The return of Philip Rosedale to the reins of Linden Lab was met with rapturous applause by a sizable majority of Second Life users, but quiet scepticism from a notable minority.

I think everyone across the board likes Philip as he’s the one who made it all happen – he’s heralded with nurturing SL into a leading virtual world platform and creating a strong community spirit within the grid. Yet just two years ago, residents were angered at the downturn in the Second Life economy, the failure of Linden Lab to capitalise and grow on the hype it received and the lack of protection for content.

In the two years since Philip left the Lab, none of those things have really changed at all. The grid stabilised and various technical issues got fixed, but in the grand scheme of things, nothing significant happened which saw residents cheering for joy.

Until Philip Linden returned.

Suddenly, everyone seems to think everything is going to be okay, and Second Life’s problems are all going to be solved. Okay, not everyone thinks that, but there is a sense of optimism that the guy in charge cares about the residents.

One of the key reasons that Mark Kingdon was bought into Linden Lab in the first place was the re-establish the Second Life brand back into the public eye. Big money corporations had lost confidence in Philip Rosedale which was the primary reason someone who had a business head was needed, and businesses generate news, which generated new users, which generates money.

A sizable chunk of SL users don’t seem to understand that, and think the current userbase is key to Second Life’s existence. But that’s not how it (or anything on the internet) works – everything is a fad. People discover a new shiny toy, play with it obsessively and then get bored of it when something new comes along – users need to be given a playground to play in, but new kids are needed to replace the kids who grow out of the playground.

By tapping into corporate brands, you’re adding credibility to your own brand and driving in new customers which they have access to. However, the Second Life brand is still badly tainted by various news stories of online sex, paedophilia, and the continuing “Sadville” stigma. No company wants to touch that.

The problem with Rosedale is that he is the guy who’s associated in Silicon Valley with being at the helm when all that happened – he was at the helm both when the brand skyrocketted, and when it fell back down to obscurity in a loud bang. With Rosedale at the helm again, no business is going to want to touch Second Life. And that means zero growth. Again.

I got comments suggesting that I was wrong for saying LL hadn’t done a nice bit of PR in reinstalling Philip Linden back as CEO. But what the Second Life residents think is worthless – the crowds aren’t going to think “Oh wow – Philip is back! Let buy a sim!”. They would’ve (or wouldn’t have) bought a sim regardless. The real PR change that is needed is the media and public’s perception of Second Life.  What Second Life really needs is a bit of PR wizardry which wipes its hands with the negative image of the past which plagues its progress, and reinvents itself.

When it comes to PR, Linden Lab is Second Life’s worst enemy – they’ve got a horrendous track record with both the media, and with its own users.

Fact of the matter is that Second Life has a bunch of people who are weird, sick, twisted, freakish, deranged or completely disconnected with reality. And this is the aspect of Second Life which the media loves, because it gives the public a chance to look down on others, and people love nothing more than to feel superior, be it to a bunch of lowlifes messing around on a computer fantasy world all day. It’s that image which sells newspapers.

The good news is that this isn’t the last roll of the dice, as Philip’s just a placeholder (or so we’re told). Second Life is going to continue to be stagnant under his leadership because nobody who can really push the Second Life brand has the confidence in him to take it forward.

What happens next will depend entirely on who the new *real* CEO will be – if they’re a PR heavyweight, then Second Life has a chance to compete in the market in the future. If Linden Lab screw this up, it’s Game Over for Second Life.

Look who’s back, back again. Philly’s back, tell a friend..

Just when you think it can’t get any worse at Linden Lab, it does. Today saw the news that Mark Kingdon (M Linden) stepped down as CEO to be replaced in the interim by the founder Philip Rosedale (Philip Linden).

Obviously that raises all sorts of questions in what is already turbulent times for the Second Life platform.

The rumours started when Mark Kingdon was absent from making a keynote speech at SL7B with Philip citing an “emergency”. M Linden’s days were already numbered, though in hindsight it makes more sense that he leaves now.

The whole thing appears to look orchestrated – the investors look at the numbers and aren’t happy with what they’re seeing. So they want drastic changes, and a change in the CEO to someone who can take Linden Lab forward, rather than holding it stagnant.

So where did it all go wrong for M Linden?

