Second Life, like the internet as a whole, is pretty much anarchy. Except there is somebody at the top who’s allegedly keeping an eye on it all, but it’s sort of like that absentee father who drops in once every couple of years just so the kids don’t forget who daddy is.

Honour’s blog post raised some interesting points of how some users seem to see Second Life. Yes, it is an online community, but first and foremost, it’s a business. And if the business part isn’t being run correctly, then there’s no point in trying to grow a community.

I have the same opinion as Honour – why the hell would Second Life be a democracy?!

But when you think about it, you realise that actually Linden Lab have produced the perfect gameplan. It’s as if they owned an art gallery and put up a lot of blank canvases, and invited the public in to paint something pretty. And then you sell it and they take a healthy cut of the profits. And they charge you for the paint. They also charge you to keep the painting in the gallery and a bunch of other charges which soon total up to you thinking “Wow, this is getting pricey!” But it’s far too late by then.

Linden Lab’s whole business model is based around user generated content, which means we – the users – are the only thing standing between Linden Lab and their profit margin.  Surely that entitles the users to some sort of voice, understanding their key importance to the survival of Second Life?

And then you go back to that “It’s just a freakin’ game” argument, where anyone on the outside thinks the idea of a democracy in a virtual world is absolute craziness, and you realise they might just have a point. I mean, it’s not like democracy is the saviour of mankind in the real world, and I certainly can’t imagine it working in the virtual world either. Give the residents the chance to vote and they’ll pick some ranty, dyslexic and incoherent freak as their favourite blogger. That alone should send alarm bells ringing of how bad democracy would be for Second Life.

But the primary reason democracy would be completely impractical in Second Life? Because that means we’d only have ourselves to blame when things get screwed up, and that just wouldn’t do. We could never blame ourselves – we need someone else to blame. We need a CEO to hang and burn effigies of. Because despite the fact that we created this place and we have the power to do with it whatever we wish, we’ll never accept any responsibility for it.

Emerald Viewer began a crusade against privacy rights of Second Life users last week with the launch of its latest version. The rather harmless previous features which included bouncing breasts have been eclipsed by this latest version which allows users to see who has allowed map rights, and crucially, who has denied the right to see them online.

Not being able to see somebody online was a feature introduced by Linden Lab a few years ago, as the community rapidly grew. In the past, anybody on your friend’s list could see you online and had map rights to see where on the grid you were.

The added privacy function which allowed a user to appear online or offline to particular people allowed many to live a quieter or simpler Second Life. It would allow designers to work without distraction where busy mode doesn’t keep people from trying to find you.

This privacy has now been shattered by the release of the latest Emerald Viewer, which has caused grief amongst residents. Finding out someone on your friends list doesn’t want you to know they’re online (regardless of motives behind it) leads to everything from silent rage to full-on confrontation to simply just deleting the “friend”. Additionally, the viewer has also alerted you as to who has viewed your profile.

This latest release of Emerald has done nothing but undermine the privacy within Second Life, and yet again raises the question of what other information can be integrated into the SL viewer that may breach other users’ privacy.

How long before granting map rights is obsolete and you can view where any of your contacts are on the grid? How long before your recently visited sims are revealed in your profile? How long before no longer feel like you have no freedom in Second Life?

The latest version of Emerald viewer includes breaches of privacy which could potentially kickstart an assault on the Second Life users’ freedom within the grid, and it’s worrying to think of the consequences of what the creators of this viewer may have begun.

And then there’s what you find under the bonnet. Emerald viewer’s Privacy Policy states that the viewer places a cookie on your computer that enables the sites or service providers systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information. Precisely why Emerald Viewer needs to know what websites I’ve been looking at is totally beyond me, and I’m interested as to why they might have reason for doing so.

Linden Lab are preparing Viewer 2.0 for Public Beta which may or may not include the elusive mesh importing function which was proudly showed off at last year’s Second Life Community Convention.

Mesh imports will pave the way for a new level of content within Second Life, much in the same way as sculpties changed the way the grid looked. The complexities of such a change lay in how the current levels of mesh operate within the virtual environment.

