Ponderings on the Future of Second Life

People often think my faith in those at Linden Lab is a bit too much. Seeing the current state of the grid and all of the problems it has, I can understand why. I guess part of the reason I have faith is that I can see a direction that I would be taking Second Life in the long term, and I believe that the path I see is somewhat similar to the path Linden Lab is walking on. The way I see Linden Lab's business model heading long term is a cross between MySQL AB and InterNIC. I don't think their desire is to be an ISP, which is currently their role in many ways, and there are quite a few other ways them to make money, since they hold the keys to the domain, as it were.

For those who don't know, MySQL is the world's most popular free, open source database server. There are literally millions of installations of MySQL out there, and some of your favorite Internet services use it: Linden Lab/Second Life, Craig's List, ClassMates, Google, Hot or Not, Yahoo!, Tomb Raider, the City of New York, and of course, SLBoutique and SLTrivia! MySQL AB, the parent company, gives away this amazing product for free. Out of the millions of installations, key customers (some listed above) pay for service. They charge on a sliding scale, based on level of service; some have up to "X" incidents per year where they can call MySQL AB in, and others have "all you can drink" type service. I believe about 15,000 total companies pay MySQL AB, the company, for service. They make a pretty penny, but compare that 15,000 versus a total of 8 million installations. They also control the source code; anyone who modifies the source code has to submit their changes back to MySQL AB, who can then decide whether or not to incorporate the change. They also employ developers actively working on the project. They're a profitable company. I can see Linden Lab heading in this direction with the code for both the viewer and the sim server.

Some things on the Internet need to be centralized, but distributed. An example of the central and distributed model is InterNIC and DNS. InterNIC is the authority where you register domains, like SecondCitizen.com, LindenLab.com, or SLConvention.org. DNS is the system that allows browsers, email servers, email clients, and basically anything that uses the Internet for communication to point these names at the correct servers world-wide. I foresee Linden Lab doing the same with the grid; you pay them a small fee of $X per year to have the right to plug into this "square" of the map. They maintain what squares go where. If you're Anshe Chung, and you have an entire continent, you'll probably want to host them in the same data center, so border crossings are smooth (relatively), and pay Linden Lab for a full joined block of squares. The land store is the infant-stage of this registry.

The long and the short of it is, Linden Lab could eventually host only a few servers: their master user server cluster, the "grid map" server cluster, the money L$ server cluster, and probably a few beyond my foresight. You could either host a bunch of private sims, with your own core servers, or have your sims subscribe to Linden Lab's master servers. This would plug you into the "main grid" map, use the Linden Lab L$ economy, and allow anyone with an account access your sims. Think of this option as how the world works today, except that instead of sims all being centrally located, they're hosted at various data centers world wide.

There could also be subscription servers for asset storage. It isn't a big leap of faith to imagine that the ( SL viewer + Linden master organizational servers for one virtual world + simulators hosted world wide + Amazon's S3 acting as asset server = "The Metaverse" ).

I've talked to various Lindens over the years about the possibilities, and none of them have said this is the direction they're headed. This is just the way I see things starting to play out, and the direction I would be heading if I ran Linden Lab. They're very bright, dedicated, capable people, and I think of lot of the problems that are occurring now are because something like I've stated above is the long term vision, and they're focused on long term goals instead of short term band aids. At least, that's what I hope!

Avatar Expression - A New Book

I am constantly fascinated and amazed by how people express their personality inside Second Life, and that interest has finally culminated in a new book called “Avatar Expression”, which you can get in either Second Life or in paperback form in that good-ole thing called Real Life. The book contains 56 color photographs of Second Life avatars.

You can see some of the images from the book and learn how to get the virtual or real copies at the Figments website or by going to the Figments Sky Garden in Bisque (there's a partial gallery set up). The virtual version is free, and the RL paperback is available for US$13.68 (priced at the manufacturing cost, i.e. as free as I can make it).

This project was truly a collaboration with the avatars who agreed to be photographed, and I thank them for their time and energy. My goal was to capture as much of the avatar as possible. I asked each person to pick their looks, their poses and their locations, and we went from there. As I noted in the foreword, this book is not intended to be a “best of” or “top avatars” or any of that nonsense. There are innumerable brilliant and expressive avatars out there in Second Life; this group just happened to be a few of the brilliant and expressive avatars I am lucky enough to know or have introduced to me.

