teeth within the forum thread on the meeting). But, given the fact that this is not the first time LL have admitted their failure to communicate what they actually mean – that they are aware of the problem may hopefully see them take steps to improve the situation.

Of course, there will be those who continue to nay-say this (and future) meetings as little more than an exercise in PR. I’m certainly not swallowing all the reassurances lock, stock and barrel – at the end of the day, actions speak louder than words. However, It is worth giving Kingdon a listening to free of any preconceptions; the results might be surprising.

It’ll be interesting to see how SL develops against the backdrop of these discussions, and I very much hope that the remaining meetings in this series are also recorded and published for posterity.

If nothing else, the last five minutes lays to rest the completely unfounded rumour (seemingly started by one resident – who has previously demonstrated a sizeable personal bias against Linden Lab) that Viewer 2.0 will not include the in world building tools: Kingdon is most emphatic in stating the tools will be in the viewer, and that user generated content is very key to Second Life.

Addendum

Sice posting this, it has emerged that Blue Linden tried to record the session, but had an eleventh hour software issue that prevented this from happening. In the interests of fairness, I’m only too happy to correct this point.

M’s People: Looking through Kingdon’s Spyglass

Posted on by Inara Pey

Mark Kingdon bounces into the Blogrum with a buoyant post looking to the future. Once one gets through the initial paragraphs, it is interesting to note where he lays emphasis for plaudits during 2009 and what he sees as being important for 2010.

First, his view on 2009 is interesting for the degree of spin evident – some of which borders on a complete re-writing of history, vis: We acquired two virtual goods e-commerce sites and began integrating them into the Second Life experience so that Residents can buy virtual goods both inworld and on the web. While it cannot be denied Onrez and SL Exchange were bought-out, to say they were both “integrated” in any way is far short of the mark. For a start, Onrez was simply killed stone dead, while the “integration” of SL Exchange (now XStreetSL, or XSL) has been nothing less than controversial, has seen LL (again) turn a deaf ear to many legitimate concerns of users, and has contributed further to the lack of trust between residents and the lab.

Similarly, his commentary on the Content Protection Roadmap and the Solution Provider Program fall wide of the mark for the majority of users. The former simply has no teeth, so is hardly something to chalk up as a “success”, while the latter is clearly aimed an LL’s belief in the “corporate market” and has little, if anything, to do with “casual users” (although many of us would like to think it does).

Looking more closely at the Content Protection Roadmap, many seem hung-up on the fact that it is all about “making” people have avatars that reflect their “real lives” (this coming off the back of Amanda Linden’s Work Avatar blog post, which was itself widely misunderstood – I hope).

However, the real threat here is not so much in the risk of people being “outed”, but more the case that the roadmap insidiously suggests that only those who (quote) meet a minimum threshold for content transactions will be able to partake in the new “content seller program”. Who will define this threshold? LL? LL in consultation with a few (and proven elitist) merchants (paging Ami Hoi….)?

What of those merchants who meet all the other criteria but fail to meet this threshold? They have payment info on record, they make quality goods for niche markets, they are in “good standing” with LL – are they suddenly to be outlawed for failing to hit sales of a few thousand linden dollars?

Similarly, the comment that merchants must be in good standing and not have been suspended for any violation of the Second Life Terms of Service is worrying given the way LL have suddenly started wielding the ToS like a big stick over merchants: “if thou knowingly mention a rival web commerce site on XSL, thou wilt not only have thine offending item removed but thous shalt face the wrath of Linden Lab, who will smite thee with a three-day account suspension” (believe me, this has happened, as reported on the Slapt.me forums).

Similarly, the commentary around the Linden Homes is suspect. Again, I’ve hammered out my view on this enough recently to make people possibly sick of it – but I have to say, M’s spin tends to mirror my thoughts: what he calls making it “web easy” for new residents to obtain their first home, I call “funneling” a section (Premium Account holders) joining SL away from the open market for land and homes, and towards a channelled experience that can either be used downstream to boost sales of the labs own “themed sims” – or used to direct users into the gleeful hand preferred land barons as the users find they need bigger land holdings as their experience grows.

And “channeling” (or “siloing” or “corralling”, whichever term you prefer) “casual users” (i.e. the likes of you and me), is very much a consistent theme with Kingdon of late, as I’ve previously mentioned. It is also in step with calls from the likes of Justin Bovington to “stream” the SL experience, and harks right back to another of my chestnut observations, Kapor’s own call for we “pioneers” to step (or get moved) aside for the “pragmatists”.

