Tag: Second Life

More on the Marketplace

Posted on by Inara Pey

The discussion thread relating to the new Marketplace is growing apace. What is most refreshing is the fact that (until the weekend arrived) Grant Linden was staying fully engaged with those posting comments – and addressing the good and the bad, rather than going about the usual cherry-picking we’ve tended to see in Linden responses.

While at times he seems to be little more than a gofer – charging back and forth between the thread and the “Marketplace team” to get answers – his contribution shouldn’t be diminished. XStreet, for all its faults has been a major means for merchants to gain revenue, and given the manner in which other aspects – most notably in-world search – are currently borked up, it is essential merchants aren’t panicked by either a rushed implementation of the Marketplace or a feeling that the Lab is responding (with apologies to Dr. Frasier Crane) “We’re not listening…”

I gave initial feedback from fiddling with the Marketplace the other day. Admittedly, I’m not “big-time” merchant my listing (or store) doesn’t top 50 items, and I don’t consider myself in any way shape or size an “entrepreneur”. I build because it is fun, I sell to off-set tier. Ergo, I’m not as deeply into the mechanics of XSL as other may be, and so I missed the fact that features critical to some businesses aren’t so much missing in the Beta, as potentially ignored as not being vital at this time.

This has caused a lot of angst among merchants. It’s also (as with Search and Viewer 2) brought the WannabeA Linden mob out in force. Some of the angst from the former is expressed in unnecessary dramatic expressions of disgust (some of which are vented without actually indicating precisely why the new system is a “pile of crap” which don’t actually help drive the discussion forward in any way). Meanwhile, at the opposite end of the scale we have people sanctimoniously posting as to why merchants shouldn’t be upset as this is, after all a “beta”, before launching into a pious sermon on what “beta” means and how people lack the common sense to appreciate it as such.

Shame on both sides.

Between the two, however lies a wealth of concerns that are valid – some of which are also very worrying, despite Grant’s best efforts to calm matters. An examples of this is distributed payments. Many items on Xstreet (and indeed in-world) are made by more than one individual (or more than one avatar). As such, both Xstreet and most in-world vending systems provide a means for the payment received for a sold item to be distributed to the various individuals/avatars concerned in its creation. Yet this functionality appears to have been treated as a “nice to have” rather than a “must be in place” feature by those responsible for creating SLM, with Grant only able to confirm it will be added “in the future”.

Similarly, how listings on SLM are synched with their corresponding XStreet listings has been a source of concern inasmuch as all information on SLM is currently drawn from “prepared” listings on XSL – only even when merchants have followed the rule and prepared their XSL listings, what is arriving in SLM needs a lot of additional work to make it both attractive and usable (as I can personally attest). Yet it remained wholly unclear for several days at to whether a re-synch of data between XSL and SLM would overwrite the latter – thus undoing the Merchant’s hard work in “fixing” things on SLM (which now appears to be the case), while it remains (at the time of writing) unclear as to whether the synching will also “undo” the new features unique to SLM that merchants can now employ in their listings. As the synching is an “all or nothing” approach (you either have it turned on, and everything is re-synched, whether it is a new item just added to XStreet or items you’ve slaved over so they “look right” on SLM; or you simply don’t get anything updated), it tends to undermine people’s preparedness to test things.

Both of these two issues are pretty fundamental and demonstrate something of a lack of forethought on the part of those behind the SLM roll-out – particularly given that while this “Beta” is supposedly for the benefit of Merchants, LL are nevertheless trying to get merchants to push customer traffic into the new Marketplace in order to “test” the customer side of things. While such testing is clearly needed, it runs the risk of damaging the reputation of at least some merchants for a raft of reasons.

Given the list of current issues within SLM: language defaults, inconsistency of image displays, synching concerns, confusion (and lack of information) on tags and tagging, large gaps in required functionality (i.e. the aforementioned distribution of payments), and so on, it is very clear that SLM has a very long way to go before it is ready to replace XSL. As such it is good to read Grant’s repeated assurances that SLM will not be rushed to prime time.

Nevertheless, given the SLM was the subject of extended discussions with some merchants (via the roundtable, etc.), and even some of those posting in the forum thread give the impression (which granted might be little more than hot air) that they were privy to the inside track on matters, the volume of issues with SLM is surprising. At the end of the day, this is not a new product.