Looking at the standard polygons, for example a prim cube, you can see it formed out 18 triangles in its wireframe. Other default shapes have a similar grid-like structure to them, as do sculpty forms, despite their more freeform nature.

The clear advantage of a system like this is that the asset server can clearly define the mesh of the objects it holds – a prim cube is a prim cube. This information can then easily be downloaded to the various Second Life clients being used at the moment.

The disadvantage is that builders oftentimes find such shapes to be restrictive to what they want to create, or require a prim count which is much too high. The resulting factor leads to more simplified structures and objects being created, as the “prim cost” of more complex shapes is too high.

Of course, Second Life already uses complex meshes with a higher number of vertices – the Second Life avatar is modifiable to allow users to create their idealised shapes.

So it seems Second Life is about to be blessed with the kind of things which will raise the bar against upcoming competitors who are working off more advanced graphics engines than the OpenGL which Linden Lab has based the SL platform on.

So why the scepticism of the title?

It’s not really my lack of faith in Linden Lab to be able to pull off mesh imports and get it working flawlessly, which I’m (kinda) sure they will.

Mesh imports will pave the way for a whole new blackmarket within Second Life. Architecture, furniture and clothing models are already commonplace throughout numerous websites and design communities for use in 3D software. The licenses in these 3D models usually bars any resale of the product, however. And we all see the regular ripping of content from fashion website as they magically reappear on avatars in Second Life.

It won’t take long before people are converting 3D models and uploading them into Second Life, selling them on for their own profit. Which will obviously lead to cries of foul play, SL stores getting even more fed up and the cementing of Second Life’s reputation as a haven for content piracy.

Image credited to Liqueur Felix, and used under a Creative Commons License.

There was a fair bit said about Metaplace shutting down their virtual world over the New Year, but you know who else shut their doors?

Why, our lovely friends at Legend City Online have shut down their grid, and removed their website.

Well, sort of. If you go to the Legend City Online homepage, you’ll see that although their plans to steal all the content creators from Second Life with promises of IP protection never came to fruition, they appear to be going for the oldest trick in the book.

Sex.

Well.. ummm.. good luck with that, guys. Methinks you might need it.

I’m running slightly late with this, but these days, I’m lucky to get the time to post anything.

About a year ago, I made a bunch of predictions about where Second Life would be now, so I’ll kick off reviewing how those went:

1. SL concurrency is going to hit 150,000. Ha! I got this very very wrong. Concurrency hasn’t improved a great deal, with around 80,000 users on at peak times. FAIL.

2. Immersive Workspaces will be an epic fail. On the whole, Immersive Workspaces doesn’t really seem to have taken off in a big way. And with the appearance of SL Enterprise, I’m not quite sure what’s in its future. There are differences between the two, but essentially they both the same type of product (as far as I can tell, anyways). RiversRunRed are either being really tight lipped over who’s buying IW, or they’ve not got clients. Either way, it’s hardly set the world alight. I’m calling this a SORTA.

3. Machinima will make it to the mainstream. Congrats to Pooky Amsterdam, who’s song (with a machinima video) was nominated for a Grammy award! That said though, machinima didn’t set the world alight. What did, was Hollywood – films like Surrogates and Avatar have related to the concept of virtual realities such as Second Life. Of course, movies have done that in previous years, but the trend continues. Overall though, this one’s a FAIL.

4. Google makes a comeback. Hahaha.. umm no. FAIL.

5. Second Life will remain a leader in the metaverses market. Yeah, SL is still kicking ass, surviving the recession and kept themselves a stable share of the market. Compared to other metaverses, Second Life has come out favourably, unlike Metaplace who recently closed their virtual doors. As far as User-Generated-Content worlds go, SL has continued to keep themselves on top. CORRECT.

6. Electric Sheep Company will downscale their operation within Second Life. Well they sold XStreet, and OnRez viewer is gone. There’s still a very minimal presence of ESC in Second Life, but like RiversRunRed and MillionsOfUs, they’ve pretty much vanished from the grid. CORRECT.

7. Browser based shopping will become more popular. Well it has – since Linden Lab decided to dictate the game. The closure of OnRez and the integration of XStreet SL into the Second Life website, as well as those annoying spam emails, has pretty much made Browser based shopping in Second Life much more popular. CORRECT.