It seemed that whatever he tried, nothing was working for Mark Kingdon. I like the guy – he’s genuinely a nice person, and he tried. But he was out of his depth when it came to balancing the needs of an online community with making it a successful and growing business.

1. SL Enterprise

Admittedly, this was a nugget that M Linden inherited. I saw immediately that it’d fail spectacularly, and lo-and-behold, it did. Companies have little to no need to fork out $50,000 on a grid when there are several cheaper and easier to use alternatives. This turned out a be a huge flop and the Linden team behind the project found themselves laid off.

2. Avaline

Next up in the line of completely useless services conjured up by the Lab was Avaline – the ability to call your avatar up from a real world phone line. Absolutely nobody could work out why this had any use whatsoever when we already had Skype. Another service hits the scrapheap.

3. XStreet SL

Snapping up XStreet SL was actually a nice bit of business by Linden Lab, but then they did what they did best and alienated the Second Life userbase. By forcing out the possibility to trade freebies on the marketplace (though I still support that idea) they angered a lot of retailers who promptly removed their goods in protest.

4. Zindra

Creating a red light district in Second Life was messy, confusing and created an alienation of the adult industry in SL. That’s not really a bad thing, and it stops kids from being able to access the naughty bits without verification, but I imagine it dented the income. Sex sells.

5. Viewer 2.0

As far as the monumental cock-ups go, this one takes some beating. I’ve harpered on for a couple of years on how Linden Lab needs to fix the first hour experience in order to retain new users registering for Second Life. Their solution was to create a viewer which not only confuses new users, but is vigorously opposed by long time residents too. Go figure, the team which worked on this project were laid off too.

6. SLim

An off-grid client which lets you communicate with friends in SL whilst on a computer which can’t handle the graphics is actually a good idea. Linden Lab somehow lost their way with this particular project though and it ended up in the wilderness.. like so many things seem to.

7. Search

There was a (now) infamous blogpost on how Linden Lab intended to make Second Life search more fair and remove the strong influence that traffic had. All they succeeded in doing in the new viewer was create the most impossible search I’ve ever seen in my life. Nevermind that is was extremely difficult to find anywhere, but then they hid the World Map. Finding your way around Second Life got considerably more difficult and as a result, the SL economy suffered.

8. Homesteads.

Hah. Hahahahaha. Hahaha. Hahahahaha. Hah.

9. Avatars United

M Linden always had this fascination about Facebook and how it grew to absurd numbers in such a short time. His purchase of Avatars United was an obvious reaction to this, and implementing it to make Second Life’s community stronger and more integrated between the 2D and 3D web. Yet again, nothing more has happened with this.

10. The Alphabet Linden

This was just more annoying than anything else. We get that you might not want to be found in SL Search so you can be bitched at, but picking out a single letter is a shocking way of going about it.

Wow.. that’s pretty bad.

Well it’s not quite as bad as I’ve made it out to be – Mark Kingdon was hired as someone who’d stabilise Linden Lab and turn it into a viable business. He bought on a load of experienced suits from the likes of Adobe and AOL, and set about coming up with a bunch of ways to increase funds.  The SL brand was seriously lacking in people who knew how to run a business, because quite frankly, Philip Linden has no idea how to.

M Linden did it the wrong way though and started off targeting commercial RL businesses. Too little, too late.. the door had long slammed behind them. The SL Enterprise project was fruitless and Linden Lab then turned its attention to capitalising on the residents it already had.

Cleaning up the Mainland by bringing in Zindra was a good move in principle, but then they ruined it with the Linden Homes scheme – why give up on Mainland and create new “gated communities”? Now the new sims are becoming deserted and the whole thing just looks a mess.

I like the Linden Endowment for the Arts though – that’s a good cookie which I urged the Lab to take up some months back. It seemed to take M Linden a while to cotton on that community was key to Second Life, and the reason most residents continue to use the platform. Again though, too little, too late. For him.

Also worth pointing out – investors tend not to sack the CEO unless things really aren’t working. I don’t understand why they’d lay off Mark Kingdon when he was insisting Linden Lab would see it’s biggest profits this year – unless that’s not a truth. It raises all sorts of questions of what state the Lab’s finances are really in, and how viable they are.

Yay! Philly’s Back!

I want to be happy, I really do. Philip Linden oozes charisma and passion, with his boyish looks and energy. He’s definitely not your average CEO, and that’s why SL’s community warms to him – he’s one of us.

