Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in The Future Of Linden Lab Following Executive Shuffle

Re: The Future Of Linden Lab Following Executive Shuffle

Former Second Life journalist — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:51:19 -0000

There is no news about executive shuffling in your blog post. You mention Rosedale only. Rosedale is a thinker and creator, and doesn't need to waste his time managing 300 employees when more experienced people who specialize in being company CEOs can do that for him. And as my peers have already mentioned, you just don't get Second Life, do you? Second Life isn't a game in itself, it's a place where you can create games and environments, and treasure hunts, etc. Lots of games have been created in Second Life, but you obviously didn't find them or bother looking for them. Did you bother to take the opportunity to watch films from the Sundance Film festival and Warner Brothers and talk to the directors and actors? Probably not. Did you watch any theater or ballet or dance in Second Life, or join a book club? probably not. Second Life's mission was not to be famous and have a shot at stardom. But, some of the very clever designers, professors and builders who contributed to Second Life did become stars because of their ingenuity.

Re: The Future Of Linden Lab Following Executive Shuffle

ordinal — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:58:30 -0000

"It doesn't have a purpose! Why isn't it like a proper game, like Spore? Why isn't there a tree from start to end which tells people what to do? It's like it _isn't a game at all_!"

Re: The Future Of Linden Lab Following Executive Shuffle

Eric Rice — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:24:25 -0000

It's just user-generated 3D content. If user-gen is useless, we should stop reading blogs and go back to the papers. TV, too. ;)

Re: The Future Of Linden Lab Following Executive Shuffle

SuezanneCBaskerville — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 10:58:09 -0000

I have to agree that this is a terrible article.

It gives the impression of having been written by someone with no knowledge at all of Second Life who got told to write an article quickly and did so.

This story offered no actuall news on the subject it was supposed to be about.

Perhaps next time just some links to news sources would be better.

Re: The Future Of Linden Lab Following Executive Shuffle

Serviced Apartments Bangalore — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:52:37 -0000

I disagree with your assessment of secondlife.com.. I think it will soon rise like a phoenix.

Re: The Future Of Linden Lab Following Executive Shuffle

Nonny de la PeÃ±a — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 18:00:49 -0000

Boring? Are you kidding? Why don't you come to a meeting on Friday morning at the Non-profit commons that is growing so fast that the meeting is working out ways for everyone gathering to hear each other. These are real non-profits from around the globe getting together to share ideas on forming community. Okay, its not a traditional "game" but does that make it boring?

My bias, of course, is that I built a virtual Guantanamo Bay prison in SL. Perhaps you'd like to come check it out and find out how boring that is. We have done simultaneous real world/virtual world events dealing with interrogation and detainees - i.e. torture -- which was attended by avatars from around the globe.

Second Life has always suffered from its badly designed Orientation Island but once you get past that, the possibilities are enormous, especially for education.

Re: The Future Of Linden Lab Following Executive Shuffle

Peter Miller — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:51:08 -0000

pesky text box ate my text. The other thing I would point to is the arrival of HTML-on-a-prim which may encourage more conventional Ajax-oriented web developers to give SL a second look.

Re: The Future Of Linden Lab Following Executive Shuffle

Peter Miller — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:46:33 -0000

Well, it's probably a common view among many who Going solo into SL without guidance can be dispiriting. However, the article ignores significant growth in areas such as training and education. The SL educators list has 4000+ members. That's a significant growth point for SL in terms of introducing new users in a social context with preset objectives. Of course, even then the experience will appeal to some more than others but my understanding is that SL's retention rates generally compare favourably with many online games.

Most would view Rosedale's move as recognition that the enterprise has moved onto a more mature footing where the innovative and leftfield aspects have to be balanced by stability in the service. At present it tends to max out at around 64000 concurrent users and this is something that will need attention alongside growth in the metaverse more generally with initiatives such as OpenSim. IMHO LL can do it.

Re: The Future Of Linden Lab Following Executive Shuffle

lordfly — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:31:56 -0000

Admittedly I'm biased, but come on. Slow demise? A company cannot triple its userbase every 3 months forever. A company with "only" 5% growth rate after 3 years of insane growth.

A startup's CEO traditionally gets out of the way once the company is stable; Philip is no different. He's a tech geek at heart, I think, and LL doesn't need that at the helm right now. They need someone that can actually run a business of 300+ employees.

With the physics upgrades, server upgrades, and client upgrades in the next 4 months, SL is back at being competitive, after management started actually cracking the whip. The next step is to come up with virtual worlds standards, and implement them.

Don't count LL out yet.

Re: The Future Of Linden Lab Following Executive Shuffle

csven — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:39:57 -0000

This is, in my opinion, perhaps the most stupid thing I've read on Mashable. There are plenty of things to say about Second Life, but from my perspective this did nothing but show how utterly clueless a Mashable "journalist" could be.