Raul Crimson’s experiences in Second Life®
Archive for January, 2009
“Is not a Monopoly!” Ok… but smells like it.
Jan 30th
Last January 22nd Linden Lab organized a press conference about the “integration” of XStreet SL and OnRez in Linden Lab. I was there and i think it was interesting, even what they said can be read in their press release. I wrote a post about this issue some days ago to.
Basically they said is a good investment for them, a way to improve SLeconomy and that they work to make it a better tool for sellers and customers. And i’m sure that’s right and i also think that, someway, i trust more having my money on a company part of Linden Lab than in the hands of someone i never met and i have no information about him. Integrating XStreet to the Second Life web page is something useful, specially for new residents. Also, after the questions of some of the people in the conference they talked about the possibility of expanding the DMCA that protects the rights of creators in Second Life to XStreet too, and that’s good news for sure.
After the questions they asked for comments about it, then i said:
Some people see this business movement as a “monopoly” in the sense you are closing OnRez leaving only, as big distributor, XStreet and also you are taking what was, possibly, the second bigger exchange system, the one in XStreet. Some people may also feel this as an intervention of Linden Lab over a residents business.
As answer to this comment, T Linden (who seemed a bit pissed off because the word “monopoly”) talked about the law restrictions to monopolies, also said we all (Lindens and residents) have to do a huge work trying to restore the confidence we had once .
Ok, possibly the use of the word “monopoly” is not exact in this case, because Armidi has their own web-sales system, because Apez.biz is still running and because they permit other residents create similar e-commerce tools. But we should consider that XStreet + OnRez means more than the 90% of the SL-e-commerce, and this integration means Linden Lab will have, in almost exclusivity, that market, controlling this way all the fees, commissions, content, etc… And even they say they are integrating OnRez in the system what they are doing actually is just to close it. Buying OnRez and closing it they are eliminating the alternative and the competition, and OnRez was an alternative mainly because they had no fees or commission over sales, XStreet had fees and will keep the fees, as Lindens said. At the same time, this way Linden Lab has a stronger control over SLcommerce and economy, so maybe is not a monopoly, maybe we can consider it a “nationalization” in the sense something resident owned is not resident owned anymore. And well, talking about anti-monopoly laws in an economy like the Second Life one is… well… not reasonable.
Surely i will use XStreet, but under my opinion is sure this integration will be good for Linden Lab, what i’m not sure about is if it will be good for the residents, time will tell us… And well, about the “work we have to do all together to improve communication and confidence”, please, let’s be serious. We are customers of Linden Lab so the confidence must be uni-directional, Linden Lab is who have to work to restore the confidence of their customers, not the customers (or residents) themselves. They closed much of the ways of communication, the Official Linden Blog is not a communication tool anymore becuase comments are closed. Forums are not easy to use and may be incredibly confusing. The last Town Hall (possibly only the old residents remember Town Halls) was after the “Open Letter” project in June 2007, and so on…
As always this is my opinion, nothing more and nothing less… but what is yours?
Image taken in the press conference by Radar Masukami and published under a Creative Commons License.
To throw the rock, to hide the hand
Jan 25th
Ok, ok, we all know it… Drama is part of SL as is part of any human group, but, anyway there are things i can’t only ignore without, at least, laughing a bit about it.
I heard lately SLblogs are influential (not sure about it, just a minimum portion of SLers read blogs), anyway, inside SLfashion world i think blogs ARE influential, a lot of people read them looking for new stuff, new styles, etc… I do read some fashion blogs related to SLmale fashion. Shopping Cart Disco is one of those influential SLfashion blogs, with a lot of readers and quality in posts. Inside that blog there is a “section” named SLsecret where anonymous people posts (moderated by the blog staff) some images where they tell their “secrets”. This section was meant initially (for what i know) as a place for people to express themselves telling things they can’t explain publicly for privacy reasons, or only because they were afraid of being rejected. One can think that if someone is too afraid to say something he/she should simply not say it, or say it and to face the consequences, but well, is understandable, not everybody wants to do that. Some other posts talk about fears, love, some are a bit “I’m-a-stalker”, some are funny, some are not… well, one can find anything there. But there are some posts, the “I-hate-you” ones that really make me sick.
