“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

You all didn’t know he had one, did you?  See….I’m THAT relative.

 I’m Rrishanna Regina.  Prad’s older sister, his silent business partner…some have even said that I’m his conscience.  And for once, he’s listened to his conscience and is letting me blog.

What I’m going to write about, we’re not sure yet.  That’s kinda how it works in our little family…we try things then see how they work out.  We start with a plywood cube and see what it turns into.  We start with a photograph then see what we can do with it.  We bring THAT relative out of hiding, and hope and pray they don’t do anything to embarrass the family.

My goal?  First and foremost, is to torment Prad (isn’t that the goal of every good older sister?).  Secondly, it’s to finally feel like I have a say in things as well.  By the very nature of my kind, loving and optimistic personality I allow others to speak first, listen to what they have to say, then decide if its worth my time to comment…and that’s led to me feeling a bit left out of the conversation. No longer.  Thirdly, I want to share my enthusiasm for one sadly overlooked aspect of Second Life….plants, landscaping, etc.

I just lost a bunch of you there, didn’t I?

Put it this way…Prad’s an awesome builder!  A fantastic Architect in RL and SL.  In SL, his builds are recognized for their warmth and welcoming feel, which is incredibly hard to do with modern contemporary architecture.  How does he accomplish this?  He calls me in and tells me to throw some plants around.  Live, organic things soften and warm a structure. Picture the building you live in, RL or SL.  Take away any flowers, grass, bushes, or trees.  See? Not so welcoming anymore.  The landscaping I do in SL warms up the cold digital environment, and more conveniently, hides any structural mistakes Prad might have made.  (Yes!  Prad makes mistakes!  Look behind the bushes!)

Ok, confession to make, I am a landscaper in SL.  It’s my business.  I work with Prad on many of his builds, I do landscaping for friends and such.  I’ve been hired by a couple of people to landscape their sims.  I’ve even got a portfolio set up online and pictures up on Flickr.  Looking at this, it doesn’t seem much of a confession…but here’s the scandalous part…. I don’t make my own plants!

*gasp!*

My texturing abilities suck…and I mean suck…if my texturing abilities were a person, they would suck a watermelon through a garden hose, or suck the chrome off a bumper, they suck worse than a vacuum cleaner in outer space. Get the picture?

That confession is the kicker…why should people hire me when they can go to shops inworld and buy the plants themselves?  You hire me, you get my experience, my eye, and my time.  I can get the landscaping done for you while you’re off doing what you like to do in SL. 

At this point, I know, many of you are going “get this chick off the topic of plants…sheesh!” or “You’ve turned my blog into an informercial!” (Sorry bro). So I’ll can it for a while.  But I’ll be back…and I’ll be bringing my opinions, my sisterly blackmail knowledge of Prad, and my love of all things green and organic (well except for spinach, that’s just nasty). I may even do some landscaping and design tutorials!

Show two people a sim, and they’re likely to give you two differing opinions of things like aesthetics, accessibility and functionality.

One man will see a beautiful designed sofa, textured perfectly with multiple animations built in. The other will see somewhere to sit, not much different to several other sofas in SL. One woman will see meticulously crafted stiletto boots, complete with perfect prim toes and gorgeous texturing. The other will see overpriced shoes with prosthetic feet in a world where it really doesn’t matter if you walk over broken glass.

Selective perception is what engages us as consumers and gears us towards products that interest us at the time. We watch out for what matters to us most.

Essentially, we walk around noticing the things that relate to our lives or reinforce our beliefs, and ignore the rest - our lives are full enough as it is.

Events can easily change our selective perception. If you’re looking for land, you’ll notice classifieds for plots, and spot people who write that they’re landowners in their profile. If you just bought a house, you’ll notice accessories and furniture in other people’s homes/stores more and likely that you’ll check the creator so you can see their products.

We never noticed this before, so where did all that awareness of land and furniture come from?

They were always there - you just never noticed them. Selective perception blocks out the things we feel lack relevance, until an event changes our outlook. Then we notice things we didn’t see before.

