Second Life – die virtuelle Welt, die vor zwei Jahren für riesen Furore sorgte. Mittlerweile ist es ein wenig stiller darum geworden. Dennoch, mein Tweet der Woche: Interview zwischen manager-magazin.de und Firmenchef Mark Kingdon - mit 22 Clicks.

Linden Lab’s Director of Marketing and PR Manager  Catherine Smith (aka Catherine Linden) attended De Hoeksteen Live! at the NIMK last night.  Catherine told us off-camera about Linden Lab’s aims to have the official opening of their European Second Life marketing headquarters in Amsterdam in january 2010.

20090926 - SL projected on a big screen during De Hoeksteen Live! at the Netherlands Media Art Institute in Amsterdam. - Broadcasting live on the SALTO 1 television channel which is also live streamed to the digital 3D De Dam square on Amsterdam Sim in Second Life.

• Mobile phone photo by Helen Fermate (aka Starshine Halasy)

CLICK TO ZOOM IN

• - Digital scan by @bornagainpagans from Amsterdam’s largest local news paper Het Parool – saturday 20090926 edition

English translation by Pooky Amsterdam & Ze Moo:

Second Life wants office in town

Amsterdam: important Internet node

By: MICHIEL COUZY

Amsterdam – Second Life arrives in Amsterdam. Mark Kindon, CEO of Linden-Lab,  was looking for office space in the city yesterday. Linden Lab is the company behind this virtual world.

The Amsterdam office is the first on the European continent. “We want to approach the European market from Amsterdam” said Kingdon.

Second Life is an online  universe. Participants enjoy it through their virtual characters called  avatars. They do what people do in the real world: shop, go to the pubs  and establish relationships.

“The Netherlands is in the top ten when it comes to numbers of users,” Kingdon said.

The choice was Amsterdam because the city, according to Kingdon, “is beautiful, creative and easily accessible,” with much talent. “The Internet and design community are very strong here,” he says. Moreover, Amsterdam is home to a major Internet node.

Linden Lab, which has an international workforce of 325 people, will begin with a small office of five to ten employees. This week also the  Linkedin profile site announced the opening of an office in Amsterdam. The Hyves social network site also resides in Amsterdam.

Second Life two years ago was an absolute bubble in the news,  but lately it’s been quieter. “We get less media attention, but we are running well and making profits,” said Kingdon. “In June we had 24 percent more users over the same period last year. Our site is trading 500 million U.S. dollars each year.”

Second Life makes money on the sale of virtual land and on the trade between avatars.

©2009 Het Parool

CLICK TO ZOOM-IN --- Snapshot by Youri Ashton taken at the virtual De Dam Square in Second Life. During an interview with ex-mayor of Amsterdam-Center, Anne Lize van der Stoel. During De Hoeksteen Live! broadcast from The Netherlands Media Art Institute on SALTO 1 (Amsterdam regional television)

Second  Life wil kantoor in stad

Amsterdam belangrijk internetknooppunt

MICHIEL COUZY

Amsterdam – Second Life strijkt neer in Amsterdam. Directeur Mark Kindon van Linden-Lab, het bedrijf achter deze virtuele wereld, was gisteren op zoek naar kantoorruimte in de stad.

Het Amsterdamse  kantoor is het eerste op het Europese vasteland. “Wij willen vanuit Amsterdam de Europese markt benaderen,” aldus Kingdon.

Second Life is een universum op internet. Deelnemers kunnen hierin rondlopen via een virtueel personage, een zogenoemde avatar. Ze doen wat mensen ook in de echte wereld doen: shoppen, naar het café gaan en relaties aanknopen.

“Nederland staat in de top tien als het  aankomt op het aantal gebruikers,” zegt Kingdon.

De keuze is gevallen op Amsterdam omdat de stad, volgens Kingdon, ‘prachtig, creatief en goed bereikbaar’ is, met veel talent. “De internet- en ontwerpgemeenschap is hier erg sterk,”zegt hij. Bovendien herbergt Amsterdam een belangrijk internetknooppunt.

Linden Lab, waar wereldwijd 325 mensen werken, wil beginnen met een klein kantoor met vijf tot tien medewerkers. Deze week maakte ook profielensite Linkedin bekend een kantoor te openen in Amsterdam. Ook vriendensite Hyves is in Amsterdam gevestigd.

Second Life was twee jaar geleden een absolute hype, maar de laatste tijd is het stil. “We krijgen minder media-aandacht, maar we draaien goed en maken winst,” aldus Kingdon. “In juni hadden we 24 procent meer gebruikers dan een jaar eerder. Op onze site wordt jaarlijks voor 500 miljoen dollar verhandeld.”

Second Life verdient geld aan de verkoop van virtueel land en aan de  handel tussen avatars.

©2009 Het Parool

flap (n:  sense 6a): a state of excitement or agitation.

Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary

Linden Lab recently updated the Second Life Web site; and, in a scrolling Flash window, we get this little piece:

“Looking for counterculture? Second Life is also full of furries, ninjas, steampunk balls and an enormous virtual recreation of Burning Man. Thousands of vampires seek victims alongside wandering elves, marauding cyberpunks and club-going Goths. Come join the party.“

Hamlet Au noticed this as he was reviewing the new site — which site is an impressive piece of work, I’ll say, though I have a peeve about one part myself that I’ll touch in another article — and wrote about it in New World Notes.  This has kicked off a discussion in the article’s Comments section about the appropriateness of the word counterculture to describe the many subgroups that inhabit a goodly chunk of the Grid.  (Please read the article before weighing in yourself!)

