Rod Humble gets it on privacy

Another interview with Rod Humble, another impressive interview. This time the interviewee is Dusan Writer and you can read the full interview here. This is probably the most impressive interview I’ve read so far, with the exception of the soccer references (it’s football!) Rod addresses some of the issues that are dear to my heart.

Mr Humble does address, as Mr Kingdon did, the non sexy things, such as lag and slow rendering and people might groan thinking we’ve heard it all before, but they are issues that need to be addressed. However it’s the beauty of creating within Second Life, Mr Humble’s attitude to privacy and the fact that he seems to get what being in a 3D virtual world is all about that are the interesting features of this interview, and I must say I find it all very encouraging.

The interview talks of the hook moment, when Mr Humble watched a prim fall to the ground and bounce, the importance of the prim is well stated and although mesh is on its way, let’s hope that people’s joy of discovery of the prim will long continue.

Mr Humble talks of how he’d like to watch football inworld with his friends, so would I! However television licensing agreements dictate this isn’t likely to happen any time soon, but there’s no reason why long term such deals can’t be struck, or why football fans can’t find places to share interests inworld.

Then there’s talk of privacy and whilst I’ve recently watched Linden Lab promoting Facebook to absurd levels, Mr Humble seems to get it that people in Second Life may want to express themselves via their avatar and keep that separate from their RL, quoting from Dusan’s interview:

“Privacy is extremely important for anyone putting themselves out there, expressing themselves, or expressing a side of themselves through an avatar. People don’t want other people to connect the dots from their avatar to their real life person – or even, for that matter, to an alt. One of the ethical obligations we have is to protect people’s privacy.“………..

“I’m not so sure that the conventional wisdom makes any sense. Yes, it might be technically easy to track people and all that. But in the long-term I’m optimistic that we’ll see the pendulum swing back in the other direction towards more privacy.”

These quotes are quite frankly refreshing, I almost cheered when I read those quotes. I really do hope the pendulum will swing back the other way, hopefully before it swings too far the wrong way.

However it’s not just Mr Humble’s comments on privacy itself that impress me, it’s his talk of personas, how we tell stories via our avatars, how we express ourselves and how we become immersed, this all extremely encouraging stuff. The more interviews I read, the more I’m convinced that Rod Humble is the right man for the job, that he will get what Second Life is about and bring it forward in terms of growth and excitement.

Nothing is going to change overnight and it may be a case of one step forwards, two steps back during these coming months, but Mr Humble is more than just a person who supports the greatest football team the world has ever seen, he has an outlook on Second Life that isn’t tied to set sectors, chasing corporates, chasing educators, chasing the enterprise, he seems to understand the beauty of user generated content and people creating their own story. Read the interview, it’s really impressive.