8. Linden Lab will continue to neglect Teen Second Life. And how. They’ve ended Teen SL office hours, let copybotted content run riot and made it near impossible for anyone outside of America to register onto the grid. CORRECT.

9. A major infringement of IP rights will cause many SL brands to leave. Quite a lot of sims/stores have closed down this year, although I’m not certain IP infringement was the reason behind it. However, with the likes of a lawsuit threatening the future of Second Life commerce as we know it, I don’t think we can really discount the impact that IP theft has had in 2009. This one is a SORTA.

10. Blogs will have more power on SL Marketing. M Linden liked “aspects” of this prediction. Unfortunately for SL’s blogging community, it still only reaches the same tiny proportion of the SL community as it did last year. Unless you’re a blog which names copybots all the time under the pretence that you’re championing IP rights. In which case, everyone found out the names of these copybots through you, and Google did the rest. Congratulations of spreading theft throughout Second Life. I’m calling this prediction a FAIL.

So that’s 4 predictions right, and 2 sortas. Not bad.

So what are Prad Prathivi’s predictions for 2010, I hear you cry (silently.. very silently)? Well, here’s my ten for this coming year:

1. Second Life 2.0 will be released, and initially annoy the heck out of everyone. But after a while, people will settle down and get used to it, like with everything else. It’s going to be a huge change, and a lot of people will have an adjustment curve to be able to get to grips with the new interface. It’s going to be drastically different to the current viewer’s UI, and there are going to be aspects that people want to see back from the old viewer, but after a while, it’ll be accepted and then we’ll all wait to see what third-party viewers come along.

2. Directories will be the buzzword of 2010. We’re going to see directories for everything – a directory of “approved developers” already exists, but will get promoted more prominently. Also, an official register of SL third party clients will be made public in a move to try and drown out the rogue viewers. But it won’t work, because the internet is full of pirates. Also, a directory of legitimate businesses in Second Life will be opened, with some sort of protected seal that can be verified through the SL viewer. Basically a way of telling the user that the store they’re in has been verified. A bunch of merchants who aren’t on this list will cry foul.

3. Mesh Support will change the way we see Second Life. Mesh imports are going to change SL in an even bigger way than sculpties did. You’re going to see a whole new grid emerging, and creators who don’t have the know-how to use 3D modelling software yet are likely going to lag behind.

4. Mesh imports will be a Premium Account only feature. Premium accounts are back on the agenda for Linden Lab, and I’ve a sneaky feeling they’re going to make the Mesh Importing only available to subscribing users. I reckon other features of Second Life will become Premium only too, as the Lab attempts to monetise on the hardcore users of SL.

5. Concurrency will hit 110,000 users. I can see Second Life coming out of its media blackhole this year, and starting to put itself out there more. Despite a poor story on SL by the BBC, I think Linden Lab took the approach where they lay low and let everyone forget about all the bad sex stuff, so they can come out the shell and say “Look at us now!”.

6. Linden Lab will nail down the make or break “First Hour Experience”, and it’ll work. Kinda. Ever since the catastrophe that CSI:NY presented, Second Life has struggled on how to get new users to settled into SL culture and “get it”. Too many new registered users log in once, and then never return to the grid. It’s been a big problem for the Lab for a while now, and I foresee them trialling their new “First Hour Experience” strategy in 2010 to try and get these new users to stick around. It’s going to involve a sim for whatever you’ve come to SL to do – so if you want to roleplay, create or listen to live music, there’ll be a starter sim aimed just at you. I’m not 100% sure this is going to work as well as they’re hoping it will, as much of SL is always going to be an endless, confusing mess. After 3 years on the grid, I still have no idea what’s going on!

7. Teen Grid will be closed down and TSL residents will be granted access to all PG sims in Second Life’s Main Grid. Their profiles will clearly state that they are an underaged avatar, and regular Second Life users will have the rules enforced on them strictly to behave. Any case of ‘funny business’ will be dealt with swifter than the thought police raining down on your ass. Blink the wrong way, and LL will suspend your sorry ass. Several residents of MG will scream and kick about kids being on their grid, until they realise that most of them were already here anyways, and those who weren’t are much more mature than them.