The discussion has been reasonably peaceful so far, even with over 40 comments (at last check).  There was some kerfluffle in the early comments, with some of the usual snark to be found in such things, but the trend seems to have settled down to a search for an appropriate word to substitute.  The talk even includes Mark Kingdon, the Big M Linden himself, who stepped in to say that the Lab’s Web team is going to change the reference.  I offered my own observation here; in summary, I threw my vote (though not the original suggestion for it) behind subculture, as a division of culture within the overarching cultural group.  Another leading candidate, suggested by Ann Otoole:  diversity (or, perhaps more simply, “diverse cultures/cultural groups”).

The main objection is that counterculture sometimes carries a negative loading to it.  The word was coined in 1968, according to Merriam-Webster (Oxford cites a 1970 use) to describe the alternative-lifestyle movement of the hippies, and was freighted with a baggage that has not yet disappeared.  I took a day to look at the article and think about it, and I do have to agree that this was not the best choice of word for the Web team to make.  It looks like we should have something different up soon (no solid prediction when, and which I do not plan to cover when it happens); but it shows their writers that words should not be chosen blithely.

Words carry meaning, obviously; but they also carry loading, especially nouns, which are descriptive of people and events.  Sometimes you can get away with riffing blindly on the language, and that is actually one way in English in which words acquire new meanings and evolve.  Counterculture means, from the Book, “a culture with values and mores that run counter to those of established society.”  I don’t think you can really say that about the furries of Luskwood, can you?  After all, they simply enjoy dressing up like big animals.  The steampunks of Caledon and Steelhead, et al., are often better behaved in manners than most of us in RL!  Is that “counterculture,” or rather a hearkening to a more civilized time (albeit with certain technical additions)?

What do you think?

Supplemental, 10:00 a.m.: There is an ongoing Plurk discussion concerning this, mostly in rebuttal of the objections.  Log in to your Plurk account to add a comment, or join Plurk to participate.

This is an interview by Lon Safko the coauthor of The Social Media Bible published by John Wiley & Sons with Mark Kingdon the CEO of Linden Labs the creators of Second Life – posted on Youtube November 2008

Those who have been around the Grid since last October will remember the uproar generated when Linden Lab announced with no fanfare that they planned to raise the purchase price on so-called “Openspace” sims.  The price would increase from $250 to $375 — an raise of 1.5 times — and nearly double the monthly maintenance cost, from $75 to $125.  The rationale given at the Big Blog was that these new land areas, which were meant as light-traffic green zones, were being far overused in terms of both traffic and prims.  Protest erupted quickly, and I commented on it in several articles on 10/28, 10/30, 10/31, 10/31 (second article), 11/3, 11/4, 11/4 (second article), 11/5 and 11/8.  (You will find links in these articles to many more.)

When Linden announced it was changing the decision, many were pleased that the Lab seemed to be listening, at least in part, to the affected Residents’ fears and anger.  The planned compromise price restructuring, however, still chased away many who saw themselves as unable to afford the planned increases even on a stepping-stone basis.  Most analysts of the Grid map noted a large falloff in the number of islands.  Linden Lab denied that there was a massive selloff, as reported by New World Notes.

Still, in an announcement on Tuesday in the Big Blog, the Lab has stated that they will lock down the price increase scheduled for July 1 on owners of their new Homestead sims, as long as the land was purchased prior to July 1.  Landowners who abandoned their Openspace regions may have the land reactivated for no charge.  The grandfathering will last for one year, until July 2010.  Anyone purchasing a Homestead on July 1 or later will pay the full price as stated in the November 5, 2008 Big Blog announcement.

Ari Blackthorne in Common¦Sensible suggests that this is a potential move to avoid another land abandonment or selloff, although he also sees it as a potential olive branch.  The comments on the SL Discussions is the usual mixed reaction, a combination of appreciation and sour grapes for various reasons, with a leavening of unrelated posts.  Generally, though, judging by the lack of traffic on the matter, reaction is muted.  It could be early days in the debate, but very little, either of palms or screeds, has been published.  (If I’m wrong, please leave links in the comments below.)  I do wonder if any great notice has been taken of the announcement.

For those interested in owning land in Second Life, the move seems to me a generous one as far as it goes.  Those who stayed in world and were bracing themselves for an economic shock in a month will get at least a year’s relief on the matter, and in their bill.  Former Residents who left for OpenSpaces have the opportunity to rebuild their areas in Second Life at little penalty, other than paying the $20/month boost from what they started out with.  What would be nicer would be a continued freeze on prices if company revenues allow next year.  Hopefully Jack and Mark will consider this as the next year rolls around.

Now, you can hope to get a more customizable Second Life experience. Linden Lab, creator of the virtual world Second Life, today (April 22) announced a series of initiatives to achieve that.