The basics were there in XSL – yet they somehow appear to have been ignored in the drive to make the Marketplace “web standard”. And while it is all very nice for Grant to paint a picture whereby SLM will allow merchant’s products to be openly googled from the web, I’m not altogether convinced this is a necessary benefit or even close to a vital requirement. Not when the majority of shoppers for Second Life related items are going to be one of two places: either in-world or on SLM. So is Google-oriented visibility really that much of a vital driving force? It’s a nice-to-have, for sure for merchants – but I hardly think it is going to encourage the heaving masses to rush to Second Life any more than closer links to Facebook will bring hordes of new users screaming to the gates of Second Life.

But, all that said, it’s good to see that, following Philip’s address at SL7B, the Lab appear to be taking the time to listen to issues and address them. They need to keep this up – not just within SLM, but across the board. And the next time they fire-up an initiative that is liable to impact the lives of a sizeable portion of their user community, one hopes they’ll put their new listening skills to good use up front.

Did he jump, was he pushed or was someone up to no good?

Posted on by Inara Pey

Mark Kingdon is gone. Philip Rosedale is “back” (although as Chairman of the Board, he never really left).

While I still hold the opinion that those expecting PS to now Messianic-ally resurrect  Second Life from its perceived “death” are in for not a little disappointment, I’m also really curious as to what really went on this week. And while the truth may never be known, I can’t help but indulge in a little idle speculation.

First off – was Mark Kingdon going to leave LL? Yes, I tend to believe he was. It is not uncommon for the head honcho to go when a company divests itself of a goodly portion of its workforce, and if Hamlet and others are right about the depth of disaffection within the Board following the apparent “failure” of Viewer 2, then it seems hardly likely that Kingdon would escape the fray. After all, he was pretty much brought in to drive the company the direction it has taken over the last few years – and which or not the likes of Kapor shame the blame for this direction in the first place – the fact remains that Kingdon is (or rather was) the most expendable.

Indeed,this might be one of the very reasons PR himself may have supported the contracting-in of a new CEO; while he may / may not have been a standard-bearer for the push towards bigger revenues faster, I suspect he was canny enough to surmise what might happen were the push to fail with him occupying the hot seat. Again, witness the clever wording of PR’s blog post: “Returning to the lab…”  – suggestive that he’s been away all this time and that he is “innocent” of all that has transpired…

But this aside, assuming that MK’s days were numbered  – whether because he was being set-up as the fall guy or because (and let’s not dismiss this) he was holding up a hand and saying, “mea maxima culpa” or whether a natural end of his tenure had been reached (“OK guys, I’ll take this on for two years, but after that, I’d like the freedom to move on if I’m not 100% happy…”) – one cannot deny the sheer timing of what has occurred to be a little – well, curious.

SL7B is supposed to be a time of celebration, of Lindens and residents together marking another year in SL’s life and growth. Coming on top of all the recent upsets and uncertainty – especially in the wake of the layoffs, with people far and wide speculating on the financial stability of LL, worries over what the layoffs would mean for SL (up to and including people pointing to a complete sell-off of the business) – one would have expected this week to be something of a show of solidarity within LL and towards Second Life as a whole, if only to give weight to PR’s assurance that we’re safe, the world is safe.

But no; instead we have a gathering at which MK is due to speak, at which PR himself is present, and suddenly MK is “called away” on an “emergency”, and shortly thereafter Hamlet issues his “breaking news” story.

Now, I could be reading this all wrong, but it does suggest to me that LL again got caught hopping around with underwear around collective ankles.

Did someone accidentally let slip what was going to happen in, say a week or two’s time? Or could it be that someone recently released from SL and who had been privy to plans decided to crank up the rumour-mill in the hope of wrong-footing the Lab into making changes far earlier than expected – and succeeded?

The whole change-over smacks a little of panic. *IF* MK was due to leave in time, the most obvious course of action would be to recruit a replacement. Then either once this had been done, or during the process itself, make a controlled announcement as to what is about to happen. Make clear the what and the why. That way you control the spin, and you limit potential damage.