Little wonder, then, that the “Enterprise solution” (was there ever a problem with business enterprise that warranted a solution?) is flagshipped as the first 2009 “platform improvement”. And while the LLNet may well benefit “casual users” in the increased stability it brings, one cannot help but feel that this is a non-benefit as far as LL is concerned: LLNet is also about being able to furnish the corporate market, by providing high-speed, reliable connectivity between “behind the firewall” installations and a gleaming SL-based “shop front” corporate users can use to promote themselves among their peers and meet the LL-vaunted “Gold Solution Providers”. Again, such an environment has cropped up in several of Amanda Linden’s posts in the past.

And so we turn to M’s view of 2010….and for the casual user, I have to say, it is pretty glum. Once again, from a platform perspective, the emphasis is primarily on the perceived corporate market. Sure, there is much talk of the introduction of C# and of APIs and new protocols – and these will have some benefit to the user base at large – but make no mistake, the primary aim of these new tool sets are “business users”.

Not even the mini-list of “Technical Must Dos” is in anyway a comfort: the majority of them are “must dos” LL promised to deal with – or start dealing with proactively (as opposed to reactively, as is currently the case with things like inventory / asset problems) in 2009…and 2008…and 2007…and 2006….

M’s statements on the “ecosystem” offer little further comfort – indeed words like “seller directory” hold nothing but cold, empty dread while screaming “FIC!”. Similarly, the idea of XSL being further “integrated” holds concerns for me as a content seller, and the idea of it being “segmented” causes concerns for me as a “casual” user. While I can understand segmenting the needs of the corporate user away from those of the “casual” user (the former are, at least in theory, going to be largely looking for API and application-based tools and services not houses, furniture, clothes and the like that interest the rest of us) – the worry here is that things are going to go deeper: will Adult Content, for example, come under new and harder controls to “improve” the “user experience” in accessing and using XSL (or whatever it becomes)?

Of all M’s comments, those relating to Viewer 2.0 are perhaps the most relevant to the casual user.

There can be no denying that the current “official” Viewer is long in the tooth, is technically handicapped and cumbersome to use. While they may be forced to use broadly the same front end as the “official” Viewer, the major reason for 3rd party Viewers being so popular is not because they may be useful for illegal / unsocial behaviour but simply the fact that they avoid many of the issues inherent in the official viewer (memory leaks, etc.) and offer functionality users have been clamouring for over the last three or so years.

As such, a Viewer that addresses this issues, and provides greater flexibility of use (or is – to use LL’s own horrendous term – “localised”) should be welcomed, even if it will doubtless take us all time to get used to using it after years of ingrained use of the current Viewer.

One should also welcome the idea of new discovery tools – with the caveat being so long as said tools do not supplant existing tools (such as Landmarks) while offering less functionality / flexibility of use.

The idea of the new orientation program is one I’m very leery of, because again it smacks of M’s mime of “streaming” users into defined (easily-managed) groups, presenting the opportunity to further channel new users in directions LL would prefer them to take, rather than allowing them the more open thrill of discovery (even if the latter can mean a degree of confusion for some).

Again, while some hand-holding of new users is to be welcomed and encouraged, let’s not go too overboard. According to LL’s own hype, in the six years SL has been active, “millions” of users have made it through the first hour experience and “millions” of us have gone on to enjoy SL in all its forms and pleasures. So while there are issues to overcome with getting to grips with the software – it can’t all be bad.

Thus, the idea that – as Kingdon again suggested in his interview with Tateru Nino – it is now the first five hours of user’s in-world time which needs to be “addressed” – strikes me as a trifle excessive, and suggestive not so much of orientation but rather indoctrination.

Given LL are creeping ever deeper into the realm of service provisioning in-world (i.e. First Homes, “themed” mainland and private sims) and appear to be toying with entering the content creation business, one cannot help but wonder just how directed / channelled / siloed / corralled new users will be on emerging from their “first five hours” – and at what cose to resident-based businesses.

Overall, M’s post says nothing new. It confirms (if this needed emphasising) that LL has nailed its colours to the corporate environment masthead – but is not yet confident in its new shipmate to entirely let go of all pretense of regarding casual users as the core of their business.  Perhaps the saddest element in Kingdon’s post is the fact that it simply doesn’t embrace any of the core values that have so long earmarked what makes SL unique: the sheer diversity and creativity of we “casual users” and our ability to create and grow personal and group visions that are both exciting and enticing to the community as a whole, and which have, for six years, enabled Second Life, warts and all, be summed up in a single word:

Fun.