Trigger events have a huge importance because of opportunity - when a blogger highlights a matter that you read, you suddenly notice its prominence more. When a fad breaks out in Second Life, you hear about it all the time. When someone makes a list and you see your name on it, it consumes your selective perspective. It’s what matters to you, although it will be largely irrelevant to another person.

The key is how you use this - once a person realises “Hey - that’s just like me!”, you can the potential to capitalise on this, and tap into the window of opportunity.

Naturally, people move on. That plot of land is bought and developed. The furniture is set out and a house becomes a home. Those shoes and sofas are replaced with never, more innovative products. They acknowledge the similarities you’ve appealed to them with, and accept it as the “norm”, as their selective perception filters it out once again, and moves onto the next big thing.

But that’s okay - they’re not your target audience anymore. Time to innovate, and kick start the next big thing.

Jeez.. even I’m sick of this now. Someone hand me God Tools already, and let us begin the era of “cleansing” so we can put this damn thing to bed. Content theft hasn’t shut up since.. well, ever.

I’d actually love to know if I could claim a copyright on selling prim cubes in SL - and then file DMCA takedowns on ever Tom, Dick and Harry for stealin’ ma mofo’ primz.

My gripe today comes from this article - while I don’t give a sore monkey’s backside about any of the people and what they’re squabbling about, there’s an opinion at the end which bugs the heck outta me.

“Finally, I would like to point out that RL is not SL. It doesn’t matter what there already is in RL, because unless the same creator is making that same product in SL, it’s a whole new ball game in the virtual world.”

Wow..

Okay.

Thanks for that wonderful bit of insight.

SL is RL. FL is RL. RL is RL.

Believe it or not, the virtual world isn’t some protective little bubble which gives us all legal immunity. The sick old men having ageplay sex with kiddie avatars are still liable to get into “deep shit”. That’s a technical term, by the way.

I love that opinion - it’s like saying “Because they don’t know it’s there, it means it’s okay for us to steal their work and profit from it!” The article cites some designers in SL who have happily produced replicas of Real world products in Second Life, and profiting from it.

Am I the only one who’s seeing the problem here?

I’m an original content creator. I design stuff from scratch, so it’s completely unique to Second Life. Now if a firm came into SL, stole my designs and started manufacturing my designs in the real world without giving me any cut of the profits, I’m pretty sure I’d be just the teeniest bit pissed off. Arson is probably the least of the things that’d be on my mind - yes, that is a threat.

So actually - no, it’s not okay to replicate real world stuff in Second Life, because unless you have the express permission to do so, you’re not being ethical. You’re not respecting the hard work that the original designer put into their work.

No - you can’t put a copyright on a fern. But if you just lifted the texture for the fern from a protected image which says you can’t use it for profit, then you’re violating IP rights.

No - you can’t copyright concepts. I can’t go out tomorrow and put a copyright on the penis. As much fun as it would be to sue anyone who dares to use their penis again, I know that the law is geared to stop people like me tormenting men of the world.

I don’t deny that designers who produce replicas are talented, and have skillz. I’m not really denying they lack creativity either - I am saying they lack ethics. Unless they give the original designer a cut of their profit, or they purchase a license to create replicas, then they’re ripping off someone else’s design for personal gain.

SL is not a safe haven for us to do this - it’s not illegal to do so yet, but it’s definitely unethical, and I for one am disgusted that people could think otherwise.

Google is my browser’s homepage, and when I click for Firefox to load, I expect Google to pop up instantly. This set a dangerous precedent when I then do a search, and again expect the results to be accurate to what I’m looking for, and to appear instantly.

Now I appreiciate that the results webpages won’t be as quick as Google is, but anything longer than 5-10 seconds, and I’m going to hit ‘Back’ and try another result. That’s a pretty strong contrast to a decade ago when I was happy to kill a couple of minutes playing Minesweeper while I waited for Yahoo! to load up on Dial Up.

Similarly, I find reading articles and blogs online to be much easier than reading long drawn articles on the internet or print - if an article goes more than 5-6 paragraphs, I tend to find myself skim reading to get the jist of it.