But one of us isn’t going to fix SL’s problems – one of the main reasons Philip stepped down was because the platform was facing problems left, right and centre. The grid was falling apart and crashing all the time, the SL economy was in decline and questions were being asked about the state of LL’s future and finances. It was clear that Linden Lab had grown beyond Philip’s control and needed an experienced heavyweight to guide it along.

So Philip went away and came up with something called the Love Machine. Disappointingly, he didn’t come out with a line of sex toys. In fact, he didn’t seem to come out with any products other than some half-baked idea that he was going to save the world. Or something.

If he’d have gone away and done something which looked halfway productive, or even gone travelling around Asia for a few months to “find himself”, I’d have more confidence, but right now it looks a lot like: “Welcome back to the old boss, like the new boss who was like the old/new boss”. Something like that, anyways..

Philip’s a good guy and he always has the SL community’s interests at heart as this is his baby. He wants to nuture and watch it grow – but I fear he has no idea on how to.

I guess this is why he’s the interim CEO until someone better comes along. People keep screaming “He’s gonna be like Steve Jobs!”. He’s really not, because Steve Jobs actually did something during his time away from Apple before being rehired – he grew up and learnt how to be a businessman.

Roll on the next CEO. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Today’s press release from the Lab contained a lot of bad news for some prominent Lindens – ones that are no longer on the Second Life Search are:

• Anna Linden
• Brent Linden
• Callen Linden
• Chiyo Linden
• Christy Linden
• Claudia Linden
• Cody Linden
• Cogsworth Linden
• Crimp Linden
• DJ Linden
• Dough Linden
• Drub Linden
• Gayathri Linden
• George Linden
• Gisele Linden
• Harmony Linden
• James Linden
• Jarv Linden
• Jay Linden
• JessieAnn Linden
• Jules Linden
• Karina Linden
• Katie Linden
• Kristi Linden
• Liana Linden
• Meredith Linden
• Mia Linden
• Pastrami Linden
• Periapse Linden
• Pink Linden
• Rakesh Linden
• Rika Linden
• Rodney Linden
• Scott Linden
• Sejong Linden
• Siz Linden
• Socrates Linden
• Storrs Linden
• Theeba Linden
• Twilight Linden
• William Linden
• Zero Linden

Teen Grid maverick Blue Linden has also been let go, and LL Developer Whump Linden tweeted his shock at being layed off. Up to 30% of Linden Lab’s employees have been laid off, and additional others moved into new roles.

So what of the new direction that Second Life is to take? Well it appears that CEO Mark Kingdon gets it – the fad that has grown in the past few years has been social networking and mobile technology, both of which SL has previously failed to utilise. But nobody can ignore the huge growth of Facebook, and it’s marketing potential – EA recently announced that FIFA Superstars would become a Facebook game, allowing them to capitalise on the platform’s 350 million users, as well as lead an opening to their full games on PC and games consoles.

A Second Life app which allows a sneak preview to the virtual world is one of the Lab’s better ideas, even though several others had the idea first. A simplified “taster” of SL which allows people to whet their appetitie for 3D worlds and then offering them the chance to download the full client makes sense in approaching new users. Unity Viewer is the obvious choice, and I still maintain that, like Flash Player, Unity will gain widespread popularity in the coming future.

And mobile technology will be the new frontier, as products such as the iPhone, iPad and Android phones become popular. However, I’m unsure of how popular accessing a virtual world would be on your phone, and I’m not convinced this approach is benefitial to the SL brand.

So what else is going to change?

The SL Enterprise looks to be dead in the water, which is fine as I had no faith in it anyway. Very few companies are interested in their own private virtual grid at this stage, and with an initial USD$50,000 price tag, it’s not a cheap investment. It’s still unclear what the future holds for Avatars United, but I imagine the Lab will push with integrating it into the SL Dashboard. At the moment, it’s a complete disconnect, and largely irrelevant to the majority of SL users.

And, in the short-term future, the layoffs put SL7B into jeopardy with three of the key LL liasons – Blue, Sejong and Mia – all recieving their marching orders, and several voluteers rumoured to have upped tools and disappeared. Of course it’s not the first time the birthday celebrations have been subject to chaos (SL5B, anyone?) but it’ll be interesting to see how things pan out.

