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.

A Clear Confirmation

A few weeks ago I wrote a speculative piece suggesting that Linden Lab’s next move would be to implement the highly functional Clearspace Community collaboration tool.

I believe this is precisely what happened. We all have seen the big splash of the new Second Life blogs, but one telling clue is embedded within the URL of the new site:

I was not able to find an announcement regarding the technology used by Linden Lab, but yes, as you can see, they are indeed using Clearspace as the engine behind the new community blogs. A good thing? Yes, I think so, as Jive software’s Clearspace products are among the leading commercial tools for establishing and developing a vibrant online community.  Good choice, LL! 

Sim Phantomed Sim!

This week I was minding my own business (literally) with Haley Salomon when suddenly we both plummeted downwards and splattered on the ground! My store was built on megaprims that stand about 50m above the raw ground. Picking myself up off the dusty ground, I looked around and saw nothing but bare land!

Immediately, I thought that somehow my land, store and all my objects had been taken away by an evil land-baron-trickster-bot, or perhaps in an insufficient-sleep induced stupor I had marked the parcel for sale at a fractional price. But no, the truth was even stranger.

I looked up to where my store had been - and it was still there! Somehow both of us had simultaneously fallen through the floor, all the way to the ground. Bizarrely, we apparently were standing on the ground in the middle of a solid megaprim cube.

Having no other obvious course of action, we flew back up through the "solid" cube to arrive at the store's normal floor. Upon casually striking the "Stop Flying" button, I gently set down on my store's floor once again.

And then plummeted 50m to splatter yet again.

Somehow the megaprim floor had become Phantom - and I could freely pass through it. A furious investigation ensued, where I checked the phantomness (is that a word?) of the remaining floor cubes (phantomed). Store walls (phantomed). Any objects nearby (phantomed). Everything was made phantom!

Perhaps, I thought, it's only my objects. I rocketed over to my neighbor, Aspasia Arliss's park and approached her house/temple/not-quite-sure-what-it-is, and being the clumsy oaf I am in a laggy sim, proceeded to fly right through it! All of her objects were similarly phantomed.

Returning to my store, and gaining a slight bit of psychological stability by positioning myself mostly on the floor (see picture above), we set about figuring out how to report this unbelievable turn of events to the Linden Mandarins.

Suddenly, I squirted upwards out of the floor to resume standing normally on the now solid floor. Other objects were also suddenly non-phantomed.

So what happened? A SL Client problem? No, it happened to two of us at exactly the same Second Life second. Did I dream the entire scenario? No, check the picture again. Clearly it was a sim problem of some sort - and fortunately a temporary one at that. It does a business no small goodness to have arriving customers plummet to their death mere seconds after they arrive.

Moral of the story: When you hear a big "Splat", it isn't always due to avatar operator competency challenges.

SL Bloggers' Party

During this past weekend the "monthly" SL Bloggers' party took place at Sailor's Cove, courtesy of hosts GoSpeed Racer and Ravishal Bentham. It was only my second party, and I really don't know many of the bloggers in attendance - yet. I had a fab time and I will report here for those who did not attend, or even those who did.

Yeah, I should post a picture. But I didn't take any, as I was intimidated (and surrounded) by truly awesome Second Life photographic artists on all sides, and besides, in every direction I looked was a "gray" person. Sigh.

Unlike many events in Second Life where participants constantly say "WooT!!!@" or that awful "Yee-hahhh!" sound and spell terribly in chat, this event was filled with writers. Who know how to speel. Um, spell. And make puns. Lots of them.

A few stray highlights:

• Veyron Supercharge and Tiessa Mongolfier dressed as ethereal fantasy mermaids, floating in the air. Well, at least until Veyron wanted to dance and suddenly lost her tail!
• Mylena Aquitaine appearing as a fish (hmm, which species was it? Tuna? Mackerel?) and Nobody Fugazi's flaming penguin avatar pursuing her in search of Fresh Sushi!
• Vint Falken whipping up a large bowl-shaped aquarium for Mylena. And the ultra-kewl Top Hat!
• I believe there were some naked (or near naked) avatars, but I didn't see them because I was too busy following the puns in the chat log... Ok, Ok, it was Veyron! (see pictures below)
  
• Crap Mariner somehow walking sideways on the wall and not falling down.
• Some incredibly amazing music mashups by the DJ.
  