That could well be a sign of my own lack of attention span, but I have the feeling that other people will relate to this - the internet presents us a quick and easy way to gain access to the knowledge we want to know, primarily through search tools.

My musing is whether this would apply within Second Life - a platform which is based strongly on visual components.

SL has the issue with load times - I find if a sim hasn’t loaded after a couple of minutes, I’ll get bored and move on. When building a sim, I rarely use a palette of more than 10 textures, as I’m aware once the sim owner adds their own pieces in, the place will have a longer load time.

The shorter the load time, the faster a visitor can access what they’re looking for. It’s part of the age where speed is a necessity, and people don’t expect to be kept waiting.

A hair store in SL which I visited recently blindsighted me on this. I tp’d in and waited for the sim to load, but all I saw was my avatar stood in shallow sea water, and lots of floating panels with hair products. It took me a good few minutes to realise there was actually no store build, and that I had fully rezzed a while ago - in a metaverse where we expect fancy, high quality builds, it was refreshing to find someone who had put convenience first.

But my ponder is if this impatience is going to make us stupider? Will our demand for access to only information that we require lead to us abandon the “deep reading” attained from the printing press? The pressure for immediacy and efficiency could well sacrifice the imagery and deep mental connection we make with what we see and read, instead just becoming information decoders.

Essentially what we are presented with is a form of artificial intelligence - the tools we are using to gain access to information are getting better at knowing what we want, and where we can find it as well as being quicker and more efficient about it.

When online, we need a purpose - just sitting and contemplating what to do on the internet or in Second Life is being shunned. We are presented with a wide array of activities and information to serve our procrastination, and little time for thought and ambiguity.

The faster we surf the web, or teleport from sim to sim, the more opportunities are available for commercial interests to pick up on our trends, and aim advertising at us. It’s in the economic interest of these companies that we don’t use the internet at a slow pace, and engage in concentrated thoughts. More clicks and more hits equates to more money.

Perhaps I’m just overanalysing this. It’s only natural to ponder the worst of a situation when new technologies present themselves. Socrates complained that the written word would destroy mankind’s ability to carry knowledge in their head, and the failure to exercise their memory would lead them to be forgetful. He argued that the advent of written word would lead to people being able to give the perception of intelligence, but without understanding what they’ve read, they would simply be ignorant. Essentially filled with the conceit of wisdom, as opposed to real wisdom.

Socrates wasn’t far wrong either - but he failed to realise that the sharing of ideas through the written word would spur creativity and allow for new ideas and knowledge to develop.

It should be noted that deep reading doesn’t equate to deep thinking - the internet may give us the power to find information concisely, but that doesn’t mean we don’t ponder it. Indeed, we think about ways that information in Second Life can be presented better, and we have the tools to be able to express our ideas differently.

I think it’s important that we don’t take everything at face value, and that we think, create and share ideas - don’t accept something you see in SL as it is. Know that you can think about ways it could be improved, and that you can develop and implement the skills to do so, or share the ideas with someone else who can.

I think too many people in Second Life are taking things as they are, and not communicating their ideas. We don’t want a society where the avatar feels scripted to accept what is there. As we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, we run the risk of our own intelligence flattening into artificial intelligence.

Questions things. Ponder how something can be better. Think about things you see and interact with, and how they enhance your experience. Don’t just live an existence in Second Life - share your ideas, change it and make a difference.

I am fully aware on the irony at the length of this article, and that you most likely skim read it. It’s okay.

The major event of the year had to be the “breakup” of Amodica, which initially was shock, but led me to realise that entire markets were there for the taking, and I was perfectly positioned to compete in a large sector of SL. The important thing I learnt was that I although I had the skills and talent, I never realised how much support I had, not just from friends but people I’d never even met.

With a force like that behind me, I know that I can work towards my full potential. I also learnt my lessons from when Amodica’s store was active - not to rush things and expect instant results. I know now that by biding my time, and working to perfect and hone my skills, I can create exactly what I visualise, and be able to cater to the market demand. Success comes to those who know when the time is right, and when I feel the time is right, Amodica will relaunch and become the success we’ve worked hard for it to be.

