Linden Lab – Page 128

January 31, 2014February 1, 2014

The Drax Files Radio Hour Episode 4 – The Breaking Of The Fellowship

When I was a lad, Friday was Crackerjack day and people could win a Crackerjack pencil. Many moons later Friday is Draxtor Despres day, aided and abetted by Jo Yardley (not Yo Yardley, Yo Yardley is a greeting) and you can’t even win a virtual pencil. As I write this post, there has still been no update from Linden Lab about anything regarding the CEO, but there is a post about the latest episode of The Drax Files video show, which I did say the smart money was on! Alas there was no betting available for that prediction.

The latest edition of The Drax Files Radio hour not surprisingly covers the departure of the beloved CEO, or not so beloved by some, there is balance in the opinions. The show is introduced by Flufee McFluff.

There’s an interesting interview with Venturebeat’s Dean Takahashi regarding Rod Humble’s departure. Second Life artist and Dwarfins legend Jaimy Hancroft calls the show from Belgium.

There’s something in the water in Belgium, not content with finding an absurd amount of brilliant footballers, they are also dipping their toes into the virtual world arena, world domination may be on the cards, you heard it here first.

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January 30, 2014

Land Bots Prohibited – Now That Is A Surprise, Are Tier Prices About To Drop?

Well the surprises have arrived quickly, Inara Pey (via a shout out to Mona Eberhardt) reports that Land Bots are no longer allowed to be used to purchase mainland parcels. This would have been pretty hot news four or five years ago, I’m not sure what good this policy is in an age when land in Second Life is going for peanuts.

The official policy can be found here : http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Inworld_policy_on_bots

The relevant sections of this quiet update state:

Mainland parcel sales and bots

Some bots are used to automate the purchase of Mainland parcels priced below fair market values.

Policy

Using bots to purchase Mainland parcels is not allowed

The use of bots, autonomous software, scripting (manual or automated), scripted agents, or any systems or software internal or external to the Second Life service that circumvent, automate and/or remove the human interaction required to purchase a Land parcel within Second Life on the Linden Lab owned Mainland is prohibited.

When I was a lad in Second Life I used to regularly go to the Jack Linden office hour, where land bots were often a hot topic. Land at the time would regularly be sold for L$10 – L$15 per square meter, if you’re new to Second Life those figures are probably eye popping, land has dropped way below L$1 per square meter in many parts of the mainland. Land prices are so low that land bots at this stage are probably more of a help than a hindrance as people can find the price to make some small income from selling, rather than abandoning their land.

I’m really puzzled as to what the motivation behind this policy is today. The part about purchasing parcels below fair market value has my spidey senses tingling, and not in a good way. I hope they are not going to try and set a minimum price for selling land or hoping for a new land bubble from people manually flipping parcels.

However maybe there’s a surprise policy change in the works, maybe tier prices are going to drop and the lab expect a free for all with people trying to buy more parcels. The policy would actually make sense were tier prices to drop, or people were allowed more tier free land as part of their premium membership.

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January 30, 2014

The Silence Of The Labs

I know I know, it’s Linden Lab, but The Silence Of The Lab doesn’t work as well for a headline, anyway, http://lindenlabs.com does take you to the right place. However the right place still has no mention of a CEO, as we come towards the end of day 7 of “One of our CEO’s is missing“.

The silence from the lab is pretty deafening at the moment, which is now getting beyond the useful stage. The smart money at this stage seems to be on the next Second Life blog post that isn’t a pic of the day being a shout out for the next video installment of The Drax Files. A very worthy addition should be released tomorrow, well worth a shout out that’s for sure but not exactly reassuring to the expectant masses.

Over at New World Notes Hamlet Au has another tease of a post: Relax: Rod Humble Leaves Linden Lab, But Second Life Steams on (With Surprises Still on the Way) :

Rod Humble is gone and that is too bad for many reasons, but Second Life is doing fine (more or less). Not only that, some excellent surprises are coming soon

At this stage, an excellent surprise would be someone at Linden Lab finding their way to the blog and posting some information. Whereas the silence of the lab has created a buzz of sorts, the buzz is getting close to being stewed, which means it won’t leave a nice taste in the mouth for much longer. The issue isn’t just that the CEO chair is absent, there are other issues too.

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January 28, 2014

The Humble In The Jungle

Rod Humble’s departure has created a buzz, which is rather bizarrely being aided and abetted by Linden Lab’s lack of communication. This is one of the rare moments when their lack of communication may actually be useful.

Hamlet Au over at New World Notes has a post about what Rod Humble achieved during his years at Linden Lab but teases his readers with:

I haven’t received any official word from Linden Lab about the departure of their CEO Rod Humble …. but my guess is we’re about to get such a word (along with even larger news, perhaps), very soon.

I don’t know what to make of that at all but it certainly piques the interest. The Opensim crowd have been quick to have their say on Rod Humble too, although many seem to want to pick up on issues that happened long before Rod Humble was at Linden Lab, such as interoperability and going back to the days when a proof of concept was made between Second Life and Opensim. Maria Korolov of Hypergrid Business has a post along these lines but which is presented in such a way that it’s well worth a read: An Open Letter To The Lindens.

The post discusses more than just teleports, it talks of business models, platforms and missed opportunities. Some will agree with large parts of the letter, others will disagree but there are some really well made points in there.

The Second Life Marketplace doesn’t need to be limited to Second Life. Right now, there is no viable multi-grid content marketplace for OpenSim, though Kitely Market is expected to open up to other grids in the next few weeks. But even if it does, the Second Life Marketplace would still overshadow it in terms of the amount of content available, even if only a fraction of merchants opt to enable the multi-grid delivery.

I can recall making a similar point to Pink regarding the potential for the Second Life marketplace selling to other grids, she didn’t shoot the suggestion down in flames. There could be potential there but with the recent tax and account issues I think Linden Lab are likely to shy away from selling content or trading virtual currencies anywhere but their own backyard.

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