Happy New Year!

May 2007 bring us what we deserve.

But not give us everything we wish for.
Because we will need dreams in 2008 as well.

All about you.

Nothing really new but i just started to notice a theme.

Pointed out by Eric Rice

I wonder if we are going to see more of this in 2007, it wouldn't suprise me after this.

So what more can be/will be Ours? Your World. Your Suggestion. ;)

Orientation 2.0

While browsing over the map, which still terrible broken and can only browse it when zoomed in but that is something for another post. Anyway while looking at the map earlier today I noticed something interresting. The new Orientation Island Jeska briefly mentioned 2 townhalls ago, have gone live. And are being flooded by new Resis.

I logged in a alt that was still on a OI and tp'd to a one of the new islands. While it appeared there was still some final work to do, the island are in my opinion a vast improvement to the previous islands.

The new style island is divide into four small islands/sections(Communicate, Move, Search and Appearance) , and each sections has(or will have) tutorials about the subjects. The small islands have each a very different architecural look, Urban, Futuristic, Tribal and Medieval, which i think gives the resis immediately a much broader idea of what is possible in SL.






Spread around the island are also several machinima made by SL residents, like Robbie Dingo's guitar making video. While cool i think something a bit more instructual would be better suited.

One thing i noticed though was that people where not really aware why they there and what they where supposed to do. So maybe something that clearly spells that out might be helpfull. Also a clear path of what to do next.

All and all, it looks very promissing and will hopefully prepare people better. While it is clearly not completly finished yet, it already far surpasses the old orientation islands. So check it out or look at my Flickr pics.

Classifieds icons on the World Map. Do we use them?

It looks like the cassifieds icons on the world map is one of the two search functions that is still turned off.

"This means the only things left to fix from this batch are:

* Search > Places
* Classifieds icons on the World Map

We look forward to bringing them back ASAP for your continued usage — pardon, no ETA yet, but testing and work continues, so count on regular updates from me."

After the first few weeks they where added to the map I stopped looking at them because the amounth of them is simply overwhelming and because of that not very usefull. The only use I can think of is to find out if there are classifieds in a certain region(s). But why you would want to know that beyond random curiosity i'm not sure.

The following questions i have are, does someone use them and for what reason? And would you be hurt if they never returned, to remove load from the database?

United Nations Forum on Our Common Humanity in the Information Age

So… I sit here in the UN (I kid you not the United Nations) waiting for SL to come back up so we can use it in conjunction with a day long forum on information technology in regards to humanity and how it can help change society and our future. Ideas layed out in the UN Millennium Development Goals.

So… til then, if anyone else waiting for SL would like to view the live proceedings and leave comments in regards to what goes on, hop on over to http://och-forum.blogspot.com/. We really would love to make up for the lost input we would have had from the teen forums and have you guys weigh in.

Thanks


speakers on the panel on "Equality and Opportunity"


speakers on the panel on "Solidarity and Equality"

Grid Attack19-Nov-06: Attack of the Rings

Over a month without a grid attack, to bad there where a lot of other troubles.

Right now there seems to be sonic rings shooting through/over the grid. Rumor is going around that someone was giving out scripted objects to people that would shoot the rings.

Some pictures of the rings shooting over MahuluPictures where made by Amulius Lioncourt.

And LL blog post.

Update:
Youtube movie by Amulius Lioncourt:

Philip's risky gamble with Second Life

syndicated from _notizen

When you visit Second Life these days, you will meet a lot of grumpy long time users. The huge success, which SL enjoys lately, is a reason to celebrate of course (for early adopters, who "knew it all along"). It has some disadvantages, though.

With more than 12,000 new accounts every day and the number of concurrent users doubling in a very short time, Second Life's infrastructure is under a terrible stress; not only the technical infrastructure. If you log in to SL at peak times, you will experience slow load times for textures and an unusual amount of "lag" (long response times) - even in former low-lag areas. The system is literally groaning under the load.

What's more: the support structures for newbies can't cope with the flood any more. Volunteer helpers burn out - they have always been too few, anyway. And this support is badly needed. Second Life not an easy system to learn. The consequence is, that many newbies leave SL after a very short trial period - probably for good. Tateru Nino has written an excellent arcticle on this topic.

But this is not simply "bad management" from Linden Lab, as some disgruntled residents would like to see it, but part of a grand strategy - and not an uncommon one for markets like this.

The winner takes it all!
The developments of the last months were heavily critized in many weblogs and forums, with the general qualification of Philip and Linden Labs management, which is responsible for the hyper-growth strategy, being put in doubt. The explanation "They are all idots" falls short, of course; like in most similar cases. What we are witnessing actually, is a risky, but quite common gamble according to the rules of Web 2.0 Economy / Social Software Platforms.

These rules are simple and can be summed up with "The Winner takes it all!"

Today Linden Lab is more or less without competition in its market segment. (I know, many will argue with that, but - honestly - I don't see any real contender in the market for open, user-created 3D spaces.)

With all of the hoopla around Second Life this will change. Growth rates of 20% per month will attract other companies. And - to say it frankly - it is not that hard, to build a better platform for this purpose. Second Life at its core is 5 years old these days. There have been improvements in technology which Linden Lab seems to be unable to integrate and the user interface is not a masterpiece from a usability point of view. The learning curve is unnecessarily steep.

On the other hand ... Second Life more than 95% "user generated content"! And the attractiveness of such a platform is based to a large degree on exactly this content (not on the quality of the platform itself). Look at YouTube, MySpace or ... eBay. Every new contender in such a market will start from a very uncomfortable position. "Market entry barrier" is the word.

A huge competitor could - maybe - compensate this with a marketing campaign that simply bullies Linden Lab out of the publics visibility. Never forget that Linden Lab is just a small company with less than 100 employees and some 20 Million VC funding - most if which is probably spent already. But even Marketing can not overcome the advantages of a large userbase above some critical size. Nobody could easily challenge YouTube or eBay these days - no matter how much money they spend for marketing.

My personal estimate is, that, if Second Life can grow just one more year without a serious competitor reaching the market, they will have secured such a position. A competitor would have to spend Billions, not Millions, to have a chance for success ...

And exactly this is Linden Labs gamble:

Grow as fast as you can to reach this critical mass, and don't listen to the funny sounds from the engine room.

We are in for a rough ride
We - as residents and developers - can only watch this game. And it certainly is interesting to watch. We are in for a rough ride.

But it is is a small risk for us anyway - in the long run: Should Linden Lab win, the growing pains will be overcome in one or two years. Should they loose the game, this will only happen, because some other company has brought something considerable "better" to the market. Switching over might be inconvenient for a while.

But in the long run we all would profit from this "better" system. And if Linden Lab wins against a strong competitor, this will only help to improve Second Life through pure market pressure.

The sky is NOT falling because of CopyBot ...

... but this might be a turning point for the Second Life content business, as we know it now.

Raph Koster made an excellent post in his blog (required reading), which Frans quoted in the last post here on the SLOG. He makes an excellent analysis of the issues around copyright in the digital realm from years of experience in the MMO industry. And, I am afraid, everything he says is true: it is more or less impossible, to effectively protect "content" in Second Life - like it is impossible to protect content in First Life - especially in digital form. There is not much Linden Lab can do about this. Like there is not much the music industry can do about it on the internet of today.

This already has been true for quite a while. CopyBot just made it apparent. It will change the content industry in Second Life dramatically over the coming year. It won't be impossible to make money with content like fashion, skins, prefabs etc. but it will be harder, maybe much harder - like it is harder now for the music industry to make a profit than it was some 10 years ago.

I don't think the publishers (or platform companies like Linden Lab) are to blame. It is us, the consumers, who drive this development by doing what serves us best - short term! Still I did not like one part of Raphs original post where he describes this in words that seem a bit harsh to me, because, what he decribes is not true in Second Life (as to my personal experience):

And all of a sudden, the same folks who likely argue cyberliberties and donate to the EFF and have gigs of video stored on RAIDs they keep in their garage suddenly feel the sting of perfect digital copying. CopyBot is a mirror, and what we see reflected in it is the unsavory fact that we all want DRM, if it favors us.

