Quote of the day

Second Life will "soon" launch an internal search mechanism, Rosedale says -- but won't say when. Now, you can't search for much of anything on SL -- can't look for people, events, nothing. That will change

Philip Rosedale aka Philip Linden

We will let ya know when SL is ripe for the picking - Said the Ad man.

So I was reading an article today and happened upon this gem from an Ad man via NY. Seriously unimpressed with how big business has stepped into the virtual world of Second Life; I keep these quotes to remind me how arrogant and ignorant the Ad men are to how Second Life "is".

-----

"We have counseled our clients to stay away [from Second Life] for the time being," said Drew Neisser, president-CEO of Renegade, a New York-based integrated marketing agency. "The quick-hit PR route is now closed, so marketers need to carefully consider why they want to be in Second Life and make sure they have a sincere commitment to the betterment of Second Life."

Neisser pointed to issues such as technical glitches, security concerns (for example, hackers breaking into presidential candidate John Edwards' virtual campaign headquarters on Second Life) and difficulties attracting a sizable audience.

"There are a lot of other ways to engage your targets online and offline that may in fact be more cost-effective and more rewarding than Second Life," he said.

However, he added, "We are monitoring Second Life on a continuous basis and will let [clients] know if and when the time is ripe for their participation in Second Life."

----
Dear Ad Man;

Second Life is a unique world unlike any other; you wish to market your real life products to a very large customer base....that's all fine and good but do you even realize the majority of Second Life users enter the Second Life world to escape your corporate reality?

No I didn't think so; or you wouldn't be failing so miserably.

Cat

Cristiano Diaz has gone off the deep end again!

Not that this is the first time Cristiano has lashed out as Philip Linden or Second Life or even Linden Lab for that matter. However one of these days calling Philip an "asshole" is bound to get this guy into hot water. Well we can always hope so anyways. Sorry Cris but I dig Philip, I dig Linden Lab and I adore Second Life. Someone should give this guy a virtual pop in the chops!

Cristiano; Without Philip; there would be no you. k thanks bye :)
Read it here.

Angry Dear Philip: You're an Asshole KTHNXBYE
I was reading an article about Second Life on news.com, and stumbled across this:

Quote:
Originally Posted by cnet
Linden Lab, too, is a bit unapologetic about its technical headaches, promising that it has been working to eradicate them but encouraging both current and prospective residents to accept them as a necessary component of such an experimental medium. Second Life got to where it is, Rosedale explained, by not waiting for the kinks to iron themselves out.

"If we had had that sort of traditional 'stop, think carefully, seek feedback, listen to everybody' (mentality), I can tell you that as the entrepreneur behind this thing, even starting in 1999, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't have made it," Rosedale said
So in other words, we just need to accept worsening conditions, monetary loss, and the other myriad problems, because Philip has a vision and his crack team doesn't have time to stop and think and plan because they have a metaverse to build. We just need to shut up, pay their salaries, and play with our prim hair if it manages to rez. Pardon my French, but fuck that. What insulting, pandering tripe and a pathetic excuse for why the grid is so royally fucked.

If they had stopped to actually fix things instead of taking big bong hits off the Love Machine, SL would be on a solid foundation instead of the house of cards it now sits on. Congratulations on making it - so what if the entire thing now falls apart because you didn't bother to actually screw anything correctly except your customers. I would look for the middle finger smiley but it doesn't convey my disgust strongly enough right now.



Here is the full link:

http://news.com.com/Second+Life+The+....html?tag=item

Cristiano Diaz

reprint of the boston globe piece

Finally an article I can get behind. This one finally nailed it on the head where all things Linden Lab are concerned. 2 million US$ per day being traded before gambling became illegal in Second Life. Hard to believe but that may be true; seems like a hot bed for money laundering if you ask me. However I am sure the Feds are very keen as to what is going on in Second Life these days. Anyways the unpopular Zen Linden also has a few things to say in this article I was not surprised to read his limited view of Second Life as a place to socialize and advertise. Yawn Zen get out more visit some of the role play, residential, and unique communities popping up in Second Life. Even Linden Lab might be shocked at how creative ppl are when they are NOT making 30KUS for doing a project.

