{"id":138,"date":"2011-01-09T12:55:37","date_gmt":"2011-01-09T17:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/slpress\/?p=138"},"modified":"2014-01-12T13:19:07","modified_gmt":"2014-01-12T13:19:07","slug":"2011-linden-lab-really-need-to-listen-to-their-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=138","title":{"rendered":"2011 – Linden Lab really need to listen to their users"},"content":{"rendered":"

2011 promises to be an interesting year for Second Life, a new CEO, Mesh, LL finally looking at inworld activities other than shopping if their blog<\/a> post about games in Second Life is anything to go by.<\/p>\n

The Linden Department of public works, who don’t get anywhere near enough credit, have been quietly going about their business of installing switches on the railway network known as the SLRR, as explained here<\/a> by Michael Linden.<\/p>\n

These are the sort of posts we should see more of, more what’s happening inworld, more on developments, more on what people who don’t want to run a business but want to come here and have fun can do, this is the sales pitch, this is where marketing can triumph.<\/p>\n

However that brings us really to the issue of what Second Life is and isn’t and all too often over the last couple of years we’ve seen Second Life going after target audiences at the expense of others. They really lost their way when they ditched “Your world, your imagination”, because really, that’s what it should be Chasing rainbows ultmiately leads to chasing shadows, Linden Lab got it wrong when they decided things needed to be changed, they didn’t need to change, they needed to evolve, expand and open new markets. Deciding to focus on Second Life being a meeting place for business was a mistake, they could do that without impacting upon existing users.<\/p>\n

Deciding to try and incorporate the Facebook crowd was another mistake, they can go to Facebook and promote Second Life there, but Second Life should always be looking to lead not follow, plenty of Second Life’s core userbase baulk at linking Second Life and Facebook and the fact that Facebook gives two fingers to allowing Second Life profiles there means it was always an abusive relationship. Facebook could easily sell advertisers details of Second Life users and target them for virtual world or gaming marketing.<\/p>\n

Linden Lab’s aim should be promotion, marketing and looking to expand, not ride roughshod over those already here and believing they’re disposable because another venue has millions of users, those who refuse to come to Second Life because of the content or activities are merely using that as an excuse, if someone likes a venue, they will ignore the content they don’t like and concentrate on what they do like.<\/p>\n

Where Linden Lab are getting it right are with areas such as Mesh and developing a web based option to explore Second Life, my concern with the web based option was that LL would look to replace the standard client, as that doesn’t seem to be the case then a web based option to compliment the full experience is a worthwhile goal.<\/p>\n

This doesn’t mean Linden Lab have turned a new leaf, we still have the ridiculous and irresponsible grid merger, sim owners are currently being chastised for having General regions next to Adult regions on private estates and are being ordered to turn their General regions into Moderate regions. One may wonder why someone would have an Adult region next to a General region, afterall General next to Moderate on mainland remains problematic, however some people flag a region as Adult when there’s no overtly adult content there, they believe, rightly or wrongly, that flagging as Adult gives them better protection from griefing and is more likely to attract well meaning residents.<\/p>\n

Personally I still strongly believe LL should build the family friendly continent and then ask private estate owners whether they want to flag their sims as family friendly, with rules about what surrounds a family friendly island, such as, you can’t have any adult content next to a family friendly island. Linden Lab have no intention of doing this of course, their pride would be damaged too much because they were told and told and told again to build a PG continent at the height of the adult content fiasco, they were told to do this to give those who wanted a predictable PG experience an area where that was pretty much guaranteed, but because they didn’t think of this, they discarded it, even though it makes perfect common sense.<\/p>\n

When Linden Lab get their heads out of the sand on the grid merger and engage in sensible dialogue with their userbase, then I’ll start supporting their goals. Linden Lab really need to start listening to their userbase, their users are more familiar with the challenges and concerns within Second Life than the management of Linden Lab itself, we’re the people who see these issues, deal with them and note the discrepancies.<\/p>\n

2011 should be the year Linden Lab really do listen, with a new CEO incoming, one would hope they will learn from past mistakes..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2011 promises to be an interesting year for Second Life, a new CEO, Mesh, LL finally looking at inworld activities other than shopping if their blog post about games in Second Life is anything to go by. The Linden Department of public works, who don’t get anywhere near enough credit, have been quietly going about … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “2011 – Linden Lab really need to listen to their users”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,14,647],"tags":[18,19,20,21,1022],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6rJUK-2e","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}