I tend to seriously doubt that it is really the same "same folks who likely argue cyberliberties and donate to the EFF and have gigs of video stored on RAIDs" who are protesting in Second Life now. This has got to do with the very special demographics of Second Life and the fact that many, many of the - so far - successful entrepreneurs in Second Life are not rooted in the game player/ script kiddie/ hacker culture. If you look at the fashion industry for example, you will find very many people (a lot of women) far into their 30s, 40s or even 50s who probably won't have 60 megs of stolen MP3s on their iPod.

I don't want to sound too pharisean, but I - besides being male - am maybe a better role model for these "inworld business people" than the stereotypical Open Source advocate you are describing. I am 46 just now and most of the tracks on my iPod stem from CDs I actually own. The rest was downloaded from iTunes. And you won't find a single copied DVD in my household. ;)

I am sure, though, that from a technical viewpoint Raph's assessment is right and in the long run not much can be done to prevent content theft from websites or Second Life. So society will have to adapt to this fact - as well as they will have to adapt to the fact, that soon most of this content will be "manufactured" in south east asia or to the fact that major publishing houses (music, print, movies ...) will die in the coming years. Society allways adapts.

What I find a bit hypocritical, though, is Linden Lab's attitude towards the issue. They are seriously tooting SL as a platform to make real money on, while being rather laissez faire with the whole issue of Copyright (in action, not in words). This seems either naive or maybe a bit dishonest to me.

Raph's view on the copybot.

Raph Koster has made a very well witten post on his blog about our current copybot issues.

"Raph: All this is to some degree beside the point; the issue here is not which side is right, but which side owns the soul of the stream. You see, in something like Second Life, it’s not the megacorps who are having their stuff copied, it’s us. It’s not the big companies that are trying to profit, it’s the little guys. And all of a sudden, the same folks who likely argue cyberliberties and donate to the EFF and have gigs of video stored on RAIDs they keep in their garage suddenly feel the sting of perfect digital copying. CopyBot is a mirror, and what we see reflected in it is the unsavory fact that we all want DRM, if it favors us."

Eric Rice pointed this out as well. It is easy to steal from Microsoft or miljonair artists, but when we our selves are trying to earn a living selling digital goods, the matter suddenly looks a lot different when someone copies your wares.

Partially this a repeat of steps of the early web, when people started to copy whole website designs, html, images, javascripts, etc. And this made it impossible in some form to sell simple website designs, but it didn't stop the growth of the net. New technology and designs where still created, and the webdesigner became proffesional, working for clients making tailored sites.
This shift would have happend anyway and is already happening, just look at the work The Sheep or MuO is doing.

But even the wholesale of webdesign didn't stop, with newer tech it became possible again to create templates and to just sell them multple times, just look at the flash template sites.

"Raph: The issue is that at its core, the underlying philosophy on which virtual worlds are built is one that encourages copying. The further we move towards the inevitable world of streaming rather than cached worlds, the more of this we will see — just as stylesheets, images and whole websites are rather indiscriminately reused, remixed, and repurposed all over the web, quite without the original author’s permission. Just as tools that we find incredibly useful are built out of scraping data off of someone else’s screen. In fact, the whole Web 2.0 philosophy, which is many many ways MUDs anticipated by a few decades, is based on spitting out data streams for this express purpose, so that new uses can be barnacled on them."

Offcourse you can move away from SL and go to There or ImVu where content creation is much more regulated, but that comes with the price of a lot less freedom and a regulation that prevents growth. And what you make there can still be stolen as well.
Just like people are still buying legally music and software so will they do in SL. Our tasks for now will be educating the customer on why there are copyrights and what is the limit of fair use.

Commercial Tier

Lately complaints about big/RL corp intrusion into SL is heating up, specifically after the announced price raise of island estates by LL. As you can see in the comments on the LL Blog here and this post on SLI. And my responses, here and here.

Basically it partly boils down to age old difference between the platform party and the Nation party, the augmentationist or immersionists. And to be clear I'm a augmentationist member of the Platform party. ;P

People feel that the big corps only should be paying higher tier rates (what ever those prices would be). One of the reasons is that some assume the price increase in Island tier is (only) the result of the sudden increase of members. Forgetting that every business in SL profits from the hundreds of thousands new eye balls looking in to SL. I know my sales have only been increasing the last months. Thank you Reuters and Yahoo.

Or is that the Big Corporations have the money so let's just give the bill to them, even though it has been established that they aren't even creating the highest traffic.

A other reason is that Big Corps are often besides selling a SL product advertising for their RL products as well. For a immersionist that is of course a deadly sin. "Don't bring my sucky RL in to SL, yo!"

What puzzles me about their attitude is that they are discriminatory and secondly that they assume it would be a easy distinction for LL to make. Of course the corps in the spotlights right now are easy to make out, Toyota is a big Corp and should pay more, Dominus by Francis Chung(not me) is Resident grown and will be subsidized.

But lets blur the line with a big fat marker. One day a sim or multiple sims open named Donkervoort, and there you find a assortment of spiffy sport cars for sale. Now when you right-click you see that the sim and all the contents is created by Frans Charming(yes me). And you might say: "Hey cool, Frans has gone in car design and even has a original brand name!".

Later you find out that actually Donkervoort is a RL sports car manufacturer in The Netherlands, and you cry foul, "Boo, Frans should be paying Commercial Rates". But Frans responds: "What for? Donkervoort isn't promoting this, I bought a License to reproduce and sell their cars and brand in a virtual environment!".
And now it gets difficult, is this a homegrown Resident who just invested some money into designs and brand name or is this a 'Big Corp' even though they are only involved in the way of a License?

And what if I tell you when I entered SL, it was on the prospect of making some money. I saw Tringo's success and thought, lets explore this. Am I now a business off to make money on SL or a homegrown Resident who organically grew into SL business?

Now i know for many people, it would still be easy to make the distinction. But place yourself into LL's shoes. They would need to hire the staff, and then they have to follow my little trail here and now decide in all honesty, Dominus by Francis Chung and Donkervoort by Frans Charming, who is what?

The problem does not lay in the extremes but in these grey zones. Should and would you even want LL, a software development and server hosting company, hire a dozens of people to investigate these cases.

Another example, it wouldn't surprise me that at some point a SL only business starts selling RL products, actually now that i think about it, some already are. Nocturnal Threads
Does Nocturnal Threads now get penalized for trying to make a buck in meat space, and has to pay increased tier prices? I would say no.

Now what if a succesfull business selling merchandise on Cafepress comes into SL, and starts selling their design there as well. Would they have to start paying for Commercial tier rates?

I wouldn't want LL to burden themselves with these kind of checks, especially with the ever growing popularity of SL we will see more and more business crossing the virtual and meat space border from both sides. It would become just a impossible as it would be now to investigate every business on the Internet if they have a RL shop as well.

Fight your Tier battles with LL, don't try to push your costs on meat space corporations.

Ps: The Donkervoort scenario is completely fictional.

No Raise

Untill now all that I have seen was that after Feb 1th, they might raise the monthly price on the existing Islands. But Zee L. has come out on the congierce townhall and said the following:

"Zee Linden: We will not raise the $195 if you continue to own your server throughout 2007 for all private island regions currently owned and bought now. If you transfer that region, after Feb 1st we may decide we need to raise the price upon transfer. Sorry for the confusion on that point. If you keep owning your island, we won’t raise your price. If you transfer it between now and Feb 1st to someone else they will not pay more throughout 2007. If you transfer it after Feb 1st, we may decide and will announce with enough time for you to react that we need to raise the price for the person the grandfathered region goes to. Keep your server keep your price
"

That's good news, and atleast a year of price security.
Link to transcript on LL Blog.

the turning point

The days of "lets return Second Life back to the giddy, hey-day of..." are fanciful longings now that we are past the 1,000,000 resident sign-ups mark. We are now in the midst of the scaling-up period that Phillip and others have talked about. Linden Lab has always taken the confident stance that they can indeed handle such a thing, but the grid seams are showing some wear from the bulging of all the recent new residents. Almost 50,000 in a 24-hour period of time. This mostly due to Reuters official announcement of it's virtual news bureau presence within SL and this news systematically hitting international news outlets and being featured on Yahoo. Could anyone of us imagined that quick of a jump in numbers? I know I couldn't. There wasn't even that many total in game when I signed up.