“From the beginning, Linden Lab has led the way in the development of virtual worlds and has set the standard on many cultural and social issues involved with virtual communities,” said Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab. “Preferences and community standards vary tremendously across industries, countries and cultures; our goal is to retain as much of the freedom as possible while continuing to push the medium and our platform forward.” 

In its attempt to improve Second Life experience, in January this year Linden Lab had announced acquisition of two Web-based marketplaces for virtual goods, Xstreet SL and OnRez. It planned to consolidate the two marketplaces on the Xstreet SL platform, offering one online shopping experience for customers and merchants. 

Second Life continues to be an 18+ environment. This will now be supplemented by the following initiatives: 

• The definition and implementation of a three-tiered rating system – PG, Mature, or Adult – that will be used to identify content and set individual preferences for Residents. Definitions of each of these maturity ratings are available here.

• The implementation of a new account verification system. In order to access Adult regions and search results, Second Life users will need to verify their accounts in one of two ways: a) by having payment information on file, or b) by using Linden Lab’s age verification solution, provided by Aristotle.

• The setting of maturity ratings for all regions, classifying them as PG, Mature, or Adult. Mature remains the default setting for all Second Life users. Access to Adult regions will be restricted to Residents with verified accounts.

• The migration of adult-oriented content from the Second Life mainland to a newly created continent. A timeline and specific details on how the migration will be managed and implemented is being finalized in consultation with those affected and will be published later in Q2.

• The filtering of search results according to maturity ratings and content preferences. Search results using Adult keywords will appear only for Residents with verified accounts.

To help enforce, manage and measure the success of the program, Linden Lab is implementing several automated processes to supplement its existing abuse reporting procedures. 

From a technical perspective, it says, Linden Lab will soon make available version 1.23 of the Second Life Viewer available as a release candidate (RC). This iteration will have a series of controls that will enable Residents to set maturity levels for regions, set individual preferences, and filter search accordingly. 

Developed and launched by Linden Lab in 2003, Second Life is a leading 3D virtual world environment. It enables its users – known as Residents – to create content, interact with others, launch businesses, collaborate, and educate.

Photo courtesy: Second Life

They say numbers don’t lie, and in recent months the number of people populating virtual world Second Life has started to rise again. Mark Kingdon, CEO of parent company Linden Lab, has been touting the return to steady user growth; to back up his claims, he shared with us the chart below, which tracks the number of unique repeat logins into Second Life on a month-by-month basis (it doesn’t include new signups during each month.) That number stood at 731,000 as of the end of March, the result of an upward climb that began in August 2008. Notably, it’s higher than the number of SL’s active monthly users (defined as those who log in for more than an hour at a time) in March, which Kingdon tells me was just 650,000. Since taking the helm from founder Philip Rosedale last April, Kingdon has been working with a team of newly-appointed executives to simplify the user registration/conversion process and stabilize the platform — efforts this chart suggests are paying off.

Ce vendredi 27 mars 2009, nous étions une vingtaine de personnes à être conviées à un déjeuner avec Mark Kingdon, le CEO de Linden Lab, qui était de passage en France. C’est la deuxième fois que Mark rencontre ainsi des blogueurs et des membres de la communauté Second Life en France, puisqu’un événement de cette nature avait déjà été organisé en octobre 2008. Au printemps 2008, dans un contexte différent, Philip Rosedale avait initié ce type d’échange.

Le déjeuner avec Mark était organisé à l’Espace Kadrance à Paris dans un environnement spacieux, calme et propice au dialogue. Le discours précis de Mark a été centré sur les travaux en cours à Linden Lab dans le cadre de projets concrets. Parmi les points qui m’ont semblé les plus importants, j’ai noté :

• la rénovation de la plate-forme technique “à tous les étages” ;
• la refonte du site Web afin de le rendre plus attractif et plus facile d’utilisation;
• le développement d’un tout nouveau viewer qui sera disponible avant la fin de l’année 2009 ;
• l’amélioration de l’expérience utilisateur pour les nouveaux arrivants dans Second Life ;
• l’internationalisation de la société Linden Lab.

Mark était détendu et disponible pour discuter avec chacun. On sent aussi chez lui une grande sérénité et une grande détermination : il a fermement pris les rênes de la société (315 personnes) et mobilise ses équipes vers des objectifs déterminés. Comme le dit Robert Vinet : “clair, inscrit dans la durée, engagé sur les délais. Second Life se pérennise.”

Et avec tout ça, un scoop : Mark indique que Linden Lab n’a pas l’intention de demander une licence bancaire

J’ai remarqué que l’assistance comptait très peu de femmes, alors même qu’elles sont très actives dans Second Life. Pourquoi ? Je suis convaincu que l’agence Lewis, qui a organisé cet événement de façon excellente, saura “ajuster le tir” pour la prochaine fois.

A noter que Jeanrem a enregistré l’intervention de Mark et vous pouvez donc l’écouter : ici.

Back in October 2008, I received an IM from someone named M Linden.  He told me he was looking at some of my work and wanted to buy some.  I asked him where he was and he said he was at Rezzable Visions.  So I immediately dropped everything and TP’d over there.

Chatting with M Linden

M Linden happens to be Mark Kingdon in Real Life, and he is the Chief Executive Officer of Second Life!

