Introducing the Second Life Grid
Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 at 6:32 PM by: catherinelindenToday, Linden Lab launched the SecondLifeGrid.net website, a resource for businesses, organizations and educators for creating a successful virtual presence on the Second Life Grid platform. Since the launch of Second Life, Linden Lab has been working to further open and expand the virtual world. The SecondLifeGrid.net website recognizes the opportunities virtual worlds provide to organizations,
To date ‘the Grid’ has been used synonymously with Second Life. However, with launch of SecondLifeGrid.net, Linden Lab is separating Second Life the virtual world (the product) from the Second Life Grid (the technology platform).
Second Life is and will remain focused on Residents, but virtual world technology also has a lot to offer to organizations – educators, enterprises, brands, nonprofits, and others – and the Second Life Grid will enable these organizations to understand and create meaningful 3D immersive experiences. Through new programs like the Community Gateway Program and the Global Provider Program, Linden Lab will provide guidance and support for local and international organizations interested in maximizing their participation in the virtual world of Second Life.
The Community Gateway Program is a new program for communities that wish to offer their own registration and orientation process for Second Life. Currently in beta testing, there are already more than a dozen organizations offering their own orientation experiences and gateways into Second Life as part of this program. Approximately 40% of new Resident registrations are already going through these community gateways. The program helps new Residents rapidly find like-minded friends and interest groups, which results in improved retention rates. Melting Dots in Japan, Showtime’s The L-Word in the US, and Telstra’s BigPond in Australia have all been very successful Community Gateways, and we’re looking forward to enrolling more organizations in the program. If you’re interested in learning more, please email gateway@lists.secondlife.com.
The Global Provider Program provides a higher level of account management and technical support and services for those bringing large communities of non-English speaking Residents onto the Second Life Grid. For example, Kaizen Games, Linden Lab’s first Global Provider, hosts Mainland Brazil which provides Portuguese resources for Second Life Residents. Global Providers will offer localized experiences in the virtual world of Second Life to create language specific experiences for communities all over the world.
These programs join our existing API programs to form a set of tools that will help organizations be successful in Second Life. The Exchange Risk API helps organizations to safely operate Linden dollar exchanges, and the Registration API enables groups to register new Residents via their own websites. These programs are already helping organizations create their own connections between their Web presences and the virtual world, and the Second Life Grid will further help them to leverage the powerful technology behind Second Life.
We invite all educators, businesses, nonprofits and other organizations to learn more about how others are successfully working in the virtual world of Second Life. The platform, tools and programs available on SecondLifeGrid.net will provide the foundation needed to create a successful virtual world experience.
September 4th, 2007 at 7:07 PM
I have a feeling this will ultimately generate a lot of comments.
September 4th, 2007 at 7:16 PM
Wow great! Thanks for this info!
September 4th, 2007 at 7:16 PM
A momentous occasion. As Sphere Gasser would say, “We’re going up to 20 million. See you there!”
September 4th, 2007 at 7:26 PM
ah good they are licensing their technology, good deal. Maybe there.com will upgrade and license it?
September 4th, 2007 at 7:37 PM
A lot of this seems to have been around for a while in bits and pieces. Thanks for the reminder that they exist. Will there be a way for the two parts to mesh outside of the occasional blog? Many communities that are already founded in SL but who are not sponsored by organizations could make use of this information to function more efficiently. Could you put a spot on the log in page like “Want to Learn More…” with some of these other addys? If you don’t visit websites often and dont know what to question… having things like this link, the one for the calendar, (is there a separate one for Linden Office hours?), etc. at your fingertips would be wonderful.
September 4th, 2007 at 7:41 PM
I’m suddenly reminded of AOL’s old Greenhouse project of the late 1990s. best of luck.
September 4th, 2007 at 7:43 PM
“The Second Life Grid is a full-featured service platform of revolutionary technologies”
LOL
But really, I like it
September 4th, 2007 at 7:46 PM
So I read through some of this and I guess I’m missing something here. This is basically a glorified directory for companies to advertise their added value services for Second Life?
September 4th, 2007 at 7:48 PM
Does anyone have advice? In processing my user name, I unfornately sent the date; however, it was unfinished, and I could not re-enter and I really wanted the first name that I had picked. So I had to rechange in order to get here at this point. Newbie with this site. Thanks Kathleen
luvsuncat@yahoo.com
September 4th, 2007 at 8:00 PM
Neat. This reminds me of what There.com did in licensing their stuff to the military.
This is actually starting to really indeed look like a 3D IRC client… with an economy of course.. But if I’m not mistaken.. this is what Active Worlds did. So its nothing really ‘revolutionary’.
September 4th, 2007 at 8:13 PM
Very awesome, I hope a lot of companies decide to take advantage of this! This is just going to be awesome
September 4th, 2007 at 8:17 PM
This is nothing so much as a method to sell Second Life as a tool for real life business. More real life, more rules, more censorship, less freedom and creativity for us immersionists, more gaping holes punched in the essential vitualness of “our world, our imagination”. And guess what? To quote from the website “..and a massive existing base of end users and user-created content that can be leveraged in your own virtual world offering..”
You and I dear residents.. we are the bait.
How does it feel to be a marketable commodity? Something tells me I’ve just been sold.
September 4th, 2007 at 8:36 PM
A smart move, and long time coming.
September 4th, 2007 at 8:38 PM
“Second Life is the showcase virtual world WHERE end users can create an infinite variety of content and participate in a robust virtual economy, free of traditional social and technological restrictions.”