I will resist the lamenting, "good ol' days" comments. These aren't necessarily worse days, they are just going to be entirely different ones.

The early, fairly artisan, population lived in wonder of all the things we could create or amazing places we could go and all the personal connections we made along the way. Those experiences all still exist; they are now just tempered with the increased volume of people. It is sort of like adding more background noise that then makes you need to hone better senses in order to sort through things as effectively as you once did.

This is made evident in the current experiences of a newbie.

Last night the grid was awash with them and most of the ones I encountered were very lost and confused. I always try to lend a hand to a new SL resident. The learning curve is steep and often they need some nudging or tools to help them along in their new virtual life. Usually I get the questions of how can they earn money or how to build things or buy land. Often they are just wandering off on their first adventure out of the 'welcome area' nest and want to stop to say hello. I own most of my land in the Darkwood sim, (one sim away from the main welcome area) and Mahulu (one sim away from the New Citizen's center) so I get a fair amount of this type of newbie traffic.

Yesterday was different though, or maybe it made visible the tougher kinds of newbie problems. People who just either had completely skipped any of the orientation stuff (which I know happens a lot) or user's who just didn't get SL much at all, were hopelessly wandering looking for any help or glimpse of understanding. Part of this is due to the overflow of the Orientation and Help islands because of the increase in login numbers to a support system that had to try to quickly respond to it. I know a friend in 'Live Help' was swamped almost to the point of frustration last night. I met a new resident from Turkey who wasn't even able to figure out how to chat aloud, even after a friend, and I tried to explain to him how. Luckily he sorted out how to talk in IM's so he was not totally isolated. Imagine walking around a foreign country and you can not even talk to anyone you encounter.

Some of the responsibility for this lies with Linden Lab needing to rise to the scaling challenges as of late by:

• Increasing the rank of their Mentor & Live Help support ranks.


• Creating community liaison positions in even more foreign countries and customer support that is friendly to these other time zones.


• Creating a survival manual to refer to when in need of essential skills for moving, talking, and user interface navigation that is easy and concise enough for even a non-native English speaker to grasp.

But also some of this responsibility lies within us as citizens of this ever-evolving space. Anyone who brings in a large-scale project that intends to draw substantial numbers of users needs to also offer support materials & staff. Upon visiting Reuter's sim last night, aside from encountering the lag and extremely slow rez period of the build, there were probably 20 - 30 avatars at any given point wandering around. A high percentage of these visitors were newly signed up, since that is how they heard of SL in the first place. Some were hanging out in the main lobby just conversing and wondering what there was to do. Others like myself, were looking around trying to find the new Reuter's HUD. During my time there I spoke to a few new residents, including a business student from Palestine who had heard of Second Life from the Arabic site AITNEWS and from Reuters. But, in all this, no one associated with the Reuter's sim was there. Even if there can't always be an actual person behind an avatar helping to direct people some sort of resources should be made available.

I have often seen the same need at virtual conferences and publicized events that happen within SL that draw crowds of new users. Having a concierge-like helper present staffing the event could relieve this. The most popular SL nightclubs and Slingo game hosts have learned this…now SL developers and companies coming in world need to see the reason behind the concept of ‘event hosts’. They are really support staff. Ask anyone working at the Edge, I bet they get it.

Don't get me wrong; this is not a commentary against Linden Lab, Reuters or even a xenophobic rant about outside parties becoming interested in SL. In fact it is a cautionary tale for all of us. As this space evolves more into the platform LL sees it as and is steering it to be, thought and care need to be put into these concerns. In the end, any build within SL and Second Life itself has to function by the same principals of good user interface design. There needs to be a way to help navigate and support the user/visitor, not only to keep them from being frustrated and leaving, but also help them learn foundation skills, understand the existing community and want to invest themselves within this space.

It's the same overall stuff/principals most of us realized as we came into SL, there was just was a little less noise then and things were easier to understand.

Analetcs

To date, much has been said about cyberspace, online worlds, virtual realities, and soforth. The Internets (which, if powered by Mesa Boogie, would be a series of vacuum tubes) knows no shortage of such views. When I come across, I usually like to say what I do. This may take some aback, but is it agreeable the opinions I henceforth express are my own alone? With blobs like a hungry Venn diagram linking me to the shared beliefs of my fellow people.

Inshort, I'm not out to replicate what perspectives someone else has on a given set of topics, nor is it accurate I'd take an idea and put a "twist", altho it sometimes ends up being similar. Think about the Olympics. Think about multi-rows of swimmers, side-by-side. Don't think about the competition aspect because that is irrelevant for this portion of the exercise. But do consider parallel existence: a world besides our own.

Not "besides" as in "an alternative to", but "an additional choice".

You cannot shoot (most) guns without bullets, and when you do, in a video game, you're often offered a choice of ammo. Or, as the famous Contra model goes, various upgrade that arrive in eagle-shaped containers.

Consider the eagle: symbolic of freedom, power, perhaps patriotism. Consider the turkey: symbolic of Thanksgiving.

If I could eat a meal every day, it'd be turkey with lush stuffing. Now why's that? Because I have a lot of thanks thanx to give, and turkey's a good meat. Tasty. But domesticated turkeys aren't generally regarded as the prettiest avian: they're rather rump-heavy. Turkeys are high in tryptophan, and lead to sleep. And from sleep, comes dreams.

I'm nearing the end of My Tiny Life by Julian Dibbell. It's a great read. I like how he's written the "RL" sections of the book in a manner which appears like simulated LambdaMOO descriptions. In doing that, he's flip-flopped reality and the dream. Or is it a dream, for some?

Waking Life. Second Life.

Thick in the heart, some of you may be familiar with "Augmentation vs. Immersion". I can see how other people may choose one predominantly over the other, but for me, I've long wielded both like the quadruple-barreled shotgun of the Phantasm films (Halloween draws nears, kiddies). For I am more of an AND person than an OR person. My RL has become much better because of Second Life, but I also enjoy using it as a fantasy space; not to much to "get away" from anything, but to explore deeper into aspects of myself which were frozen in time years ago, and which I'm only recently rediscovering.

Avoiding idealogical incest, however, is fundamental. I make it a point to visit more online worlds like There: Virtual Laguna Beach and simply and empirically experience. Often, it doesn't make sense to me what is happening, or what has happened, until some days, or weeks afterward. Chronologie (spelled the JMJ way) gives perspective, sequence, and insight.

I get bored easily. Pass the haiku please.

*eats*

Part of the thrust behind a word's train is in its propagation: if noone else knows what you're talking about, it may as well be meaningless to you. A term like "avatar" has a precise gravity denoting your inworld incarnation in Second Life, but to someone not familiar with computers (and it still does happen), yet acquainted with Hindu philosophy, their perception will clash with what they come to learn, when you bring a high-powered laptop their way.

In getting bored, I came up with terms to describe things. "Camscanning" (camera + scanning) is when I'm maneuvering the camera around with varied permutations of Alt, Ctrl, and Shift modifier keys to get a better view of my surroundings. When I think of non-graphical worlds, this the difference is absolutely astounding: you may know "look" is a popular command in text adventures, and you can often look at the room (or other thing) you're in, as well as zoom into places (e.g., a mailbox a la Zork). But, your granularity of choice, aka angles you can take pretty pictures from, thus preserving your memories... unfolds. Beyond this, the Snapshot controls become more than just a "tool": they're a facilitator to sharing actual human warmth. Which I'd argue is both augmentative AND immersive, so I can't wait to use a tool like Scrapblog (thanx Baba!) to elevate this type of emotional technology.

Couple of threads here: (1) I immediately think of Dibbell's ride in the scarlet balloon as recounted in MTL, with textual descriptions being pulled from the surface; and (2) the Welcome Area balloon tours that used to happen long before I ever joined. This was in the classic Ahern-Morris WA, before it underwent a complete redesign to become the earthy, vine-laden construct with synthetically aged tiles it is today.