Luckily, I knew that when he IM’d me.

I helped him buy some of my stuff, and he said at the time that he wanted to put them up in his own personal sculpture garden in SL.  I went looking for his land at one point but it happens to be on protected Linden land, so I couldn’t get in to see what he did with it.

I thought that was the end of that.

Yesterday, Torley Linden posted a Tweet (on Twitter) about a Flickr picture of M Linden’s SL office.  I was ecstatic to find a picture of two of my sculptures floating over his office:

Two of my geometric sculptures floating over M Linden's office in SL.

I then went through all of Mr. CEO Linden’s posts on Flickr and found some more good shots of his visit to my Rezzable Visions build.

"I love this. Bought one from the creator and it's sitting on my roof "

In a recent interview with Ian Lamont of The Industry Standard, Linden Lab’s CEO, Mark Kingdon, said that the company is targeting growth in France, Germany, Spain, Brazil, and Japan.

Said Kingdon, “In Japan, we have someone on the ground that helps with communications and partner relationships. We don’t in Germany because that can be served from other markets.

“The three centers for Linden Lab are the United States, most of our staff is here, and then we have staff in Brighton, England. We have staff in Singapore and then we have a few people in other markets, but our three core staff areas are in the United States, (Brighton) England, and then Singapore.”

Kingdon also talked about Nebraska, the code name for a project to address the needs of businesses and corporations.

“We’re also developing a behind-the-firewall solution which is something that companies have asked for, for quite some time because there are some companies that want to host Second Life themselves. Obviously there are some security concerns or they have content that they want to develop that’s closer for their business or their corporate firewall which makes it logistically easier for them to maintain and manage themselves.”

Future developments include bringing the web into Second Life, rather than taking Second Life into the web.

“What we are looking at for Second Life is to bring a lot more of the Web into Second Life, and to take really significant elements of the Second Life experience and put them out on the Web, so that we are in sync with the market changes in terms of the way people want to connect with and consume Second Life.
“It doesn’t mean we’re going to put the entire Second Life experience in a browser, because there are probably elements for the foreseeable future that you can’t do that with”

The comment, “…there are probably elements for the foreseeable future that you can’t do that with” suggests changes to come, including the integration of IM (the SLIM product) and voice out from the SL client to other web-based options (such as Google chat?)

Source: The Industry Standard

This is a retraction of a previous statement made in an entry on Metaversally Speaking in the entry LCO: Spades and Mountains. Building upon a reputation of credibility, I have no issues admitting when I am wrong, as wish to make a correction on the following statement:

“The CEO of Linden Lab would not start replying to individual blog posts – that in itself is a full time job!”

I was short-sighted to make such a comment, and was proved wrong when it became apparent that M Linden has indeed read Metaversally Speaking and also made a comment on the blog.

In further confirmation emails with the CEO of Linden Lab, I can also confirm he was very amused by the parody hacking of his secret email account, and blushed at my open letter addressed to him.

At the request of the Mr. Kingdon, I will continue to keep blogging and providing insights into Second Life through Metaversally Speaking.

The author wishes to apologise to the readers of Metaversally Speaking, and will take due care with future articles.

Prad Prathivi

Our intrepid spies have pulled off a major coup in the ongoing struggle to free all information necessary for full understanding of our relationship with Linden Lab.  Read this post, and see just what goes on behind the scenes of the Lab, as reflected in the contents of M Linden’s GMail account!  Read carefully and fully….

Our spy, of course, was Prad Pravithi, who also released to us the plans for a new computer keyboard designed exclusively for Second Life last summer….

Thanks to Hamlet Au and New World Notes

So I, like, totally hacked M Linden’s email inbox. *cough*

Yeah, this is my latest parody based off the back of a Santa Claus parody.. I bring you email joy!

Enjoy!

Pop on over to Metaversally Speaking!

Games giant Sony announced its entry into the metaverse with its new virtual world called Playstation Home. Slated to launch at Christmas, PS3 owners will be able to download free software that allows them to explore the new virtual lands. As with Second Life, players will create an avatar and interact with people and objects. Unlike Second Life, sex is not allowed. No details yet on how that will be enforced.

Primary source: Times Online

A new free and open source virtual world browser and construction toolkit called Cobalt has just been launched. Cobalt uses peer-based messaging to eliminate the need for virtual world servers and makes it very simple to create and securely share collaborative virtual worlds that run on all major software operating systems. The project originated at Duke University in the United States and is open to anyone. A new social networking page dedicated to Cobalt has just been opened on the Ning network.

Primary source: Open Cobalt on Ning Network

Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab, owners of the Second Life virtual world, has an interview in the latest edition of Forbes magazine. When asked if Second Life was in decline, he reported that that activity is high and so is awareness. In a Linden Lab survey, 80-85% of business respondents said they were aware of and interested in virtual worlds for business. Moreover, Second Life has received over 40,000 press mentions in the last twelve months. Meanwhile residents of Second Life continues to complain about changes in land fees and instability of the software.

