My Five Things

No, I'm not dead. Just been busy elsewhere, that's all.
 
What brings me back? I read a great piece by my friend Mitch Wagner, who listed five hypothetical actions he'd take to revive Second Life if he were in charge. Well, Mitch isn't in charge, so they might not get done. I'm not in charge either, but that won't stop me from listing my five actions.
 
Choosing five actions should be done carefully, as Linden Lab's Second Life grid is at a turning point. Will it grow? Will it implode? Or shut down? I think it's possible to recover at least some level of growth, if the right combination of actions are undertaken and successful. Here's my thoughts:
 
Increased sim capacity. One of the biggest issues, I believe, is the extremely low capacity of each sim. For all practical purposes, a sim really can't hold much more than 40 avatars before things go south. Sure, the sim itself can run well at that level (usually), but rendering by avatar's PCs begins to break down and pretty soon you're looking at a lot of sloth-like grey shapes.
 
This problem is insidious because I think it's at the root of many other problems. For example, if more people could exist in a sim, there could be fewer (and denser) sims. The per-avatar support cost could go down. This could (ideally) mean lower rates for tier and rent and more businesses could survive. If capacities were high enough, it might become possible for true large-scale virtual events to take place. Today it's just not possible to stage such events as your live audience tops out at 60 (or 200 if you use multiple sims). What could you do if you could bring in 1,000 - or 10,000? Marketing SL would be quite different.

Solving the capacity issue will be very difficult, since there are fundamental issues, not the least of which is that all scenes and information must be downloaded from LL's servers. I think there may be different ways to think about the problem that could address the situation. For example, as capacity increased, perhaps rendering accuracy could decrease - instead of trying to render a scene to an impossible accuracy, just render what you can without resorting to grey shapes. Some of this is done already, but we should be much more aggressive.

Search that works. Let's face it: it's pretty much impossible to reliably find anything in SL these days. My own business has been crippled by this, as have many others. I suspect that the "act of finding" things now has basically degenerated into various forms of word of mouth. That's why you see certain shops growing and others dying - no one can easily find anything other than a small set of familiar stores. Capacity gets at the amount of time required to use SL effectively. Activities take MUCH longer to do if you can't find things. I would fix search, classifieds, landmarks, and perhaps introduce new mechanisms for finding things since all of the above aren't very good anyway.
  
Console version. You want more residents? Why not produce a version of the SL viewer for XBox, Wii and PS/3? There are tons of such machines with many tens of millions of people using them. If you were to combine a small set of great ready-to-go in-world experiences with a simplified consume-only viewer & set of instant avatars for consoles, you might dramatically raise the resident population. Of course, a sim capacity increase would help this a lot, too. Some of those consume-only console users might even graduate to become full-fledged creators in the future.

Communication That Works. I used to like viewer 2, mainly because it attempted to simplify things. However, the more I use it, the less I like it. In particular, the messaging system is almost unusable and highly confusing - notifications pop up all over and seem to make little sense. Between voice, IM, text chat, emails, group chat, notifications, broadcast messages, etc., it's far too confusing to easily communicate. I think the entire communication system needs a serious rethink and simplification.
 
Rebranding. I really hate to say this, but it's probably time to reboot SL - the brand. For some time now, "Second Life" has gained a poor reputation among the general public. It's undeserved, of course, but I can't tell you the number of times I mention "Second Life" and immediately hear the words "Naked Avatars" right back. That perception just kills off many possibilities even before they are properly considered. Current residents may think otherwise, but I think at least a few people are scared off and never even consider SL because of this. What to do? A new brand is required, with a new and improved reputation. And it wouldn't hurt to fix up the points above at the same time.

So that's what I would consider if I were in charge.

But alas, I am not in charge. I'm also not dead yet. Peace to all.

Second Life and Blogging Doldrums

You may have noticed I haven't posted anything in a while. Am I dead? Nope. Busy? Maybe. Less interested? Um, yeah, I think so.

I haven't posted because I simply haven't felt I had anything useful to say. Sure, I could comment on the latest party or event, but that's just not meaningful enough for a post, for me, anyway.
 
I was wondering why that is so.

The fact is, SL seems to be slowing down lately in some respects. I've noticed several friends fade away, or others tone down their SL existence for reasons unknown. Many businesses have closed or shrunk.  I've been fading a bit too. Perhaps it's just part of the Two-Year Effect? It's been over four years for me so far; maybe I'm overdue?

And it's not just the SL in world community, either. Linden Lab has dropped numerous staffers, strangely including most of the management level. Since the departure of M Linden, there haven't been any significant strategic moves - largely because interim CEO Philip really hasn't been playing the role, other than perhaps focusing on finding his own replacement. Indeed, when we spoke to Philip in person in Boston at SLCC it was shocking to hear that he hadn't signed into SL for four months. I'd be surprised if he's been in world very much since that time.

So now we learn of a new CEO to take over from Philip later this January. When you think about it, it's an excellent time to get fresh leadership in: largely clean management ranks, stagnant user base, poor media reception and of course, cranky residents. There's no where to go but up.

I really don't have any idea where new CEO Rod Humble will take Second Life, but I do know one thing: it must be a different place than where it's been. Current approaches have largely failed, in my opinion. What, you say things are not so bad? Maybe, but when you compare SL's progress opposite many other online services, which have grown hugely and continue to grow while SL seems to have plateaued. Maybe it's the poor scalability, or the heavy hardware requirements, or perhaps virtual worlds are just too complicated for most people.
 
If I was an investor in Linden Lab, I'd be seeking a new strategy to protect my investment. I'd do that by getting a new CEO with fresh ideas. They've already done this once, with M Linden - but as we know, that particular strategy failed and they had to start over.

Expect many different things to happen once the new CEO gets settled, probably starting later this spring.

Viewers, Viewers, Viewers: A Way Out of This Mess

Readers may have noticed controversies and discussions over Second Life viewer software in recent weeks and months. In some cases scandal, in others too much change, still others are simply inoperable in many situations. A constant question is, "which viewer should I use". There have been many answers - as many as there are viewers. Clearly there's lots of opinions and few are satisfied.

Meanwhile, new users continue to have challenges learning the environment. Let's face it: SL and 3D worlds are quite a different experience and it takes time for people to get accustomed to using them. Linden Lab knows this, since we've observed them trying to address that problem by deploying the controversial Viewer 2.0.

Viewer 2.0 seems to work for some, and yet not for others. Why is this so?

I've thought this for a long time now, and I'll say it again: there are two different audiences making use of viewers. First there's the new residents, who are frequently confused by the complexity of the interface, give up and never return, and the experienced existing residents, who yearn for more function to customize or simplify their sophisticated virtual existence.