Had I read MTL before I came to SL, I would have been able to use it as a point of reference before enjoying my first balloon ride. And I haven't taken any rides lately. But what gives me awe, something that sends emotion surging through my veins is seeing the landscape from so high above, in an ever-growing world. It's personally reminiscent of the vid to Bjork's "Joga", or even Cassius' "The Sound of Violence", but with a lot more personality.

Seeing what people are doing below — not hearing but taking guesses — is, in some way, like watching aliens make out (but not recognizing it as such). Trying to figure what is going on here, overcoming cognitive dissonance, all of these things.

Sitting in a vehicle and watching the world go by makes me feel good. It reminds me that no matter how big, how expansive things get, you need to have time for yourself, quiet reflection on your own thoughts + feelings. You — or at least, I — need to be able to throw everything on the table, like all your old toys from the closet, then begin to sort them out. So it all makes sense.

Aftermath?

If you have read the LL blog, then you know another grid attack happened this morning and SL opened up again as i was writing this. It doesn't look like this storm is going to settle soon. But that's not all.

Yesterday's grid attack had some unfortunate consequences.

"Unfortunately, during the course of the update, we discovered that it included a bug which caused objects purchased in-world to be fully permissive.

After we reproduced the bug in-world, we kicked everyone off the grid and restricted login to Lindens only (this was at 2am PST). Next, we identified the bug and created a fix for it, which was deployed and tested while the grid was down."

It's sad and i doubt LL will do anything to resolve the issue, and some peoples products will become open source or resold. I already heard some people talking about quiting over this, all that i can say to them is, Stay! Your products are more then their scripts, prims and textures. They are part of you and when a person buys it, they get a little of your dedication you put in to it. By staying you will give people a reason to buy the originals from you.

----
update: Jeska clarified that last night's rolling update fixed the permissions as best as possible.

"I apologize if this wasn’t clear from the initial post. Part of the rollout last night involved inventory transformation to help repair permissions on most of the objects purchased with the permissions bug. Given the nature of the bug, it is hard for us to determine if everything was transformed or not, but it should have captured most of the affected objects."

----

The second thing i want to respond to is if I and other bloggers should be even covering these attacks. As Hamlet pointed out it is a ethical dilemma, should we give the losers the attention that they grave.

There are several ways you can report about grid attacks. I think if you keep it factual and avoid dramatic posts you won't be encouraging the idiots. They get there attention orgasm any way from the different forums where people are making ridiculous demands to LL.

What has annoyed me in the past, before the LL blog, was the lack of information about grid attacks. Often you had to piece together from different reports on the forums on what was exactly happening. It always left me a bit with a feeling of being lost, and that in the Information Age. And while now the LL blog does a good job of reporting on what is going on, it also omits things. For instance about the fact that the particle attack was done with a texture of tubgirl. Which makes much more clear why people needed to be told how to turn particles off on their client.

Also it is important for a historical record to have independent reports about this. While LL is as far as I know not in the business of covering up past events, sometimes important statements from LL do disappear as Csven discovered about his trademark questions. While i assume they where just lost due to the forum changes, valuable info was lost about LL's position about trademarks. You never know what information becomes important when, better keep some records of what you think is important.

Grid Attack 08-10-06

Wii! and another one! :P

"Jeska: There were reports of grey-goo type objects in-world. We are currently investigating. As such, we have temporarily moved to a Lindens-only login. Thank you for your patience while we handle this issue. I will be sure to report back as soon as I have further information. "

Will update this post when more becomes available.

update 12:06pm PDT

"Jeska: We have identified the issue and were able to take care of it. Login has been reopened and anyone waiting to login should be able to do so at this time. Please note login may be slow while everyone who was waiting logs back in."

And we are back.

Update 1:38pm PDT

Word on the street(irc), new grid attack. Let's see what happens.

update 1:45pm PDT

Seems like the old spamming replicator again, multiple owners. Reports from the main grid as well as Caledon. DB is severly slowed down, no skin texture and my balance is says nothing afterI logged in to take a look.

Message from the LL blog:
"1:40pm PST: There are new reports of grey goo in-world, which may be causing teleportation failures and other slow-downs. We have temporarily moved to a Lindens-only login. Thanks again for your patience and as soon as I have more info I will post it here."

update 3:11pm PDT

LL Blog:

2:45pm PST: We are still in the process of handling the recent attack of grey goo, but teleportation and other in-world behavior should be back to normal. As soon as I have more information, I will be sure to post it here.

(more info on history of the word grey goo)

Seems like particles where added into the mix this time.
Inworld message:

[15:00] Jeska Linden: Hello everyone - there have been reports of particle griefing, to turn off particles, go to View Menu and select Beacons then Hide Particles. Thanks for your patience while we handle this situation.

But on the bright side, the load on the DB has become less, the map loads again and I can teleport.

update 3:26pm PDT

And the doors are open again, my friendslist is being repopulated!

Update 4:01pm PDT

[16:00] Char Linden: We are going back to Linden log ins only. Grid will remain open but just to let you know we are still investigating this current grid attack. Thank you and sorry.

And closed again. *sigh*

update 4:14pm PDT

LL blog:

4:05 pm PST: Soon after the last post was made, we realized there was still some grey goo loose on the grid and have had to move login back to Linden-login only. I will be sure to post any additional information as it’s available.

Inworld message:

[16:12] Jeska Linden: Hello everyone, we are investigating grid-wide griefing attacks, as such we have momentarily disabled scripts on the entire grid. We apologize for this and thanks for your patience. As soon as I have more information, I will pass it along.

It must suck having to work right now, 5 hours of downtime already. I hope they get some overtime benefits. I know i'm getting tired of just updating this post. :P

update 5:44pm PDT

Grid has been open for a bit again, scripts are still off though. And a rolling update is in progress.

Grid Attack 06-10-06

Grid attack number 3 this week. LL Blog.

"Jeska: There were several reports of self-replicating objects in-world. We are currently investigating. As such, we have temporarily moved to a Lindens-only login. Thank you for your patience while we handle this issue. I will be sure to report back as soon as I have further information."

It must be fun to be a counting on SL for your income this week.

Will update when more news becomes available.

update 6:53pm PDT

"Jeska: We’ve identified the problem and should have it repaired shortly. Thank you for your patience."

Response time seems to be getting quicker.

update 7:54pm PDT

"Jeska: Login has been reopened and anyone waiting to login should be able to do so at this time. Please note login may be slow while everyone who was waiting logs back in. During the course of our investigation, we also identified a bug on a small number of regions which prevented Residents located there from being able to save their attachements. We were able to fix the issue while the login was restricted. Thank you for your patience during this issue."

And we are back in business.

update 8:26pm PDT

"[20:16] Jeska Linden: Hello everyone - we are bringing close to 100 regions down in order to recover lost objects. Sorry for this inconvenience. Please check the blog for more information and updates. Thanks for your patience."

A couple of the sims effected where, Lusk, Rizal, Samurai Island and Icedragon. These sims where completly wiped of all the content.

Picture of empty Lusk and Rizal

We all gathered to see it with our own eyes.

Let's hope there are good backups, would be a shame is if these sims would be lost.

update 9:06pm PDT

Jeska:
8:40pm: We’re still in the process of fixing the wiped regions, which are still down. As soon as I have more information I’ll post an update.
8:20pm: While fixing the bug mentioned in my last post, we accidently lost the content on several regions in-world. We’ve brought these regions down in order to investigate and recover the content. Thank you for your patience.

Nice bug fixing guys. ;)

update 11:15pm PDT

Jeska:
10:00 pm: The fix has been tested on several of the troubled regions and appears to fix the problem. This means that all of the regions which have been down should be back up with the lost content returned.

The grid seems to be fine again, atleast everything in Lusk is back, the big tree once again stand tall over SL. Another exciting day. I wonder why people still try to bring the grid down, it hardly effects anything afterwards people just go on with their business. I helped a couple who wants to get married in Big Easy. Why worry. :)

Luna Oaks/Busy Ben Lottery

Not sure why this hasn't been annouched yet on the LL blog or the forum, but the new Lottery for free plots in Luna Oaks Shoppings Center and Busy Ben's Vehicle Lot is open. This time around instead of posting in a forum thread you have to click a lottery station to get to enter the lottery.
A little bit harder for the people who read forums and stay put on their land, easier for people who frequent these places to know about the lottery.Luna Oaks Galleria Tenants Group Notice From: Data Linden

It's time to have a new lottery again. So I would like you to clear out your parcel before on Monday, Oct. 16, 2006.