Primary source: Forbes Magazine

De nouvelles têtes viennent d’être nommées pour opérer la transformation de l’éditeur américain. Amanda van Nuys une ancienne de chez Organic d’où vient Mark kingdon actuel CEO, sera en charge du marketing orienté vers les entreprises et les solutions en rapport.
Howar Look se voit confier le poste de Senior Vice President of Customer Applications. Après un parcours de 18 ans au sein de Pixar Animation Studios (Vice President of Software) et TiVo Inc (Vice President of Application Software and User Experience) ou Silicon Graphics (participation sur la création du VRML) , il aura la charge d’améliorer l’expérience utilisateur. Il travaillera notamment avec Tom halle sur la refonte d’un viewer plus optimisé.
L’entreprise continue donc à s’agrandir à l’inverse de nombreux billets annonçant la fin de cette aventure depuis maintenant près d’un an voir deux. 
Sinon Philip Rosedale ex CEO mais en charge de la stratégie continue lui aussi de travailler même lors de Burning Man.

Sources: Blog Second Life

Marketwatch, NWM,  Vintfalken

As promised, Mark Kingdon released an article for the Big Blog today, announcing changes to the planned price increase on the Openspace sims. As you may recall from our last exciting episode, it was originally planned to do a blanket increase on setup and maintenance (“tier”) in January 2009, with the tier rising from $75 USD to $125. The result was quick (if not instantaneous) and substantially explosive. In addition to blog reactions, a substantial Forum thread was started by the Lindens that grew to at least 250 pages, filled with gripes — but also with calmer, thoughtful commentary and suggestions.

The Lindens read, and listened, and considered. Now they’ve answered:

1. We are going to retain the Openspaces product at its original price point and its original intended use (forest, water, etc.). We will have technical limitations to help regulate their use, initially avatar and prim limit restrictions, eventually event, classified and script limits. Those of you who chose to use the Openspaces as intended may stay at the US$75 rate, but will need to contact the concierge team to do so.

2. If you want more than an Openspace, we will offer you the choice of moving to a new product called Homesteads that is intended for light use such as low density rentals. For existing Openspace owners we will phase in the price increase for this new product over the next 6 months. Homesteads will also have technical limits for avatars and prims, and eventually script limits as well.

* January 5, 2009 – non-compliant Openspaces will transition to Homesteads and the maintenance fees will go from $75 to $95 per month. We will offer an educational discount to qualified educators on the new Homestead product. The discount amount will be the same as Private Regions, roughly 30%.

* July 2009 — the maintenance fees for Homesteads will go from $95 to $125 per month.

There is more detail in the FAQ posted at the Knowledge Base, and a new Forum thread for comment.

This has to be looked at carefully, but I’m not sure that it’s a better deal for the ones who will get burned most — the Residents who were obeying the rules. If I follow correctly, the original void sim had an 1875 prim allowance; now they’re planning to drop it to 750 prims, and with script restrictions in the future that may wash out some recreational vehicle use (this is uncertain as of writing). The people staying in the new Homestead sims will eventually still pay the $125; it’s just deferred until July 2009, instead of January. I won’t say this is a bait-and-switch routine, as some posters in the Forums are accusing the Lindens of doing; I’m not a network or other form of technical hardware specialist, and I’m willing to accept their explanations for now. What I do say is that the proposal is imperfect, and needs more consideration by Linden Lab. It sounds as if they are still willing to listen to calm and reasoned debate — the best kind — and something better could be thrashed out yet.

=====

Other reactions:

• Hypatia Callisto suggests that the solution is for Linden Lab to allow large communities to rent their own server and divvy up resources within that area.
• New World Notes is running a poll on the question. At writing, the “dissatisfied and worried” camp is leading, with about 38% of the total; but those satisfied are second at just under 30%. James also writes about the question for GigaOM, noting that a lot of the “contentment” is seasoned with a good bit of grumbling as well.
• In the category of “contented”: Common Sensible; Crap Mariner; Harper Beresford; Nexeus Fatale.  Not thrilled:  Hotspur Otoole.  Okay but critical:  Raul Crimson.

A week after Linden Lab said it was raising the cost of buying and maintaining much of the virtual land in Second Life, leading to open revolt among many users, the company has significantly revised its pricing policies. Citing enormous customer feedback, Linden CEO Mark Kingdon laid out the revision today on the company’s blog.

At issue are the fate of so-called “Openspaces,” Second Life regions where wilderness and open ocean predominate. Such regions were designated for “light use” when Linden put them up for sale earlier this year, but that term was somewhat ambiguously defined, and what happened next is a case study in the challenges inherent in managing user-generated content. Many residents began building massive constructions and businesses on their Openspaces, causing unexpected server load. Meanwhile, others kept their land use comparatively light, adding Openspaces to existing property to buy a better view, for example, or to use as extra space for virtual sailing and other activities. No one was happy when the company announced the price hikes, but the light users in particular felt unfairly penalized.

In the revision, Openspace owners who comply with these regions’ original intent will be exempt from the increase, but will have to abide by technical limitations that Linden Lab is now implementing into their world’s server architecture, to insure they’re kept light use. Those who don’t comply will eventually pay the original price hike. So far, the virtual world’s user base seems largely receptive to the change. In an unscientific survey on my Second Life blog, reaction currently runs overwhelmingly positive, with nearly 70 percent describing themselves as satisfied — though much of them, just begrudgingly so.