Feeling bad about the lack of images here, I scoured the blogs to find any other posts on this event, and found only the following. Unlike me, they took photos:

http://ravishal4sl.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/sl-blogger-february-meeting-success/
http://elusyve.blogspot.com/2008/02/blawgers-rawkz.html
http://zoeconnolly.blogspot.com/2008/02/sl-bloggers-meetup.html
http://secondlife.isfullofcrap.com/2008/02/the_meetup.html
http://slsailorscove.com/wp/?p=163
http://secondlifesofian.blogspot.com/2008/02/my-first-blogger-day.html

Ravishal and GoSpeed, thank you again for organizing this!

FLASH UPDATE: Other party reports are now emerging... I guess I should have waited a bit longer to write mine. As usual Vint has a very comprehensive post including links to even more reports and pictures:

http://www.vintfalken.com/februarys-sl-blogmeet-nautical/

Oh, yes, I somehow forgot all about the "seamen" jokes! NOT.

Broadening The Stars

The other day someone told me they really liked my blog - except for those "incredibly annoying posts where I talk about my particle effects." Ok, I can understand that. But I am running a particle effects business that I love and I am going to do it anyway!

---BEGIN ADVERT---
One of my most popular particle products is a rather simple one: StarMaker. It's a device you can install on your property that emits rather nice spiky-looking stars. They don't move, but instead they just appear and then slowly fade out within a 5m radius. The effect is quite eerie when you walk through a 3D field of such stars.

I thought that was the end of the story for StarMaker. But it wasn't. A visitor to the store last week asked the staff whether we had a bigger version of StarMaker, suitable for covering a large area. We did not. But my trusty staff wrote up the request and passed it on to me. After a little bit of programming and a lot experimentation, I completed building "StarMaker Wide."

It's very similar to the original StarMaker, but covers a massive radius of 60m, which is suitable for coverage of many areas and events. Like its predecessor, StarMaker Wide emits stationary stars – but it has to be seen to be believed. Large stars appear close up, while those more distant appear smaller and seen to wink in and out. It's much more effective than the original, if you have a space large enough to use it.

But that's not all: we've made StarMaker Wide available in several starry colors: Red, Green, Blue, Ice Blue, White, Purple, Fuschia, Yellow, Pink and MultiColor, which continuously emits a range of different colors. Finally, if you cannot decide which color is best for you, StarMaker Wide Universal can be set to any of the above colors at a mere touch. Set your parcel's mood by color as required.

All available now at Electric Pixels!
---END ADVERT---

Ok, I agree with you. That was a blatent advert. Sorry. At least I marked it as such. We'll resume normal blogging in the next post. But it really is a wonderful product! Really!

Augh, I can't help myself. See you next time!

Splashy Ideas

Shopping is definitely not one of my fortes. In fact, I foolishly try to build any item I need first. Or at least I contemplate building before finally giving in and undergoing a shopping ordeal. Why is it an ordeal? I am not exactly sure, but usually I end up doing what seems to be an endless search for something that may not even exist. It typically takes a very long time and I often get frustrated when lag slows my store visits even more. Am I being too picky? Probably. Am I impatient? Um, Yes.

Fortunately, my friends keep me honest by directing me to the best shops in Second Life. This week a very dear friend took me to Splash Aquatics, which sells a variety of watery goods. According to their directory, they sell:

• Marine, tropical & freshwater fish
• Fishtanks & bowls
• Aquarium & pond decor
• Fountains
• Natural freshwater pods
• Bridges
• Ocean wildlife
• Aquatic animals & birds
• Scuba diving
• Aqua-scaping

I wasn't looking for fish on that day, but if I did I would certainly come back to this very interesting store.

Readers will recall that I often rant about store structure and organization. But this time I wanted to point out the good things I observed at Splash Aquatics. Not only does Splash Aquatics have a great selection of high-quality items that all follow the same theme and are grouped in very sensible ways, it also has a couple of interesting twists that I believe many shops should consider.

First, there is a very strong element of realism throughout the area. Buildings and landscape appear just as they would in real life. But one of the most interesting realism aspects was the manner in which fish were sold. Pictured above is the "Nursery" where small fry fish apparently are spawned. To the right of the tank are buttons for purchasing said small fish. What struck me was how different this was from a typical store display. Instead of merely having an array of product boxes lined up on a wall, the nursery tank seems to bring the concept to life by showing you precisely how the product can be used. And even better, it is exactly what you would see in a real life aquarium store.