Yet that hasn’t happened. Now it could be that more Machiavellian machinations were at work within LL, and MK opted to jump ship before the knife arrived somewhere between his shoulder blades. But again, this doesn’t seem credible.

For a start, such machinations would not reflect well on the members of the SL Board; MK may not have been around a long time, but he also probably knows where not a few skeletons are closeted, so a sudden Board-driven ousting could backfire badly. Which is not to say they don’t happen.

But there is another reason why I don’t think such a view is credible. And it is simply because it suggests that the Board are panicking. And a panicked Board isn’t good for the company’s image, not when, again, “stability” needs to be the watchword.

Similarly, MK himself isn’t going to want to unduly rock the boat himself. He has the rest of his career to consider, and is going to want to part company with LL on as good a set of terms as possible and with his resume unblemished.

No. I can’t see Machiavellian machinations or panic being the underpinning cause. CEO departures rarely just “happen”  – they are planned for. Even when one is falling on one’s sword as a result of poor corporate performance or for layoffs or for simply Getting It Wrong. It is an exercise in damage limitation to ensure the best face is put on things, that there is a “smooth transition”, etc., and that the business world retains its faith in your ability to do business – or the value of your business.

Which brings me back to a slipped word or an act of mischief.

We’ll probably never know the entire truth. There could well be a myriad of other reasons behind the extraordinary events of the last 24 hours. But that doesn’t mean we should speculate…just a little…

Marking time…

Posted on by Inara Pey

So Hamlet was right. Mark Kingdon is departing and Philip Rosedale will be back as CEO, at least on an interim basis.

Doubtless there will be much partying in the streets at the news, as Mark Kingdon has long been seen as the Big Bad Boogieman responsible for all of SL’s woes. Lord knows, I’ve questioned him enough over the last couple of years!

But what does this really signify?

The manner and direction in which Kingdon drove the company did not spring afresh from his head; nor did it exist in a vacuum. Yes, things seemed to teeter from crisis to crisis, yes some ghastly policy changes were enforced (OpenSpace / Homesteads) and others were royally messed up in their execution (Adult Changes) – and yes, Viewer 2 didn’t go down as well as expected.

But to hold Kingdon singularly responsible for these woes would be – in all honesty – wrong. He has to report to a Board, a Board that has in so many ways sought to influence and direct the future of Second Life. In this respect, Mitch Kapor (as I’m constantly pointing out) carries a portion of the blame. It was his SL5B speech which really set the tone for all that has transpired within Second Life over the last 24+ months. And if we look at the history of SL and LL as a whole, it has been racked by periods of turmoil, poor decision-making and what have you – as much under Rosedale’s leadership as Kingdon’s.

And leave us not forget that Philip Rosedale himself is a member of the Board – although one could argue that he was perhaps cajoled into towing the party line, rather than being a standard-bearer. While it is undoubtedly true that Rosedale’s SL7B presentation struck a much-needed note of contrition and suggests that there will be much in the way of navel-gazing and fluff weeding going on at LL – the hard truth is that much of the overall mindset that has been in play for the last two years will still be in play once the desks have been shuffled and the names on the pods changed.

I do find it amusing that the achievements that Kingdon has presided over during his tenure  – and they do exist – such as the investment in the underpinning network infrastructure, the investment in new hardware, the massively improved overall stability of the platform, the efforts to finally improve the asset database servers, etc., are being so erstwhile dismissed within the forum as “not being due to Kingdon” because the likes of Frank Ambrose ran point on the efforts.

Yet the very people who refuse to acknowledge Kingdon’s overall leadership in these achievements are quick to blame all the woes SL has suffered directly on his shoulders – when one could argue that just has he is “undeserving” of credit for the former achievements as he didn’t “lead” them, so to is he undeserving of the blame for any “failures” for much the same reason: Adult Changes were led” by Jack and Cyn Linden, for example; The OpenSpace fiasco was “led” by Jack as well…

While I don’t doubt that Philip Rosedale’s introspection at SL7B was genuine – at least to a point – I would still caution those busy putting on their Rose(dale) tinted glasses and loudly applauding Kingdon’s departure would do well to remember:

  • This is an interim move, pending the appointment of a new CEO
  • Philip’s introspection, in many ways, also isn’t new. He’s done so in the past – but the train has steamed on
  • as stated, Philip himself was at the helm during many of SL’s other crises: the tax revolt, et al – and he was technically still at the helm alongside Kingdon during the OpenSpace debacle.