And then there’s the money question – who’s watching the pursestrings, and how necessary was firing over 100 people to the future sustainability of the company? M Linden assured everyone the company weathered the recession without much of a dent to the cash cow, but scrapping so many people is going to send the alarm bells ringing that someone might have recently checked the bank balance..

In 2002, an online roleplaying game was launched which would revolutionise the internet, and create one of the most valuable and important assets of what we now define as being “Web 2.0″. It was a game that was built on the principles of social interaction and creation of objects and places. The online environment had it’s own economy and currency, and encouraged a sense of community to allow users to take pride in it’s virtual world. But I’m not talking about Second Life.

Flickr.

Wait, what? Flickr is the world’s largest repository of images – not an online virtual platform!

The actual origins of Flickr lies in an online roleplaying game called Game Neverending, which amusingly ended in 2004 when the makers of the platform decided that the spin off – Flickr – was a much more marketable and lucrative project. Users agreed, and the popularity of uploading everything from photos of pets and holiday snaps to some of the most iconic images of the past decade have made it onto the website.

Flickr had the problem of many internet start-ups in that they gained popularity, but needed to work out how to make money.

Start ups tend to do that – get investment, become popular and then try to work out how to make money. In the case of Flickr, they opted for the Freemium model.

It’s a very simple model – you offer a free service which is often complimented with adverts and has restrictions based on it. Then there’s a Premium service which allows users to remove the adverts and the restrictions, and throw in some extra neat toys like statistics, categorising and a shiny new car. Flickr’s appeal is that the service only costs a measly $25 a year, which is peanuts. And adds up to a lot of profit.

And everyone’s at it – Skype, LinkedIn, Spotify, Pandora and even Facebook are looking into Freemium models. Although they should probably sort out their mess of a privacy policy before they even think about charging people.

And of course, Second Life offer the freemium service. Sort of.

Second Life’s Premium has always been a bit of a puzzle to me. In the early days, you had to pay a monthly fee to use SL until they decided to open the doors to free accounts. Free accounts created many benefits in that people who wouldn’t be prepared to pay to use a virtual world got the chance to experience it, get addicted to it and then whip out their credit card as soon as someone releases a hot new clothing line.

The thing about Second Life Premium is that it doesn’t offer much that you can’t already get from a free account. The weekly stipend makes the subscription almost pay for itself, but then why not just buy the virtual currency yourself?

And Linden Lab are running the “Free Linden Home” train to death – we get it. You can live in what is essentially a gated community because you screwed up Mainland and now you want to ignore it. But the initial hype surrounding Linden homes died very quickly, and many of the sims have just become ghosttowns. Which was really predictable.

And last week’s login screen amused me – Linden Lab are promoting Premium accounts by saying it’ll get you access to Second Life’s Adult areas.

“Pay us and you can get laid!”

So side-stepping the fact that Linden Lab are now publicly advertising themselves as being pimps, I’m not sure they have quite understood has the Freemium concept works. There’s nothing offered and improved for becoming a premium member, and without a rethink, I don’t think the Lab’s push to get people to subscribe is going to work.

So what about other revenue streams?

The Lab circulated a questionnaire recently to see what users think of having adverts coming up on the login screen and Message of the Day  (which they’ve already trialled). I’ve little doubt that Linden Lab could easily target adverts to particular avatars based on their activities in world and by picking out keywords.

And how long before the viewer comes incorporated with sponsored adverts? Or sim owners are offered tier subsidies for hosting a Linden Lab billboard?

And naturally, all of this will magically disappear when you become a Premium member. And you get a shiny new car for subscribing.

Edit: Yes – this entry was an April Fool’s Hoax, and I’m surprised at how many people got caught out! Well done to those who spotted it, and remember to never trust anything on April 1st!

It came as something of a surprise when Linden Lab rolled out Viewer 2 so soon after releasing it on public beta. As well as that, the Lab also rolled out a new registration and orientation process to make it easier for new users to use the virtual world.

It’s long been recognised that one of Second Life’s drawbacks is the long learning curve to use the metaversal platform, but with previous betas such as Windlight, the viewer stayed in beta for several months whilst bugs were ironed out.

So why did Linden Lab opt to release the viewer so soon, and push out the new user experience project before expected?