Here's the problem we've been having all along: we're trying to service two entirely different audiences with a single viewer. Hence, Linden Lab creates Viewer 2.0, which includes features designed to simplify life for new residents, while still trying to address the needs of experienced residents. In my opinion, it didn't go nearly far enough in the simplicity direction for new residents. In the opinion of many long-time residents, Viewer 2.0 confused their operations and made their complex virtual lives more difficult. Viewer 2.0 missed the mark for both audiences.

While Viewer 2.0 marginally improved the experience for new residents, it was rejected by a great many experienced residents, a vast number of whom fled to use a variety of third party viewers. Unfortunately, one of the major third party viewers ran into issues and many residents now scramble to find an alternate viewer - and many of them wouldn't consider Linden Lab's Viewer 2.0.

I've seen situations like this before many times in real life, and a good solution approach is to realize the root cause and directly address it. In this case the root cause of viewer difficulties is that there are two audiences that have very different requirements. Thus, the answer is quite simple: we need Two Viewers, one greatly simplified suitable for stark newbies devoid of advanced and confusing features, and the other a more complex viewer filled with all the features one could imagine.

Of course, the challenge will be that Linden Lab is able to muster resources only sufficient to support one viewer. Right now, their efforts try to do it all for everyone, addressing both audiences but in fact doing so in a less than optimal manner.

Here's my proposal to make life a lot easier for everyone: Linden Lab should abandon development of the advanced viewer entirely and leave it to evolve independently by third parties through open source approaches. Publish and maintain a secure specification for accessing the grid and the underlying open source code, and let others do the job of building advanced viewers. This has worked in the world of web browsers and many other environments; why not here too? To some extent, we've already seen this happening, albeit somewhat placed in shadow by Linden Lab's highly visible Viewer 2.0, often selected by residents simply because Linden Lab made it. But imagine how well these third party viewers could advance if they weren't competing against Linden Lab's viewers?

Meanwhile, Linden Lab could then focus efforts on a truly simplified viewer specifically designed for new residents, one that could actually achieve the vision of "five minutes and you're in" that really has no chance of happening in Viewer 2.0. Consider how well they might do if they didn't have to worry about including all the features required by existing residents. New users could "graduate" to one of the more advanced viewers when they feel confident enough to do so.

Let's make things simpler for everyone. Linden Lab desperately needs a simplified viewer; Residents want (and have proven they can make) an advanced viewer. For me, two viewers is the obvious solution. What do you think?

Avoiding The Spiral Of Death

Fast, Easy and Fun. How has it come to this?

Fast, Easy and Fun is the new direction of Linden Lab for their product, Second Life. It’s a reaction to the troubles they’ve gotten themselves into in the past year or so. Here’s how I see the sequence of events:
 

• A company discovers and builds a service around an amazing concept
• The concept, while breathtaking, is so new it’s not fully understood by anyone yet, even its makers
• The service is implemented in the only way possible, given everyone's limited experience with the concept: it’s difficult to use
• Reasonably large numbers of early adopter users, who are tolerant of difficulties, begin using the new service
• Beyond the early adopters, few people use the service because its difficult interfaces are forever past their capabilities and tolerance
• Company notices growth stalling as the pool of early adopters is exhausted 
• Company seeks ways to break into the mainstream market by simplifying the system
• The simplification attempt fails because the system is still not fully understood
• A few early adopters begin to leave for alternative services
• Management panics and makes big changes. New approach: Fast, Easy & Fun.

When I say “not fully understood”, I mean that while we may fully understand the use of the existing tools and interface, we really don’t understand the *right* way to do the interface. For example, the permissions system is simply unable to deal with many day-to-day situations. How should someone be introduced to the service such that they don’t immediately give up? No one really knows the true answers to these any many other key questions yet. This is a system still figuring itself out. It’s still an experiment.

Experiments are for early adopters.

I’ve written of this before, but it is a phase all companies must endure: the transition from initial “early adopter” mode to a more mainstream “easy to use” mode. Some tech companies don’t survive, others are utterly transformed and some are overtaken by alternatives that have a better approach.

But that doesn’t answer the question of the panic. Why panic so much? Why layoff huge numbers of people? I suspect it has to do with what I call “the Spiral of Death”.

Consider the situation myself and many SL shopkeepers find themselves in: we spend huge amounts of time setting up a shop in SL, making products, doing promotions, etc. and just barely make a living. Suddenly, some users panic and move away to other grids. They say “it’s wonderful, please join us over here!” It may be wonderful if you are, for example, an educator or business person who simply needs to build some type of installation. But if you’re a seller, it’s quite a different situation.

A seller needs a market, and right now SL is still by far the biggest grid with the largest number of potential buyers on it. Yes, there are OpenSim grids all over, but all of them are tiny compared to SL. It’s hard enough to make a living in SL even with its giant user base, let alone grids one one-thousandth the size. It’s even worse because in order to gain any significant amount of OpenSim market, you’d have to set up separate shops in multiple grids (thus spending time building multiple shops and paying multiple tiers. OpenSim grids may be cheaper per square meter compared to SL, but when you need several parcels on several grids, it probably costs more). It just doesn’t make economic sense to move virtual businesses to other grids.

But it would make sense if large numbers of users begin to bail from SL and move to a single popular alternative grid. If that happened, then SL would lose something very critical: its size. When the market moves, so will the sellers. And with them will go even more buyers. And so on, developing into “The Spiral of Death”. Once the user base starts shrinking, it will inevitably go down, faster and faster.

I suspect this is what Linden Lab fears the most. And it’s certainly worth a panic, because they risk their entire business. It could happen: more and more OpenSim grids are appearing, each with some type of innovation or another, but none with massive market share. Yet. Eventually, one of these grids will accidentally or on purpose hit on the right combination of services and interface and they’ll begin to win users over. Linden Lab, if they are to survive, must prevent the Spiral of Death at all costs.

That’s why there’s an “all hands on deck” mode and a focus on the basics. Fast, Easy and Fun are indeed the basic keys to success. If these are achievable, then existing early adopters will stay and newcomers will not abandon the service nearly as much as now. That should result in a growing service once again.

But only if it works. I’m terribly interested to hear how “Fast, Easy and Fun” will be achieved. Perhaps Philip will enlighten us at SLCC 2010?

We of the White Suits

I'm not saying we are or should wear white suits, Hamlet Au aside. I'm referring to the 1951 comedy/science fiction flick, "The Man in the White Suit" starring Alec Guinness, who would later on become Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star wars series.