8.  Zindra will get locked down. Age Verification seems to have bellyflopped on the Lab, but I think it’s going to make a comeback in 2010 as Linden Lab are eager to have the Zindra region shut down to anyone who is underaged, or could be underaged. As Linden Lab gear the Second Life platform back into the public spotlight, they want to make it clear that you will only find sex in SL if you actively go looking for it.. which, of course, isn’t really true. But ssssh.. nobody say anything!

9. Other Virtual Worlds will finally show signs of growing. ReactionGrid and Blue Mars are slowly starting to find their feet in the virtual worlds markets, although they’re a far way away from going anywhere. At least another 2 years before I’d consider them even barely comparable to the likes of Second Life. Nevertheless, the appeal of ReactionGrid to SL’s educator community, and the appeal that Blue Mars is gaining in the commercial markets grants them niche markets that were once considered Second Life’s strongholds. No amount of hype will give Blue Mars an ounce on SL this year though – it’s simply just not ready.

10. SL will advertise in mainstream media. After the push by World of Warcraft, with their frontman Mr T, I forsee this being the year that Second Life pushes out to control their own publicity. Once they sort out the new viewer, lock down Zindra and integrate Teen Grid, as well as clock that vital First Hour Experience, I think we’ll see a media campaign to market Second Life to the masses. Whether Second Life can support that sort of growth will depend on how well prepared the Lab has been.

11. Pricing wars. Towards the end of the year, I can see other grids trying to tie Linden Lab into a pricing war over sim tiers. I think the Lab will resist any attempt of underpricing simply because of their status, but it’ll be something which comes under review this year.

12. Search will be overhauled. Traffic will finally change and become less relevant, as the Lindens start to crack down on bots which aren’t registered as bots. Instead, XStreetSL listings will become integrated into search, and with your SL and XSL balance becoming one, the ability to buy products will be done without the need to go to a store or use an out-of-world browser. Linden Lab will also monetise on the ways store merchants can purchase classifieds for particular keywords, making them more prominent in SL Search window.

13. The Browser Integrated Viewer. Work will begin this year on a new type of viewer – one which allows you to access Second Life from a standard internet browser, but still offering full graphics and functionality. Browser Integration will be restricted to single sims at a time, and will require a plugin download, but will serve as an avenue to allow new users to explore the virtual world.

I think that’s about all I’m going to predict for 2010. It’s going to be an interesting year for Second Life, where I see it coming out of its cocoon. Whether it emerges stronger than before, or if the move backfires will depend on Linden Lab’s timing and judgement.

Here’s to 2010!

I guess that would have been my generation as the kids who are answering the question of “What would you do with the internet?”. I’m guessing I wouldn’t have answered “Become a virtual worlds developer” at the age of 7.

The thing about Second Life is that it is limitless, yet it still feels sorta groomed. You’re a builder or a blogger. You’re a photographer or a model. You’re a scripter or a fashion designer. You’re a roleplayer or a musician. You can make a list of roles (we won’t call them “careers”) in Second Life and effectively choose a path. You don’t have to fall into any of these paths, yet the vast majority of residents do.

So now I find myself wondering what my answer would have been at 7 years old if I was asked “What would you do in a virtual world?”

I’m popping up to reflect on the year that has been and to ponder what’s next.

The year kicked off with a bang in January as Linden Lab announced they had pounced upon both XStreetSL and OnRez marketplaces. In a single, united thought, the Second Life residents thought to themselves “Ah feck.. they’re gonna screw that up”.

April saw the announcement that we can only buy the equipment needed to screw like bunnies from a new Adult region called Zindra. But we can screw like bunnies wherever we want.. except at Ahern, because the newbies try to join in. It’s like watching an 65 year old virgin trying to work out where it goes before knowing how it works. Not that I’d know anything about that..

July saw the furore around copybots kick off as everyone and their mother went berserk over an application which in the end turned out to be completely harmless. Linden Lab caught up a month later with their Content Management Roadplan. Three years late there, guys, but it’s nice to see you’re starting to catch on. Residents looked at it and thought “Yay!”. Four months on they’re looking at it and thinking “Hang on a jiminy-cricket second..”