I fixed this line for you…
“Second Life is the showcase virtual world WHERE end users can create an infinite variety of content and participate in a robust virtual economy, encumbered by traditional social and technological restrictions.”
Your welcome!
September 4th, 2007 at 8:40 PM
“What is the difference between Second Life and the Second Life Grid?
“Second Life is the showcase virtual world WHERE end users can create an infinite variety of content and participate in a robust virtual economy, free of traditional social and technological restrictions. The Second Life Grid is WHAT makes Second Life possible: a service platform that provides scalable server infrastructure, highly detailed and configurable features, field-proven customer service tools, and a massive existing base of end users and user-created content that can be leveraged in your own virtual world offering.”
—–
Ooooh, good to know that we’re not really on the GRID anymore.
We’re just part of the WHERE. We’re the “massive existing base of end users and user-created content” that can be “leveraged” by the REAL people on the REAL grid (you know, the real-world companies, businesses, educational institutions, etc.) for their own purposes.
And good to know that they will be getting all the WHAT, not us. I wonder what all the WHAT goodies are that are in store for them?
Now that you’ve spelled it out, there should be much less confusion as to who is the chopped liver here.
I, for one, hope that I can play my role as bait nicely enough for you, even as I pay you for the privilege of being leveraged.
coco
September 4th, 2007 at 8:58 PM
To # 11 Cocoanut Koala:
Amen, Brotha
September 4th, 2007 at 9:01 PM
Seems like Linden Lab pimping its stuff some more is all. Surprised that there is no ‘First Bling’ link, but I see that the ‘Official Guide’ is there…
Nothing wrong with that, but it does seem a little too much marketing and not enough content. I hope the book sales offset that. O.o
September 4th, 2007 at 9:03 PM
Cocoanut, I’m glad to see there’s at least one other person that saw beyond the fanfare and through to a Bladerunnereque future. The residents have made the grid what it is, but now, we’re no longer part of the grid, we’re just Second Life. Hey, that would be all fine and dandy… if Second Life was actually working. But when group IMs aren’t working (how hard can it be to transfer a simple text message to members of a group?) and the GRID just becomes more unstable with every release, I foresee the day that the RESIDENTS will be left holding an empty sack on “our world”.
September 4th, 2007 at 9:07 PM
well said coco.
September 4th, 2007 at 9:11 PM
Bouncy words and phases……
September 4th, 2007 at 9:11 PM
[...] Linden Lab have announced the launch of SecondLifeGrid.net, dedicated to businesses and other organisations wanting to find out about the opportunities Second Life may present. Notice I said opportunities and not threats. I spent five minutes looking around the site and couldn’t see any information alluding to the challenges and threats of doing business in SL, though to be fair there are lots of links to external resources which will contain some of the downside. [...]
September 4th, 2007 at 9:12 PM
It sounds to me like LL is moving from it’s residents to it’s commercial use and gain. I might sound crazy but is LL trying to make residents seems less important and focusing on RL companies coming in? Let me know will you? -Lost Kitten-
September 4th, 2007 at 9:12 PM
@ Roku
O_o coco is a woman
@coco
Your oppinions are solid, nicely stated.
As for my full oppinon…
Its suspicious for me why you want to separate the game and the tech, Is it because you want to direct Tech Support Questions to the Tech staff? If so thats understandable, to keep orginised. But Its a really bad idea to separate the two seeing as the game and the grid come hand and hand. Also this is going to be another one of those things that a linden directs you to. First it was:
“Hey Linden, was wondering if you could help me out”
“Submit a ticket”
Now when we submit a ticket about grid performance is the ticket system going to reply:
“Visit SecondLifeGrid.net’
What ever happened to the stable team that took time to answer their instant messages, not just shove us off to some web portal. What happened to that team that actually HELPED YOU IN WORLD.
-Jokeiroo
September 4th, 2007 at 9:12 PM
Fix it for the residents before you try and lure business dollars into it.
And you wonder why the corporate write-ups suck….
How many companies will put up with this level of performance?
Oh, they won’t have to. They’ll be catered to.
September 4th, 2007 at 9:14 PM
[...] Linden Lab have announced the launch of SecondLifeGrid.net, dedicated to businesses and other organisations wanting to find out about the opportunities Second Life may present. Notice I said opportunities and not threats. I spent five minutes looking around the site and couldn’t see any information alluding to the challenges and threats of doing business in SL, though to be fair there are lots of links to external resources which will contain some of the downside. [...]
September 4th, 2007 at 9:20 PM
Trying to see the sense in in…really am… It’ll be interesting to see how this one turns out though! -Lost Kitten-
September 4th, 2007 at 9:21 PM
*it
September 4th, 2007 at 9:28 PM
As this evo occures the common people are going t be less and less important. commerical as someone said is going to be the main focal point of this VR. As for the “The program helps new Residents rapidly find like-minded friends and interest groups, which results in improved retention rates” this is yet to be seen. ALl they have done is create more and more alts. No real value to the Grid. Stop patting yourslf on the back LL.
September 4th, 2007 at 9:32 PM
[...] ・Second Life Grid ・リンデン社のリリース（blog) http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/09/04/introducing-the-second-life-grid/ [...]
September 4th, 2007 at 9:34 PM
Well, now you can see why consierge service went 24/7, can’t you… wouldn’t want out biggest peon investors complaining too loudly where our corporate gods might catch wind of it.