The premise of this 60 year old film is straightforward: a nerdy chemist working at a textile factory produces an amazing invention: a fabric that is virtually indestructible and automatically repels dirt, staying clean forever. Even better, the suit slightly glows white due to its "radioactive content". Well, perhaps that isn't so good.

Nevertheless, the story unfolds and the protagonist, Sidney Stratton, attempts to convince his textile factory to produce clothing with the new miracle fabric. Initially interested, the factory owners soon realize that if they were to produce clothing with the new fabric, they'd be out of business because people would never need to buy clothes again! Even the workers found the possibility to their detriment, and they united with management (unprecedented in the 1950's) to force Stratton's idea out.

It's a fun movie and an interesting premise. But could it be true? I believe we're living this science fiction story out in Second Life today. Consider the clothing our avatars wear: it never wears out; it never gets dirty; and, if you are so inclined, it can slightly glow. Our clothing doesn't have to be white, however.

And thus we'd never need to buy any more clothes, and the virtual clothing factories would close?

Apparently not. An inspection of anyone's inventories shows at least hundreds, if not tens of thousands of clothing items that don't soil, never wear out. The virtual clothing factories are not closing. They are thriving, mostly.

Why is this so? What is the difference in attitude between the 1951 movie and 2010 virtual life? I think it's that people think differently about life today - we are accustomed to living in a universe of creativity and options, whereas the people of 1950 were less well off, with far fewer options for creative outlets. They were satisfied with less, while we are never satisfied because we know something new is merely as distant as the next imaginative thought. Sure, there were no doubt 1950s fashion hounds, but none of them had 17,000 items of clothing as our avatars do.

I believe this attitude is one of the success factors for virtual reality. People want to create. They want to consume new things. In fact, many proceed through their virtual lives almost with the sole purpose to acquire new (indestructible) clothing designs.

With the exception of Hamlet, of course, who has only one white suit.

A Retail Experiment Concludes

Some weeks ago I attempted to improve the in-store experience for my customers by reducing the number of visible textures. The theory was this: visitors appear at the teleport landing point, but their viewers are instantly overloaded by texture loads and their world is gray. You see, my store’s design concept is an open one that makes all items very easy to find because it’s mostly open to view.

The open concept worked at first, because I perceived an issue I had when shopping: some shops have far too many rooms, hallways and areas in which to look for items. It makes shopping nearly impossible for those in a rush, although some may find difficult shopping experiences fun. I wanted to avoid that situation, especially where customers don’t even see your products because they were in a room the customer never encountered. So I simply laid out all my items in easy to view locations. My first store had no ceiling and very few walls.

However, as the store grew and more products were added, the requirement for more textures (mainly on product boxes) continued to grow. It came to a point where a visitor would be faced with loading (albeit automatically) over 150 textures in order to see the store. Tracking software indicated some visitors would appear and then quickly leave. The obvious conclusion was that they were overwhelmed by the gray view and simply went somewhere else without shopping. Not good!

The experimental solution was to block off each of the store’s areas from general view, requiring shoppers to enter them before they could see the products and require texture loads. This way the store would become visible much faster and this should be a better experience for shoppers. I even placed helpful signs and arrows indicating where people should enter each area.

After weeks of running in this mode, I now conclude the texture load theory was wrong. While the store did come into view much faster when teleporting in, sales dropped off significantly. At first I took this to indicate a continuation of the degraded economy in general, but several friends (Amber, Haley and Marlee) suggested the visibly blocked store sections conveyed a different impression to shoppers - hidden products must be creepy! Since shopping is a very psychological matter, especially in SL, I thought there’s probably something to this theory.

Ten days ago I took down the obscuring walls to once again reveal the entire store to view. As expected, long texture load is now quite evident when teleporting in, but what would happen to sales? After ten days of “open” operation, I can safely say that sales are up significantly!

The conclusion? While texture rezzing performance is always important, the psychological factors that develop from the store’s visual appearance trump performance when it comes to shopping.

SL 2.0: Carnage and Cathedrals

There’s a very disruptive change coming from the Real World and it’s going to hit Second Life later this year.

That’s my conclusion after thinking about the implications of the new SL Viewer 2.0 beta that’s been making its way into computers around the SL world for the past couple of weeks. Pieces of the master-plan jigsaw puzzle are coming together and The Lab’s strategy is now becoming much clearer. Let me explain.

Viewer 2.0 is part of a larger strategy for vastly expanding the scope of Second Life. We’ve heard their execs fancifully describe a future where they might have a million simultaneous residents, an unimaginably large number compared to today’s mere 80,000. As unbelievable as that number is, I think they’re not kidding.

To achieve this, they must have: even more compelling content to attract and retain more residents; the ability to hold more simultaneous residents per region; many more new residents; and a great first-hour experience to keep them once they arrive. Viewer 2.0 addresses several of these points, but not all of them.

While much has been written about the features of the new viewer for good or evil, there are two things that stand out above all the rest in my mind. First: Shared Media and Second: Mesh import. Yes, Mesh import has not yet been released, but The Lab has indicated they’ll be releasing it “later this year”. It’s my belief that these two features will change the landscape so utterly there will be a New Virtual Order.

Shared Media, if you haven’t heard, is the ability to bring web content directly into the Grid. At first glance this might appear to mean you can view your spreadsheet or powerpoint presentation in world. Perhaps you’ll watch a YouTube video. Yeah, that’s likely quite useful for some, but many residents question what value it could possibly do for them. Who needs spreadsheets, anyway?

My belief is that viewing plain old web pages, videos and documents are not the best use of this feature. Instead we’ll see a complete revolution in the control systems for in-world items. Gone will be those bush-league blue dialog boxes that make operating many virtual items terribly frustrating: makers must fit their system into only twelve identically ugly buttons, and this makes almost every complex item confusing to use.

Instead we will soon see the development of very professional control systems that are as beautiful and functional as you’d see on contemporary web pages - because they WILL BE web pages! And you can do this all from within LSL scripts. It's not about viewing YouTube on a prim - it's about using the maker’s easy-to-use web-like controls on a prim.

We’ll also see a flood of data entering and leaving the Grid via these new web interfaces, providing unimaginable capabilities. One simple very example: an in-world game with a terrific interface that you can also play outside the grid via the website - using the exact same interface! The applications that could be made are almost limitless. Let’s face it, the previous development environment was extremely primitive and it severely limited what creators could build. Many doors open with Shared Media, and The Lab is no doubt hoping for significant innovation.