Read it;

Even a virtual economy needs a Ben Bernanke
Zee Linden - the online persona of John Zdanowski, Linden Lab's CFO - manages the economy of Second Life. Zee Linden - the online persona of John Zdanowski, Linden Lab's CFO - manages the economy of Second Life. (LINDEN LAB VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS)

By Associated Press | September 5, 2007

NEW YORK - Just before a global credit squeeze roiled US financial markets this summer, an equally dramatic financial crisis threatened Second Life, the much-hyped online world.

On July 25, the company controlling Second Life said it would no longer allow gambling. Economic activity was cut by nearly half as gambling halls shut down.

That's a recipe for disaster in any economy, with job losses and a possible currency collapse, but the online world stayed on an even keel. That's in part due to the fact that few people make a living there. But Second Life's equivalent of Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, also keeps a firm grip on the currency.

It's just one example of how economists and virtual worlds are teaming up, to mutual benefit. Outside Second Life, a game company just hired its first full-time economist. Another economist, coming from the academic side, believes that just as virtual economies need economists, so economists need virtual economies - to experiment with.

The Second Life equivalent of Bernanke is John Zdanowski, chief financial officer at Linden Lab, which runs the online world. Using Second Life software, he spoke to the Associated Press in Linden Lab's virtual headquarters.

Before the gambling crackdown, "residents" exchanged about 2 million US dollars a day in Second Life. That dropped to $1 million shortly after. Gambling wasn't quite as important as those figures indicate, Zdanowski said. Second Life is more than an online Las Vegas - it's a place for socializing, games, advertising, and other activities enabled by a world where residents can, with sufficient skill, create almost anything they want out of thin air.

Gambling inflated the economic activity because it meant small amounts of money changed hands relatively quickly, often several times a day.

But the gambling shutdown was still a potential problem, because Second Life has its own currency. The Linden dollar is convertible to US dollars at an ostensibly floating exchange rate.

Losing even 10 or 20 percent of its real economy set it up for a currency crisis, as gamblers and gambling hall operators tried to cash in their gains for US dollars and put their money to use elsewhere.

If the exchange rate started to plummet, remaining, nongambling residents would also feel compelled to trade their virtual dollars for real ones, making the currency nearly worthless. Zimbabwe is currently struggling with that kind of hyperinflation. But in Second Life, that's not what happened.

"The reason it hasn't hit the exchange rate is that we were exercising one of the controls we have," Zdanowski said.

Linden Lab has for more than a year put a ceiling on the value of its currency. It's done that by selling Linden dollars on the currency exchange for around 270 to the US dollar, and that's where the exchange rate has stayed since then. In a year, the company has made about $5 million on this trade.

Like China, "we basically manage the supply of our currency so that the exchange rate stays fixed against the US dollar," Zdanowski said.

With visitors taking money out of the world because of the gambling shutdown, Linden Lab simply stopped selling its currency to compensate for the greater supply of Linden dollars for sale on the exchange.

Eve Online, an online science-fiction game, has avoided some of the complications of having an online currency by banning its conversion to real money. Yet the company this summer hired its first full-time economist to keep tabs on what goes on inside the game and to look at whether more complex financial institutions, like banks, are needed, and try to cultivate relationships with real-world academic institutions.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

LL Bans Cory Edo a 2nd time.

Whoa ok now we all know I am not a huge fan of the electric sheep company and all it's inside deals but you know shit is pretty messed up over at Linden Lab when one of their darlings get's her ass banned not once but twice while trying to test some sort of a pay out system. Word on the street is that if you pay 5 ppl 5kL$ your ass gets flagged and you are then banned and so are they. Not only that but then if you dare to do it again expect another vacation from SL. Here are some quotes from Cory Edo I had to keep because most ppl wouldn't believe this shit.

Cory commenting on illegally logging in as an alt while her main is suspended. Which is against the TOS for LL btw. You cannot log on as an alt if any of your accounts are suspended;

For what I need to do today, it would involve redoing about 2 hours worth of work at least, plus reuploading a ton of textures, before I can even start doing the work I need to, which will be fun because its mostly texture uploads and any other account I have access to is pretty broke.