And now, as I’ve been saying for months, you can also see you are all nothing but sheep…. who pay for the privelege.
You are here to lure in the “real” money, to pay out even MORE of your own to them to keep them happy and investing…
Don’t you think maybe it’s time for an “open letter” to some of these desirable corporate masters from some of the “food chain” lower down explaining ot them just what a pile of garbage they’ll be investing their time and money in??
Sheep, meet Wolves…. Wolves, sheep meat…
September 4th, 2007 at 9:40 PM
I vote we all make the ceo of LL push to resign! He is selling us out!, when is the board of directors gonna see , with all the failures and bugs sl has , the seperate real business grid is gonna have the same , now we know where are real money is going to support the real business grid instead of the main grid where the residents are being shut down slowly , land , no games , no gambling , but the real business grid will have all that just watch and much more now I know why sl shut down our fun. …
September 4th, 2007 at 10:02 PM
Reminds me of Paltalk…moved from chat..to voice/cam (with the resultant fragmentation into language based groups)…to being purged of the more obvious and less ‘desirable’ activities/groups (except the commercially operated ones)…and thus on to being touted as a business tool…
September 4th, 2007 at 10:23 PM
A Virtual world where business thrive. MMMMMMMMM. Now we will see big companies using SL for free advertisement. Big bosses has come to SL. iT’S SUCKS
September 4th, 2007 at 10:26 PM
[...] Official Linden Blog just informed us that Linden Lab launched a new web-site SecondLifeGrid.net, a resource for businesses, organizations and educators for creating a successful virtual presence on the Second Life Grid platform. [...]
September 4th, 2007 at 10:26 PM
never heard of Paltalk…. maybe one day we’ll say the same of Second Life, if they keep it up… LOL.
September 4th, 2007 at 10:27 PM
Ok, you made the SLgrid.
First, GRID in the second life (and beyond) is some kind of the holy term. Residents are sensitive to the use of it. It has literally metaphysical meaning. Yes, it is by large your merit, but that makes you even more responsible for the future uses of the term.
Second, there is nothing wrong with making a new web-site for technology that goes beneath what we know as second life. But, for grid’s sake, when you publish things like this double check what you wrote. Then get in the role of somebody who will read it, not common resident but the most venomous of your commenters. And after that read it as a common resident. Sincerely. And see if anything is poking eyes or scratching the skin. If it is, polish it, don’t just throw it on the blog.
It is called good public relations. Good public relations are very important for the business. They are even more important than your addressing the big companies and RL media. Especially if your business is dependant on the residents.
This happens over and over again. At least every two months we have an announcement which provokes comments like above and blog posts that will follow this time too. Neither you or we don’t need that.
Let’s fix that communications for the benefit of all of us. Shall we? Thanks.
Crossposted at: http://metaverse.acidzen.org/2007/slgridnet-and-the-holy-grid
September 4th, 2007 at 10:44 PM
The word is out…..we’ve been (and will be as long they need us) the alpha and beta tester for Linden Labs. Now they see their “product” as being ready for making some real money with it.
Jeez, this was the first time I actually had to PAY for being a tester
September 4th, 2007 at 10:55 PM
who is your branding consultant?
September 4th, 2007 at 11:21 PM
Let’s hope that some of the corporations lured in by this new site have more of a clue than most that have got here already.
After all, we are not a resource for their benefit, neither is SL a cheap advertising outlet … there’s plenty more that they could do to actually make their presence here more appreciated. I guess it just depends whether they can be bothered to be different.
September 4th, 2007 at 11:45 PM
Market speak, like techie speak, sometimes requires translation. o.o
Community Gateway Program - Formerly known as Community Registration Portals, as per http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/06/05/an-experiment-for-new-residents-community-registration-portals/. These can and do include established SL hubs as well as RL ventures; Azure Islands is one.
Global Provider Program - LL is outsourcing/licencing parts of the service to companies who will attract non-English speaking communities. The third party such as Kaizen manages most of the stuff like the website, currency exchance or community policies that LL usualy does, except, I think, the software and the server hosting. To some degree it appears LL is offering a different kind of support to these people but if they’re essentialy running their own corner of the Grid, it’s for good reason.
SecondLifeGrid.net - Catherine’s description is confusing but yeah, it’s a plug to companies and nonprofits and includes some other resources.
None of it has anything to do, good or bad, with Joe Avatar and Jane Resident, A.K.A average Second Life users.
September 4th, 2007 at 11:48 PM
Having SL ’separate’ from “The Grid” could well be as sensible as having the “Web” separate from the Browsers and the Web-servers. This latter being largely why the ‘Web’ is where it is today relative to the original AOL, eWorld, etc.
Could be marketing spin, or it could be another small move towards properly opening the grid (which will likely happen with or without LL’s blessing eventually, so they may as well keep creeping in that direction)..
September 4th, 2007 at 11:48 PM
If this company that brought us here, then left us flat. What means does that provides to companies to be treated just the same some time down the line?
September 4th, 2007 at 11:54 PM
@Joker (#1
“What ever happened to the stable team that took time to answer their instant messages, not just shove us off to some web portal. What happened to that team that actually HELPED YOU IN WORLD.”
They got so swamped in help requests from the growing population that they weren’t being able to get work done *or* help people.
Or to use techie talk, it wasn’t scaleable. Sad but true reality of any fast growing business - the bigger you get the more things that can go wrong and the less time you have for one on one interaction.
September 4th, 2007 at 11:54 PM
Will this be a place I can promote/discuss my live video streaming and hosting ’slodcast’ from/to Second Life?