Secondly, Splash Aquatics has a "feature attraction" in addition to the store product displays and stocked shelves: a walk-through fish tank. We've all seen these in real life, where you may walk in dry safety within a glass tunnel at the bottom of a large tank, watching sharks skim just above your head. You can do exactly the same thing at Splash Aquatics; their tank looks very much like real life. Having a feature attraction like the water tunnel is a tremendous idea for any store. It provides visitors with another reason to visit, and possibly show it to their friends who otherwise would have had no reason to visit your store. That's exactly how I discovered Splash Aquatics.

Someday I will build a feature attraction at Electric Pixels. I've already been thinking of some ideas, but I haven't quite got the right one yet. A feature for an aquatics store might be obvious, but for particles? Stay tuned!

And by the way, you can visit Splash Aquatics here, in the unfortunately named sim, "Gooruembalchi".

Staffed!

When "real life" people hear that I own a successful virtual business, they are usually puzzled or amazed. What will they say now when I tell them I have employees?

You might be wondering what staff would do at a particle shop? It's pretty simple, really, they are doing what I often do at the store: talk to visitors and help them. I've found that it is a great way to ensure everyone has a good experience, and it's also the best way to find out what people are looking to buy.

In spite of my efforts to make the store easy to navigate, trigger demonstrations, access informative notecards, some people still have problems finding items in the store. Perhaps they are simply impatient, or maybe they can't read. It's then that they really appreciate a friendly someone to guide them to the correct place.

But this work does take a lot of time, and lately my Second Life existence seems to be getting busier than ever. So, after chatting with friends who make a not-so-great living camping, I realized I could provide a better paying job for them and handle visitors with a lot more care. After buying a timeclock (well, two of them, since the first one didn't do what I needed) and some negotiations, I have staff!

This is definitely an experiment, and experiments are one of the actions I've advised Second Life businesses to do in previous posts: keep trying things. Eliminate that which doesn't work, and do more of that which does work. In this case, I intend to compare results before and after to determine the effect of in-store sales personnel.

The best part so far: staff say, "This is so much more interesting than camping! You get to talk to people who aren't zombies!"

SL Ergonomics, Part II: Building Tips

In a previous article I described what I refer to as "Second Life Ergonomics". It's all about the appropriate design of virtual structures to make it easy for avatars to use and enjoy. My main complaint is that many builders tend to build virtual structures using real-life ergonomic considerations, and fewer realize that avatars have significantly different characteristics that must be accounted for.

Here are a few tips that I have learned during my brief virtual existence (well, brief except for last week when I was online for far too many hours!) This list is certainly not exhaustive - I am thinking of new ideas all the time, and I am positive there many great ideas I have yet to learn.

Phantom Objects - On those days when it's really hard to turn, walk and especially precisely navigate through a crowded area, it's really annoying to get hung up on items in your way. Yes, I know you should walk around them - but sometimes you just can't.

• TIP: Unless the object has some physical purpose make it phantom. That way the object cannot interfere with an avatar's motion, but still adds to the visual effect. Don't phantomize objects that require physical characteristics, such as furniture to sit on or ramps to walk up.

Solid Objects - I can't stand it when I am trying to walk along a narrow path and end up falling off the side, sometimes to my virtual death. Why does this happen? Because the builder didn't account for the sloppy avatar movements.

• TIP: When ever there is a danger of falling, place some kind of solid object to prevent disaster. Avatars need railings, walls or even a slight hump sometimes to channel their movement and overcome occasional inadequate navigation. Even a transparent barrier would be helpful and not interfere with the visual effect. It's quite simple, really - just assume all your visitors are drunk and stumbling around!

Head Space: All avatars by default have their camera position behind and above them. That way you can see exactly what your virtual counterpart is doing, and with whom. Unless, that is, there is a wall or roof in your way. Cramped quarters are really difficult to deal with, especially if the Grid is laggy.

• TIP: Building material is free in Second Life: you can afford to have taller rooms that accommodate the normal camera position. Make rooms with very tall ceilings. Or better yet, don't have any ceilings! In some cases, even walls aren't really necessary.

Curves: The last time I looked, my keyboard did not include a curved arrow. That's why I have a lot of trouble walking accurately along curved walkways. Avatars can most easily walk straight, but curves are harder to follow. Spiral staircases are the worst, and few can successfully navigate them without bumping into the walls or falling off.

• TIP: Don't build curves for avatars to traverse. Do build curves for avatars to admire.

Dexterity: While it is easy to click with a mouse, it's difficult to do so when you must do so precisely. A vending machine with tiny buttons is not good, since it becomes very easy for someone to push the wrong buttons. Misdirected clicks often happens on websites, and it happens in Second Life too.