Mesh Import is the ability to load existing 3D designs from the outside into the Grid, without having to tediously build things in-world with the rudimentary 3D tools provided. Sure, lots of amazing things have been built using them, but consider this: there are immensely powerful 3D modeling tools outside the Grid, used by tens of thousands of professional modelers to produce perhaps millions of incredibly detailed 3D models. These models, with a bit of tweaking, will soon be rapidly flowing into the Grid, and their quality will probably trump existing content. When word of the ability to convert these models into dollars gets out, I expect to see many new content developers arriving with vast libraries of amazing items.

There will be a great fog of skepticism throughout The Grid over whether these new features are good things. Many will say they have no use for them and question why they are being introduced when many other issues could be addressed instead. But I think they are necessary, even if we don’t know precisely what we’ll do with them. I think this because these are very powerful tools, and in the history of mankind powerful tools are always picked up by creative people to produce wonderful things. In the 1920’s skeptics said talking movies would be the end of film, and many asked why bother with sound at all? Were they right? The introduction of voice and many other innovations to film eventually made it possible for James Cameron to produce Avatar, an experience beyond the conception of a 1920’s filmgoer. Second Life must also innovate to take us to amazing place we can’t yet imagine.

What does this mean for existing makers? Generally it’s not good, because if you’re not a 3D model mesh importer or a web coder, you might have a hard time keeping up with amazing products made with the new techniques. Gadget makers in particular may be forced to convert their products to the new web interfaces simply to keep up with the competition - and that’s at best. At worst their products may simply become irrelevant if they are replaced by direct web content. Since most existing content makers are part-timers who might not have the time or training to make the transition, I’m expecting a large turnover in the maker population.

I anticipate two more developments: something to significantly increase server scalability and a broad advertising strategy to attract a very large number of new residents - and perhaps advertising specifically designed to attract new makers. We’ll see this advertising appear once all the elements of SL 2.0 are in place. They’ll all arrive on the Grid using Viewer 2.0, of course, since that’s a key part of the strategy. There will be a tidal wave of new residents and makers.

The new makers will build most energetically, while carnage awaits many existing makers. But when the smoke eventually clears, we’ll see a million residents, walking through the new cathedrals of an awesome virtual reality.

Viewer Complexity Revealed

One of Linden Lab’s greatest challenges is to increase the retention rate of new resident signups. I’ve heard various statistics on the survival rate of those who sign up and actually become active residents: approximately one percent. In other words, almost everyone who registers gives up immediately.

Maybe the percentage is a bit higher (or worse, even lower), but it’s totally pathetic. If this number were even slightly increased, we’d see tens of thousands of new residents streaming into Second Life every week, many of whom would stay and unleash their new creativity into the world. It would be a more vibrant place, with more creations and for business owners, more potential customers. It would be a Very Good Thing.

What’s happening to fix this problem? We’ve all seen the Lab’s experiments such as alternative approaches to orient new arrivals, better default avatars and more recently the Linden Homes program. All of these and others I haven’t mentioned are directed at the problem of 99% resident failure. I believe it is the most critical issue facing the Lab, since if it continues as is, the resident population won’t grow and the Lab may eventually face the prospect of closing SL.

Another key strategy pursued by the Lab for retaining new residents is an improvement to the viewer, and I suspect the introduction of Viewer 2.0 will generate very significant controversy into the SL blogosphere. Many people will be confused by different interfaces and truly unhappy they must learn something new.

But it must be done.

I believe one of the biggest impediments to retaining new residents is the staggering complexity of the viewer. As a student of clean design, I am astonished at the unbelievable amount of buttons and controls that face every user each time they fire up a viewer. The numerous controls are hidden within layers of menus, dialog boxes and bars, seemingly designed to be never found by humans.

There are so many controls it must be totally overwhelming to almost everyone. Maybe even 99% of population. Hmm.

But how complex is it? I wondered about this and finally decided to find out myself. I launched a recent version of Snowglobe and laboriously counted up all the controls within this viewer. My counts are probably off a bit, as my eyes were fading due to the humongous counts and deep layers one must go to see them, but the counts are representative of virtually every SL viewer. Not including “close boxes”, inventory items and any personally-generated controls (e.g. gestures, etc.) I found the following:

• Menu Items: 504
• Ticky Boxes: 200
• Text/Image Entry Areas: 201
• Adjustment Sliders: 282
• Tabs: 66
• Radio Buttons: 41
• Regular Buttons: 414

Grand Total: 1,708

Let’s step back and think about this for a moment: One thousand, seven hundred and eight control items. ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED EIGHT! That’s This Many:

XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX

There are more than 500 menu items alone. Do you know what they all are? Do you know what they do? Do you know where to find each of them? How long would it take to explain them to someone? Can you even know 100 of them? 

Let’s compare this to other relatively complex things you must operate: your car, for example, probably has less than 100 knobs you can turn (without going under the hood). My browser appears to have less than 200 items. I suspect the flight control panel of a Boeing 747 has less than 1,708 buttons - and there’s serious training courses required to operate one of those.

And it gets much worse. If you enable the Advanced Menu in the SL browser, my totals went to this:

• Menu Items: 2523
• Ticky Boxes: 213
• Text/Image Entry Areas: 213
• Adjustment Sliders: 282
• Tabs: 72
• Radio Buttons: 44
• Regular Buttons: 445

Grand Total: 3,792

Many people enable the advanced menu in order to find a few evidently critical features, but must suffer through an extra two thousand controls. Not good.

And it’s even more complex on the third party open source viewers, which unfortunately tend to add features, not delete them. I can imagine the totals on the Emerald Viewer would be quite a bit higher than the above.

Many of these items are used for various personal customizations, and the remainder is quite a bit smaller. I wonder what this implies about avatar needs? 

These astonishing totals no doubt cause many new residents to freak out. Wouldn’t you, if suddenly faced with a 1,708 item control panel? That’s like having a four-foot square sheet covered with knobs every square inch (or a 6 foot square panel if using the advanced menus) pushed in your face. I suspect that very few people have the perseverance, technical skill and motivation to make their way through the 1,708 controls in order to determine where the 36 key functions they’d actually use are located. Maybe, say, one percent?

That’s why Viewer 2.0 is so critical. That’s why Linden Lab has been silent on viewer progress lately - they are putting lots of effort into creating this new viewer.

I’m hoping Viewer 2.0 will dramatically simplify the interface - but allow experienced users to “turn on” more complex features when they need to. I’m hoping Viewer 2.0 organizes the controls in a contextual manner, whereby the appropriate controls are visible depending on the situation. I’m hoping Viewer 2.0 enables many more new residents to successfully join our virtual world.