I’ve learnt to be me, and not what anyone else expects me to be. I have batshit crazy ex-girlfriend to thank for that one - without the pyscho-stalking to make me realise that what I did infuriated her, I would never have seen the powerful medium that a blog can achieve. Being able to stir up emotions through words is what has made Metaversally Speaking one of the biggest new journals in the SL blogosphere, and has created its own cult following.

2008 was also the year when I started taking my SL artwork seriously, and I got noticed by peers and galleries. Invites from some of SL’s biggest galleries - Avatrait, The Cannery, Twilight, SecondVision, Vain - gave me a lot of confidence in my art skills, and helped me to discover new aspects of Photoshop which I’d never explored before.

My highlight of the year came in February when I organised a Cancer Research UK charity fundraiser which collected L$1 Million for the worthy cause. It showed me what the power of true souls and generosity of people can do when they come together. It reminded me of the true beauty of Second Life.

I think the most common question I was asked in 2008 was “Where have you been hiding all this time?!”My life of “seclusion” essentially died away bit by bit as it seems all at once people suddenly discovered me. Whether it be through Flickr, Youtube, my blog, forums, Plurk, Twitter or in world through my builds or art installations, it did seem for a little while that I was over-exposed.

There was certainly no shortage of magazines who wanted interviews, or invites to parties, but on the large part I turned these down. Craving the quiet life is something I’ve come to yearn once again, but I am definitely happy the things I do are receiving attention and praise.

I guess that’s summed up by my nomination, and eventually second runner up in the popularity contest of New World Notes’ Hottest Male Avatar of 2008. Although I (and most the other guys) never took the contest seriously, it was certainly nice to be acknowledged in this awards list, and others.

But I learnt that there are so many people in Second Life who have the skills, talent and desire to succeed at what they want to do. 2008 will be the year where I gave several dozens of people the chance to make something special of their Second Lives - be it through passing on my own skills, investing money in them or forming partnerships and affiliations. Although in some cases it may have just ended up hurting me, I certainly won’t stop - new talent is essential to the platform to keep it innovative and competitive.

Most importantly, I realised I had some fantastic friends who are immensely loyal to me through the thick and thin, who would do anything they can to help and who are simply the best friends a man could ask for. I learnt that they are why I stay in Second Life, and they’re the reason I love this place so much.

So 2008 was the year I solidified my reputation as a leading contemporary SL architect and furniture designer, became a popular SL photographer and created acclaimed in-world art installations and moved into machinima. It was the year when I became a “social butterfly” and used Web 2.0 tools such as Plurk and Twitter to meet new friends, and learn more about SL residents and industries. It was the year when I created Metaversally Speaking, and watched it become one of the most popular SL blogs around.

It was the year I learnt that even the strongest of friendships can be broken, but that through the ashes rise something even more beautiful. It was the year I found love and never felt happier. It was the year I realised friends are what make Second Life worth it.

It was the year I learnt about myself, and I carry its lessons into 2009.

2. Say “lol” less.. people will start to think I’m a freakin hyena or something pretty soon.

3. Finish work on and launch the Self-Replicating-Prads - and then release them across the grid, immortalising myself as being the biggest thing since.. grey goo.

4. Stop burying people under my bar. Bury them under my house instead.

5. Give up concurrent drinking and DJing. Nobody wants to hear my rendition of “Hit Me Baby One More Time” anymore.

6. Get called “Batshit Crazy” by both Tenshi Vielle and Prokofy Neva, in the same blog post.

7. Launch an underground gambling syndicate in Second Life, and invite the resident accounts of various Lindens to a game of poker.

8. Count how many people are on my friend’s list and work out who the heck most of them are.

9. Create a magnificent and gorgeous sim build, and invite people to see it until the region is full. Then selected all the prims, unlink and set to Physical.. and watch everyone’s reaction as the sim “blows up”.