September 4th, 2007 at 11:58 PM
“Second Life is and will remain focused on Residents” - HA!!!
We felt this “focus” when you clipped our stipends. We felt it when you removed the rating system. We felt it when you banned gambling. We felt it when you decided that adults must submit their RL identities to some shady 3rd party organisation in order to continue being treated like adults. Now we’re feeling it again as you sell out the grid from under us.
September 4th, 2007 at 11:59 PM
Most of that site needs translating from ‘corporate’ into english. I can see how the ‘big companies’ that impress each other with buzzwords can benefit, but the smaller company just wanting a nice small SL build could be intimidated and put off by much of this new content.
I’m not 100% convinced, having looked further into it, that this is really going to be of benefit for the smaller company wanting an SL presence, or the smaller SL developer to gain business.
September 4th, 2007 at 11:59 PM
Seems that the progression to bcomming a tool for commercial enterprise is a natural evolution for any business seeking expansion. There may even be a benefit for us “peons” in that SL will be more financially capable of purchasing better (or more) equipment with the infusion of corporate dollars.
Will there be better jobs available with the new corporate members? If corporate members do hire, will DOL take an interest in work hours vs compensation? Is this the invitation to the IRS to take an active interest in SL? When you play with the big boys, you have to be ready for the bells and whistles that go along with it.
Nothing is static, even in the virtual world. Change is inevitable. Hopefully, those making the decisions have done their homework.
September 5th, 2007 at 12:21 AM
@35 and who are they going to rely on to help them inworld? The us? You bet!
September 5th, 2007 at 12:22 AM
Good Golly, more LL speak. Scalable servrs? Appearantly LL means you can add more servers to service more people cause the grid in SL has no dynamic balancing at all and zero scalablity, ie. put a lot of people on one server and it crashes, other servers contribute zip to carrying the load. Superior technology? Havok 1? Physical objects crashing sim? A database constantly missing inventory items? Failing to rez? Missing images? Gosh, laughing here, Field-proven customer service? Falling off my chair here, was in sl long enough ago to remember customer service but…Millions of users? SL has never had concurrency of 50K, small potatoes in the MMO universe. Dont let the corporate types know, it seems Philip still smokes and takes trips to some Other virtual world.
September 5th, 2007 at 12:24 AM
Lovely
Now can we have the Second Life dot com forum code back?
Now that the media will be focused on that shiny new shiny, the rest of us would like to get back a normal functioning forums
and yeah Coco:
you said it ALL
AMEN sistah gurl! I see you rember back when philly spelled out in that TH about how choppted liver we all are.
Nice to see he wasn’t for once just talking out of his colorful codpiece
“Thank you for building SL, now get the hell out the way while we court the corporations, appreciate all yer financial support, but we gotta move on”
Say it coming.
Now its here.
Enjoy!
September 5th, 2007 at 12:56 AM
Well hopefully if RL companies can go and do their own thing on private grids then they’ll stop complaining about what Second Life residents get up to and then stop asking for all sort of things that are perfectly legal in most of the world (i.e. outside USA) to be banned in the vain hope that we will then go around SL looking at the depressing stuff they peddle. Don’t they realise we joined SL to leave them behind in RL.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:05 AM
I was wondering why the secondlife web site has been simplified… I get it now with the Second Life “GRID” web site but I have to say, you’ve really made a mess out of the two so far. The cross-linkings are SO confusing. :O
September 5th, 2007 at 1:44 AM
Nice to see where so much planning and work and man hours have gone while the grid….wait do we still call it that, do we call it the resident experience now…well whatever that thing is where I come to try and conduct business, socialize with friends, explore interests, and what not, whatever we are calling that now, it is nice to see where the real focus has been while that “whateveritscalledtoday” burns down around us resid…no wait……use…..no wait……custome…..no wait…..content crea….no wait….what are we called now, what was that buzzword? oh yes “leveragees”. Yes while the service we have been paying dearly for continues to be plagued with *insert your favorite bug here (isnt bug such a cute word for broken, much better i think, broken sounds so..well bad, bug is much better*
“Oh yes Mr. Corporate Resident Portal Provider, the leveragees you seek have found a few bugs here and there in the user experience” Compared to.. “Oh Yes Mr. Big Fat Pocketbook, the current user base of paying customers is rife with complaint about parts of the service are currently broken.”
The issues and problems that plague the user experience now will turn off RL business and communities the same way it did the last time this sort of push was made (this one is much better organized I will say, and will likely catch more flies this time around). But the grid (throwback term) till is not ready. What major corp or community entity wants a site that can not hold more than 40 people at a time? I assume they will not be plagued with many of the things the normal day to day users are plagued with, they aren’t in here doing the things we are, rezzing stuff, scripting stuff, building stuff, trying to manage a massive inventory on a clunky file tree, TPing from place to place, trying to socialize and etcetera, so they will not see firsthand the broken parts of the service. Servicewise, they will get what they pay for I believe. What they will not get however is a strong user base of happy people. If residents can’t TP to their builds, see grey blanks where their pretty signs should be, can not walk from one side of the build to the other without rubber banding into the next sim, then the best “leveraged” presence in all of virtual worlds does no good.