Rumours are rife inside the Lab at the moment of the prospect of a takeover which will see News Corp. adding Second Life to their already wide-spanning media portfolio. The inside scoop is that the new viewer and new user experience had to be rolled out quickly as a condition of any deal, as the potential new owners want to be sure that SL will not suffer from stagnant members, as News Corp. found after their acquisition of MySpace.

However, MySpace does boast a healthy music community, and I can see the close tie-in with Second Life after CEO Mark Kingdon declared the platform’s killer app to be Live Music. Perhaps we could see MySpace musicians playing live concerts in the SL grid very soon?

There are negative impacts that may occur too, after News Corp. recently announced their decision to make The Times Online a paid-subscription only website. The general direction of Rupert Murdoch’s empire seems to step away from free content, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see parts of Second Life become premium only. And for Zindra to be shut down.

This is all conjecture and initial thoughts at this point, but check back and I’ll update as the Lab leaks more.

Tact. The Lab have none.

Linden Lab have published their policy upon which third-party viewers which connect to Second Life must adhere to. It’s kinda an interesting read if you have too much time on your hands, suffer from insomnia and need help falling asleep, or write a blog. In my case, all three.

Third party viewers gained prominence around a year ago, and it seemed they were popping up everywhere. As is always the case, one client rose above the others as Emerald Viewer eclipsed the competition with its stability, fun little toys and, of course, breasts that bounced. Sex sells, kids.

However, they rapidly gained notoriety after a handful of viewers with illicit undertones emerged, and a mainstream blog irresponsibly published the name of one of the clients, driving more people towards it. That, coupled with other incidences (sidestep) led to Linden Lab finally responding with a plan for all third party viewers.

And about bloody time.

So what are the nuts and bolts of what they’re requiring of all third party viewers? Are they shying away from doing anything as I insinuated in my previous blogpost? Or are they actually stepping up and stamping down their authority?

Here’s the nuts and bolts:

• Required Functionality and Disclosures

Viewers need to have their own unique identifier label. When they connect to the grid, they need to announce themselves to the server as to which client they are, and must not try to cloak or cheat the system by pretending to be another viewer (Either Linden Lab or other Third Party Viewers).

All TPVs (Yeah, I’m already getting lazy and abbreviating that one) must also display a link to their privacy policy, stating what information is collected about users, if it is stored and how it is used.

• Prohibited Features and Functionality

TPVs must not alter key information about objects in-world, such as the creator’s name, or try to hack the SL permissions system to circumvent modify/copy/transfer.

Additionally, all viewers must not provide functions which allow content to be exported out of Second Life which isn’t in the official viewer, unless it is specifically checked that the creator of the content is the user of the client.

As is commonly known, Linden Lab have enforced bans in the past using IP and MAC addresses. The policy states that TPVs cannot mask this data when the client connects to the grid.

There’s the usual stuff too, that the TPV must not contain viruses, trojans, spyware, phishing, cause DoS attacks, sell your new widescreen TV, lock up your children in the basement, or steal your cookies while you’re out having extra-marital affairs with the neighbour’s wife.

• Intellectual Property Rights

TPVs must not be created with the purpose to infringe intellectual property rights, or encourage, instruct or assist the user to breach IP rights.

Linden Lab lay down the big daddy rules here, saying they’ll ban your viewer from accessing the grid, ban you and your alts from SL and set the lawyers to hound down your sorry ass.

Also worth noting is that all TPVs have to comply with the GNU General Public License. Basically, it has to be free software with the source code published.

• Data Access and Privacy

The Privacy Policy needs to clearly state exactly what information is collected about all the seedy and naughty things people use their TPVs for, and the user should never need to provide any personal information to install or uninstall the program.

Any data which is collected by TPVs must not be shared with Linden Lab, unless the user gives consent.

• Third-Party Viewer Branding and Second Life Trademarks

Here’s an interesting one – all TPVs are prohibited from using any name which can be confused with Linden Lab’s trademarked brands. TPVs are hereby banned from using “Second,” “Life,” “SL,” or “Linden.” So if a viewer’s name ends in “Life”, it’s gonna have to change its name, sharpish.

Additionally (and expectedly) the Second Life hand logo must not be used.