• TIP: Click areas should be sufficiently large to avoid any confusion with neighboring buttons. This is especially important for buttons that perform actions that count - like paying money or ejecting that annoying person from your land. Use contrasting colors to ensure they stand out and are identifiable.

Smell and Taste: As I said in the previous ergonomic post, thankfully these senses are not yet implemented in Second Life. I can imagine what some people might do if they were. But how can you reasonably approximate these senses?

• TIP: Since smell and taste are absent, you must use a visual experience to hint or remind visitors of smells and tastes. Appropriate images, carefully chosen particle effects, sounds and textures can sometimes convey a message of smell and taste.

Item Layout: Upon entering a store or gallery, experienced avatars simply stay put and motor their camera around to check out the wares. Unfortunately, most younger avatars (and even some old ones) are poor camera drivers. Instead of camming they move their avatar around the area, turning and pausing to examine every item one by one. They walk, turn, tilt, examine. Then repeat. And again. How many times must they do this? Sometimes once for every item in the store or gallery. This is at least tedious and sometimes frustrating when the lag demons are prowling.

• TIP: Make items big enough to see clearly (especially product boxes or photo displays), but not so big as to cause enormous amounts of walking and turning.

• TIP2: Consider displaying items in a circle or semi-circle, where the avatar needs only rotate to easily view a lot of items. I use this technique at my store, and it has proven quite successful. Even better, it really isn't that difficult to build.

Wide Size: Yes, I know the diving board ladder looks realistic, but it is a huge pain in the a** to line up your avatar precisely so that when you go up, you don't fall off. Similarly, smaller doorways are often hard to get through, especially if you have a larger avatar.

• TIP: Assume that avatars are large and size things accordingly. Also assume that it is hard to navigate precisely, so don't make things very narrow if you expect avatars to use them. Use invisible railings or equivalent if there is danger of falling off.
  

Colors and Textures: Avatars have relatively poor eyesight. They often cannot see distances clearly and even up close they can't make out details unless they are able to zoom in. Also, sometimes poor graphics capability means they can see only a limited amount of textures.

• TIP: Try to minimize the number of textures in use, so that once a texture is loaded, it is rapidly displayed on all applied surfaces. If you use many different textures, visiting avatars will spend a long time rezzing all the textures and generally experience local slow downs.

And those are some ergonomic tips for you. As I learn more, I'll post a follow up article with new ones in the future. Good luck with your build!

Sculptured Fireworks

Once in a long while I accidentally make something that I believe is very interesting, and Mini Candles is certainly that. What are they? They are simply small versions of the giant Roman Candle effect I released earlier. Five colors (red, white, blue, green and gold) are included in the Mini Candle kit.

So? What makes them interesting?

Since they are copyable, you can make lots of them - and then merely by linking them together they automatically synchronize and act as one unit. In other words, you can instantly create a "bank" of roman candles that fire at exactly the same time.

Since they have "COPY" permission, you can use as many as you dare to create the most outrageous fireworks displays ever! By making enough copies and arranging them in the appropriate patterns, you can create banks of roman candles that fire in coordinated sequences within minutes. You can make a wall of white or a circle of red or a star of gold.

Still not convinced? Using Mini Candles I was able to quickly create the display pictured here, which includes a ROTATING pinwheel! Feel free to drop by Electric Pixels to see this in person. Well, "in avatar", at least. I will leave it up on our stage for a while.

And you can use Mini Candles not only for fireworks displays, but all sorts of interesting applications: parties, themed areas, animated sculptures and even secret initiation ceremonies. Well, having never been invited to a secret ritual, I gotta assume that's what goes on in them. Doesn't it?

Mini Candles. It's not just five roman candles - it's a fireworks construction kit!

Fences, Spheres and a Gas Burner

There are three unusual new items at Electric Pixels this week, and they are of a type I've never made before. I've created a new category at the store called, "Gadgets". These are definitely not particle effects you would ever want to wear, but they may come in handy in certain situations.

The first gadget is one of the most complex items I've built so far. It's a Gas Burner! You can place these on your virtual stovetop to make it look and operate just like the real thing. Flickering blue-white flames come from the emitter at a touch. Touch again and you go through all the settings: Off, Low, Medium and High. Just don't burn yourself! The box contains a set of four, suitable for most kitchen installations.