10. Find out why that “Guide to Fraud in SL” that I purchased off OnRez never got delivered to me.

Blogging has most definitely been fun, and I’ve received a lot of praise for doing it, which has helped me in real life as I’m dyslexic and tend to have issues with effectively communicating myself through written words.

But a few days ago, someone I hold very dear to me said she was immensely proud of me for my blog, and so I’ve decided to carry it on into 2009. Although I’ll try my best, I can’t promise daily updates. There’s only so many hours in a day!

So I’m going to do what everybody else is doing, and make Predictions for 2009!

1. SL concurrency is going to hit 150,000. I think SL will continue to rise at a stable rate, and any “social revolution” in virtual worlds is still some years off. The media hype around Second Life has died down, but I think 2009 will see more positive news stories about the metaverse, looking at the artistic, educational and cultural contributions.

2. Immersive Workspaces will be an epic fail. I really don’t think the majority of businesses have many uses for a virtual world of their own - they don’t care about avatars or pretty buildings. The focus of business will remain on conference calls, email and whiteboards. It’s far simpler and less can go wrong than within a private metaverse.

3. Macinima will make it to the mainstream. Television or a film festival will promote the machinima medium and give it the artistic coverage it deserves so the world will gain a appreciation for this new form of film.

4. Google makes a comeback. Lively may have failed, but Google will know the worth of a virtual world, and they’re not afraid to learn from their mistakes. They’ll either announce a co-operation with a present virtual world, or announce plans for a new, more mainstream, virtual world.

5. Second Life will remain a leader in the metaverses market. Although it won’t catch up with the likes of World of Warcraft, SL will still be the leader in user-content driven virtual worlds. New OpenSim grids will still struggle to catch up, although they will become more stable and have more of a following through 2009. The likes of Sony’s Home, as well as new metaverses like Blue Mars and VastPark will enjoy small successes, but won’t be challengers to Second Life. Legend City Online will close due to a lack of confidence in the platform.

6. Electric Sheep Company will downscale their operation within Second Life. After Linden Lab began working closely with RiversRunRed on their Immersive Workspaces platform, ESC has been oddly quiet within Second Life. I predict they’ll announce in 2009 that they’re concentrating their efforts on another metaverse platform, and Second Life will lose a huge vote of confidence. They will keep Onrez active within SL.

7. Browser based shopping will become more popular. A competitor will emerge to X-Street SL/Onrez which offers storeowners the tools to set up online stores of their content which they can customise and integrate into their own websites, in a similar manner to ShopArmidi.

8. Linden Lab will continue to neglect Teen Second Life, and eventually close it down. TSL has been neglected for far too long, and their residents are rapidly becoming disillusioned with what direction their grid is taking. The prolonged issue that users outside the Americas can’t sign up to TSL is particularly worrying. Linden Lab will not lower tier fees on TSL, nor will they actively run community events - the population of TSL users will dwindle, until it reaches numbers that make the grid unsustainable, at which point it will be closed and a small section of the main grid will be sealed to teen users only.

9. A major infringement of IP rights will cause many SL brands to leave. Content creators are definitely getting fed up of the insecurity of their work in Second Life, and I predict a development in copybot or similar devices will outrage many SL retailers and lead to a small exodus of designers. Most will remain in Second Life, due to the value of their reputation and the invested time put into the grid, but will be preparing exit strategies.

10. Blogs will have more power on SL Marketing. Linden Lab will finally do away with the rather useless traffic system in Second Life, and as a result a new system will rely on other methods. Marketing and customers alike will turn to the blogosphere to find new designers and products, and online stores like Onrez/X-Street SL will become repositories for SL goods. LL will begin work on plans for an in world database which allows users to search by products and keywords, rather than by store.

Have a happy and prosperous 2009!

A much different story to the one that came apparent yesterday, but LCO’s handling of the situation has drawn criticism now. Additionally, questions are now being asked of Simone, and whether she herself is going to speak on the issue with her own credibility being questioned.

My focus remains on Legend City Online as a service platform provider, and my suprise when the owner LaLa Xevious opted to reply to blog comments over at Profoky Neva’s Second Thoughts, rather than to release a public statement on their own blog addressing the issue, as you’d expect a company to do.