• The Viewer Directory and Self-Certification

All TPVs that would like to be listed in the Viewer Directory must comply with the Policy, and SL’s Terms of Conditions. All information provided about the viewer must be true, and all the Second Life accounts owned by the developer must be in good standing (and none must be permanently banned). The developer must also have Payment Info on File, or be Age Verified.

• Your Responsibility for Third-Party Viewers

Linden Lab states clearly that they will not provide any support serviced for third party viewers (obviously), and that the developer is solely responsible for the TPV they create.

Users are advised to take reasonable precautions when installing viewers from a third party, incase they do steal your cookies. Those are good cookies.

• Policy Changes, Enforcement, and Termination

Linden Lab state that they may look at the code of TPVs to make sure they’re playing ball, and not using any pumping poison into the user’s circuitry. If they find any anthrax, they’ll cut off access to the grid for that viewer without notice, and may notify the developer to stop distributing the software for the purpose of accessing the Second Life grid.

The Lab also state that by being a TPV developer, you automatically agree to provide Linden Lab any part of the code based on their viewer for them to review. If it’s found that the viewer is not in full compliance, they may request that functions be removed, added or modified.

Basically, it’s their world and their rules.

Having been part of the testing group for the “new” Second Life Viewer 2 for several months, I pretty used to using it by now and for anyone who’s finding it difficult to get to grips with: relax – it’s easy once you stop clinging to the old format.

The new viewer represent a much cleaner User Interface – a kind of interface which users of other programs would be familiar with. Despite that it looks like an Adobe Air product now, things actually make much more sense in the new client. However, I’m not going to bore you with where all the bits have moved to as both Sasy and Arminax have already done a marvellous job on that.

Also, there’s guaranteed to be a hundred blogposts all complaining about the viewer, which I’m well past doing. If anything, I’d quite like to write a blogpost about how unusable the old viewer is!

So anyways, the Viewer 2.0 isn’t the only piece of news to have come out today. It’s been like the usually dormant SL Marketing department all took coke before coming into the office this morning, because they’ve been on overdrive with news.

Third Party Viewer Directory

Sort of related, and in my opinion, much bigger news is the introduction of the Third Party Viewer Directory, and outlining of their policy.

Unfortunately, Linden Lab have shied away from any form of policing the third party viewers which can access Second Life. The directory is essentially just a way to say “Hey guys – we’ve not checked these clients out, but they said they’re awesome and that’s good enough for us!”. If they’re not awesome, they’re relying on us – the users – to let them know. Probably after an illegitimate viewer has screwed us over.

I’m all for a directory as a way of bringing together all the fantastic clients out there, but it’s hardly difficult for people to find illicit viewers at the moment. Which is why systems like CDS have been developed. The reason Second Life spawns vigilantes is because the Lab won’t police the grid.

Linden Endowment for the Arts

In more positive news, it seems someone at Linden Lab read my blog entry on Second Life’s social issue, and they’re making an effort to support the arts. This makes me all shades of happy, as I’m a strong believer that the artistic community is vital to the future of SL. An effort by Linden Lab to support the non-commercial arts within Second Life is one of the most positive steps forward I’ve seen in a long time.

How this programme will work remains to be seen, but I encourage all residents to nominate their favourite Second Life artists and musicians and get behind this effort, and hopefully it’ll serve as a platform which will encourage more amazing art and experiences which are struggling due to elevating costs.

That said, I still want to see support for non-profit venues in Second Life. I recently announced the closure of my bar The Crown and Pearl due to spiralling costs, and after months of seeing many other venues close, I can’t see the situation improving.

M Linden Speaks Out!

Also in the news today, Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab and known as M Linden in world has been giving an interview to Building43, in which he’s promoting Second Life. It’s an interesting outlook on trying to bring in new people into Second Life, and how the bossman explains it. And he says he wouldn’t buy a pair of Stiletto Moodys.. which I’m sorta thankful for.

LL:UK Expansion Pack

Seems Linden Lab in the UK are growing too, having moved into bigger office space. Why do they always put their national headquarters in the gay capitals, anyways?

At the moment, Linden Lab are profiting from its userbase in several different methods. The bulk is provided from buying sims and tiers, but then premium accounts also raise a healthy revenue. Every purchase and cashout of Lindens incurs a charge, as does transactions on XStreet SL. Classifieds in world and upload fees provide a healthy chunk of change to the Lab, and with new products like SL Enterprise, they’re constantly finding new ways to bring in revenue.