It looks like the big change this time around is with LL telling these entities to bring their own users, a much much better approach than last time. The corp buy ins in the last round quickly realized that 2 million users meant nothing when concurrent sets of eyes on grid was at 24k, with a third of that number likely being alts. To tell the corps to bring their own eyes is a good move. Instead of trying to get current SL people to look at their ads, they can use their own RL ads to say, “come see us in SL”. That is a big change, a change from brand introduction, to brand extension for corps. That solves the backlash they got from long time Sl’ers the last time around that stood up and said “No way I ever visit the Dell sim”. If Dell brings new people in just to see their build they do not have to worry about the old guard. The more i think about this the more I see a fairly smooth move here on LLs part. They use us “leveragees” to tout new corp business in, they then get the new corp business to advertise SL to their current customer base in their RL ads, this brings in a flock of new untouched newbs that are farmed in and trained to use SL by whatever entity they come through. Once they are in they are going to obviously filter through, explore the rest of SL, become citizens, buy some land, pay some tier, and we all know that is where LL makes their money anyway. This whole thing is just to drive tier revenue. Sure they might make some money on the corps, but not like the make on tier.
Okay, now I see it, sweet. It is all to drive concurrent user count up in the end. Cool by me, means more people to buy my stuff. But PLEASE O PLEASE fix the broke stuff, if you don’t fix the broke stuff this brilliant plan will not pay off for any of us.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:51 AM
I think this is a positive move overall and really an impressive achievement. Nice, clean-looking website design too - much better than this one.
Caveats? Well I work for a big IT services company in RL and the questions we would ask are:
- How secure is this platform?
- How stable is it?
- How often will we have to update the software?
AND - most importantly:- What will it cost?
September 5th, 2007 at 1:52 AM
Joker Opus Says:
September 4th, 2007 at 9:12 PM PDT
@ Roku
O_o coco is a woman
@coco
Your oppinions are solid, nicely stated.
As for my full oppinon…
Its suspicious for me why you want to separate the game and the tech, Is it because you want to direct Tech Support Questions to the Tech staff? If so thats understandable, to keep orginised. But Its a really bad idea to separate the two seeing as the game and the grid come hand and hand. Also this is going to be another one of those things that a linden directs you to. First it was:
“Hey Linden, was wondering if you could help me out”
“Submit a ticket”
Now when we submit a ticket about grid performance is the ticket system going to reply:
“Visit SecondLifeGrid.net’
What ever happened to the stable team that took time to answer their instant messages, not just shove us off to some web portal. What happened to that team that actually HELPED YOU IN WORLD.
-Jokeiroo
Hmm not enough of them and the world is too difficult to use to help people apparently
September 5th, 2007 at 1:59 AM
Wow now everyone gets to see first hand just what i said was going to happen a year ago. I knew this was coming and i tried to tell people but everyone was all gaga for the pretty lights and all, how much did you each spend to make LL their fortune so they can now turn their backs on all of us. I said it then and ill say it again unless your a corp. with huge dollars which they get from us also, your nothing to LL but a paycheck. and im willing to bet if the corp pull out LL will more than likely pull the plug faster than EA does.
September 5th, 2007 at 2:05 AM
If you think growth is large now. Wait until LL adds theose other servers. OMG well be at 20,000,000 population april or may 2008. This is not a good sign.
September 5th, 2007 at 2:47 AM
I have a great idea, how about LL fixes secondlife of all its messed up stuff first before introducing anything else new to the game….
like example: this last week you cant move or nothing rezzes, how
about fixing the game first for the old timers before worrying about finding a new way to make more money
September 5th, 2007 at 2:53 AM
Anything to stop the leaving or bring back revenue generated by major corporations eh?
How about making a stable client/server side?
Shiney website gimmicks and pulling magic tricks out of your sleeves arent going to fool anyone.
September 5th, 2007 at 3:29 AM
Fortunately, real world companies have already realized who unstable second life is as a means to their business models. How many have abandoned ship already? I think LL is just trying to put some new spin and gloss on a dull surface. Would be inerested how many real life corporations actually nibble at this. I suspect, few.
September 5th, 2007 at 3:33 AM
@41 I forgot to ask - How well will this work on a standard office desktop/laptop?
Please remember that although large companies may have a big, fast corporate network, their user base are generally equiped with basic machines with 512 RAM and low end graphics cards.
September 5th, 2007 at 3:38 AM
“…but virtual world technology also has a lot to offer to organizations – educators, enterprises, brands, nonprofits, and others – and the Second Life Grid will enable these organizations to understand and create meaningful 3D immersive experiences.”
Currently over 9 million of us (or our alts) are “others”.
Define “a lot to offer”.
Define “meaningful”.
While I applaud any effort to make SL a better experience for its users, as a RL student with a budget of zero, I’ve managed to open an in-world business. I’ve had to learn how to build and create clothing mainly with the help of third-party blogs and websites, (due to the fact going anywhere near the dubiously named ’support portal’ leaves me quivering in geek-speak techno fear) I believe big business probably have the resources already to create their own ‘immersive experiences’ without LL having to hold their hand as they do what every other resident has had to do to date. Namely, get into SL and learn through experience. Failure to do this will lead to misunderstandings and expectations from businesses that try to apply RL philosophies to SL communities.
The other threat is less RL work for SL developers employed by corporates to create their sims as LL offers them a cakewalk into VR.
If it comes too easy for them, their demands and hunger for more resources will echo the RL reality that big business rules the world - not governments and principals.
The rich get richer and the poor get the picture! I’m hoping Windlight makes it as clear a picture as possible
Noise annoys!
September 5th, 2007 at 3:39 AM
Honestly, if LL announced a free cure for the common cold, fifty or so SL residents would post critical comments about it.