Off course you can all enter the new lottery again. The procedure has changed a little. There is now an inworld station where you can enter the lottery.

You can find the lottery stations in the middle of Luna Oaks and the NW corner of Busy Ben, good luck!

Update:
Guess i just had to wait a little bit longer. It's Now on the LL blog.

Vivox-Skype: 0-1

Vivox's a million minutes campaign did not go unnoticed and Baba, Eric and Moo where eager to try it out. But it seemed not such a big succes as hoped, and they quickly reverted back to skypecast.

"Moo: I REALLY wanted to like Vivox. The hype was there, my curiosity piqued. With a billion announcements of their million minute giveaway, I anxiously awaited the day when I could obtain this mysterious “microphone” and start chatting with other residents. What a letdown."

"Baba: Vivox recently launched their VOIP service in Second Life. It's got a couple standard features..You got the buddy list, you got the chat window and you got…. well that's it!
...
We don't need no fancy schmancy bullhookie from Vivox..Back to Skype everyone! It may not be integrated into Second Life, but at least it works."

Too soon and too little, it seems. I'm sure they just thought release fast and fix later, but we are a picky bunch and only accept that from one platform at a time. ;) And you better come with a superior product when people are allready using many other VoiceChat programs next to SL, such as Skype, Ventrillo, Teamspeak or the call functions in many of the im clients.
Back to the drawing back for Vivox and better hurry before SL comes out with their own integrated VoiceChat support.

Grid Attack 03-10-06

Another day, another grid attack. I don't have much on it, other then what is posted on the Linden blog.

"Mick Linden: The Second Life grid has been restricted to Linden-only logins whilst we address a replication attack. Our technicians appear to have the situation well in hand and we hope to reopen logins shortly. We apologise for the inconvenience."

"Jean Linden:We are aware of a potential grid attack that occured at 19:55 PDT and we are currently investigating the issues. We will keep you updated with more information as soon as possible. Login will open again very soon, sorry for any inconvenience."

Will follow up when my more news become available.

9:15pm PDT

quote from IRC:

"kageseraf:Same message, plus some sort of "fag finder" device that apparently calls everyone in the sim a fag.
kageseraf:quite similar to yesterday's attack, if not the same indeed"

And Kage made also a bloghud post.

"The spammy "Terror will rain down upon the unfit gods and the flock that they govern, from now until the End of Days." thing is back, apparently made by a Katamari Kyger alt created yesterday."

Fun times. :(

9:26pm PDT

"[21:25] Mick Linden: Hi folks, logins have now been reopened. Thanks for your patience whilst we addressed some issues resulting from a grid attack. Please refer to blog.secondlife.com for additional details. "

Looks like this one was contained much quicker.

Grid Attack 02-10-06

After one of SL's hottests months with problems, October starts off with much of the same. A grid attack is currently in progress, logins are down and live help is being spammed by confused residents.

This is another selfreplication attack which also gives objects to avies nearby. Not only bringing our beloved grid down, but also clogging up our inventory.

Will update this post when more information becomes available:

6:28pm PDT

"[18:27] Jack Linden: Login is currently 'Lindens Only' so if you log out, you won't get straight back in.
[18:27] Jack Linden: Just an FYI
[18:27] Jack Linden: We're removing the objects from the db."

6:42pm PDT

"[18:39] Milo Linden: This grid will be closing shortly for some cleanup work, please keep checking http://blog.lindenlab.com for more information, thanks"

And everyone was logged out at 6:40pm PDT.

6:56pm PDT
After reading throught the concierge group chatlog from during the attack that, it looks like, the objects have multiple owners, random names, are invisible, follow avies and shouting "terror will rain down upon you".

Turning object creating on your land off didn't seem to work, but that might just seemed like that because they could have been flooding in from neigbouring plots.

7:11pm PDT

Picture of the little cubes by Amulius Lioncourt:

Not very exciting, if any one has better pictures, send me a link. ;)

And a live report from inworld by Rhiannon Chatnoir.
"trapped here in Darkwood in the midst of a grid attack.."

Ed baron has a good picture of the chat spam.

8:37pm PDT

The grid is back up and login is open.

"Jean Linden: Logins have been reopened. Please note - login may be slow when everyone tries to login at the same time.

Thank you for your patience!"

11000 concurrency

Tateru just reported that we reached 11k peak concurrency.

"The actual peak concurrency is interesting, but not quite as interesting as the mean and median, both of which have been above 8,000 (lowest 8,276 mean) for the last couple days."

It looks like more and more people are spending more and more time in SL. Good times! Even after one of SL worst months.

Links 1-10-2006

I was reading through some resident blogs, and 2 things catched my eye that I hadn't seen reported anywhere else.

Max Case reported on some screenshots he stumbled upon, that appear to be a new login sequence. They look like screenshots from a animated login screen to me. Very cool.


Other thing I read about is that apparently when SL is down for a update, the frontpage screenshot changes to a SL version of the famous ape scene in 2001:A Space Odyssey. Look at it at VTOR

Picnicking with Philip

Philip Rosedale/Linden is in Amsterdam this week for the Picnic '06, a cross media event where several media companies come together and is focused on creativity in cross media content and technology, specifically in the fields of entertainment and communication.

Menno and SLI reported about it as well, and Alice did a write up of Philip's big SL demo. It is mostly old stuff for us, but there are some nice stats that she bolded, which I post here and comment on.

“19,000 landowners
80 sq miles, about as big as Amsterdam
20 million objects
20 terabytes of user created content
13 teraflops of simulation“

I wonder how many of those 19k users are first land owners, and how many have own multiple sims. It surprises me that SL is as big as Amsterdam, SL feels much larger. And wow we broke the 20TB, if you think about it, that isn't even so much if you consider all the content and the hours we spent using it. I know if I would watch compressed video instead of playing SL and save all that, it would easily be much more then 20TB for me alone.

“Median age is over 30 “

Wee, I'm still young! :P

But this is not all, since Philip is in Amsterdam he couldn't waste the opportunity to meet ME, :P oh and Menno Ophelia and kai Sachertorte. It was a quickly put together meet up, I was only contacted yesterday evening about it, which is probably good i think, makes it less of a event and more of a friendly meet up. Although I'm sure some people are jealous now, and wished they had known. :P

It was a interesting get together of just 4 people that talked about the thing they love. The meet up was planned to be from 13:00 to 14:30 but we ended up leaving close to 16:00. You can be assured we had a good time. We couldn't really stop talking even after Philip left and chatted even for a while outside while getting our bikes. (yes we are Dutch we all came on bike)

The topics ranged from just who we are and what we do in RL/SL, to usage stats, demographics, weird experiences, why we prefer to chat in English to other Dutchies, Dutch community or the lack of it in SL, almost daily attempts of grid attacks, voice in SL and what our most annoying complaints are. And I'm sure there where many more topics I skipped now. Nothing new or particularly exciting was mentioned by Philip, so no inside news there, in case you where wondering. :p

It was really just like 4 old friends meet up and talked about what they love. Philip was sincerely interested and wrote a page of a small pocket notebook of comments down, and besides that he is good company to lounge with in a hip Amsterdam restaurant. I Hope something good comes from it, and even if not, I had a good time, and I'm sure so had the others. :)

Pics, from left to right: Frans, Menno, Philip and kai.For some reason we look a bit surprised here.

And we got swag! \o/

They run the tubes on the internets

“Baba Yamamoto: what's cnet? are they popular?
Josh Millionsofus: baba: they run the tubes on the internets”

And with that we opened the CNet office in SL. It was a rowdy opening of quick wits and low jabs, just like expect and love in SL. :)

Daniel Terdiman, senior writer at CNET News.com, has convinced his bosses to open a Virtual office in SL It's a decent build that resembles their RL office. Nothing to fancy, but the kind of quality work you expect.