Image credit: “Libris no more,” by Wildstar Beaumont.

Wagner James (Hamlet) Au of New World Notes got an opportunity to sit down with Mark Kingdon, a.k.a. M Linden, the CEO of Linden Lab, and questioned him about the Openspace controversy set off by last week’s announcement.  Read his article here!

The best comment I’ve seen on his article (to this point of writing) is by Hypatia Callisto, who headed her comment with one of the best “scientific laws” ever created, Hanlon’s Razor:  “Never ascribe to conspiracy what you can ascribe to mere stupidity.”  The comment is for those who are certain that Linden Lab is jacking rates to make money preparatory to an IPO, or just to fill company coffers.

The denizens of Linden Lab’s virtual world Second Life are a passionate lot, so when the San Francisco company recently announced a steep purchase and maintenance fee increase on popular regions of their virtual land, sign-waving avatars were soon gathered outside Linden’s SL office, in protest. Some even set themselves on fire.

There have been protests like this throughout the world’s five-year history, but without a competing virtual world offering all the unique features of Second Life, angry customers have largely stayed put, despite their grumblings. Now, however, there is an increasingly viable alternative: OpenSim, an open-source platform for developing virtual worlds, that was, ironically, made possible after Linden Lab released its viewer code. Though still in beta mode, OpenSim has attracted developers with IBM (s IBM), Microsoft (s MSFT), and numerous startups, so it’s bound to rapidly improve.

Within 24 hours of the price hike announcement, more than 800 frustrated SL users, including influential members of the community, had registered with an attractive OpenSim variation. That might not seem like much, but Linden Lab is profitable primarily through virtual land sales, and less than 17 percent of its 507,000 active users are premium subscribers who can own SL real estate. (Economic stats here, SL reg. req.) That number has been slowly but steadily decreasing — there were 93,000 premium subscribers in December 2007, but in August 2008, the last published figure, less than 85,000. So if a few thousand of its land-owning users quit SL for OpenSim, accelerating this slide, the company will likely feel the pressure.

I contacted freshly minted Linden CEO Mark Kingdon for his comments about the protest. In a statement provided by his publicist, Kingdon told me, “We understand that this price adjustment will affect businesses and other projects of some our Second Life Residents,” and emphasized the cost increases were only directed at select landowners, who have until January 2009 to adjust themselves to the new rates. “To be clear,” Kingdon continued, “this price adjustment affects only a portion of land in Second Life; it does not apply to private islands or regular mainland property. We made this change to ensure an optimal Second Life experience for all Residents.”

That may be, but anger over this increase (which many consider unfair) and concern over future price hikes have become added incentives for users to consider OpenSim grids that charge less for virtual land. Second Life does retain a lot of goodwill among its supporters (including me), which will dampen any calls for a general exodus. Still, one thing remains clear: “I’m moving to OpenSim!” has already become the metaverse version of the “I’m moving to Canada!” threat we hear every U.S. Presidential election.

L’agence PR Lewis organisait ce jeudi 23 octobre un rendez-vous informel avec Mark Kingdon le nouvel homme fort de Linden Lab éditeur de Second Life. Un premier Opus avait eu lieu en début d’année avec Philip Rosedale son prédécesseur toujours en place d’ailleurs. On apprendra d’ailleurs comment s’est déroulé le recrutement sur le poste de CEO. Philip Rosedale fut un intervenant lors d’une présentation chez Organic l’agence digitale marketing conduite depuis 2001 par Mark Kingdon. Ce dernier fut bluffé par le charisme de son intervention. C’est en vacance en lisant le journal que Kingdon notera l’offre d’emploi proposée par Linden Lab. Il rédigera un mail immédiatement mais ne l’enverra qu’à la fin de son séjour.(Pressentiment d’un grand changement)

L’audio chez Imarginal

Son Parcours :

Mark Kingdon en entrant chez Linden Lab s’offre une nouvelle jeunesse et cela se voit. Il semble émerveillé par l’outil et l’entreprise qu’il a dans les mains. Depuis 2001, c’est à dire une très mauvaise date pour l’Internet, il dirige Organic qui est l’une des agences web marketing désormais leader aux US (clients : Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, HP, Samsung, Nike, Sony…). Apres 7 ans il avoue en avoir fait le tour et qu’Organic peut continuer sans lui. Auparavant il a travaillé chez Idealab une structure qui a promut et selectionné des start ups (un incubateur en somme).

Idealab a poussé à l’époque une société fortement décriée. Une société malmenée et très critiquée (un peu comme un second life finalement) par son système à limite de l’admissible publicitaire pour les consultants de l’époque : GoTo.com. Goto est simplement l’inventeur des liens sponsorisés et détient le brevet. La société sera achetée par Yahoo et se mutera pendant un temps sous le nom d’Overture et maintenant de Yahoo Search Marketing. Sans cet achat je ne suis pas sur que Yahoo serait encore dans sa position actuelle car la « patent » (le brevet) permet de faire payer tous les acteurs y compris Google. Un peu plus tôt il fut en charge des activités de distribution et retail chez PricewaterhouseCoopers. Autant dire que le garçon a le bon profil a part « son temps de jeu dans un univers virtuel » mais il avoue passer entre 2 et 5 heures par jour dans Second Life.