Some may wish for more new features in Viewer 2.0, but I don’t think that’s what it’s about. Instead it should be about Fewer Features and better presentation of them. Viewer 2.0 is not about you. It’s about all the people that aren’t here.

Yet. 

The Two Year Effect: Confirmed?

A few weeks ago I described a theory I had regarding SL population that I called “The Two Year Effect.” The theory went something like this:

Without a defined requirement to stay, people tend to maintain interest in volunteer or hobby activities for a length of time between 18 to 30 months. About two years. If that’s so, then one reason for the apparent declining SL population is that the large bulk of folks who showed up in 2007 during the SL media hysteria are now expiring.

It was merely a theory, and I had no data to back it up.

Until now.

It turns out that reader Louis Platini took an interest in the theory and actually happened to have suitable data available for analysis. If you don’t know Louis, he’s the owner of Metaverse Business, makers of a wide variety of statistical counter devices for use by in-world businesses. His products range from free traffic counters to highly sophisticated systems capable of handling multiple regions and delivering far more than simple user counts. Do check them out!

The data collected by all these machines is safely stored by Metaverse Business so that their clients can make enquiries of their own statistics.

But Louis can also analyze this stored data, and he decided to do so after reading my article on the Two Year Effect. His results are very interesting, and you can read them in detail right here. The data should provide reasonably accurate results, as Metaverse Business has data on over 1.2M unique avatars. Louis employed data collected over all of 2008 and most of 2009 for the analysis.

The analysis attempted to determine the “lifetime” of avatars. In other words, the number of days between their first and last appearance. Some avatars “lived” only briefly, less than 100 days, whereas others have existed for many years. Louis then graphed the result, shown here:

The data shows an extremely steep departure rate right from the start. It appears that many people try SL for a few months and then depart (Give up? When is that easy-to-use viewer version 2.0 coming out anyway?)

Louis shows that the departures seem to follow an exponential rate for the first 400 days or so, then slow a relatively linear rate for the next 1000 days. After that departures slow right down to a trickle. Be sure to read his analysis where this is demonstrated with several explanatory graphics.

So where does this leave my Two Year Effect theory? It seems to be both wrong and right. Consider the exaggerated theoretical Two Year Effect on the chart above superimposed onto Louis’ actual data.

It’s wrong because it turns out that people are constantly leaving, not just after two years. The younger they are, the faster they tend to leave.

It’s right because almost everyone is gone after two years, and the large mass of 2007 signups must indeed be leaving (or already gone).

The fact that avatar lifetime is effectively only 2-3 years must be of grave concern to Linden Lab. A business that has temporary customers must have a strategy to get new ones to replace those departing, and that must be why Linden Lab is so focused on the experience of new residents.

Cory Doctorow and the Robot

Today I had the great pleasure of attending the live recording session of the Copper Robot Podcast, hosted by Mitch Wagner. The guest was the one and only Cory Doctorow, voice of freedom, innovation and sensibility in the 21st century.

If you don't know who Cory is, you should. He's an award-winning Science Fiction author and also the editor of Boing Boing, one of the biggest websites on the web today. My man-crush derives neither from Boing Boing nor Cory's excellent Science Fiction adventures, but instead from his tireless efforts to save humanity from digital rights enslavement. Every day Cory explains to all who will listen the paradoxes and trap-doors we seem to be falling into as we gradually tie up all intellectual property with overzealous control regimes.

In spite of the event taking place at a very odd hour for SL events (causing Mitch to rise from slumber far earlier than he biologically should) the attendance was massive. Many SL notables were present, including Simone Stern, Stroker Serpentine, Pete Linden, Pavig Lok, CallieDel Boa, Ordinal Malaprop, Hiro Pendragon, Joshua Fouts, Eureka Dejavu, Mo Hax, Opensource Obscure, Pardox Olbers, Fleep Tuque, Lotte Linden and countless others.

Cory spoke for just over an hour before real life re-absorbed his virtual presence. But we did get a chance to ask a few questions, and he promised to return next year to do a questions-only show. Above Haley and I speak with Cory and the Copper Robot. (The Robot is on the Left.)

Cory described how he came to be editor of Boing Boing (as a temporary fill-in while the original editor took off on vacation, and ended up being a full time gig). He lives mostly in Europe these days, causing various timezone shenanigans with his normal Boing Boing editing cycle. The significant result of EuroCory is that Boing Boing posts are more analytical/follow-up instead of breaking news.

Cory described issues that arise when you're running a truly big-ass website like Boing Boing. As you might expect, he receives numerous comments regarding content, often including requests not to write about totally innocuous topics. He's mystified why people don't simply read another website - it's not like there's a shortage of things to browse. Some people just like to complain, I suppose.

Cory spoke about different methods of kick-starting the economy by leveraging radical business approaches. For example, he proposes to liquidate non-functional industrial-age operations to free up capital, then redistribute the capital to entrepreneurs who can, for example, take over empty malls and invent new businesses. However, radical also means politically challenging. Who knows if Cory's fascinating ideas will become reality? I deeply appreciate his explorations into new business models because we desperately need some in this new century.

Cory believes the software sector has been vastly expanded through the use of free (open source) software. He described a free software "substrate" that permits many more people to participate in the construction of software that would not otherwise have been able to do so. Many SL programmers would no doubt agree with this, having used open source software for most of their careers.

One of the discussion topics was the notion of change. Today's education has the unfortunate assumption that things stay the same. In other words, the things you're taught when you're 14 are simply not going to be there when you graduate. And that's just the start of it - things keep changing. Cory himself claimed to have had multiple careers during his lifetime. You must change, and to change you must take risks and be able to learn as you travel through life. There is no job for life, other than constant learning.

Cory spoke of the Hacker Ethic, which is an unconscious urge within all of us to rework the world to better meet our needs. The software substrate, accompanied with the speed of the Internet has permitted this urge to be fulfilled for almost anyone who desires. Cory calls it, "The Golden Age of Hacking". It's what causes creators to create, and is the ultimate engine that drove the creation of the world known as Second Life.

The Two Year Effect

I’ve been contemplating reasons for the flattening of the online user stats in Second Life lately. You’ll recall that as recently as early 2009, there seemed to be a surge in growth. Every week new records for simultaneous users were being set. I believe it topped out at around 88,000 or so on an exceptionally busy Sunday afternoon.

But then no new records were set. Even after many months.

Why might this be? There’s a few reasons, most notably being Linden Lab’s new policy on bots. No longer do we have hundreds (maybe thousands) of bots cuddling in claustrophobic farms. That clearly put a boffo dent into the population stats.

But is there another reason?