The second two products are really construction tools. Let's say you are setting up a site where you have a sensor in place to detect avatars at a distance of 26m, for example. While it's easy to place your sensor, where exactly does the 26m detection range lie? Now you can easily find the range with these two new particle products:

• Particle Fence: It looks like a simple cylinder, but when you touch it, a series of highly-visible fence boards appear in a circle around the emitter. By default the radius is 10m, but with a simple chat command you can change it to any distance from 1m to 96m. Definitely not for use on the dance floor!
  
• Particle Sphere: A two-dimensional fence is not what you need? Three Dimensional required? Well, the Particle Sphere performs precisely the same operation as the Particle Fence, but in a sphere instead of a 2D circle. No fence boards, it uses little dots instead as seen in the picture.

Both Particle Fence and Particle Sphere have large emitters so that you can easily find and click on them from a distance, and both also have an automatic shut off to avoid having them pollute your space with particles.

Amazingly, all three of these products were inspired (well, suggested might be a better word) by my blogging friend Peter Stindberg. Thanks muchly, Peter! The best ideas for new products are always found by talking to others who need them.

Linden Labs Run by Hitler?

There are a lot of Second Life related videos out there, including in-world machinima. But tonight, new friend Martin Maxwell pointed out a totally hysterical Youtube video, in which Philip is played by none other than Hitler himself. Don't watch this if you have to keep quiet, because you'll be howling.

Click here to watch.

Halos!

I saw someone wearing a halo the other day, and thought I'd see if I could make one too. I'd never made precision-aligned head ornaments before but perhaps I was up to the challenge.

It turned out that it was actually quite straightforward to build the halo, which is modeled here by Haley Salomon. They slowly bubble upwards, fading to a brilliant white. Haley is wearing the green version (naturally, because everything she owns is green, or at least that's how it seems.) Although I truly like green, I just had to make a few other colors.

Eleven, actually: Red, Blue, Yellow, Black, Purple, Indigo, Chartreuse, Fuschia, Pink and Sky Blue. And one more: a very special Vampire version that is Red and Black.

I've received positive feedback on these from several testers, and I hope you like them too. If you happen to like them a lot, you can buy all colors at once in the "Halo Collection". Available now at Electric Pixels!

Spooky

Ok, so I know that people make Second Life pets, and some of them even follow you around. My neighbor in Caso Milo has a wonderful pond with apparently artificially intelligent ducks. I've seen birds flying through the sky and I've ridden elephants for a laugh.

But last night I saw something a little different. As I was working with Veyron Supercharge on her evil "Sweatshop" build (I am making some evil-looking flames that will burst from the industrial-style smokestacks), she showed me an interesting sight next door at her South Gate parcel.

It was a ghost!

This small build contained a rather creepy looking sculpty tree (made by Seph DaSilva) with matching ground terrain. However, once we were nearby we were assaulted by ghosts! The "Spectre", made by Lyle Maeterlimck of Liquid Designs, slinks around the tree area and rushes up to unsuspecting passers-by. More ghosts are spawned and it gets pretty spooky.

That's a pet! Now, if only someone would make a pet that washed the floors in my store...

Top Posts of 2007

Second Effects began in 2007, and it is still undergoing very strong growth in readership. So it really doesn't make mathematical sense to list the top posts because so many new readers have only read the most recent posts.

But I will do so anyway!

These are the posts most frequently read by you, the readers of Second Effects:

10. Particles at Burning Life. This report detailed my exploration of particle effect exhibits at Burning Life, and what a festival it was. Maybe next year I will try creating an exhibit myself.

9. Why RL Businesses Fail in Second Life, part 1. This was my first attempt at explaining the usual fate of real world businesses when they attempt to go virtual. Essentially, I believe they simply don't understand what's going on in Second Life and treat it like any old website. Hence, failure.

8. Insane Way to Increase Parcel Traffic. This post came from one of those lucky occurrences when you bump into something interesting right under your nose. Or, in this case, it was my neighbor's nose.

7. Tips for Successful Second Life Clubs. In a very recent post I described some very intriguing techniques for managing a Second Life club.

6. Particles in Bloom. My first attempt at making "vegetation" based particle effects was for some unexplainable reason very popular. Maybe I should make potatoes next year?

5. Why RL Businesses Fail in Second Life, part 3. The final post in the "RL Failure" series garnered 4 diggs as well as a great many views, since it explained some potentially viable approaches for RL businesses.

4. Top Ten Tips for Starting a Second Life Business. Many people ask me what they should do to start a business, so I thought I could answer all of them at once with a blog post. Evidently this is a very popular topic, as many people are indeed starting SL businesses.