Le lieu : Toi

Philip Rosedale était apparu dans le cadre des salons lounge de l’hotel Kube, son successeur sera apparenté au Toi. Un petit salon particulier d’une contenance de 30 personnes est réservé pour cette intervention. En arrivant avec Laurent Heckmann d’Andreamedia, l’hôtesse d’accueil fut un peu déconcertée quand nous lui annoncerons que nous venons au déjeuner Second Life. Il n’y a que 4 ou 5 personnes en arrivant (les personnes de ConceptSL : Yohan Launay, Nicolas Mas, Nicolas Barrial d’Extralab…).

Apres s’être assis un peu à l’écart sur la banquette de droite nous décidons avec Laurent de rejoindre le groupe formé sur la banquette de gauche. Ce changement fera que je serais par hasard juste à la droite de Mark kingdon. Par conséquent je vais relater différentes choses mais je ne sais plus ce qui vient de nos entretiens particuliers ou de ses interventions. De toute façon l’ensemble de son intervention est en rapport avec les posts suivants :

Quoi de neuf chez l’editeur de Second Life
Localisations et planifications marketing en cours pour second life
Tutoriaux sur le site Portail

Ou relayé ici :

Wangxiang tuxing

Ange Zanetti

Virtualnews

Différents acteurs de la Slsphere vont se succéder : Kerunix Flan, Hugobiwan Zolnir, Coulaut Menges, Betty Renoir (bibliotheque française), Wangxiang Tuxing, Rfly de RIL Shopping, Jeanrem Bibi (I-marginal), Saddam Triskaidekaphobia de Liberta, Gilbert Reveillon (Laser group), Ange Zanetti et quelques noms qui m’échappent.

Enfin Mark kindgon arrive accompagné de Robin Harper apparemment un peu jetlagguée.Contrairement aux photos de presse, Mark n’est pas en costume mais en jeans et blouson en cuir tendance. Il m’avouera plusieurs fois qu’il veut absolument que les marques de modes s’installent durablement dans second life(notamment pour Hommes afin que M Linden puisse faire ses courses J). Je lui ai fait le petit laïus sur la mort de Yves saint Laurent relayée en TV où le reportage commençait par montrer que YSL jouait au couturier en dessinant ses modèles sur un cahier et que les prochains YSL utiliseront l’univers 3D pour s’exercer et que cela avait déjà commencé au vue de la vivacité du monde des couturiers et fashionista de Second Life.

Mark Kingdon tout comme son homologue Philip Rosedale saluera poliment tout le monde avec comme première approche celle de savoir quel est le nom de l’avatar de son interlocuteur. En fait il est très curieux et cherche à comprendre qui fait quoi et comment. Ce n’est pas par hasard qu’il avoue passer beaucoup de temps sur les help Island afin de comprendre les freins des premiers résidents. Il écoute ses clients et cherche les solutions concrètes ensuite.

Le timing étant strict (1h 20 je crois), il se présentera une première fois en évoquant son parcours et les actions en cours.

L’audio chez Imarginal

Différents points sont évoqués :

Rendre la plate-forme technique plus robuste et extensive (il parle volontiers d’accueillir des millions d’utilisateurs en simultané, le dernier record étant de 68 000 pour l’instant).

A la fin de cette intervention il positionne la différence de sa plate-forme (rentable, base client) face au 184 millions d’ investissements dans des mondes virtuels n’ayant pas encore réalisés leur deuxième tour de table dans des temps de crise ou les levées de fonds vont moins abonder.

A ce propos il cite l’arrivée de Frank ambrose. (scalability and stability)

Quoi de neuf chez l’editeur de Second Life

Travailler l’accès et optimiser « la première heure » si deceptive.

Il est très conscient de l’effort marketing qu’il y a faire sur ce point.

Simplifier l’enregistrement et peut être proposer de la customisation d’avatar dès le web pour raccourcir le temps passé sur ce point et le désagrément de paraître ridicule lors de sa première expérience. Proposer des solutions afin que chacun trouve des lieux intéressant ou se dirige selon ses affinités. Proposer un viewer simplifié sans réduire les fonctionnalités indispensables pour les utilisateurs expérimentés.

Il est semble t-il plus conscient que Philip Rosedale que le potentiel est dans l’utilisateur qui crée le contenus (temps passé ) que dans la plate-forme en elle-même ce qui fait l’une de ses différences avec d’autres mondes virtuels.

D’ailleurs il a recruté Tom Halle pour travailler l’offre produit et des projets de monétisation hors vente d’îles, terrain, search… sont en projet.

Localisations et planifications marketing en cours pour second life

Rappelons ce que je relate dans l’article au-dessus : Tom Halle a passé un peu de temps à observer les réseaux sociaux et Mark semble etre bien conscient qu’il y a du bon a prendre.

“Second life is the Ultimate social tool without social tool”

Il précise aussi que Linden Lab utilise Second Life pour leurs meeting interne et qu’ayant déjà vue les outils de conférence call ou video call dans ses expériences passées en entreprise, cet outil est de loin supérieur en productivité et que cela sera indéniable dans dix ans. Il insiste sur ce point aussi en aparté au niveau des grands changements de son quotidien en entreprise.