As such, while I personally do – in all honesty – view the change over with some optimism – I’m not going out and joining the others in looking for M Linden’s “grave” so I can dance a little jig.

Philip has a potentially tough time ahead of him. While he may well come the closest of the Linden Board and management team to grokking SL’s user base, he’s going to have a hard time finding a balance between pleasing those same users and demonstrating to his fellow Board members that – despite all that has “gone wrong”  – Second Life is still capable of “making money” and has a broader appeal than currently appears to be the case despite the “failure” of Viewer 2.

That said, I will say this: Welcome back to a direct, hands-on role Philip – and thank you for stepping into the breach. We know times are hard, but you’ve also delivered what will be taken by many as a set of promises within your SL7B presentation. Further, others have (for the time being) opted to take a selective memory approach to LL’s history and management of SL over the years. So it might be said that you have a window of opportunity to “make good” on both the perceived promises and what people consider to be “wrong” with Second Life as a whole.

Use it wisely, because as you know, and Mark Kingdon likely rues, we SL users are a fickle crowd, and we’ll turn and bite the hand that feeds us as readily as we’ll roll over and let it tickle our collective belly.

Dem’s de rules….or is dey?

Posted on by Inara Pey

Feathers continue to be ruffled over the removal of pictures from the SL7B because of its depiction of nudity.

Those that object – including British film director Peter Greenaway – seem to think that the removal of a single item of art is someone an attack on the bastions of all art in SL. Others see it as petty pedalling on LL’s part, while others point to the rules laid out prior to SL7B opening, and specifically the “no nudity” clause.

For my part, I find it hard to side with the “art for art’s sake” lobby, as lead by Scylla Rhiadya, who first stirred the pot on June 19th. I will admit that I’m driven in part by the fact that it has been my observation that Scylla rarely starts a forum discussion of her own without some underpinning agenda, which leaves me feeling that there is more to her cry of “art for art’s sake” than meets the eye. But the main reason I cannot subscribe to the cries of “let it be” is simply because – as the majority state: dem’s de rules.

It is not as if LL slipped the “no nudity” rule in after the fact, or blanketed it under other clauses. It was there right from the start. As such, the inclusion of such a piece – however “unsexual” or “mild” or whatever, was in breach of said rules and subject to removal.

All other arguments in favour of its inclusion are thus, simply put, null and void. Particularly those that attempt – as Scylla does – to claim that the removal of this piece (or indeed two pieces it now seems), is a stormy foreboding of possible censorship from the upcoming Linden Endowment for the Arts amounts to nothing less than mischief-making.

At this point in time, parallels between SL7B – which has traditionally been a “PG-only” event, and the LEA are purely speculative; we have no idea if LEA will be “PG-only” or a mix of all the major content ratings within SL, and pushing this particular panic button at this point in time is little more than a false flag exercise – and Scylla is intelligent enough to know this.

Nor is the removal of one or two pictures from SL7B an assault on art, again as Scylla implies in her plethora of posts on the subject. An “assault” would be more along the lines of all such art vanishing from across the grid.

No, the rule was clearly stated and fairly acted upon. One can argue all they like about the picture being “stylised” or “non-sexual”, etc., etc., all they want and demand it should be allowed under the banner of “art” – but I wonder if Syclla and her supporters are familiar with the term the “thin end of the wedge”?

Allow a “stylised” version of nudity into the proceedings, then why not allow a stylised picture of “BDSM”? Let’s say the same nude, this time with her arms bound and an image approximating to a whip hanging in the air alongside her.  Again, non-sexual. Again stylised. However, despite her claims otherwise, I suspect Scylla would not have gone out of her way to create a thread decrying the removal of such an image, or participate in other threads against its removal – simply because of her own slanted view of BDSM would dictate that to her the work is no longer art, but an image of violence against women. Thus it would have no place in SL7B and should rightfully be “censored”.

Even without the “BDSM” element above, the fact remains that once you start sliding the bar on “no nudity” around, you enter the murky waters of censorship in a very ugly way – as no matter where you set the bar, it is going to cause outrage and outcry elsewhere. Ergo, the simplest rule is often the best, if not necessarily the fairest.