There is an easier solution if you don’t like what LL is doing… go elsewhere. I’m sure there are lots of other online environments that are begging for a bunch of whiners to distract them.
LL is doing the right thing, and it will end up being good for them and the SL residents. I (and others) may disagree with technology choices they have made, but I believe commercial expansion can only help all concerned.
Flame me all you want (I wont be checking back to see your perls of wisdom) but you would do better to wait and see what happens before criticising.
My two and a half cents worth…
September 5th, 2007 at 3:41 AM
[...] opportunities brought about by virtual worlds Linden Lab, creator of Second Life, has recently announced the launch of the Second Life Grid, which is the platform that runs the virtual world. Grid is then available [...]
September 5th, 2007 at 3:43 AM
Here are my 2 cents.
The current plan of verification go above and beyond what EVERY adult oriedted site asks of visitors. While no one is above protecting minors, MINORS have their own grid platform to use. Why should MATURE adults be required now to provide ALL the information needed to commit ID Thieft or set us up for Direct Mailings?
The answer is, LL wants to set us up for the corporations who are coming in. They want to be able to sell our names and all our information, so the companies can solicit buisness from us.
And, wow, a seperate grid? HAHA! there has been 2 grids already. Now, were being used to market to big buisness and educators. Why would we want them on the main grid, esp school groups and known places where minors are going to be? That’s just asking for trouble.
Gird preformance has been terrible already, in the 14 months ive been here. It has also gotten worse, with the voice services which no one seems to use (besides the Lindens). Also, what happened to customer service for conceirge users? Going to the conceierge island, and the only repsonces i get are silence, or “i don’t know” or “I have to go help someone else”. Is it now become a case of the more $ spent, the better the service? I’ve got $6000 invested in 2 sims and the content on those sims, and I can’t get a decent responce from anyone at LL.
I hope the target markets can see the blogs and take the time to read them, because there are a lot of upset customers and users already. Hopefully that will clue in the big bucks to stay away.
If you want to help fight verification, there are a number of groups in-world to be counted. Please join up, and let LL know, we will not be verifiying.
September 5th, 2007 at 3:50 AM
It is a sell out, They have milked the general public, now lets do it to the corporations, just wait now for all the advertising hordings going up for major RL brands, and you think the adfarms alone were just an eyesore.
#24 - that was why the ceo of LL got replaced and now hides completely in the dark shadows, He’s here because it must go commercial, that’s why the grid itself is going donhill performance wise.
#28 - Well over the last few weeks the Alpha and Beta testers have voiced there opinion that the grid now sucks as performance goes, so LL have to find another avenue to expand.
And don’t hope that the multi-million dollar input from companies will improve things, It just means they are buying in to this media fad, that some already there have realised is not cost effective, So wait for more adverse media reaction as those same executives who LL have wooed realise and start creating all holy hell, oh but they will be able to access customer service 24/7. (which they conveniently pulled back off the normal residents) that may delay the inevitable.
If you want to get corporate…make sure the grid is stable first and can sustain this growth, instead of heading for meltdown. Just look at your figures. Premiums down, Time for grid being unplayable, (when is that going to appear in your stats), especially during August and September so far has been 50%, And crash levels of 25%. You call that ready for commercial ?????????????
September 5th, 2007 at 4:01 AM
[...] Read the official blogpost here [...]
September 5th, 2007 at 4:15 AM
I would love to see SL handle a million concurrency!
And yes it is more and more obvious the people that made SL what it is today are to be cast aside like chaff so only big companies are allowed to be in business in SL.
And yes LL has no empathy for those that they toss off after encouraging them to make LL what it is today. Pretty common in American business really. Walmart moves in like a cancerous tumor, kills off the economy, everyone has a choice. work for Walmart or leave. In some areas the population actually has a spine and leaves and Walmart closes leaving blight in it’s wake. but Walmart now has so much power nobody has a chance of stopping them.
Cheap Chinese C@#p For Everyone (and let it harm our children)
Oh well no amount of writing in a blog ever caused anything to change now did it?
How about making the client respect IP rights?
I.e;
Make the client entirely message based thus making it possible to: pass back critical object information only if you are the object creator.
Disallow any possibility of setting next owner permissions on any object you didn’t create.
Disallow viewing the texture UUID for textures on objects you didnt create.
I could go on and on. But making the client completely message based moves the security of client actions server side which then makes open source clients safe. Publishing the calls will make skinnable clients a possibility.
Time to bring SL out of the virtual Neanderthal Age and make it a viable product.
In addition it is time to begin enforcing US trade related legislation to prevent foreign companies from destroying the economy with mass manufactured by cheap labor products dumped in SL for almost zero L$ in an attempt to drive the US content creators out of SL.
September 5th, 2007 at 4:19 AM
Great move!
September 5th, 2007 at 4:23 AM
What about all of us who pay LL HUGE teir fees, and bust out butts everyday providing goods and services.. building and maintaining SL’s ecomony. You Offer pricing discounts to corporations, non-profit, Universities, etc. I have non profit land.. Again.. what about us “nobodys”
September 5th, 2007 at 4:25 AM
Hoe about getting the bugs fixed. People are getting ccrasghing getting logged off numerous times everyday now!!!!!
September 5th, 2007 at 4:35 AM
Ann.. “In addition it is time to begin enforcing US trade related legislation to prevent foreign companies from destroying the economy with mass manufactured by cheap labor products dumped in SL for almost zero L$ in an attempt to drive the US content creators out of SL.”