Plusieurs fois il relativisera sur la mauvaise réputation de Second Life dans les médias en précisant qu’en interne Linden lab réalise une veille sur tout ce qui est publié et que la tendance de connotation a tonalité négative d’un article diminue au profit d’articles faisant un focus sur des usages précis ou intéressant.

Au final tout cela était assez convivial, M Linden donnera sa carte (imprimé à l’envers J comme quoi les efforts marketing se font aussi au niveau du print) et comme son prédécesseur il aura eu la faculté d’interagir sur le viewer réel du temps en le positionnant en mode ensoleillé.

Le rêve de metaverse des californiens continue son bout de chemin.

José Feliciano ~ California Dreamin

Comme annoncé ici il y a un mois, Second Life va enfin être un peu plus lisible avec la traduction du client en allemand, français, coréen et japonais. Il sera également en partie localisé en espagnol, chinois, portugais brésilien et danois. Idem apparemment pour le contenus du site web. J’avoue que je n’explique pas le fait que cela ne soit pas dejà réalisé depuis longtemps. Depuis son vrai début de commercialisation et de médiatisation, l’utilisateur français se voyait confronté à une interface en anglais et un site web en anglais et quand on connaît le niveau linguistique de nos compatriotes ce point n’a fait que rendre la plate-forme plus ardue et desservie tout recrutement de membre et de fidélisation.
Voici une répartition des usages lors de la première heure de connexion (Source : nwm)

La majorité des utilisateurs semblent sauter les étapes par faute d’empressement et de manque de points d’orientations et d’informations dans leurs langues. La prise en main necessitant soit une aide externe (parrain résident) ou d’un acharnement de plusieurs heures dès lors le taux d’abandon se justifie aisément. Sans compter les incompatibilités liées au matériels ( lire: cartes graphiques)

Sur un autre aspect, en cas de renouvellement de carte de crédit, le système ne comprend plus rien et clos le compte de l’avatar en question dont le seul recours est d’appeler un numéro aux Etats Unis qui ne répondra pas en français.

Concernant le milieu professionnel, le site secondlifegrid est toujours dans la langue de Shakespeare.

Linden Lab dispose de marché cibles prioritaires (les naturellement localisés :US, UK) (les « en attente de localisation » : Allemagne, Japon, France, Brésil) (les « stratégiques » : Langue espagnole, Chine, Corée).

On remarquera depuis peu que le département marketing s’élargie avec l’arrivée récente d’une directrice marketing Europe. Clare Rees a passé neuf ans chez Macromedia sur des postes de marketing Europe puis chez Adobe après le rachat en 2005 de Macromedia, notamment entant que responsable marketing Europe de Adobe Creative Suit for Education.

D’autre part un nouveau poste a été crée : Chief Product Officer. Tom Hale encore un ancien de chez Adobe(ex Senior Vice President, Knowledge Worker Solutions Business Unit ), aura la sympathique mission de créer , lancer, promouvoir de nouvelles offres en terme de monétisation / produits. Son profile est intéressant car il a pris un an pour observer les canaux de ventes de produits virtuels, réels, les communautés et les réseaux sociaux.

Enfin le marché allemand s’est doté depuis plusieurs mois d’un poste de German Market Development Manager(occupé par Jean Miller anciennement Community Manager au siège), une sorte de country manager. (A Lire : ici )

Les équipes se forment peu à peu plutôt axées « produit », d’ailleurs le principale instigateur alias Mark Kingdon ( CEO) devrait prochainement évoquer tout cela lors d’un rendez-vous parisien.

Lors du SLCC (Second Life Community Convention), Mark Kingdon et Philip Rosedale ont annoncé les éléments suivants :

Le temp passé par les utilisateurs de Second Life est de 35 millions d’heures par mois,

L’objectif de 100 millions est dans le viseur.

Philip Rosedale travaille sur une camera 3D à la minority report pour améliorer l’expérience utilisateur.

Linden Lab souhaite proposer des actions / solutions (programmes) pour les pays en développement.

Selon eux la 3D permettra plus de mélange entre les populations de différents pays à l’inverse du web cloisonné par la barrière du langage sur la page.

“The Web has isolated us across language boundaries, but the 3D version of it won’t,” he said. ‘The presence of living people in the space means that we can cross language barriers.”

M Linden (Mark Kingdon ) a précise que Linden Lab travaille sur la pertinence, la fiabilité et facilité d’utilisation du système et de l’interface.

Les axes de développement sur lesquels Linden Lab souhaite se focaliser sont : « live music, shopping, education, and virtual meetings »

Ils annoncent le lancement d’une interface entièrement française d’ici un mois.

Concernant OpenSim : “We’re trying to play a leadership role in those standards,” M Linden said.

La plate-forme s’emploie actuellement à la suppression progressive des pollutions publicitaire (ad farm) sur le mainland

Il y a aussi une sérieuse remise en question et réflexions sur les zones d’aides et d’apprentissage (Help Island)

Un nouveau senior vice-président of global technology Frank Ambrose a été récemment nommé. En gros ils vont essayer de gerer et avancer. “we run things (It’s like that)” 

Da bush babies – we run things (It’s like that)

Source : SLNN