The flipside of this is, of course, the fact that LL themselves have a track record of decidedly wonky thinking where “nudity”and “art” and what might be considered “offensive” are concerned, and what measures as “acceptable” displays in PG-rated environments. The Second Life birthday celebrations are themselves no stranger to such wonky thinking, as Tateru Nino amusingly pointed out a few years ago.

Double standards were similarly shown around this time last year, at the SL Land Expo. This was again PG-rated, and saw a ban on “adult material” and “nudity”, but a “stylised” model of a man hacked in two and trailing entrails was perfectly OK. Personally, I’ll take a couple of bare nipples over that latter any day in terms of “public acceptability”.

However, the subject of what constitutes a “good rule” or “sound policy” is somewhat different to simply fanning the flames of controversy – which, at the end of the day, is really what both the “banned” pictures and the subsequent hue and cry are all about. There are better platforms from which to try to engage with Linden Lab on matter of policy than to simply break rules and then attempt to browbeat or throw out speculative rumours.

The latter approach may well serve SL7B well in terms of stirring-up much need publicity (and even then, it doesn’t really encourage one to go visit). It certainly doesn’t really benefit anything else, though.

Phil’s passages

Posted on by Inara Pey

Philip Rosedale helped kick-off the SL7B celebrations with an address to residents. In it, he touched just what an incredibly complex achievement Second Life is – and listed some of the well-known and not-so-well known accomplishments Linden Lab have made around the product – including the major efforts into improving the reliability of the supporting hardware and infrastructure, into making the SL experience more intuitive for non-English speakers etc.

Of course, some of the achievements he listed are going to be viewed differently by different people – things like the TPVP and Linden Homes are going to be a source of grumbles, upsets and annoyance for some time to come – and some of it may well be justified.

What interested me however, was his frank admission around the recently layoffs: essentially confirming, as I’ve previously mentioned, that Linden Lab has come to far to fast, and the restructuring was a vital precursor to the company putting itself back on a solid financial footing:

I wanted to speak for a couple of minutes and touch a little bit — obviously — on the layoffs we just did. We sadly reduced the size of the company by about a third — by about 100 people a week ago, and that’s a big deal and a huge change. But I wanted to say that standing here today in the midst of such a rich world and such continued creative — and for some people, financial — success that’s here makes me realize that, that choice is the right choice and one that though it is hard to make, is definitely correct and obvious. We’re never going to — as a company — risk the world and the businesses and the livelihoods of the thousands of people who make money working here by growing too quickly ahead of profits. By doing the difficult process of restructuring the company and making layoffs, we’ll return ourselves to solid, very solid levels of profitability.

The interesting word in this statement is return. While Linden Lab may not have been losing money hand-over-fist as some have implied in the forum discussion on Phil’s talk, “return” does tend to indicate – again, despite those graced with Hubble vision among us who seem to think Linden Lab is invulnerable to fault – that the company has been in some financial difficulty.

In many respects this is unsurprising: we’re in a global economic recession; it would be pretty amazing if a company the size of LL and with the same reliance on consumer spending hasn’t experienced financial hardships. In LL’s case the situation is somewhat worse because  – as many of us are only too aware through our own practical experience – the in-world economy has been stagnating for a goodly while now.

However, the use of “return” in Philip’s comment does, to a degree, shine a different light on the recent spin of quarterly performance reports from LL, in which we’ve tended to be given (and have openly questioned) the by-line that LL is doing “great” and is “avoiding” downturn. It also tends to confirm suspicions that LL have been “papering over” some of the cracks around the situation by re-introducing things like user-to-user transactions as a measure of economic “growth” (given the sheer diversity of such transactions, and the fact that there can be a chain of several such transactions that actually represent a single dollar amount, but which have each individual transaction counted as a “dollar amount”, user–to-user is a far from accurate measure).