Avatars included were: Ash Garden, Ben Vanguard, BushidoBrown Hightower, Celebrity Trollop, Cory Edo, Evangeline Suavage, Fallingwater Cellardoor, Haver Cole, HoseQueen McQueen & Zyrra Falcone, hyasynth Tiramasu, Ingrid Ingersoll, Kazuhiro Aridian, Makaio Stygian, Polyester Patridge, Psyra Extraordinaire, Salome Strangeglove, Satchmo Prototype, Toast Bard, Vudu Suavage, Vas Legend, Willow Zander, Wynx Whiplash (and accompanying Tinies)


Below: the Figments Sky Garden where you can get a virtual copy

Two SL Architecture & Design Competitions

Frank Koolhaas (Mario Gerosa in RL), who writes the blog Played in Italy and recently published a book on Second Life, informed me of a new Second Life architecture and design competition for the Italian publisher Meltemi. Frank is passionate about virtual design, and I look forward to seeing what emerges here. You can find details about the competition in English here. The final project must fit a 4096m2 plot, and come in under 937 Primitives (including architectural structures, equipment and furniture). CORRECTION: May 20 (not the 27th), 2007 is the first deadline for the competition, and the prize for the winner is 5,000 Euros.

When Frank first IMed me, I confused his competition with this other German Second Life design competition, which Chip Poutine blogged in March. Yes, more "firsts" which aren't really firsts, but, if it promotes great design in Second Life then I'm all for it. The deadline for this one is September 1, 2007.

VIP preparty vw2007

As your intrepid news reporter i scored a media pass for vw2007 in NY. I disembarked to New York early this morning and arrived safely.

Tonight was a VIP party to meet the speakers of vw2007 and mingle and network. Surprisingly or not so, most were SL related people, though there.com, Entropia Universe and Multiverse peoples were there as well. No secret announcement were made, at least not to me if they were. :P

Every mayor player in the virtual world space is here, so hopefully there will be cool announcement in the next 2 days. We will have to wait and see.

Virtual University Twente

A local project tickled my interest, while nothing to do with SL, it is another step towards the virtual enhancing the real.
To entice new students to their University, the Univeristy of Twente has created a virtual campus in a Habbo Hotel style.

You can walk around with a avatar and click the buildings to get basic information about what they are dedicate too, find out at what bus schedule is, learn about their sport facilities, etc. My first reaction was why not using something like Google maps and overlay all that information, seeing the RL layout would be more useful. But considering the target demographic,16-18 year olds, it is understandable. They have grown up with virtual places like these.

After exploring the campus I did notice that it had a lot more stickiness then the usual 2D maps have. Partly because of added game elements, like preventing moles from digging up a yard, teleports to farther off areas or a naked pixelated avatar in the woods.(It is The Netherlands after all.)
All these added things wouldn't be as easily possible in a 2D map, but in a 3D world they invite you to explore more. And now if I ever would be there and a flat tire on my bike I would now know where to go to get a pump or where the campus market is to buy some supplies.

If this would help people decide to go this University or not, i don't know. I hope quality of the University will still be the determining factor. It is certainly a interesting way to learn in a playful way more about the campus you are about to spend your next 4+ years on. But it might also be a indication of how virtual worlds will enhance the way of providing information about real world places.

Towns and Cities could do something similar and with some polishing and added community tool like myspace who knows what will happen.

spam blog

I hate BLOGGER (spam lockout), originally uploaded by Eric Rice.

spam blog, originally uploaded by MrFrans.

This is what we have been staring at the last few days. Appearantly the stupids bots at blogger considered SLOG a spam blog, and we couldn't post untill a admin/mod came around to check the blog. :(

What kind of whack shit is that. It would have been great if they told us how and what caused it, because really all the posts and comments look pretty normal to me. Maybe the recent articles where so good they got linked to, to much. I will have to keep thinking that, to stay sane.

Speak up! Maybe... Emergent Voice in SL

I left a comment on the official Linden blog in response to Joe's announcement about the voice features coming to Second Life, yet felt it necessary to repeat my comments here, in a differently visible forum.

My general position is fairly neutral, I'll probably use voice within a close circle of friends, who already use voice extensively via Skype. Yet, I'm a bit disappointed in the implementation for a number of reasons. Here's the comment I posted:

It's interesting how proximity-based seems to mimic hard-wired phones. In RL, we live in a world where wireless communication allows us the ability to move about. That's one of the frustrating things about those Vivox phonebooths. We *have to* be there, and no other place. Group IMs and IMs in general, do afford us the luxury of moving around.

