Psyke Phaeton

Will Mark Kingdon’s Reign Boost Second Life? - GigaOM

....

“We’re working on three things really intently,” he said. The first is “solidifying our proposition for what we’re defining as our core markets.” That includes the traditional personal user of Second Life, which is typically someone in their 30s, as well as the “enterprise segment,”

[See he does love us and we aren't marginal.... today ]

...

"improving Second Life’s complex user interface"

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“stability and scalability of the platform.”

...

it seemed like the company was making $40 million to $60 million dollars in profit. But Kingdon said it wasn’t quite that much.

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“It does take some time to get ready for an IPO, so since that’s not on my agenda today you can probably do the math and form your own conclusions about when it might be a possibility.”

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“There is a plan and a timeline,” Kingdon said. And while he acknowledged the interoperability challenges ahead (”it’s an incredibly complex technical issue”), he said progress was imminent. “The next milestone will be between now and the end of the year, but it may not be the milestone you have in mind — so stay tuned!”

[OMG not another big announcement! ]

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Khamon

I'm exited. There's a timeline; and he's dealing with incredibly complex issues I can't possibly begin to understand; and a milestone is coming only not that one but by the end of the year; and there's an actual internally published timeline too.

/clap

/cheer

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Cocoanut Koala

M talks good again. He seems to be a better speaker than both Philip and (definitely) Mitch. By "better," I mean one who seems to be speaking from the planet earth.

He also seems to - hmmm let me doublecheck - seems to consider the "traditional personal user" (traditionally defined by me as "us") part of LL's "core market":

That includes the traditional personal user of Second Life, which is typically someone in their 30s, as well as the 'enterprise segment,' which addresses the many corporations that use Second Life for conferencing, job fairs and other business applications. And finally there are the educators . . . "

Yep - *counts on fingers* - traditional users, corporations, and educators. Three things. One of which is us. One out of three = one-third of the things named. One-third of the things named is surely important. He even named us first!

Looks to me like we are still viable!

Seems to me that Mark wouldn't be officially defining us as part of LL's "core market" if in fact we weren't actually supporting LL with our money. He is recognizing our money. He SEES it there. And has no need to wish it away, apparently.

That's why it was extremely poor business sense for Mitch to tell the personal users that they are old hat and no longer needed, and should just slink back into their misfit caves.

But seems to me that, kinda like the man in the late-night commercial for Ex-tenz, M knows we're big, and "isn't embarassed to admit it."

Which group pays LL the most?

I would just love and adore to see how much of their profit comes from corporations, how much from us, and how much from educators.

(One would assume not much from educators, since they get SL at at discount.)

I think it's pretty certain that we (the traditional personal users) paid for LL throughout most of its life. That it is we who eventually paid back the investors, brought LL into the black, and enabled them to both improve the product and woo the corporations. (Not to mention we built the whole damn place.)

But I also figure that we still account for more LL income than the other two segments of the "core market."

Anyone got any figures on this? Any guesses?

I'm willing to look at just the few months or even the most recent month alone. Show me that more of LL's income has come from corporations than from us, and I'm willing to overlook the first four or five years and consider corporate domination a new "trend".

But nothing in what Mark said indicates that is the case. All he has said is they have defined three segments of their core market, and I'm thrilled he considers us one of them.

And I doubt that the corporate sector supports LL more than we do. I wouldn't be surprised to see that the corporations account for only a small percentage of LL income, but I'm willing to be proved wrong.

***

Mark's interview here goes a long way toward repairing my opinion of LL since the Mitch debacle. I have actually mentally been distancing myself from SL since Mitch's speech; spending more of my free time on scrapbooking, etc., hoping to see if I couldn't just manage to sort of drift away, and therefore not give any more money to people who insult me. Ya know?

I want to still give my money to LL. But . . . well, you know. I HOPE I can still give my money to LL. M's speech helps me do that.

In any case, Mark seems to have a lot more common sense than Mitch (or even Philip), and a lot less arrogance, yet seems to have plenty of enthusiasm and optimism. He also seems to respect his customers, thinks they are real, and thinks their money does count.

(If I never hear from Mitch again, it will be too soon.)

coco

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Psyke Phaeton

I can't quite make out the sarcasm here. Is it or isn't it sarcastic?

Rooke Ayres

I'm going to risk going out on a ledge and say it sounds sincere to me.

M seems to be able to do PR that has better definition - with a more positive yet down to earth slant to it... For now.

I'm not holding my breath - hoping he makes good on what he said, cause we've all seen things change at the drop of a dime before.

But I'm being hopeful.

On the other hand, Philip has said some of those things in the past too, and we know how well those promises held up.

But I'm still being hopeful.

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Jarod Godel

Duh.

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Rooke Ayres

OK, so I have been known to be wrong in the past.

Lecktor Hannibal

ZoMG you said ExTenz !!

CaleVinson

From the linked article:

Obviously I'm a single data-point only, but this statement does not reflect my experience.