Um… SL is an international game. Always has been. US players are in the minority here - over 70% of the player base is non US. What you are saying is completely wrong - how about UK based content creators, for example? Your ‘trade legislation’ has absolutely no bearing on Second Life.
September 5th, 2007 at 4:46 AM
Sorry Brocc. YOU are wrong. LL is a US based company and US laws apply first. When the regions are moved into other countries then the laws where THOSE regions are hosted will apply. And guess what? this is the plan and reasoning as stated by Mr. Rosedale in public. So until the region hosts are out of the US the US laws apply.
What will be interesting is to see how they set it up so you have to have a visa to visit a region hosted in a different country. and while there you will have to abide by that country’s laws.
September 5th, 2007 at 4:48 AM
Soooo, do you guys honestly think that professional companies will put up with SL’s lackluster performance and just throw money at it while the grid becomes even more unstable? I doubt, at least I hope, that the CEO’s of other companies aren’t naive enough to believe that this would be an intelligent move for them. LL needs to create a sound and fully functioning program that works up to specifications (Not something that continually crashes) before going ahead with this.
LL’s CEO really needs to think things through because sooner or later he is going to make an extraordinarily bad call that could financially cripple LL.
September 5th, 2007 at 4:51 AM
After reading through that web site I see nothing that separates it from a glorified, special ’sign up your company’ (instead of just your avatar) site. Am I missing something? The company still ends up on OUR grid, right?
The marketing hype about the tools and services does not seem consistent with what I am hearing companies say. In fact, although I prefer second life personally for its creativity and vision, I have been surprised to see some very big, very influential companies are courting other virtual worlds such as ActiveWorlds–not because of superior platform, technology, culture or any of the things we lowly residents stick around for despite the downsides, but almost entirely because Linden is, well, putting them off by not allowing them a bigger piece of the pie and influence.
And another thing, at first I assumed this post had something to do with allowing companies to create and support their own grids on their own networks behind their own firewalls for intranet-like internal corporate virtual worlds. But no, this has nothing to do with that. I would think Linden would want to attract that quickly-heating business interest which is the very reason big companies are courting Active Worlds and other virtual worlds that allow such.
Oh, I just have to say. For those of us creating for the enjoyment of collaborative creativity and sharing in SL for free, seeing our hardwork pimped to companies as a reason to buy Linden Labs products is, well, as bad as inworlders who repack our work as freebies and sell it or put it into businesses-in-box. Very off-putting. Especially when problems plague those wishing to create and sell to the SL wholesale market. I for one threw my hands up in frustration because the permissions model does not support those targeting the SL wholesale market allowing tools and widgets to be created safely for use by others who create items for retail use. Just ask animators how tough their lives are, having everything they spent hours on ripped from faulty products–and we are not talking about textures here that can’t be protected because of the tech. Animations and scripts actually could be protected with a “User After Next User Can Copy/Trans/Mod.”
Linden Labs, I suggest you be very careful in this approach lest you seriously lose a lot of good people, I have already seen many quality people and developers leave SL.
September 5th, 2007 at 4:56 AM
No Ann, you are wrong. As a UK based small time content creator I take great offense in your implication that somehow I should “not be allowed” to sell things and make money in “your” game.
That is the most important point here. Forget your silly ‘trade laws’; if they were relevant then SL wouldn’t have gone international in the first place.
America does not rule the world, real or virtual.
September 5th, 2007 at 4:59 AM
There seems to be no point to getting large corps in SL. What can they do here? We come to escape RL and now its foisted upon us.
Question: Does this fanfare include or service MY corp?
Answer: No. My (RL!!!) corp operates in LL exclusively now, and sad to say its concern is bulding and scripting and selling stuff - ooooo, sorry go to slx for that, Mr. Huet, thats such a RESIDENT activity…. we want Coca Cola, Dell and IBM in a world where no one drinks or eats and OBVIOUSLY everyone has a computer already.
Either LL are blinded by greed or are forgetting how quickly the boom/bust cycle occurs on the internet. :\
September 5th, 2007 at 5:07 AM
Fix Bare Rose. Telling someone the server their sim is on is broken and yet refusing to do a da** thing to fix matters is not the way to improve LL’s service reputation.
Treating your current customers well will go a lot further than any glitzy new website. If you want to help us create successful virtual world experiences, start with what you’ve got now.
September 5th, 2007 at 5:29 AM
@53-56
If SL is such an International Game, why do the Lindens cave to US legislative pressures? Why the gambling ban? Because they are a US based company. And if they are going to enforce US gambling restrictions then they should also enforce US trade policy as well. Or they can accept that the game is far more than the US and go with accepted International Law…..
But we all know that the laws enforced will be whichever ones are in the interest of LL making money and not losing it in lawsuits…..
September 5th, 2007 at 5:41 AM
So it’s all one blind, bludgeoning, bloody-minded plan.. IDV, Voice etc… shinies for the corporate cows.
You do realize that they’re not cows, but vultures, right? The milk came from us, those bozos will just pick your bones.
I’ve been to Sony, IBM, italian Telecom sims… regular residents that make and sell content have better sims. Their motivation and dedication to thier own content is far greater and brings far greater results than corporate passing interest in in a cute but limited publicity platform
(this may be counter -intuitive for those reasoning in the corporate tunnel-reality, but that’s how it works. one person can and usually does outdo a megacorp in this arena)
We are the ghost in the machine. Corporations will be shells within the shell. They don’t “believe in a revolutionary new platform” or “invest in creativity”… they just make mechanical calcultions on investment/profit, the proverbial mindless, eating, behemoth.