3. Why RL Businesses Fail in Second Life, part 2. Part 2 of the "RL Failure" series ended up with 6 diggs. The post described my theory of virtual experience and how it is not properly addressed by RL businesses.

2. Burning After Alexis. Thanks to a very fortunate pointer from New World Notes and editor Wagner James Au, this amusing post was the second-most read of 2007. It describes a bizarre solution to a build problem.

1. More from Rezzable / Greenies. This post from early September was the single most popular post of the year, and was picked up by several other blogs, including Your2ndPlace.

I want to thank all Second Effects readers for a very successful year in 2007, and wish everyone the best in 2008.

Customer Service Saves Database!

Did you know that customer service can fix database problems? I do! How do I know this? Because I have to use that technique at least once a week.

Here's the scenario: customer arrives at my store, browses and selects an item for purchase. They click on it to pay. Lindens are transferred from their account to mine. However... the item somehow doesn't get transferred to their inventory. This is a database problem. It's a Linden Lab problem.

But at the moment of purchase, it's MY problem.

Typically, the customer gives me a shout and asks what to do. I check my transaction log to ensure they actually did purchase something, and if they did I simply toss them another copy. Sometimes I give them a bonus to make up for their trouble. Everybody's happy.

Not so typical is the maniacal customer who explodes all over you, such as happened this week at Electric Pixels. I am certain that most shop owners have identical scenarios occurring at their locations too. But this one was just crazy.

Taking a cue from Sarah Nerd's frequent conversational posts, I reproduce the sequence of events here (which took place by email on my side as you will see). I defy anyone to read this and understand what is going on. This has to be more than a simple language translation issue. Names have been changed to protect the innocent, but otherwise is intact:

[12:06] Unruly Customer: hi
Unruly Customer has offered to become your friend in Second Life. Log in to accept or decline the offer.
[12:10] Unruly Customer: Face I bought an effect of green thy $ 99L and I did not get the goods. I receive you is safado sacana.
[12:46] Unruly Customer: hei
[12:51] Arminasx Saiman: Hi - got your message. I have a record of your transaction 999999999 today at 12:00:03 SLT MultiBalls Personal for L$99 and no other transactions. Did you receive MultiBalls? I have no record of you buying any Green effects. Let me know what happens and we will fix it.
[12:53] Unruly Customer: I just more expensive to buy, my many friends bought a little now. I am not lying, help me
[12:54] Unruly Customer: I will face gives me the product
[12:55] Unruly Customer: I bought, I will report this abuse
[12:58] Unruly Customer: Porra because you merdas these green? I bought this porra and caralho not received, I want to receive you received rather the dollar.
[12:59] Unruly Customer: Poxa you face is a sacana even me wrong
[13:00] Unruly Customer: I bought this shit, and not received, boy I can return my money one of the effect that I bought.
[13:03] Unruly Customer: I shit game, and give the goods safado
[13:04] Unruly Customer: I shit game, and give the goods safadoI shit game, and give the goods safadoI shit game, and give the goods safadoI shit game, and give the goods safadoI shit game, and give the goods safadoI shit game, and give the goods safadoI shit game, and give the goods safadoI shit game, and give the goods safadoI shit game, and give the goods safadoI shit game, and give the goods safadoI shit game, and give the goods safado
[13:05] Unruly Customer: Pilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleadingPilantra misleading
[13:07] Arminasx Saiman: I do not want you mad at me - I just do not yet know what happened. I always fix up problems for my customers - and I have to do this every week for someone because Linden Lab's database is not reliable. Often things are not delivered when bought. By the way, I am not online until several hours from now. but when i come on, I will fix things for you.
[13:10] Unruly Customer: Then please give me my goods, I am stating
[13:10] Unruly Customer: Then please give me my goods, I am statingThen please give me my goods, I am statingThen please give me my goods, I am stating
[13:12] Unruly Customer: I will have to wait, my friends, XXX, YYY, ZZZ bought effects a few minutes and all received, but I did not get that.
[13:14] I will give you the goods, BUT I AM NOT ONLINE NOW! I can only do this later today. And you must tell me EXACTLY which effect you purchased that you did not receive. I have many GREEN effects. WHICH ONE????
[13:16] Unruly Customer: You can just see how we buy ai effects, more myself I have not received
[13:16] Arminasx Saiman: This is what I have recorded in transactions today: XXX buys Sunballs Gang for L99; ZZZ buys MultiStreaks Personal for L99; Unruly Customer buys MultiBalls Personal for L99. Did you receive MultiBalls?
[13:17] Unruly Customer: I will tell you what is now Wait a moment
[13:19] Unruly Customer: multiballs personal
[13:19] Unruly Customer: This is exactly the multiballs personal, which was 99 lindens
[13:20] Arminasx Saiman: OK - then it is no problem. I will give you a fresh new copy of Multiballs when I am back online in a couple of hours. I am at RL work right now and cannot get online. Is that OK?
[13:23] Unruly Customer: Rightly, my name is Unruly Customer, I bought the effect multiballs personal and not received in my inventory
Unruly Customer has offered to become your friend in Second Life. Log in to accept or decline the offer.
[13:24] Arminasx Saiman: Yes, I will give you a good copy of MultiBalls in about 2 hours or so. Undelivered items happens to a customer at least once a week - the Linden database system is not reliable. This week it seems to be your turn! Don't worry - I will fix it.