Those hate posts are build basically with vague accusations from more or less anonymous people to more or less anonymous “defendants”. But, well, i think will be easier to understand with a couple of examples:
I used to wonder why one of the sweetest people I’d ever met in Second Life hates you with a passion. Then I saw what a vicious and ignorant person you are. I’d never support anything sold in your sim or with your name attached to it.
We know you copybotted your ex-partner’s products and released them Full Perms to get revenge. It may be still a secret, but we’re watching you.
Under my point of view all this is mostly shit (sorry for swearing). It’s only empty hate. Sometimes i just can laugh at them, sometimes they make me feel sick. Sincerely, are full of cowardice and it seems that some people uses the anonymity because they feel then enough protected to express all the hate they have inside. To those people i’d like to say something: If you don’t like someone, if you really hate him/her/it/them, if you really hate enough to write this shit and to take the time to make an image, then be enough brave and express it publicly, or go to the “hated” ones and express it privately, or just shut up, is easy.
Now someone can say me “Just don’t look at that page.”, ok, i’m not doing it anymore, but wanted to write what i think about it in this post. Someone can also say: “They have right to express themselves and you don’t have the right to censor them.”, then i would answer: “Right, i don’t pretend to censor them, and i have the right to think they express only hatter crap, but at least i don’t say it anonymously.”. What that people do, as we say in my country, is “to throw the rock and to hide the hand” and that is simply not right.
Linden Lab is playing Monopoly?: XStreetSL and OnRez now owned by Linden Lab
Jan 21st
Well, it seems some Lindens have been playing Monopoly a lot lately…
As you can see in this post on the Official Linden Blog, Linden Lab has bought XStreetSL and OnRez, the two online marketplaces for SL stuff (clothing, avatars, houses, almost anything…), having this way the practical monopoly over multibrand online web-based distribution of SLgoods (some brands like Armidi have their own web based sale systems outside this two marketplaces and Apez.biz a small on-line distributor is still working). Not only that, this way Linden Lab is buying also the money exchange service of XStreet, the second one after LindeX. Linden Lab will build their new marketplace over the XStreet system, having bought OnRez only to close it.
I’m totally sure none of the residents will think this a good move for them, possibly some may be indifferent because are not users of those marketplaces, but now Linden Lab will have an incoming for everything, also for web-based sales, someway in the style of IMVU. Of course they can do their best for their business but we can choose not to agree at the same time.
Another big question is: “Why Linden Lab decided now to be into content sales when traditionally they preferred to let that to direct relationships between residents?” All this process have some shadows that, possibly, will never be clarified, and the reason that makes me think about this shadows is, basically, the fact that Linden Lab has bought OnRez only to close it. For example, i think is not easy to understand this last movement without taking a look at IMVU business style, because IMVU controls all the marketplace of the system in monopoly, including the money exchange (they don’t have tier, so that is basically their incoming). Some SLbloggers commented also about the possible “bad economic state” of XStreet and how Linden Lab wanted to avoid another big issue in SLeconomy buying it, but this are only rumours.
You will find some more posts about this in the SLblogosphere, but i think Prad Prathivi’s one is really interesting.
So… what do you think about all this?
Image by Torley published under a Creative Commons license.
The merging of the grids, Teen and Main all in one
Jan 20th
What was a rumour seems that will be a reality soon. Philip Linden in his interview in Metanomics yesterday and Blue Linden in this Plurk started by Damien Fate talked about it. Teen Grid and Main Grid may merge soon *insert here screams and sounds of people running and shouting*.