“ Reuben Tapioca: but I gotta tell you, when I went to their offices in SF and told them I needed to take lots of pictures because I was building the offices in a virtual world, the guy at the front desk looked at me like I had 3 heads. “

You think, Daniel would have warned him.

Anyway, Daniel is hoping do a weekly event in SL and is open to suggestions, so if you have any feel free to contact him. daniel.terdiman@cnet.com

And here is the chat transcript, edited out some(a lot of) audience chatter:

[18:27] Reuben Tapioca: Daniel, welcome to your new offices
[18:27] Reuben Tapioca: /audience claps
[18:27] GreeterDan Godel: W00000T
[18:27] Chris Millionsofus: clap clap clap clap!
[18:27] GreeterDan Godel: i am very very happy to be here
[18:27] GreeterDan Godel: and i am very happy and honored all of you have chosen to join me here today
[18:28] Reuben Tapioca: Can you tell folks how this happened and a little about your background?
[18:28] GreeterDan Godel: sure. absolutely
[18:28] GreeterDan Godel: so...to start, I am Daniel Terdiman, senior writer at CNET News.com
[18:28] GreeterDan Godel: i have been writing about Second Life, both for News.com and previously, Wired News, since summer of 2003
[18:29] GreeterDan Godel: and so a few months ago, it really seemed like it was time that CNET got a space in SL
[18:29] GreeterDan Godel: after all, we were covering it constantly (at least constantly from the perspective of a mainstream publication)
[18:29] Reuben Tapioca: Agreed
[18:29] GreeterDan Godel: so i slowly began to pitch it to my bosses, who only got Second Life a little bit
[18:29] Reuben Tapioca: so time to eat your own dogfood
[18:29] GreeterDan Godel: it took some cajoling
[18:30] GreeterDan Godel: ha ha
[18:30] GreeterDan Godel: yes
[18:30] GreeterDan Godel: the funny part was (going back to when I started at CNET) trying to convince my editors why we needed to be covering SL in the first place
[18:30] GreeterDan Godel: but...they got on board with that pretty quick
[18:30] GreeterDan Godel: especially after I did 5 feature stories in the first couple months I was there
[18:30] GreeterDan Godel: anyway...
[18:31] GreeterDan Godel: after a couple months of pitching this project, I finally got the go-ahead
[18:31] GreeterDan Godel: and my vision was for a CNET building that looks a lot like our real-life building in San Francisco
[18:32] GreeterDan Godel: and...well, I'm in San Diego right now at a conference, and a VC who knows CNET very well just walked up to say hi and see what I was doing, and I showed him the building, and he was very impressed with how it looks
[18:32] GreeterDan Godel: so...good job, Millions of Us
[18:32] Reuben Tapioca: It's been our experience that all these projects start with an internal evangelist -- perhaps you can tell folks what it was that you said that convinced your bosses?
[18:32] Reuben Tapioca: thanks
[18:32] GreeterDan Godel: yeah, good point
[18:32] GreeterDan Godel: i think it was kind of just making the point that the SL community is big and growing and made up of early adopters and real influencers
[18:33] GreeterDan Godel: and that we had a chance to be one of the very first mainstream publications to open a space here
[18:33] Reuben Tapioca: Many of whom are in this room
[18:33] GreeterDan Godel: I told them my vision was to have regular events in which News.com reporters and CNET.com reviewers could come and give talks about stories we were working on or products they were reviewing
[18:33] GreeterDan Godel: and do interviews with cultural leaders
[18:33] GreeterDan Godel: and, honestly, they went for it pretty quick
[18:34] GreeterDan Godel: mainly, the delay was just bureaucracy
[18:34] GreeterDan Godel: and the fact, frankly, that I've been traveling almost constantly for months and hadn't been around to grease the wheels
[18:34] Reuben Tapioca: Oooh, grease the wheels
[18:34] GreeterDan Godel: indeed, I've been on the road solid for 5 weeks
[18:34] Reuben Tapioca: i like that
[18:34] GreeterDan Godel: ha ha
[18:34] GreeterDan Godel: so...
[18:34] GreeterDan Godel: here we are
[18:35] Reuben Tapioca: Exclellent
[18:35] GreeterDan Godel: and this is just the first event of what I hope will be a regular series of interviews and talks
[18:35] GreeterDan Godel: in the beginning, since i've been traveling so much, it'll just be me
[18:35] GreeterDan Godel: but in the coming weeks, I'm going to get other CNET folks involved
[18:35] Reuben Tapioca: So honestly, I'd be so interested in hearing what the audience thinks would be cool for events here
[18:35] GreeterDan Godel: oh, yeah, absolutely
[18:35] GreeterDan Godel: what would you all like to see?
[18:36] Reuben Tapioca: As you know, our philosophy is that today is really just the start
[18:36] Spin Martin: Live broadcasts of some of the CNET radio and also tv shorts
[18:36] Reuben Tapioca: and that the key is how it gets used
[18:36] Spin Martin: i am live blogging this for the record :)
[18:36] GreeterDan Godel: i mean...actually, what can we do to use this space to make CNET feel like a real participant in the Second Life community?
[18:36] Reuben Tapioca: NICE!
[18:36] moo Money: machinima of important topics!
[18:37] Reuben Tapioca: It's really cool to think that you could be part of shapinga story as it's being written
[18:37] Chili Carson: Interviews or panel discussions on hot issues happening in SL
[18:37] Reuben Tapioca: that's like web 4.0
[18:37] Reuben Tapioca: great idea Chili
[18:37] GreeterDan Godel: yeah, definitely going to do interviews like that
[18:37] GreeterDan Godel: panels would be good too
[18:37] GreeterDan Godel: i mean...
[18:37] Reuben Tapioca: agreed
[18:37] Sterling Zucker: maybe reviews of producst developed in SL
[18:37] GreeterDan Godel: i'm a student of the Hamlet Linden school of interviews
[18:37] Reuben Tapioca: sterling, that rocks1
[18:38] GreeterDan Godel: i went to the very first one he ever did, with Cory Doctorow, back in 2003, and I want to do talks like that
[18:38] GreeterDan Godel: except much more often
[18:38] GreeterDan Godel: yeah, i mean, that was my point. :-)
[18:38] GreeterDan Godel: i'd like to do an interview, at least weekly
[18:38] GreeterDan Godel: probably more often with other kinds of events
[18:38] Reuben Tapioca: It would also be interesting to mashup some indy media and bloggers
[18:38] GreeterDan Godel: my question to you all...how frequently do you think we need to have events here in order for it to feel vital?
[18:39] Reuben Tapioca: ie. give em an office or two
[18:39] Rhiannon Chatnoir feels cheated.. she jsut got a hug from him
[18:39] Sterling Zucker: weekly is good
[18:39] Surreal Farber: monthly at least
[18:39] Chili Carson: things happen fast here...so weekly
[18:39] Koz Farina: as it happens!
[18:39] Katta Sparrow: Greeter, weekly
[18:39] Asri Falcone: id have to agree with the weekly
[18:39] Katta Sparrow: actually no you should be here 24 hours
[18:39] GreeterDan Godel: right...eventually, when more CNET folks get involved, they will likely be scheduling their own events, and it'll be out of my hands
[18:39] GreeterDan Godel: and that will be ideal, I think
[18:39] Josh Millionsofus: put up camping chairs and this place will be hoppin... *ducks*
[18:40] Katta Sparrow throws my boot at Josh
[18:40] Reuben Tapioca: right, now you're one of us, one of us
[18:40] Josh Millionsofus gets booted
[18:40] GreeterDan Godel: do you guys think that it would be useful if I (and other reporters) came in to talk about stories we were working on
[18:40] Sterling Zucker: I find some of the video reviews on CNET to be too short and not complete this could be a great venue to have an intereactive review of real world products
[18:40] Reuben Tapioca: oh great idea, a money tree
[18:40] Josh Millionsofus: greeterdan: yes, good idea
[18:40] Chili Carson: Yes, Dan
[18:40] GreeterDan Godel: even if the stories were not about Second Life or even other virtual worlds?
[18:40] AnneDroid Lily: personally, I'd like to see interviews with software and technology giants (not necessarily related to SL)... which would seems the kind of thing cnet could pull of easily.. once or twice a month should be sufficient (with streaming replays between)
[18:40] Chris Millionsofus: money tree and camping trees w00t! new business model for MOU
[18:41] GreeterDan Godel: I mean...if I did a story about a great Lego event, would you all want to hear about it?