“…but you don’t realy love me, you just keep me hangin’ on…..”
The Idea that spawned SL isn’t all that compatible with the corporate tunnel-reality, as the reactions to most of LL’s last moves clearly demonstrate.
Don’t bet SL’s future on them. Please…
93/93
September 5th, 2007 at 5:59 AM
taken from secondlifegrid.net:
“When Montana State University-Bozeman needed the ultimate tool for remote communication and collaboration - they turned to the Second Life Grid. When MSU needd a virtual 3-D platform to design real-life sustainable communities - only the Second Life Grid had the flexible new techologies and ROCK SOLID INFRASTRUCTURE they required.”
rock solid? ha… haha.. hahahaha…… mwhahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
September 5th, 2007 at 6:08 AM
Oh great, here we go… more corporate boll**ks!!!!
This is simply another sign of LL moving away from it’s residents and leaving them high and dry. They used our money to build things up to date, now they have what they want - a platform, the residents can be cast aside to cater for “big bussiness”.
All hands abandon grid, all hands abandon grid, this is not a drill!
@Broccoli Curry #56:
Here here Broc! Couldn’t agree more!
@Ann Otoole #55:
Visas?!?! To visit SIMS in different countries?? I’m just not going to go into that one because it’s sooooo far off target it’s totally insane. It’s international and a combination of US, the residents country and international laws apply - that much has been made clear lately by the “keeping SL safe” fiasco!
Besides Ann… aren’t you usually shouting about how incompetant LL are and how you could do better? I see you’re still not a Linden, but keep trying huh! :-p
Personally RL should stay out of SL as much as possible, and the self serving lawyers and “experts” that bring it in for their own benefit are nothing more than cheap con men running a scam! Shame on you!
September 5th, 2007 at 6:13 AM
What is the grid website? its a flashy how to for the people who have always done SL so that they wont get here and feel so stupid.
The reason why they made this is because the “residents” can see through these weekenders, and we arent impressed but they want a cheat code
so they dump a grand in the game and hire somebody to build them a pretty attraction but forget to have someone script the tumbleweed that will be the only traffic it gets.
SL has to do this because before every new buisness platform goes live it needs something to tell the stone stupid+rich how to operate it.
We all knew that we were beta testers, and that we cant be bought but we should remember that it still makes corprate types mad.
September 5th, 2007 at 6:36 AM
I might be a little naive but i do believe that by offering the grid (as in technology) to corporate clients, LL will have to improve it to cover all the new customers needs. That, in time, will lead to a more stable SL.
Of course, the SLers will still be the beta testers of whatever LL comes with, but since we are enjoying the little we have, anything better is always an improvement.
September 5th, 2007 at 6:40 AM
@58 Lucian - “Rock Solid”
But of course the SL grid is rock solid…. just like the San Andreas Fault! LOL
Soooo… I guess we can say for a certainty now that anyone still pumping their money in to SL is well and truly identified as a complete idiot…
Sheep, meet Wolves…. Wolves, sheep meat…
September 5th, 2007 at 6:45 AM
***holds his hands up, eyes watching the pesky fly buzz around his head. ***SPLAT !!
Moves his attention back to the conversation. What was that about catching more flies?
September 5th, 2007 at 6:58 AM
Second Life News for September 5, 2007
MetaCard: The World’s First Virtual World Credit Card We had mentioned a Second Life Debit Card, now, there is going to be a Second Life Credit Card, FirstMeta is launching the MetaCard, which comes in two flavors: Basic and Gold. The Basic card is s…
September 5th, 2007 at 6:59 AM
So!… Basically in laymans terms:-
When you sign up for Secondlife you go to the pearly gates and the coperates go to heaven and the residents go to hell?
September 5th, 2007 at 7:10 AM
@18 Joker “What ever happened to the stable team that took time to answer their instant messages, not just shove us off to some web portal. What happened to that team that actually HELPED YOU IN WORLD.”
I don’t know maybe the fact that theres more people than the staff can handle. Maybe its the fact that everyone goes to tickets because IMs come in so fast you can’t read them. See Frontier Linden’s website http://frontierlinden.com/bad_dream/index.php and you too will know why it can’t be done anymore. The amount of people needed to be hired to keep up demand is so great linden would be losing money. A company is in business to make money not break even let alone loose money.
September 5th, 2007 at 7:15 AM
Ooh can we go there instead of the current Grid?
September 5th, 2007 at 7:20 AM
Congratulations, but what good will that do if they cannot log in or cannot purchase Lindens? I understand parallel development too well and know you are working on release schedules, but it would be nice to have the basics in SL solved ASAP. Not being able to log in, or purchase lindens…or loose items in your inventory is for sure going to convince those corporations to join the grid.
September 5th, 2007 at 7:22 AM
I’m constantly amazed by the misplaced sense of entitlement that many residents express on these forums. “How dare LL do this or that without my express permission!”
I’ll clear it up for you: Linden Labs is a privately held company who owns and operates the Second Life code and server platform. While we may be customers, and good companies listen to their customer base, neither your free account, annual membership or even land tier make you a major contributing stockholder in LL, let alone a member of their executive board.
You pay for the privilege of using THEIR software on THEIR servers. I don’t understand why people get offended when they recognize this fundamental reality which is clearly stated from the moment you signed up.
This was ALWAYS