Well, Philip said a lot of interesting things i may comment in other posts, but today i’d like to center my attention about this particular issue, the merging of the grids. And, as always, i just pretend to show my personal opinion, nothing more… but nothing less too.
Personally i think the situation now is not good for the Teen Grid residents, they have access to a really small grid, with not much content and they are, someway, “closed in their golden cage”. I agree that the merging of the grids may be something really good for them, and they will have the possibility of sharing, learning and teaching with other creators and residents, may permit to share the experience of SL with their parents, but i have some doubts about this process.
My doubts are not specially related to “Mature” content and how “teens” can access to it, the internet itself is full of really mature content really easy to access to people even under 5 years, as an example, the daughter of a friend of mine was looking in the Internet for photos of bears and well, you can imagine what she found. Moreover the Main Grid has a lot of underage people, they are not a huge number, but from time to time Linden Lab has to close accounts of teens using Main Grid, so if they find some i’m sure that means there are more than “only a couple”. Also, i think is not the responsibility of Linden Lab to “control” the access to “Mature” content of teens (well, their responsibility may be to “mark” or “indicate” where the “Mature” content is), the responsibility of controlling that access is in the parents. Also well, some teen residents are much more mature than some of the main grid residents, seriously.
What makes me feel worried is how Linden Lab will face that change and what they do about it, specially thinking about how tabloids can use, abuse and distort the reality. I think they may need to work hard on PR and, well, lately seems not to be their best area of work. I know there are some technological tools LL may use to inform clearly about the contents, but the definition of Mature is diffuse in some areas and may change depending the culture or the country, and due this we saw some sad incidents in the last SL5B and in Burning Life in 2007. Linden Lab should clearly define what is Mature content and what is not, and should respect the right of creating and accessing mature content for mature users. So the issue here is not technological, is totally about PR and moral under my point of view.
So what makes me worry is not how bad it can be for teens, because i think it will be really good for them, what worries me is how that may affect our user experience, the right we have in this moment to express, create and live in the way we want.
Image by Daniel Voyager published under a Creative Commons license.
New blog, new URL… a bit a mess
Jan 7th
Finally i have my own Raulcrimson.com thing!!! YAY!!! Is something i wanted for a long time ago, but for the moment was feeling comfortable with the old blog in Wordpress.com.
Had to rent some server space for a personal FL project and i thought this was the right moment to do it. For the moment is a bit a mess, still have to reorder the categories, have to import the links (that’s the first to be done!), have to update the header… but the good things are all the permalinks are now redirected here, all the posts have been imported and i feel here more free to express myself because i have a total control over the tool.
After being blogging the last 18 months i’d like to say thanks again to you, reader, to all the ones who comment, and to everybody that helped me… oh! and to the Wordpress.com team for helping me with the permalinks.
Bots…. grrrr
Jan 3rd
Bots are one of the seven plagues of Second Life (we can do together a list of the other 6 in a post soon including a poll). Was exploring a sim, in the map there was a big group of people in one of the corners and decided to go there to see what was happening there. Arriving there all was empty, actually i was the only one i saw in the sim. Moved my camera to try to find the group of people and found a big black box in the sky with a group of bots, i was really the only one there.
There are some really good and creative uses of bots, from greeters or “mannequins” to artistic expression. But the main use seems to be (sadly) manipulating visits statistics. And that is bad… in all senses. First, they “lie” to the residents, making them think that is a good place to hang. Second, they distort the grid statistics, making all think there are more people on line. And third, they cause lag and reduce performance of the main servers. Actually nobody wins with them but the land owners.
I don’t expect Linden Lab to act against them, is not easy mainly because they use to be controled by “Third parties” software and is really difficult to know when a bot is being used to distort the statistics except if you go personally to check what they are doing. The ones that have the solution are some land owners themselves, there are better ways to attract traffic, like quality content, but it seems some don’t worry about the means when only one aim in mind.
Recent Comments