14 April 2010

Linden Lab (or, how I tried to restrain myself)

I've tried to steer my blog clear of comments concerning Linden Lab's "business plan" (at least from what is visible to me) for Second Life, and from LL's marketing. (I've posted plenty on SL's own blogs, and there are many other cogent opinions out there in the blogosphere.) As a marketing professional in real life, Linden Lab's strategies often strike me as bizarre and more than a little absurd. (I mean, really, how can a company with the potential that LL has be so f'ing stupid sometimes? Pardon me.)

First of all, there is this absolute disaster of a viewer shown above. The unrelenting wave of criticism concerning this Viewer 2 — **un-re-lent-ing** — you would think would give LL would take some hint as to its complete and dismal failure as an interface. But nooooo... 'Nuff said, there's plenty posted elsewhere on the debacle that Viewer 2 is.

Then ... today I was browsing around the web and saw this post on Virtual World Notes, a quote from John Lester (aka formerly as Pathfinder Linden), in which he said in part: "I think the challenge Linden Lab faces is the challenge that any online platform faces at this point, which is how to integrate with the constellation of social networking environments that are out there — things like Facebook and Twitter" .... no no no no NOOOO! He continues: "Linden Lab has been and is continuing to work on that right now. People use more than one platform. I think the path to success is figuring out how to get everything to work together — not be an island." Aaaaaaaaaugggh!

The great potential in Second Life is **that it IS an island**! It's a place where we can all escape, we can create alternate realities, we can create alternate possibilities, we can create ourselves anew! It is NOT Facebook, is NOT Twitter, is NOT real life! The most breathtaking creations in Second Life show us, indeed, what is not possible in real life, to borrow Bettina Tizzy's old blog title.

All right, enough ... Time for me to step down off my soapbox, log back in with Emerald, and enjoy blogging again.

No comments:

Post a Comment