The CEO of Linden Lab would not start replying to individual blog posts - that in itself is a full time job! The counter was raised that LCO is a smaller operation, and thus can be forgiven for employing such tactics. But surely they are shooting themselves in the foot if they get a following and wish to secure further investment in the future? Digging up a little on Legend City Online through Google will lead you directly to articles by me damning their grid and the way they work. Oopsie.

But then, this may lead to a “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario. I think a lot of people cringed when LaLa published the chatlog between her and Simone - I can certainly understand why she did it, but I didn’t think it was professional to do so. If Linden Lab started publishing my chat logs with them everytime I raised an issue, I’d definitely stop trusting them as much as I do at the moment. But then, LaLa was pushed between a rock and a hard place, and essentially had to do *something*.

Perhaps I am being too critical of LCO - it does take an immense amount of work to run a metaverse, and I have little doubt that they are doing the best job they can. But the number of people criticising them seems to outweigh the number supporting them, and with what seems to be one issue after another that is dragging their name through the mud, it does seem it’s time they got a little PR help.

I thought Profoky offered a few sensible suggestions on her blog as to how LCO can re-establish itself and win back customers, which LaLa instantly dismissed. Though there’s a lot of work to be done in the technical aspects of Legend City Online if the platform is to succeed, more immediate is their problem with public relations. A lot of designers I’ve spoken to have lost faith with LCO, and their management needs to win them back.. or do what I’ve been saying all along and stop leeching off the Second Life grid, and work on attracting new talent of their own.

Either way, it appears this is make or break for Legend City Online, and they need to make the right calls if they want to stay in this business.

After former employee DocWes Legend called out LCO’s management for failure to pay him for the work he’d done on Metaversally Speaking, and insisted that their practices outlined in their Terms of Service were dubious and that users should be aware of it.

Well it looks like DocWes was indeed right, after a leading designer has been caught out by the LCO management.

I started getting messages various warnings telling me to pull any content I may have in LCO earlier today, and such messages have been circling the SL content creation community. I had a dig around and it seems what designers had been dreading about these new OpenSim grids had happened.

It seems the designer Simone Stern had a deal with LaLa Xevious to provide free clothing for the LCO brand, in return for lenience on the use of two sims. However, the LCO Manager has decided to invoke the following ToS rule:

b ) You agree that any content downloaded into or created items in world give Legend City Online automatic rights to use, produce, and or distribute within our services and this content is royalty free, worldwide and carries no balance for fee. Furthermore, you agree that you have the right and are authorized to grant us such content under these conditions).

DocWes went on to add:

“SMDH does anyone else see what is wrong with this picture? This some person we don’t even know? who clearly will delete our hard work and block our accounts as they say “At anytime for any reason” and on top of that crappy service and a broken grid. No thanks. That’s why I left the team poorly managed and they are deceiving people. Its not fair and I wont be apart of it. Please use wisdom. In dealing with them thank you.”

Whoopsie, Simone.. guess you didn’t see that.

Now it seems that she’s been locked out of LCO and her assets have been seized by the LCO management. That’s a heck of a lot of work that she’s lost there, and which LaLa Xevious et al. have allegedly pretty much just stolen.

I can’t say I’m suprised - I could see for quite a while that these guys were just a bunch of cowboys, and definately not worth paying USD100/month to, simply for their highly disorganised business practices.

Normally for an article like this, I’d ask for a response from LCO, but after their failure to provide me with a reply last time, I’m not going to hold much hope of getting one.

After refusing to answer allegations that their grid contains stolen content from large SL retailers and failure to address DocWes’ allegations, it seems clear to me that we finally have a competitor to Linden Lab’s poor reputation for customer service.

It is my opinion that if you’ve not already done so, then you should really be pulling everything you can out of Legend City Online. It’s not your saving grace - it’s a con.

Game Over, LCO.

—

Update to this article: LCO ~ Spades and Mountains

You can read more on this topic over at Prokofy Neva’s Second Thoughts.