Even more confusing to me is the fact that the MultiBalls product is NOT green.

Later that evening I met "Unruly Customer" in person at the store and gave him not only a new copy of the missing item but also an extra bonus item too, in hopes of making him happy. Nope. He accepted the items and swiftly disappeared into the aether without even a thank you or a goodbye. Sigh, another week of SL business completed.

Burning After Alexis

Alexis Lange is not only a friend of mine, but also a Battlestar Galactica pilot based in Eleggua (call sign "Panther".) Last week she came to me looking for a way to make her flyer more realistic, specifically by adding a massive rocket plume.

Easy, I thought. Just build a particle emitter that shoots out the right mix of shapes and colors to visually appear as a plume. Then paste it on the a**-end of the flyer. I quickly constructed a disc-shaped "Afterburner" emitter that could fit well within the thrust tubes of the powerful flyer, shooting out white-yellow flames.

It was going fine until I dropped by the Eleggua airfield (which is itself hundreds of meters in the air) and gave Alexis the Afterburner prototype for testing. The device worked perfectly, and even synchronized with the flyer's start and stop chat commands.

The trouble began when I suggested that Alexia link the Afterburner to the flyer so that she could fly off and not leave the emitter behind on the deck! However, it turns out that the permissions on the flyer were no-Modify, meaning she cannot link any objects to it, including the Afterburner.

I was about to abandon hope of getting this done easily, short of begging the flyer's maker to somehow include the Afterburner, when I had an idea.

Instead of attaching the emitter to the flyer, I realized we could attach it to Alexis! Yes, while she's sitting in the cockpit, the emitter goes off as designed, but the plume still appears as intended. Flames blast out from her spine backwards and appear to come from the flyer's engines. With some simple adjustments, I'll be able to make a rocket plume Alexis can wear in any vehicle.

In fact, I think I'll be making an entire line of wearable aircraft effects including explosions, smoke trails, rat-tat-tat or what ever else seems appropriate or just plain cool. There will be no need to equip every vehicle with effects - just bring them with you instead! Thanks for the inspiration, Alexis!

Two things were very important for me on this adventure:

• There are always more ways to solve a problem than you think at first. Never give up - just keep trying, even ideas that are, well, crazy at first! You may bump into the answer.
• No matter how bad the situation, you can usually find a way to make something good out of it. Learn something, change something, change your self!

And Alexis, one thing to remember about the Afterburner - be very, very careful where you are when you say the word, "start"!

Tips for a Successful Second Life Club

I came across some very interesting Second Life business ideas the other day quite by accident. Readers may recall my rantings on how best to organize your store for traffic management earlier, but these ideas take them a lot farther.

ATown Fall is the owner of multiple successful sims, most of which involve 24x7 DJ clubs - a rarity itself in Second Life. He sets up sims one after the other, hiring staff and gathering residents and merchants to populate them. While he certainly does the basic things, ATown has several very unique Second Life business approaches that I hadn't considered:

• ATown's admission policy echoes real life - you often must pay a cover charge to get in. This makes the events more important, if only because those who are inside really want to be inside because they paid to get in! This raises the profile of the events.
• Because you must pay a cover to enter events, the concept of VIPs becomes real. All too often clubs hand out "VIP" tags to basically anyone, but that makes the concept of VIP meaningless. However, ATown's cover charge is waived for his VIPs, and the tag is no longer meaningless. You really are "important".
• Many businesses try to increase their traffic by planting as many poorly-paid campers as possible on their parcels. But these zombie-like operations appear quite artificial and often scare away real visitors, who immediately recognize it for what it is - a scam to game the traffic counter. Meanwhile, ATown has a very unique approach to camping. Instead of paying people to camp, he simply has people wait for a specified duration before they are given a pass to enter the club. Of course, you could pay the cover charge and get in immediately, but instead many people simply wait out the time for their pass. And in the process, cause the traffic count to rise - because their wait time in the line is equivalent to a row of camping zombies. But it's much more realistic.
• I've written before about the importance of traffic flow in a shopping mall. Essentially, the problem is that TP allows people to skip by the shops and go directly to and from the entertainment. Many, many clubs have this issue. They hope to make money by renting space to shopkeepers, but fail to encourage traffic to the shops. The shopkeepers fail, and ultimately the clubs are unsuccessful. I've previously recommended using careful placement of the landing point such that arriving TP'ers must walk past or near shops on their way to the entertainment. This has proven successful in a few malls I've seen. However, ATown takes this concept a bit further. He sets his land to no-fly. This, combined with the landing point trick, means that visitors must walk past the shops - and walkers are more likely to see items they'd like to purchase than someone flying by at warp speed.

Why do these techniques work? Simple - they are already well proven in real life! ATown has recognized that the same things can also be done in Second Life. And evidently very successfully.

Birds, Fogs and Cheese - New Effects!

Ok, it isn't really a cheese particle effect, but it does involve cheese, as you can see in the picture. My Dutch model, Sennaw Beck, is showing off the latest National Poofer from Electric Pixels: I Am Dutch. There have been several requests for this effect lately, so I thought I'd better make it. She's wearing the poofer version; there is also a ring version available.

It's always challenging for me to make national poofers for countries other than my own, since I have to guess at the right kind of icons and symbols to use. Sometimes my stereotypical notions of the country are correct. Sometimes they are catastrophically wrong. Fortunately, my friends from around the world, like Sennaw, are there to correct me. This time the Dutch effect passed Sennaw's test... she even liked the cheese! When I asked her if I missed any Dutch symbols, she said that it is complete, "except for the weed!" Argh.

Meanwhile, I have also produced two other interesting effects. One is Doves. Wear it and some lovely doves will gently float away from you. I believe this could be very useful at weddings. There is also an installable version of Doves if you want your SL crib or wedding stand to have particle birds floating around it.

Finally, I've made another "AnkleFog". This time the color Green is featured. EmeraldFog is worn on your lower leg and it emits a greeny-white ever-changing fog. It comes in either large or small sizes. Your choice. Hmm, this may be useful on St. Patrick's day?

Up and Down. Way Down!

Like any business, Electric Pixels has its up days and its down days. But this week has been ridiculous, especially on Tuesday the 11th. On that day I had my lowest sales ever. A single L$1 box of freebies was purchased by Bobbi Voom. That's it - one sale! For one single Linden. Thank you Bobbi Voom, whoever you are. Really, thank you.

Even on the first day I opened in January, visitors purchased many times more items than on December 11th 2007. So what's going on?

When I first started selling items in Second Life, I was quite pleased when people purchased items from me. After a while sales became more or less regular. But certain days sales were down substantially - and I wondered what I was doing wrong. Several possibilities immediately arose in my panicked mind:

• I am not spending enough on advertising! Quick! Double the classified payment!
• A secret competitor has suddenly opened and is taking away all of my customers!
• Somebody had a problem with a product and has told everyone in Second Life to avoid my stuff!
• I'm losing my edge and can't make something people want! Auggh!

Rationality prevailed then, and also now.

Asking other business owners how they did on these bad days often came back to a single answer:

"Oh, the grid was down/broken/slow/laggy/sucked today"

That always happens when I experience a bad day. The 11th is just particularly bad. Pictured is the graph from Second Life statistics of concurrent logins from that disastrous day. In other words, it shows how many people were logged in for each moment of that day. You might notice a slight dip in the middle of the 11th. Well, maybe not so slight. Perhaps you might describe it as a Massively Dead Afternoon.

That's why no one was at the shop that day. The grid was busted.

You might ask why items weren't purchased during the rest of the day. I suspect it's often because the grid was shut down because it was in bad shape and few bother or are able to shop in those laggy times. Or people avoid starting a shopping trip if they know the Grid has a scheduled outage. The "outage" is often much larger than the actual declared outage for most business owners. Especially for me on the 11th.

Meanwhile, sales resume sometime after the grid perks up, and things are back to normal. I wonder how much correlation there is between Second Life sales and Grid status? Now that might be a good topic for a future post...