I realized a social phenomenon might be in effect here. In my travels I’ve observed that many people tend to have a two-year attention span on projects. Whether it be a hobby, volunteer work or other activities, when people have no ties holding them back, their interest tends to fade after 18-30 months or so. I’ve seen this in real life many times.

I might be mistaken, but I think I’m seeing the same thing happen with my virtual pals in Second Life. Some, like Eshi Otawara, declare a vacation and disappear temporarily, or perhaps forever in some cases. Others like Bettina Tizzy change their approach. But I suspect there are many more who simply fade away quietly as their two-year period of attention draws to a close.

This isn’t particularly remarkable, as people change what they do every day of the year. But then I remembered what happened two years ago.

Two years ago it was a different virtual world. Second Life was constantly on the news and magazine covers, mysterious virtual entrepreneurs were evidently making millions and anyone could do anything. People from all corners learned of the amazing promises of virtual reality and they signed up in droves. During that period, Second Life grew at its fastest rate.

And that was just about two years ago.

Now, just as one would expect we see some residents of 2+ years vintage fading away. The huge blob of 2006/7 signups have been expiring over the past months. Combined with gains from ongoing signup rates and losses from the bot massacres, we just might expect to see flat growth for a little while.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering why I’m still going strong after almost three years?

Anatomy of a Box

In an attempt to increase sales, I’ve been fiddling with my product boxes, and thought readers might be interested to see what I’ve done.

But first, the problem: In this case, sales were low, and my new theory is that shoppers get most of their information about product simply from the visual on the box cover.

In the past (and currently) I’ve tried live demonstrations, which are pretty much mandatory for moving particle effects that cannot be properly shown on any box picture. I’ve also tried notecards: every box at my shop delivers an explanatory notecard upon touch.

But the images on my boxes were previously quite simple, having only an action shot and the product name. It occurred to me that the nature of the product was not clear by merely looking at the old boxes. You had to either run the demonstration or read the notecard to "get it". I believe the demo and notecard are extra steps that some shoppers wouldn’t bother to do, and that they’d rely only on the box image.

My strategy was to replace the box images with something much more informative. But what to put on them? Here’s what I did:

(Click on the image above for a more detailed view)

• Consistency: Every single box has exactly the same style, size, fonts, layout and colors. The idea is that once people get familiar with one box, they will much more easily read other boxes. This is the same way grocery products are labeled.
• Information: The familiar “i” icon can be touched for immediate delivery of an informative notecard. If shoppers don’t recognize the “i”, it says “Click for Info!” as a reminder.
• Quantities: The number of prims and objects is stated. While this doesn’t make much sense for particles, which are most often a single invisible prim, shoppers often ask this question. Answer it here before they can ask.
• Permissions: Another question that is frequently asked is the object’s permissions. Unlike clothing or skins, particles are often sold as Transfer, no-copy.
• Description: This is a very important feature, I believe, as it may be the only way some shoppers find out what the item actually does, because it is faster than reading a notecard. The trick is to clearly capture the essence of the product in as few words as possible.
• Colors: I used colors to help people understand the permissions scheme, with green and red helping to convey the meaning. 
  
• Titles: While the product name is an obvious inclusion, it should be prominent and not confused with anything else. Also, I've added my store name as a bit of extra advertising. 
  
• Image: The most difficult feature is the image, as it must carry a vision of the product at a glance, much like a book cover. The image has to accurately portray the product in a setting that matches the product’s intent. The background must complement the product, and the viewing angle, model's "look" and model’s pose must also match the theme. This turns out to be fairly difficult to do, and took me the most time to do. Above you can see an image of one of my particle effects that tries to show the feeling of the product's motion in a still frame. These are very hard to do.
  

What did I not do?

• Price: I did not put the product price on the box, even though this appears to be a common practice. My reason was simple: once on the box, you kinda have set the price permanently, unless you redo the box texture and upload again, at your cost. Imagine trying to have a sale where all 200 products suddenly must have new textures! In any case, the price is available by simply mousing over the box.
  
• Language: You’ve probably noticed that all wording on the boxes are written in English, yet many customers speak other languages. I debated whether to have multiple box covers, but in the end felt that it was far too much work to do, and the information portrayed would be much greater than before in any case. It's my belief that most people are accustomed to seeing English products - and my monitors tell me that by far the majority of visitors to the store have set English as their language.
  
• Fractional Textures: It’s possible to save a bit of money by creating textures that hold 4 box images in a 2x2 matrix. You could, for example, fit four 512x512 box images into a single 1024x1024 texture. By adjusting the offsets on your boxes, you can display the desired image only. This could save you 75% of your upload costs, and visitors would have a simplified texture rez experience (fewer, but larger textures to load). I didn’t do this, but could have if I had the time to do so (it’s more work to do this). One issue with this approach occurs when you need to change one image - you might end up redoing the other three, or at least must keep track of several versions of the multi-texture.

It was a terribly large amount of work to redo all my boxes, as I have around 200 different items for sale at Electric Pixels. The better part of two weeks was spent designing, shooting, photoshopping and uploading. But in the end, I believe it was worth it, as sales have significantly improved since the new boxes went out. The most interesting effect was that different items are being sold now - proving that box images are indeed very important for shoppers.

ArminasX Gets Upset

This is a tale of Real Life, but it’s also a tale of Second Life.

It starts in Real Life, where I happened to be dining with a couple dozen folks, and by chance I was sitting across from an older fellow. As with many of his age, his viewpoints on most things were very traditional. But he was also quite outspoken and freely told everyone his thoughts.

Meanwhile, I am a very open and tolerant person, and have been my entire RL. I believe others should be able to believe what they wish, so long as it doesn’t harm anyone else.

During the course of the evening, the older fellow began saying things that increasingly bothered me. Things like: which cars were "definitely" the best; that he knew better than the authorities; that certain lifestyles were “not normal”, and immediately discounting any views different from his own. Some of the things he said, I am quite certain, would have caused some readers of this blog to leap across the table and physically engage him.

I’ve encountered this type of person before, and usually I just write them off as uninformed and intolerant and then ignore them. They are free to believe what they wish, and I ignored him. But there was something different about this encounter. It just bothered me, much more than previous incidents.

But why did it bother me more this time? My theory is where the tale ends: Second Life.

In SL one is constantly exposed to the amazing, the fantastic, the creepy, the unusual and rarely, the traditional. I believe that after almost three years of virtual life seeing anything and everything, and realizing that everyone is indeed a real person with real thoughts and feelings, regardless of what they think, what they do and especially what they look like, my level of tolerance has grown significantly. I’m hypertolerant.

And then I encounter this guy at dinner. And I’m shocked. Shocked at his level of intolerance, because it is now so terribly far away from my new level of tolerance.