It won't be surprising to see Skype, TeamSpeak, or Vent continue to be used, because they exist regardless of where we may be.

The same exists with music streaming... the community over time, had decided to share URLs for people who couldn't get to an event, or had someplace else to be-- even though the SL client and the music streaming parts are separate, music is tied to a parcel. From my understanding, this has been done for purposes of immersion, and vetoed before (even before my time).

The thing I'd encourage everyone to watch is the emergent uses of the voice aspects of SL. It might be used for things far more creative than simple communication, since it is limited in its design.

While writing this, another issue came to mind: when building or camming about, I don't hear proximity-based sounds like typing and effects, especially if I'm zooomed out. Music, however will still play because my avatar is located on a parcel, and that system is not affected by my camera movements.

Will the voice system operate like this or is it true proximity that will be voided by the position of my camera? My thoughts are (if I read this correctly), that no, I'd not be able to hear you talk if I'm cammed out. Time will tell.

Yet Another Second Life Wannabe

Better graphics, faster, less lag, more options, lots of avatars in the same island, better support of your hardware (so long as it is a 2007-built Windows PC, of course) — that's what all the new "SL wannabes" claim. They all have state-of-the art graphical engines, feature content upload, lots of avatar shapes and handle concurrency much better.

They also have a nice webpage and two blog entries on it:

http://www.outbackonline.com/

But... it's the latest rage, since Scoble talked about it. So join in for the beta... or should I say, give them your email so that they can sign you on their newsletter! Because, really, that's all what they have to offer:

Outback Online provides an easy, free way to have fun with friends while creating 3D virtual worlds together. It combines a fun social environment like MySpace and Cyworld, a peer to peer communication network like Skype and a user-generated service like YouTube into a seamless 3D platform, that is infinitely scalable.

Oh, and don't hold your breath, either. Early alpha will be ready by summer. Who knows, when Outback is ready to launch, Linden Lab might even have started to integrate Mono and in-world HTML and the 5th attempt to use Havok 3.0...

The End of First Land

Linden Lab just announced on their Official blog the end of the First Land programme, effective immediately. This means that from now on, new Premium users will not have a "grant" to be able to buy a plot of 512 m2 for L$512. They will have to live like the rest of us: in a world of hyper-inflated land costs, and no way to recover your 'investment' in SL quickly by selling out your (useless) First Land plot to an over-eager land-baron-wannabe.

Why does abolishing First Land make sense from LL's business perspective? Well, we can all grief and complain about "putting it all in the hands of monopolies held by land barons". The truth is that the long-term land barons compete ferociously among themselves — and have done so for several years — and have no choice but to offer added value. You don't just buy/rent/lease a plot from them — you join a planned, organised community, and you get protection from griefers and nasty neighbours. How well each large land baron does their job will reflect their long-term success; it's obvious that many are doing well and will continue to be around.

On the mainland, the tiny landowner is a nightmare to manage — from the point of view of Linden Lab. A whole sim full of First Land plots, where you have to deal with your nasty neighbours every day without having a way to call for help is a nightmare. What happens? People pack and go — very often, to rent/buy/lease land on an organised, planned community. So, although I can understand why people can be furious for not getting their "promised" First Land, let's be honest — you wouldn't be holding on to it for long. As soon as you got an offer, you'd move out (probably with your friends and friendly neighbours) and go to a planned community or a rental business.

First Land, with a few exceptions, are the slums and wastelands of Second Life. People getting them will have fun for a few hours. Then they will face the naked reality of what it means — griefing, "physical" and mostly "visual". You won't be living on a "nice" place, but very soon you'll see that there are lots of nice places around in SL to live in — and all rather cheaper than being a Premium Account and a tiny 512 m2 plot.

So what is LL accomplishing by abolishing the FL programme? Well, let's ignore the deal with the "abuse". It's a comfortable excuse and a side-effect. But the real reason is purely economical, and, surprisingly, an encouragement to make SL look better. Let's assume, for an instant, that from those 60,000 Premium Users, 10,000 abandon their plots, in disgust over LL's new policies. These will be bought up by 'bots, start-up land baron wannabes, and short-term capitalists. But they suddenly see that they won't be able to sell them so easily, since the number of Premium accounts will decrease slightly, as people "tier down" and go to live on private islands.