Philip’s follow-on comments are equally revealing – and demonstrate that someone is evaluating recent trends and trying to determine a sensible way forward for Second Life:

We’re safe, the world is safe. As smart as we may think we are, we are not always going to be able to predict Second Life’s rate of growth and hiring is something that you tend to do something in a linear way, but the growth that company goes through — especially something as amazing and phenomenal as Second Life — tends to be punctuated, that is, you’re gonna have periods. And we’ve been in one of those periods now for the last year or so, where the world grows very little because we’re trying figure out together — you and us — what to do next, how to make it better. The growth, when it comes, is typically non-linear. Growth happens very fast. A company, of course — and we’ve been through these days as well — reels as it tries to provide a solid service offering for everybody as that growth occurs. And then in other times, you know, you have to hire with the anticipation that there are things you can do that are gonna drive growth. And sometimes that doesn’t happen. So I think this combat between linear company growth and sort of non-linear world growth is, again, one of the big problems that we face. And so, to be safe, we have stepped back — reduced the size of the company — and kept everything safe

The first part of this comment pretty much confirms what Tateru Nino speculated in her comments on this blog the other day – that LL themselves don’t actually understand what fuels SL’s growth. It is also a tacit admission that traditional means of projecting growth (which I fear are the mechanisms by which the LL’s Executive Team have tended to operate over the last couple of years) break down when applied to something as unique as Second Life.

As Philip states, SL is marked not by a linear, market-driven / predictable growth, but rather by peaks and troughs. When this happens, identifying what creates the peaks – the sudden bursts of expansion & increased revenue – and what causes the troughs – a sudden reduction in growth or a fall-back to previous levels of turnover – is as much about alchemy or pinning the tail on the donkey as it is about good business sense. Get it right, and you’re a business genius. Get it wrong and everybody hates you.

Given the plethora of things that go into Second Life – not the least of which are the most unpredictable elements of all – you and me and every woman and man on the street, all of us driven by a myriad of desires, needs and wants, some of which are congruent, others of which sit in direct opposition to one another – it is all to easy to get things wrong; to see some events in entirely the wrong light and as a result base your business strategy on suspect data. You’ve effectively pinned the tail not so much on end of the donkey’s spine, just above its rear end, but rather in the empty space a foot behind the donkey….

This is perhaps the most tacit admission from anyone in LL that they have gotten things wrong – and certainly for me, it demonstrates that Rosedale still cares enough about the platform to be open and honest in matters where others will continue to try and paper over the cracks.

So, what of the future? Here Rosedale is a little more reticent; a lot of positive-sounding words are used, but the detail is scant. Certainly, some among us will be upset at his use of metaphors relating to the tearing-down of walls and filling-in of moats as they will see it as a further move towards “opensource technocommunism”  (although I’m personally of the opinion that is not what Rosedale is alluding to). There is also a hint that the various messages about LL needing to play its part in keeping SL compelling in order to help drive user retention may well be falling on ears that are no longer deaf. It is important that, in getting back to basics, LL don’t lose sight of this once more.

It is equally important that in getting back to basics, LL start taking the time to listen to and actively engage with its resident users. Whether they like it or not, we are the people who are potentially best placed to help shape and develop the tactical needs that are faced within Second Life, with LL demonstrating it can weave such tactical needs into a cohesive, reality-based strategic plan that will potentially get us out of the rinse-dry-repeat cycle that has in so many ways marked the first 7 years of SL’s commercial existence.

Tateru published a considered argument on the subject of faith over on Massively last week. As she points out, LL came through a very rough period not so long after it’s formal launch, with wholesale lay-offs in 2003. They survived then largely because of the faith their resident users demonstrated towards them.

Faith in Linden lab is something that is in very short supply right now. The track record of blunders and ill-considered actions on LL’s part over the last three years have not only eroded our faith – they have in many ways built walls and moats that leave many of us somewhat unwilling to trust Linden Lab further than next week’s tier.

If things are going to improve, and leaving aside all of the glossy words, it is our faith in Linden Lab that really needs to be restored; it is the walls and moats that LL have themselves created and which now limit our ability to trust them with our faith and belief that really need to be torn down and filled in. I get the impression that Philip realises this, and that, as much as he openly talk about reaching out to people beyond Second Life, his words at the opening of SL7B are also about reaching in to those of us already here. That in itself is a sign of hope.

What remains to be seen is whether the rest of the executive management team and the board are as equally contrite, as equally positive and as equally willing to hold out a hand to their resident users.