[18:41] Chili Carson: Yes, Dan
[18:41] Reuben Tapioca: Might also be cool to do some sort of simple prediction market stuff to get people socially involved in news
[18:41] GreeterDan Godel: gotcha, android...that is my plan
[18:41] Asri Falcone: i would
[18:41] Sterling Zucker: I love lego, so yeas
[18:41] Reuben Tapioca: sort of like tringo meets the New york Times
[18:41] Spin Martin: residents make news here
[18:41] Asri Falcone: hehe most builders here have roots in legos
[18:41] GreeterDan Godel: i'm actually hoping to do an interview (shhh) with someone from sun here in a week or two
[18:41] Ingrid Ingersoll: haha
[18:41] Barnesworth Anubis: its true asri!
[18:41] Barnesworth Anubis: i do
[18:42] Asri Falcone: hehe
[18:42] Barnesworth Anubis: love legos
[18:42] Reuben Tapioca: very cool
[18:42] GreeterDan Godel: you're all going to laugh, but since I'm at a conference in San Diego, in a room with no power, I'm going to have to change my battery in a couple minutes
[18:42] Sterling Zucker: haha
[18:42] GreeterDan Godel: so i may disappear suddenly
[18:42] Rhiannon Chatnoir: ha
[18:42] Cristiano Midnight: lol
[18:42] Asri Falcone asri pushes her lego set further under the desk...next to her comic book collection
[18:42] Reuben Tapioca: that's ok, it'll give us a chance to talk about you
[18:42] Spin Martin: boy i have to edit out the lickcing and silk talk
[18:43] Reuben Tapioca: rembember to save chat history
[18:43] Spin Martin: cuz if i hit publish man alive
[18:43] Reuben Tapioca: for your article
[18:43] Sterling Zucker: well, that's like ford demoing their new car and running out of gas
[18:43] GreeterDan Godel: well...i was using Lego as an example, since that is something I cover frequently
[18:43] Spin Martin: i'm doing it in real time
[18:43] Barnesworth Anubis: all i see is one flexi prim infront of your whoo-haa
[18:43] GreeterDan Godel: but I cover many difffent kinds of things
[18:43] GreeterDan Godel: and spin, you just gave me an idea
[18:43] GreeterDan Godel: which is for example, next spring, I'll be going to South by Southwest
[18:43] GreeterDan Godel: i could give a talk here about what's happening at SXSW
[18:44] Katta Sparrow: <-- would rather hear about that than legos
[18:44] GreeterDan Godel: or, i could interview you, spin, since I know you'll probably be there
[18:44] Memory Harker: At SXSW?
[18:44] Spin Martin: ha
[18:44] Reuben Tapioca: what about internal CNN stuff
[18:44] Spin Martin: yes demoing legos in SL on my panel
[18:44] Spin Martin: like to mix it up
[18:44] Memory Harker: :Legos at SXSW?
[18:44] Rhiannon Chatnoir: or even hold combined events.. maybe a dicsussion between both this SL space and the RL space
[18:44] GreeterDan Godel: if I knew anything about CNN internally, I'd be happy to share it with you :-)
[18:44] Reuben Tapioca: like meetings or intervview where a face to face is impossible?
[18:44] Reuben Tapioca: typo
[18:44] Reuben Tapioca: SNET
[18:44] GreeterDan Godel: hee hee
[18:44] Reuben Tapioca: CNET
[18:44] Reuben Tapioca: I'll get you for that
[18:45] Spin Martin: SL holds up well at SXSW btw
[18:45] GreeterDan Godel: so...these are all good idea
[18:45] GreeterDan Godel: yeah, i think SL does hold up well
[18:45] GreeterDan Godel: there
[18:46] GreeterDan Godel: i'm trying, trying, trying
[18:46] GreeterDan Godel: to nail down a 1-on-1 interview for SXSW with Will Wright
[18:46] Reuben Tapioca: what about stuff that people can do here when there are no events?
[18:46] GreeterDan Godel: and if that happens, I'd be very happy to talk about it herer
[18:46] Reuben Tapioca: like leave tips for breaking stories?
[18:46] GreeterDan Godel: yeah, i mean, i'd be very happy to have people using the space 24/7
[18:47] Spin Martin: i'd like to point out something about CNET
[18:47] GreeterDan Godel: so, sxsw is a great festival in austin, texas each march
[18:47] Spin Martin: they are quote accomodating in RL to events like Bloggercon and such
[18:47] Spin Martin: quite*
[18:47] Reuben Tapioca: good point Spin
[18:48] Reuben Tapioca: but I gotta tell you, when I went to their offices in SF and told them I needed to take lots of pictures because I was building the offices in a virtual world
[18:48] Reuben Tapioca: the guy at the front desk looked at me like I had 3 heads
[18:48] Spin Martin: wonder if that OTHER publication is accomodating ;)
[18:48] Reuben Tapioca: ;;-)
[18:48] Rhiannon Chatnoir: were they suspicsous.. or just thouth you mad
[18:48] Katta Sparrow: lol
[18:48] GreeterDan Godel: ha ha, reuben
[18:48] Reuben Tapioca: Mad
[18:48] Koz Farina: ppl reated like that over a decade ago when you spoke of the web
[18:48] Chris Millionsofus: This is why I send Reuben to get photo's :)
[18:48] GreeterDan Godel: that's hilarious
[18:48] Koz Farina: reacted*
[18:48] Josh Millionsofus: hehe
[18:48] GreeterDan Godel: i should have warned them
[18:48] Reuben Tapioca: good point
[18:49] GreeterDan Godel: glad you didn't get shot or something
[18:49] Reuben Tapioca: no, it was funnier the way it turned out
[18:49] Josh Millionsofus: virtual worlds?!?! *blam blam blam*
[18:49] Reuben Tapioca: we should put in a boxing ring to that people who are having big blog wars can duke it out
[18:49] Koz Farina: people need trusted voices and open discourse to pave the way for this medium. Make ppl feel safe. Entertained. Educated and Informed
[18:49] Reuben Tapioca: Spin Martin fights. . . . . . .
[18:49] Reuben Tapioca: fill in the blank
[18:49] Spin Martin: i'll take on curry
[18:50] Spin Martin: heh
[18:50] Reuben Tapioca: right!
[18:50] GreeterDan Godel: good idea
[18:50] Reuben Tapioca: technorati death match
[18:50] Rhiannon Chatnoir: actually.. that is a good point.. might even be good to cross policate with the 'Real life Educator
[18:50] Spin Martin: we could do it in cnet in RL and SL
[18:50] Rhiannon Chatnoir: group
[18:50] Reuben Tapioca: even better
[18:50] Josh Millionsofus: someone here should challenge uwe boll to a fight... :P
[18:50] GreeterDan Godel: hey, folks...i hate to say it, but my battery is going to die, and they're also kicking us out of the room where I am
[18:50] Reuben Tapioca: and people could bet on it and the proceeds go to charity of the winner's choosing
[18:50] GreeterDan Godel: so...perhaps we should wrap this up...at least my part of it
[18:51] Chris Millionsofus: first lives, they just aren't conveniant
[18:51] GreeterDan Godel: but I'd like to thank each and every one of you for coming
[18:51] Reuben Tapioca: I think that's a good idea
[18:51] GreeterDan Godel: and for your ideas
[18:51] Chili Carson: congratulations, Dan, this is a very exciting project!
[18:51] Reuben Tapioca: this was totally fun
[18:51] Spin Martin: thanks dan
[18:51] GreeterDan Godel: thanks!
[18:51] GreeterDan Godel: thank you!
[18:51] Rhiannon Chatnoir: yes.. great going.. :)
[18:51] Reuben Tapioca: thanks Dan for getting this going
[18:51] Spin Martin: this will be up in a few moments at ericrice.com
[18:51] Sterling Zucker: Thanks Dan!
[18:51] Reuben Tapioca: and we'll all be eagerly awaiting the future
[18:51] Reuben Tapioca: and thanks everyone so much for coming
[18:51] GreeterDan Godel: i will be sure to schedule future events, so you'll know when they're happpening
[18:51] Jean Linden: thanks dan!!
[18:51] Reuben Tapioca: nice!
[18:52] GreeterDan Godel: and feel free to contact me anytime at daniel.terdiman@cnet.com
[18:52] GreeterDan Godel: oh, yes...please please please email me any ideas for stories, or for things to do with this space
[18:52] GreeterDan Godel: i'd love to hear them
[18:52] GreeterDan Godel: and before my computer dies...thanks once again, big time, to Milliions of Us
[18:52] Josh Millionsofus: yay us
[18:52] GreeterDan Godel: yay you
[18:53] Chili Carson: Awesome job!
[18:53] Chris Millionsofus: clap clap clap clap clap
[18:53] Josh Millionsofus: :D
[18:53] Reuben Tapioca: Also, an especially big thanks to the Millions of Us team who worked on this
[18:53] GreeterDan Godel: yes, please dance!
[18:53] Reuben Tapioca: Josh, rodica, Bill, and BushidoBrown
[18:54] Reuben Tapioca: they all rocked
[18:54] GreeterDan Godel: you'll all be invited to the RL CNET offices for a celebration of this. When it happens. Soon
[18:57] GreeterDan Godel: ok, down to 0%
[18:57] GreeterDan Godel: bye all!
[18:57] GreeterDan Godel: thanks again!