Then as blogs attempting to aid the content creator’s cause inadvertently advertised the names of copybot clients to anyone who knew how to use a keyboard and Google, the third-party client came under scrutiny from Linden Lab, as they released a series of guidelines for developers to adhere to. The grid’s biggest third party client, GreenLifeEmerald, stuck up their middle finger and went back to the important viewer function of making breasts bounce.

September saw possibly the biggest news story of the year as StrokerSerpentine et al took on Big Daddy and filed class action, baby. It’s sort of likepump action, except nobody’s really looking at where the barrel is pointing. It might hit the right guy, but it could wind up blowing all our heads off before we worked out what just happened.

Phillip Linden jumped ship in October and founded a company called “Love Machine”, which I’m 86% sure is about to shake the SL escorting industry.

Linden Lab also successfully pissed off a bunch of SL creators by removing all feasibility to put freebies and dollarbies on XStreetSL. Apparently they think freebies might hurt the SL economy.. where the hell did they get a twisted, effed-up idea like that from?!

Oh, and they scrapped mentors. But nobody cared.

So what’s in store for 2010?

Well first up is going to be Second Life 2.0. Which I’m not allowed to talk about, so I’m useless in that respect. There’s a lot of talk about mesh-imports though, which is going to change Second Life in pretty much the same waysculpties did. And everyone will kick off about how much they hate the look of the new viewer before they actually realise (28 days later) that it’s actually much better. And that the zombies are all dead now.

Linden Lab could be about to bring in the Emerald team too, a story I pondered on Metaversally Speaking some months back after hearing a rumour. I hear a lot of rumours.. you can learn a lot by reading between lines, ya know.

The Lab is also going to link your SL balance directly to the XStreetSLbalance, which means those of you who use XSL as a makeshift savings account are going to get a surprise when you log in one day. Don’t blow it all on hookers at once though.. you got the whole year to rocks your socks off.

The Lab will likely get around to dissolving Teen Grid in 2010 too. They’ve effectively removed any real incentive to be there, as well as the ability to join if you live outside America. Which is apparently quite a lot of people. The plan is to bring the residents from TSL onto the Main Grid and let them roam PG area. The grid will cry foul and scream about how they want to get away from kids.. right up until they realise that the adult population stirring up meaningless daily dramas are far more childish than kid on TSL.

And they’re going to with scripts. Nobody really seems to know what they’re going to do, but it’s either going to be awesome, or absolutely all hell is about to break loose. But seeing as Mono was implemented without the West Coast plunging into darkness, I’m remaining quietly optimistic.

The old inventory cap limits rumour is doing its rounds again. Nobody I’ve spoken to in Linden Lab seem to know why its popped up this time, so we can probably assume it was a slow news day for someone.

Overall for the year, I think Linden Lab are going to concentrate on re-attracting commercial elements to their Enterprise Grids (Sorry kids, but you ain’t putting enough dough in Big Daddy’s cocaine fund) and come up with a couple more big and unpopular (but necessary) changes to retain sustainability to the grid. Don’t ask me what they are, but it’s what they hinted at SLCC’09.

I’ve got a gut feeling that there may be new building tools in the works, and that Linden Lab may well look at making them Premium Account only features – lets face it: it’s not like Premium Accounts are glowing with incentives at the moment. A two tier system with added bonus features for Premium Accounts makes sense for Linden Lab to monetise on residents.

And I reckon Linden Lab may raise their head from the media hole they dug for themselves. Despite a pretty poor report from the BBC this year, they know its time they started controlling their media coverage, rather than letting it control them. And seeing as World of Warcraft got Mr T to be their frontman, why shouldn’t SL have a leading Z-lebrity too on primetime TV? My money is one a similar sort of character to Mr T, but less aggressive and with more botox.. I am, of course, talking about David Hasslehoff.

In other news, Open Sim grids and Blue Mars won’t come even close to touching Second Life again this year. They’re still too far off.

Finally, it’s worth noting that Second Life residents have become notorious for bitching about every other thing that the Lab does. Now, they can’t seem to move a finger without a small army looking to crucify them. But you know what? Nobody’s ever done this before. They’re the first to be running a user-generated content world and we often forget that – we expect them to be some sort of God-like figures who have all the answers, when in fact, they’re trying to work these problems out.