Yeah, I can make do if I have to, but its overall putting me in an insanely hobbled position since I don't have access to my inventory, nor do I have any other account with the admin access to ESC's projects that I tend to need.

LL doesn't work on weekends; but lookie Guy Linden was kind enough to somehow find out about this and take care of Cory. How nice to get such service! Go LL.
Yeah what about ppl who can't afford a concierge; you tell em Cory!

UPDATE: Guy Linden got me back in, thankfully. I'm still insanely pissed. This shouldn't happen to ANYONE. Me working for a dev company is probably the only reason I've gotten these situations taken care of, but its utter bullshit that unless you have connections you can get locked out for a weekend twice in a row over $L5000 in transactions. What's happening to people that don't have a concierge account?

---
Least Guy was in a talking mood, most Lindens are not.

According to Guy the only thing in my account was a note regarding my original suspension on August 10th, so either the first instance triggered twice, or I got popped for paying out $L5000 to 5 av accounts this past Thursday.

The Lindens have never all been on the same page; I blame their damn love machine lol.

Io: from what they've told me its payments to a number of avatars that does it, but don't put any weight to that statement because so far I've been told different stories from everyone at LL involved in this, including two completely different things from Robin herself. I am throwing up my hands in exasperation and letting my work take care of it because like I said if it was up to me right now I'd sell everything off and tell LL's autoban and their lack of internal communication to kiss my ass.

---
Ut oh not just Cory but her friend/employee got wacked too. Wonder if the girl knows anyone at LL who can get her back on line this weekend?

...and I just checked Search and one of the girls that got suspended with me last time because of the payout (a stress tester), who also participated on Thursday's stress test, isn't found in Search, so they tagged her again.

---
Robin Harper is in charge of PR she has no idea what is going on; backend wise.

Well according to Robin, first it was an automated system, then she said it wasn't an automated system. So their VP doesn't even know what the hell is going on apparently.

Say it with me....FIC.

Considering ESC's top three managers are at SLCC and one of them is on a panel with Robin today, this is already past JIRA stage I think.

---

Well connected = FIC (fetted inner core; group of ppl who consistently get jobs from LL over everyone else and nice perks like having their accounts unsuspended on weekends.)

Was Cory right? Probably; but I gotta say bummer for those poor souls who don't have any connections at LL or can't afford to have any type of concierge service.

Lucky for Cory her pals at the Electric Sheep Company were sitting on a panel right next to Linden Lab's Robin Harper this weekend at the SLCC huh.

Page elements added

In the past I have been careful to state my political views. Mainly due to the fact I have found out things about ppl I respected that made me no longer respect them. Or call them friend for that matter. I thought about the day that Aimee Weber issued a "Jihad" or whats known as a "holy war" against me in the forums. I'm still pretty pissed off about her lack of caring or understanding my point of view and my loyalty to my family and my country. I was even more upset when I realized she lived in New York and thought herself funny or clever to make such a statement. I have always respected her work and drive. Well I did up until that point. During the time of her "Jihad" statement it was more than a little ironic that she should be working for a US Senator on the Millions of US project. I personally sent him a copy of her statement IW. He should know who he hires and their political views. Especially given the callus nature of some hand picked employees. I was a huge Aimee Weber fan; but make no mistake. I am not now. She should be ashamed of herself.

That's my stand. I support our troops, I support the American contractors, I support those in office who day after day make the hard decisions that help me sleep at night. War is hell but it has no place in a game called Second Life.

Catherine

Liverpool Philharmonic to play Second Life gig

Liverpool Philharmonic to play Second Life. My only response is; Well that's great for the 40 ppl who might get to see it. If there are any more than 40 with bling, hair, 500 prim count boots. They will crash and burn just like ever other large event in Second Life. Not only do I know they will fail, they cannot help but fail. SL cannot and never has been able to hold more than 40 av's on a simulator without that simulator failing. Crash and burn. So why do ppl continue to even try to have these kinds of "big" events? Press, it's just good press. Well at least until the reporters all need to do a hard reboot.

My advice; yank the cord from the back of your computer and pop a DVD or CD of the Philharmonic in the stereo and skip this event. Trust me you will thank me later when your enjoying that glass of wine and not ripping your hair out.

Cat