When I'm in a meeting, I watch people's faces all the time (and not just the current speaker's) - there's an enormous amount of information there.

I know absolutely nothing about it beyond the video and what's on the website, so I may be falling prey to hype or simply not aware of limitations in other areas, but if I had to pick software that I'd choose to host a virtual meeting, it would probably look more like Croquet than SL:


In particular, note:

in-world web-browsing (0:07)
created 2D content (0:25, 0:30)
access remote apps (1:30)
visualise data (in-world spreadsheets with 3D visualisation) (1:50)
live video avatars (3D traditional avatar, with webcam of RL speakers face overhead) (2:40)
annotate (add 2d 'post-it' notes to 3D objects) (4:18)

Psyke Phaeton

That looks so awesome that.. ummm... what's the catch?

Psyke Phaeton

Ingrid

LOL

I bet he's from the East Coast. Sometimes that helps.

Kristian

Classic freudian slip is classic.

Adam Zaius

a) The interface is utterly and totally buttfucking retarded.
b) The network protocol and design falls apart when there's more than 3-4 users doing anything remotely complex. (ie application sharing)
c) It's written in Squeek. (Smalltalk)

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CaleVinson

No idea.

But I'm sufficiently irritated with writing kludges in LSL at the moment, that I'm going to try to find out.

There's no real setup involved in getting Croquet or Squeak installed on a Windows PC at least, and I've made it through the first four chapters of "Squeak By Example" (free downloadable book). May well turn out to be a complete waste of time, but this is all supposed to be fun, and learning new stuff is fun, isn't it?

I'm not qualified to comment on (a) or (b), but regarding (c) let me ask: is Squeak "bad" because its slow, or for some other reason?

Lordfly Digeridoo

Is this just SL bad or Blender bad?

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Trout Recreant

1) Is it wrong that I read his name as Mark Klingon every danged time I see it?
2) He talks a good game. Much better than that weird train of consciousness stuff we always got from Philip, but considering the precedent that's been set, I'm withholding my belief until I see some proof. If he wants to focus on the personal user (us) scalability, stability and the user interface are the right places to start. Let's see some results.

IPO's are remarkably complex and time consuming. I hate the idea of LL going public, but I'm not surprised that it's in the works. It won't happen quickly, though.

Sooz Pascale

Hmmmm, talk is cheap, action tends to more expensive and LL is good at talk, very, very poor on action. In fairness, this seems to be improving.

What I found interesting was that the door seems to have cracked open slightly for an IPO, at some time in the future, not the immediate future. While this would probably would infuse LL with some presumably much needed capital, going public would require more openess, something that LL is probably reluctant to deal with.

If and when they go public, I would probably buy a few shares, just to be able to go to tha annual shareholders meetings, since I live in CA. I imagine they would be comedy gold. I'm pretty professional and serious, but I can imagine myself literally rolling on the floor, laughing hysterically and kicking my feet up in the air.

Sooz

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Polymorphous

We can haz pix pl0x!?




Would be way more interesting than anything LL has to promise at this time.

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Trout Recreant

I'd buy a few shares as well. I'm not in CA, but I'd buy plane tickets and take a few days vacation just to go to those meetings.

My concern with an IPO is that they would lose sight of their initial vision if they have to answer to shareholders who are just pure investors. The next thing you know, we'll have a corporate, Disney-fied environment that is focused on profit. If that happens, I'm gone. That is exactly what I am here to escape, and I would hate to see it happen.

Troy Vogel

Yes educators get discounts but remember we pay yearly for our estates. So that's a big chunk of money in the bank. And since universities are not in the business of going out of business... once an island is established, it is there to stay until SL becomes a lame duck. Most universities look at SL like the equivalent of the WWW in 1994. Back then every university felt they had to have a website, and few did a good job of it.

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Rooke Ayres

Before they can go public, they're going to have to prove to their investors that they have:

• A more stable (a minimum of 99% up time) product.
• A more easily expandable product that maintains stability (no down time due to adding servers, routers, switches, racks, power etc.)
• The ability to show and maintain steady growth of paying customers - both individual and corporate. For a minimum of six months.

It's plain and simple - without the first two points, the third point isn't going to happen. And without the third point, the investors are not going to back an IPO.

And the first two points? Anyone in the industry that's been using and watching SL and LL's performance knows, that at best, they're barely 10-20% toward reaching those goals.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an IPO from LL, because it just doesn't seem feasible for at least another two-three years.

Eata

I'm too young

Perosnally I think M Linden talks a load of marketing bollocks

Cocoanut Koala

Well, I realize we are at a pathetic level when simply not being insulted and marginalized by LL's top brass can be seen as an improvement, worthy of praise.

One would expect more. But, well, that's where we're at.

And I'm going to remain hopeful.

coco

FlipperPA Peregrine

I think I've been living next door to Khamon virtually for too long because any time I read this sort of stuff I hear Khamon speak muffled in the background, and it is making me even more of a cynic.

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