Trademarks

Via Taunt i learned that IMVU is cracking down on Trademark violations.

"Recently, we received a notice from a large company claiming that their trademark was being used on products sold in the IMVU catalog. We take Trademark violation very seriously and are removing all instances of this violation of both our TOS and US law."

When will it be SL's turn?

Goodbye to Kin Keiko

I just read this at pixelpinup.

Goodbye to Kin Keiko

This is horrible, horrible news. But kin Keiko, the hair artist we’ve all been crazy about over the past monthes, is gone.

At first some of us noticed she was banned, but figured she’ll come back. Only a few hours ago her stuff were still available for sale, but now their gone too.

Here’s what happened from her boyfriend’s profile:

If anyone is wondering where Kin went… She spent all summer trying to sell hair and make money to give her spending cash this semmester at school. When she tried to sell it for USD, they cross checked her account info, and found her old brother’s account that had been banned in 2004. So they banned her. All her money is gone and now she probably cant go back to school in Sept. She asked me to say goodbye to you all, and that she’ll miss the people she got to meet.

We’ll miss you too Kin.

IM Dazzo Street to sign a petition asking LL to let Kin back.

:(

Written by Canimal Zephyr on 13 August

This does make me think, if SL is supposed to transform into the metaverse, do you think people should be able to be banned from it? Banned in 2004, banned forever. Should you be able to be banned permanently from the Internet? To my knowlegde only serious crackers get banned from useing computers, if they don't get job at the CIA/NSA. But atleast they are told how long the sentence is.

Besides that, getting punished for the sins of your brother, how rediculious is that. I know we might not know the whole story. But if you advertise with "Come to SL and make a RL living" maybe you should not ban people and deny them their hard earned cash. Create tools for us to use to determine if someone is trustworthy or not.

Lets hope this gets quickly resolved.

Update: Iris Ophelia interview Kin, and it seems LL have paid Kin her money, but the ban is still active.

"They closed Nakama for Kin. She cried. She is getting her money back, at least. Toni and I interviewed her last night. We're hoping to publish this in next week's M2, and hoping to have an official Linden statement. It would be great if we could report them letting her back in. Restoring her inventory. Technically speaking I don't think that's possible."

And Hamlet has some Linden words on the whole incident.

"The [Kin Keiko] account appears to be closely associated with a series of account that were previously expelled from Second Life for behavior and fraud," Linden Lab Director of Community Services Daniel Linden tells me by e-mail. "Our staff are reviewing that association, and will return the account to active status if assertions about the account's use and ownership can be verified. I expect and hope that this can be cleared up quickly; it sounds as though Kin Keiko is a popular member of the Community, but it is beholden upon us to ensure that individual who have been expelled from Second Life remain expelled."

I wonder if the out cry on the blogs had something to do with it.
Might prove that without the forums we are still being heard. ;)

400k

400k users on the front page, I'm 13 days off on my prediction that we would reach it on the end of July. But what does such a number say anyway, if it is constantly redefined as it has been again on the LL blog.

"The number that is currently on our home page is a time-weighted average between “total number of sign ups ever” and “total number of logged in users over the last 60 days”. As of right now, those numbers are 493,563 and 225,028."

Last time i saw a answer on what the front page resident number represented, i think it was logins in the last 90 days. But might be remembering incorrectly can't find a post where they give a exact answer.

Anyway, what does time-weighted average between “total number of sign ups ever” and “total number of logged in users over the last 60 days”, actually mean? I wish i paid better attention at Statistics in college. Even Google can't really help me out here, and to be honest I think we haven't been given enough information to know what data they are using. If someone does know, please share. ;)

Total number of sign ups ever, and total number of logged in users over the last 60 days, are much more useful and clear for the average user. And am glad that they will be shared. Actually we already can see the 60 days number in the economic stats. (only accesible with a SL account) It shouldn't be so hard to add the Total sign ups there as well. And i wonder why it was not done earlier

Catherine Omega asked some questions as well. And to be honest Sally Linden's answer feels like a cop out.

"There’s limited real estate on the home page, as I’m sure you know. We’re trying to put statistics there which represent useful trends, rather than the flash volatility of the latest huge press buzz."

The average users hardly ever visits the front page after sign up, and the number doesn't really tell anything to a new users, especially if it isn't a straightforward number. More stats can easily be put on a separate page, and all that is needed is a link on the front page or community page to it. Hopefully we are going to see that next week with a lot more stats like: Unique logins last 24 hours, day, week, 2 weeks, months, 2 months, etc.

And as Baba says it in a comment:

"Just throw out an XML file and give us API keys ;0"

After all, part of the The Tao of Linden is: Be Transparent and Open.

Bits and Pieces

The Vancouver Sun has a story about our very own Nexus Nash.

“Canada's newest real estate baron is a 23-year-old recent university grad who still lives at home with h is parents in Ottawa.”

After a few paragraphs about Nexus it goes on about general SL-ness, but i has a nice picture of Nexus that ladies can cut out and swoon with, and fantasize about meeting at the SLCC. ;)

On a more saterical note on webpronews seems SL to invert on itself.

“Virtual fans everywhere rejoiced with the news that Second Life is creating a presence in Second Life. “

So soon i will be playing Aimee Weber in SL-SL. I wish.

"Third Life helps differentiate our brand and gives Second Life players even more of a good thing," says Getta Life. "It was either this or Second Life cereal, but Mikey's agent was being a real prick so we bailed. We also got tired of everyone announcing their presence in Second Life. This should shut the marketers up for awhile."

It just seems to be some random sillyness, but that's good.

God moves in mysteries ways, virgin Mary in a plywood texture. You can own it for only 30k.

“This incredible item is a gift from God himself and a true sign of His existance. People will flock from sims around to see this prim, to touch it, to be healed by it's holy aura. Never before has such a sight been seen in SL. Seize the opportunity to own this wonder today!

**All proceeds to go to the maintenance of the Walden sim** “

The Walden sim is actually a nice woodsy place that i have visited recently, it is a sim dedicated to Walden woods project. And hey this got them some attention. ;)

And off course i can't say nothing about the forum closing. I share a bit of the same opinion with Siobhan, people got awfully nasty pretty fast. It is all overblown drama if you ask me. Two points are mostly named for their reason to be upset.

1. What about noobs

2. Where do we discuss.

Well the first is easy, the new resis don't have to go anywhere else, all the meaningful forums for them stay open. It might make it actually easier for them to find what they need.

The second point is silly, the people that are screaming are all vets that know perfectly well where the other venues are for silly banter and drama mongering. SLUniverse and SecondCitizen So there you go. It will sort it self out, stop worrying people.

Allmost 400k users, i have a post ready for hours allready for that special occasion, but the count seems to be stuck. :(

Should i post it already?