Some say Second Life is good for education, to make money, to collaborate or to create. Maybe there’s something else.

Something... necessary. And that’s more tolerance.

Hide Your Products!

I performed an interesting experiment this week at my store, Electric Pixels. Like most SL business owners, I’ve experienced a downturn over the past year, and it’s still not great. However, by keeping my expenses low I’ve managed to survive. But there’s still a concern over how to grow sales. I’ve tried various strategies, including completely rebuilding my shop in a new way to be more inviting to visitors.

The original philosophy of the shop was to make it easy for visitors to shop. I had experienced visiting many stores where products were scattered across several rooms, resulting in awkward situations:

• Having to find out how to move from room to room (might require opening doors, navigating difficult stairways, or even - argh - teleports!)
• Fighting with camera controls to scan the area
• Not realizing there was yet another room around the corner

I felt that the segmented shop design might be a detriment to sales because impatient shoppers would not put up with the troubles of locating items within the store and quickly move on to other places. After all, the next location is merely a click away.

My approach was to make an open store, where all “departments” were visible; no surprises, everything clearly marked. However, sales never were quite as good as the previous store design.

Friend Peter Stindberg suggested (more than once) that one issue with the new design might be texture rezzing. Because all my departments are visible, the SL viewer must load all textures within view - and this takes time. I didn’t really notice this effect since my computer and network are pretty good. However, those with less than adequate equipment could have been presented with a scene full of anonymous grey boxes. I wasn’t so sure, but thought this was worth an experiment.

My approach was rather trivial: I simply placed a obscuring wall in front of each separate department, closing off the view of the product boxes. This would eliminate a ton of texture rezzing for any visitor. Of course, once the visitor entered a department by passing through the obscuring wall, they’d have to rez the textures for the relevant product boxes. But there would be far fewer to rez at one time.

What was the result? Strangely, sales actually doubled for the days following the wall change. This means that Peter’s hypothesis was correct! My thoughts:

• Visitors with poor equipment saw grey product boxes and impatiently left before purchasing
• There are likely a great many people with poor equipment. Perhaps the majority? (Hm, what does this imply for Blue Mars??)
• Visitors are drawn into the now hidden departments to see what’s there because the wall obscures everything

There may be other effects happening here, but in any case it seems to have improved things. Experiments are a Good Thing. 

1000 Days

 

It is hard for me to believe, but I am 1000 days old today! My virtual existence has so permeated my life I cannot believe it can be measured in mere days; centuries are more what it feels like, as the fast paced activities in Second Life make events seem they occurred a very long time ago.

The main thing to consider is that I survived. Most people, probably greater than 90%, never make it this far. I am pretty certain on a wall in Linden Lab there’s a chart that goes something like this:  

The bluey areas represent the mass of people that survive each state. Going from left to right:

• The Second Life website has piles of visitors, but only a few actually bother to register
• Of those who register, only a small percentage login to the grid, create an avatar and survive the dreaded orientation without giving up
• After orientation, avatars are unceremoniously dumped into typically hostile “welcome areas” where they are immediately beset upon by louts of various species. Many give up at this point
• Emerging from the welcome area usually occurs when avatars find something useful and fun to do, like socializing, running a business, displaying their art, furthering a cause or playing a game. Those who don’t find something to do usually fade away

If you’ve made it all the way through those stages, congratulations! You’re one of the very, very few. And the most talented, too, because that seems to be a prerequisite for traversing all those stages.

My chart’s figures are only a guess, as we’ve seen only hints at these statistics from the Lab. But I imagine the shape of the curve is something like this. It may even be a lot thinner at the right-hand edge.

We now can also understand why the Lab spends time on the website, registration and orientation process - because if those stages are even slightly more successful, the latter stages will be flooded with many, many more avatars. And that’s just good business.

Are You Crazy?

 

It's a question I ask myself now and then, simply because of all the insane  and unbelievable situations I find myself in lately. If you can't explain it to your mom, is it because it's too hard to explain, or because you're actually doing crazy things? And does that mean you are crazy?

I began pondering this question after watching a rather good machinima from Pooky Amsterdam, "Shrink Wrapped", in which a typical avatar consults a psychiatrist regarding her increasingly bizarre SL behavior. The main character enters SL for typical and conventional reasons, but then as social activities increase, the avatar reacted by creating multiple SL personalities - and mayhem ensued.

Adding more personalities just makes things more confusing, as there are more opportunities for conflict between the identities. This is especially likely if you invest more personalty into your alt avatars, as did the avatar in the machinima.

I have a couple of alts, but I don't really inject any personality into them; it's as if they're made of cardboard. As a result, I can avoid some of those complex and mentally confusing social situations involving non-cardboard alts. Perhaps I'm not crazy after all?

How about you? Do you have alts that have a truly unique personality? Does the constant mental context switching drive you crazy? If so, maybe you need to see Dr. Occam too!

Armi’s Hierarchy of Avatar Needs

Recently I’ve been puzzling over fluctuating revenues at my shop. One theory I had suggested recent decreases in revenue might have something to do with the unemployment rate. However, commenters provided many alternate theories, one of which involved avatars buying other types of products before “my” type of products.

I thought about this at length and realized that this could in fact be the case. The more I thought about it, I increasingly saw a connection to the classic “Maslow’s Hierarchy”. What’s that, you ask?

According to the Business Dictionary, Maslow’s Hierarchy is a

Motivation theory which suggests five interdependent levels of basic human needs (motivators) that must be satisfied in a strict sequence starting with the lowest level.

And it’s typically represented as a pyramid, where individuals must satisfy their needs at the lower levels before they can seek the benefits of higher levels.

 

As you can see, humans likely have to be able to breath and eat before they’ll worry about making friends and producing sculptures.

It seems to me that there might be a corresponding pyramid suitable for avatars. I suspect some of the layers might be similar to Maslow’s, but there are some differences, especially at the bottom of the pyramid.
 

  

If this pyramid of “Armi’s Hierarchy of Avatar Needs” is true, then it may explain some shopping habits. After first ensuring the basics (Physical, Safety and Belonging), avatars tend to shop for fashions, skins and shapes before seeking gadgets, building supplies and particle effects. Thus, in difficult times one might expect a store such as mine to suffer more than say, a famous skin shop.

The pyramid might also explain why people get frantically upset when the grid or PC crashes, and why teleport errors generate so many complaints. The lower levels of needs are more fundamental to avatar existence.

There’s one simple reason avatars may act according to a pyramid of needs: behind every avatar is none other than a real, breathing human. Most of the time, anyway.

A Newb. Until When?