So step back, take a breath, and put the pitchfork back in the shed. Hurting Big Daddy’s only going to lead to you hurting yourself.

Have a great Holiday Season, everyone!

Yep.. that's the GNU mascot.

The Modular Systems developers behind the GreenLife Emerald Viewer have terminated the rights of an another viewer to use their software as a basis for creating a derivative.

Emerald Viewer has rapidly become one of the Second Life grid’s most popular third-party viewers, and under its GNU General Public license 2.0, distributes the open source code to allow others to make alterations and improvements.

However, it has also served as the base code for making viewers with more darker motives behind them. As such, the Modular Systems developers have spotted an opening in that one of these viewers does not open source their code, and is therefore in violation of the GNU General Public license.

The particular section of the license which is stated as being violated is as follows:

4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

By failing to provide the full open source code, the viewer in question has not complied with the GPLv2 license, and as a result, Modular Systems have revoked the rights for them to use Emerald Viewer’s source code for any future software releases.

As Modular Systems own the copyright to Emerald Viewer, they are now in a position to file copyright infringement notices and take legal action against the rogue viewer.

There’s a slight irony in an illicit Second Life viewer refusing to release its code in case a rival illicit viewer stole its copybot functions, which has now led to its source provider revoking their license to use its source.

There’s a technical term for that, I think..

It’s called Karma.

It was a running joke for a good while that the Tech industry’s journalists kept a premature obituary on file for Second Life, in a similar fashion that the media outlets keep one in case someone famous hits the can.

Second Life (2003-2009)

Home to a passionate community of gamblers, paedophiles, terrorists, and a lot of sad people who never left their mother’s basements.

And that’s just The Business Insider’s obit. Imagine what FOXNews have hidden away.

InformationWeek ran an interesting analysis in the long-levity of Second Life this week, which is a bit more rational than the usual “zomg – they have sex and gambling and porn and stuffs!” which I’m sure might even get old some day.

But again, InformationWeek haven’t said anything which hasn’t been said before by.. umm.. me. It’s only natural to question the direction of Second Life, and the article looks at the practicalities of the platform. Can enough computers handle the bandwidth and power that Second Life demands to keep it sustainable? Is there enough people in the virtual world to sustain an economy which revolves around buying digital information which “doesn’t exist” in a format where you actually own it yourself – it still remains on LL’s servers.

Thing is, the growing trend in online culture is becoming more mainstream all the time. The advent of Facebook and Twitter are now a part of everyday life for the masses, and with it, so is virtual spending. A report on the BBC says Americans will spend $1 billion on virtual goods this year, on various platforms. And if people are willing to buy little icons for their Facebook page, or splash out on a 2.5D mansion for their Farmtown plot, why wouldn’t they want to create their dream home in Second Life? The idea of buying virtual goods is becoming more mainstream, and with it, the concept of the Second Life grid is destined to become more secure. The whole system relies on the virtual economy, and the more people who are willing to spend in SL, the more it will grow.

The article gives rise to whether Linden Labs’ “dauntingly complex code running on giant server farms” can handle an influx of new users, when grid stability is constantly under scrutiny. As they’re well aware, the key issue affecting the future of Second Life is not grid stability though – it’s the First Hour Experience, which I’m not seeing much progress on, other than a new resource-hogging website which looks just as scary as a user’s first time in SL.

The CSI:NY event showed Second Life that half a million users can try out the platform, but most will simply be too confused and not “get it” as SL is different to what most people are used to. Show someone a game platform, and they expect an objective in a similar way to a game. People just aren’t geared to the concept of a virtual world which has no “win scenario”.

This is the reason you don’t see adverts for Second Life anywhere – most people who try it out would simply get lost, confused and annoyed if they can’t work it out. Nailing down the First Hour Experience is critical for Second Life to bring in new people, and to keep them on the grid. Second Life is otherwise stable enough with a solid and loyal userbase, a grid which doesn’t actually go down as much as we make it out to, and run by a company which is claiming healthy profit.

The sky isn’t falling at all. But the future does have more questions than answers right now.