What will happen next? Well, there is some inertia in the system — they will hold to their land and expect the next wave of freshly-minted Premium accounts to arrive with their pockets full of money. However, these "new" Premium accounts will not expect land to be cheap (ie. no more First Land, so...). They will expect it to look good. And where will they turn to? Very likely, planned communities organised by the long-term, established land barons.

So the quickly-bought-for-a-huge-profit ex-First Land will remain on "wasteland". For a while. To make a profit, land barons who just buy & sell land, without intention of improving it and adding value, will need to do it quickly. But in the mean time — Linden Lab will roll out more land on the next continent. On the auctions, for US$1000 as a base price. Who will buy these? The established land barons again. And they'll get it for a reasonable amount of money, improve the plots, and sell them for a profit … but at a much lower rate than the land baron wannabees are able to set.

This definitely means that the "former wasteland" will slowly need to have its prices dropped. Without encouragement to buy small, cheap 512 m2 plots, and a decrease in new Premium accounts, all that land hold into the hands of the wannabe land barons is pretty much worthless. What will they do with it? Sell it to the rental businesses, very likely. They will still make a rather reasonable profit that way.

So you see "aggregation". Less premium accounts holding more land in larger sizes. For Linden Lab, this means less technical support calls. It also means that the 60,000 paying customers will pay far more than just the bare minimum, since they will hold large tracts of land for their own rental businesses. The number of free accounts will only increase, and buy/lease/rent more and more from the established land barons/rental managers/mall owners. Yes, this means more concentration of power and money in a larger number of people — capitalism at work! — but that's exactly how it works in RL as well, isn't it? :) But for LL, it also means less work — land barons will continue to buy whole sims and plan them, and tier payment will be handled by a small group (well, 60,000-big) of people, who will also manage most of the more common issues in their communities and rental businesses. Providing added value that way.

So, does this mean that I'm for LL's decision? Well, it sounds to me that it would be inevitable. Consider the following: it meant a lot of support calls, way over what people pay for their tier zero Premium accounts. It meant a lot of time planning the landscape for the new sims, from talented LL designers that are always overworked anyway. It meant large areas with griefing of all sorts — physical and visual. It was abused in all possible ways, mostly because people don't know exactly how to set/manage their land (I know I don't). It allowed for hyper-inflation on those areas.

All that is now gone. Makes a lot of business sense for LL. And who suffers? Perhaps 10,000 or so Premium users who feel "cheated". Well, 10,000 in 3.8 million accounts is not really a huge number, isn't it? After all, we all know that LL is not making any money from the Premium accounts... just from tier and lease of private islands.

Dutch tolerance has it limits

A majority of The lower house(tweede kamer) in the Netherlands and the public prosecutor want legal action against virtual child porn, or as is it often called Age Play. Virtual child porn with images that are lifelike is already illegal, but now investigation has started to see how laws should be applied to environments like SL, where graphics are not(yet) life like.

Reuters and Menno already reported about it earlier.

It is interesting how this will turn out. Some claim that because it is virtual it shouldn't be prosecuted and the child in question is likely a adult in RL. Others wonder where the line will be drawn, will virtual speeding in GTA be a crime as well? It could be a slippery slope and in someways equals a thought crime.

They add that it would be better to use the funds and manpower to fight/prevent child-abuse in RL. I think one can't be watchful enough if it comes to child abuse even virtual. It could very realistically lead to real abuse.

J. Buschman who works as a psychologist for the Mesdag clinic in Groningen, said that Second life is per definition a "learning school for pedophiles" and he fears that virtually having sex with children will result in sexual child abuse in the real world.

What is a interesting aspect is how proof can be gathered to prosecute someone. All avatars have a high level of anonymity, a prosecutor first have to have proof that a avatar is a Dutch citizen and then has to request RL information from LL. It would be strange if they could request information on US citizens for instance.

But also the other way around, if someone is arrested for related crimes, and their computer is confiscated. I doubt much proof of age-play will be on the computer, if you have logging of your chat off, I would say there wouldn't be any proof.

Also added to that, in the US this isn't illegal at all, and I'm not sure if LL could be forced to provide the RL information.

In the United States, where Second Life creator Linden Lab is based, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a law in 2002 which would have banned computer-generated images that depict minors engaged in sexual conduct.

But how ever this turns out legally, it is a good thing attention is being put on to it. Even if legally nothing can be done, research in it can only help confirm or deny claims that it will result in RL abuse. And it could lead to early warning system to stop abusers.