Flirting with disaster…?

Posted on by Inara Pey

Colossus Linden resurfaces as the dust of the lay-off settles, to announce that the Marketplace Beta is apparently on-track.

Given the amount of speculation that followed the news that Pink had gone, any news on the new Marketplace is worth flagging. However, the information is scarce and merely announces that the Marketplace will be entering “beta” at the end of the month.

Now, “beta”, when used in conjunction with a Linden blog post,  is a word that is liable to have people reaching for tin hats, crawling under desks or looking to their basements for comfort. Viewer 2 and the entire Search mess are still very fresh in people’s minds; so much so that the idea that the Lab will (to quote Grant Linden in the follow-up discussion) continue to interate and improve the Marketplace after launch is hardly a solid foundation for confidence in the new system (Marketplace 1.0.1, anyone? Marketplace 2.0?).

Nor is the fact that, once again, it would seem that Linden Lab have determined a course of action, and nothing, but nothing, will sway them from their chosen path, no matter how rational or considered the concerns raised may be – or the fact that said concerns are being raised by those who potentially have far greater understanding of how to gain the best from the current XStreet environment than possibly anyone within Linden lab as a whole – let alone the commerce team.

This is most clearly demonstrated by the refusal to reconsider what amount to punitive limitations being placed on new listings – specifically the banning of animated gifs, the removal of BB code and the limit of 2,000 characters per description.

While LL may well consider such restrictions will make the new Marketplace more “professional” in its looks, all three demonstrate that, once again, LL simply have no idea of just how damaging these restrictions could be.

Let’s take the 2,000 character limit for a start: this is fine when you are describing an item of apparel, or perhaps a simple chair or light or a basic road vehicle.  2,000 characters, spaces included, tops-out at several hundred words. BUT when it comes to describing a more complex product, it is barely enough. Many products within SL are feature-rich nowadays, and limiting the description of them to just 2,000 characters is crippling. It encourages the use of lists. But wait! BB code is to be eliminated, so any lists stand a good risk of appearing somewhat less than pleasing to the eye – and a good several paces away from “professional” in looks.

And what of those creators who specialise in the creation of animated textures? The banning of animated gifs potentially eliminates their ability to use the new marketplace effectively.

Time and again, these three issues have be raised as points of concern among merchants  – and LL have simply chosen to ignore them. Even now, in the discussion thread, the same three concerns go completely unaddressed by Grant, for want of having to “go check”.

Now, granted (no pun intended), it is unreasonable to expect someone to have all the answers at their fingertips – but for heaven’s sake! Pulling together the basic information and preparing oneself to deal with the likely questions that could crop up in a discussion thread is hardly rocket science!

So why it is that the poor sod thrown into the firing line once again appears to have been ill-briefed and either hasn’t (or hasn’t been given the time to) consult with those working on the project ahead of time and checked the JIRA for anything related to the project in order to at least get a feel for the history to date in the matter?

It just doesn’t bode well for the Marketplace roll-out.

Nor does the level of confusion prevalent in the blog post and Grant’s comments in the discussion thread. On the one hand, we’re being told the beta will be the period in which merchants can get a look at their migrated listings and confirm everything is in good order before the Marketplace goes live, implying the beta will be “open” to all merchants; then in the same breath we’re told it will effectively be a “closed” beta, only available to those that apply via e-mail…

We’re also told that the beta will be for merchants “only” – but both the blog post and the associated e-mail go out to the community as a whole; on top of this, we’re told that the “beta” will co-exist with XStreet until such time as it goes “live” and XStreet will be switched off.  Both of these latter statements would suggest that more than just merchants will be accessing the “beta” Marketplace from the off…

Like so much else that goes on, it appears that, having extracted their left foot from the smelly morass surrounding the premature release of Viewer 2 and the epic brokenness of the new search,  there are those within LL fully content to immediately slam their right foot down in more-or-less the same pongy mess when it comes to the Marketplace.

Mind, you, that said, I do admire Grant Linden for actually inviting people to e-mail him personally to be a part of the Marketplace beta. With something like 10,000 merchants on XStreet as it stands, there is a chance he’ll not tunnel his way out from under the mountain of e-mails much before June 30th, poor sod.