So how long before they sell us – the users?

Each time we use Second Life, we give away more information about ourselves. Everytime we join a group, we essentially tag ourselves to our interests. Each time we enter a search term and select somewhere to teleport, we provide data which gives an idea of interest. Everytime we write a sentence in open chat, we’re giving out streams of keywords. Every purchase on XStreet SL can be tracked to note what sort of items we like to buy.

This is a marketer’s wet dream – access to this sort of data is a goldmine for advertisers. Our access to Second Life is free and open, but we are essentially trading information about ourselves in return, and all this data is easily harnessed by Linden Lab.

And with additional data about spending habits, they can match how much we spend to what we spend on. The bonus of the virtual world is that we often buy things that we may not be able to in the first life – unless it’s directly offered to us to make us think about it.

Lets say you buy a piano on XStreet SL and it’s delivered to your inventory. Lets suppose an advertising  image is attached to that delivery with a notice of an online retailer who would like to offer you a discounted piano for real life too? You might think “No, thanks” but if the seed is planted, then you may come back to it in the future.

Supposing you join a group in-world for fans of Blues music. Suppose Linden Lab then sent out a notice in this group advertising a new Blues CD coming out, and offering an exclusive price for members of the group – again, this represents data mining in which Linden Lab stand to profit in a big way.

And with Age Verification and Credit Card info on file, Linden Lab already hold our real life details, which a small and quiet change to the Privacy Policy could pave the way for a new potential windfall for the Lab.

Second Life residents share more intimate information within Second Life about themselves than they do on websites such as Facebook or Twitter, because a thin veil of anonymity makes them think they are safe from revealing true interests and activities which they may not want first life friends to be aware of.

This is the sort of information which advertisers crave in order to be able to target their market – not just interest and what appeals to users, but also how much they spend and how much they are willing to spend. Someone who spends money on virtual goods online, has no problem with purchasing real products online.

The goldmine is there for Linden Lab to monetise. So perhaps the question isn’t “Will?” but “When?”

Image credit to Nadine Nozaki and used under a Creative Commons License.

A somewhat underlying theme of the web revolves around it being this community which promotes the free and equal access to information and production, as well as disintegrating the levels of hierarchy and institution.

It stems from the early years of the internet when the World Wide Web was advocated by the political activists on the 1960s, and a free thinking community devoid of the constraints of government and media was allowed to run amok. What ensued was the birth of a power which outgrew everyone, and forms the greatest change in history since the birth of steam power in the industrial revolution.

Over the past two decades, we the people have come to watch, nurture and love this growing force of the Internet, and noted how it has become bigger than anything before – it has superseded any individual, corporation or government. It allows anybody to have a voice, and gives rise to the notion that we, the people, matter.

We therefore become sensitive when anyone uses the C word – Censorship. Australia’s recent push to control the content that its population can view has been met with great controversy, in no small part because Australia is recognised as a democratic nation.

Ask yourself this – a boy comes home from school and logs onto his computer. He creates an account in Second Life and logs in, not having to provide any form of age verification in order to be able to log in. Once in world, he has unrestricted access to view an assortment of adult material. Furthermore, he has the ability to engage in sexual activities, which may extend to fantasises that most of us may not be able to fathom.

The question though, lays in who is responsible for this censorship? Common sense dictates that the parents of the boy should be watching what he is engaging in on the internet, and filters should have been in place to control what he can access. Additionally, it can be argued that Linden Lab should have verification upon sign up, or limit access to adult content until such proof has been provided.

But what about censoring adults? We can’t be naive enough to think child-play doesn’t happen in Second Life. Sky News were kind enough to point that out to the whole world, and paved the way to the exit doors for corporations in SL.

Child pornography is rightfully illegal across the globe, and there is no safe harbour for it. So why should it not be regulated on the internet?

Again, this raises more specific questions aimed at metaverses such as Second Life. The Internet is not a controlled entity, and hence it is not anybody’s sole responsibility. Second Life is a controlled entity, governed by Linden Lab, whether they like it or not. It’s their product, and they’re the ones making money from it, so surely they are responsible for the content it holds?

And if Second Life can’t control the activities that its residents are engaging in, or verify the ages of the users accessing the grid, then what hope does it stand in the censorship battles?