 

We’ve all been there. Rezzing in a strange virtual world. Avatars wandering nearby chatting about unintelligible topics. Unable to move. There’s a box on your head. How do you bookmark a location? How do I get Lindens? What’s a Linden?

Yes, it’s that newbish period of our virtual existence, when we really don’t have a hot clue about practically anything. I stayed in this pathetic state for months.

Well, it really wasn’t that bad. In fact I did eventually learn how to move, chat and take the box off of my head.

But it does beg a question. When, exactly, does one stop being a “newbie”?

Let’s consider some ideas to determine this. What if the avatar:

• Can competently build objects?
• Can competently operate chats, groups and land?
• Can acquire and wear great clothing?
• Has been around for more than two months?
• Is well known by many other avatars?
• Can answer questions from other newbs?

Nope, none of these will do. I know people who clearly are no longer newbs, but could not build a plain wooden box to save the universe. I know people who have been in SL for two years, but still act like newbs. Any other specific factor likely has similar exceptions.

I believe that newbishness is a trait that is very gradually shed over a long period. Successful existence in SL requires a lot of knowledge and it simply cannot be learned quickly. People take months to gain enough experience to do things competently - and even then they might be completely unaware of other activities.

And that leads to my theory: we’re all still newbs one way or another, because there are always things we don’t know. A veteran avatar can suddenly become incompetent if faced with an unfamiliar situation requiring knowledge they don’t have.

So I don’t make fun of newbs, because we’d be making fun of ourselves. Unless, of course, they have a box on their head.

2.5 Store Years

It’s been 2.5 years since I opened my SL store, Electric Pixels. It’s been quite a journey, and the store has undergone several evolutions:

• The first iteration was actually not in-world at all, but existed solely on the then-named SLExchange in January 2007. Started on a dare from a friend, my items sold quite well. Well enough that I quickly saved sufficient Lindens to proceed to stage two
• In March 2007 I took a step by purchasing a tiny 512sm parcel in the obscure sim Lanestris for the princely sum of L$6000. I wanted to set up an in-world store because it seemed like the right thing to do. While the tier was just right (it’s actually zero for your first 512sm), I had no idea how to set up a store. So I experimented with several crazy concepts, and learned much. The important thing was the cash flow was ten times that of SLExchange. This led to stage three a few months later
• In June 2007 I took a huge step by purchasing an 8192sm mainland parcel, which required my first tier of USD$40 per month. I was confident my revenue would cover that, and I built a rather different and much larger store using learnings from iteration two
• Some 18 months later I took the opportunity to acquire land adjacent to my 8192sm parcel, doubling its size to a full 1/4 sim. After several weeks of rebuilding I had successfully expanded and redesigned Electric Pixels with multiple display areas with live demonstrations everywhere

And so it sits today. But I’ve survived for over two years while some other businesses have failed. What’s my secret? At each stage I’ve been very conservative and expanded only when absolutely certain my revenue greatly exceeded the monthly expenses.

That and all the customers who come by to look and purchase. My thanks to all of you!

Long Distance Call

 

Long ago I watched a particularly frightening (at the time) episode of the classic TV series, “The Twilight Zone”. In the episode “Long Distance Call”, child actor Billy Mumy uses a toy telephone to call his newly dead grandmother. The situation seemed normal from the child’s viewpoint, but when the father picks up the toy phone and speaks to the dead grandmother over some unimaginable series of wires and switches, the situation becomes infinitely not normal. And pretty scary, too.

I had the same feeling as that TV father last week.

I had that feeling while testing the new AvaLine voice service just introduced for testing by Linden Lab. It’s a service that permits people (not necessarily avatars) to use their familiar telephone to call directly into Second Life and speak with a logged-in avatar. Or if they’re not logged in, you can leave an audio voice message, which shows up as an MP3 file in the avatar’s email.

AvaLine is pretty straightforward to use. After signing up and getting your AvaLine "ID", you exchange it with your avatar friends. Then you pick up a normal telephone and dial one of several strategically located telephone "portals". The portal asks you for the avatar ID, and upon receiving it, connects you to the selected avatar in voice. 

I thought it wise to give AvaLine a try. Here are my findings so far:

• The audio quality is inconsistent and typically worse than normal avatar-to-avatar in-world voice (assuming all are using headsets with reasonable quality mics). My goodness, it sounds like they’re on the telephone! D'oh!
• The avatar sees the incoming call as coming from the phone number. For example, you might get a call from 2125551234. This does seem strange, since voice users expect to see a name, not a number. Worse, if your avatar buddy is actually calling, you might not recognize their phone number
• That’s another major problem: the actual real-life telephone number is shown. For those who wish to be anonymous, this could be a big issue. I don’t know if it’s possible to block the caller ID, but the truth is that many people wouldn’t realize they could do so and thus mistakenly reveal their True Phone Number.
• You must have a good memory for telephone numbers because a given person might call in from multiple telephones (imagine a cell phone, home land line, work phone, etc.) It’s the same person calling, but they show up in Second Life as different faceless numbers
• If the avatar is offline, then the message goes straight to voice mail. But this also occurs if the avatar has set the “Only accept voice calls from people on My Friends list” option. You must turn this off to receive calls from your friends, because the system doesn’t know your friends' telephone numbers. Yet.
  
• At this early stage only certain major cities have telephone “portals”. If you happen to live elsewhere, then you’ll have to call the nearest portal number long distance. This is an issue if you don’t have a flat-rate LD plan
• Real life telephone calls seem to have an “I talk, You Talk, I talk” protocol. But SL conversations seem different, and involve more passive listening and pauses. Pauses, though normal in SL voice, are very unnerving when you have a handset to your ear.

Problems aside, the service is interesting, although I am still not certain of the expected usage situation. Basically, this must occur:

• Two avatars wish to communicate
• The avatars are familiar with voice
• One avatar is online
• The other avatar is offline, but has access to a regular telephone

I’m not sure this is a situation many would find themselves in, but I suppose it does occur. I’ve used it a few times and it is fun, but I am not sure it would survive past the novelty stage for me. There would be more use, I think, if avatars could call out to any outside telephone number, but that feature does not currently exist.

But back to the Twilight Zone.

In the course of testing AvaLine, I found myself in my real-life office, looking out the window at real trees, real buildings and real people walking by. I saw my hand pick up the telephone and dial a sequence of digits. Soon, ringing. Suddenly a voice answered.

A voice from another world.

And it really was from another world. My mind swam as real and virtual contexts violently collided, leaving me quite uncomfortable. I thought of the boy speaking to his dead grandmother and realized that was no boy; it was, and is, me.