Clickable Culture Casts Wary Eye on SL’s Teen Grid Plans
by Alphaville Herald on 16/12/04 at 10:38 pm
Last week, the Clickable Culture blog posted an interesting analyis of the Linden’s plan to open a teen grid on SL, and they raised some points that I haven’t seen discussed here. They raise the security issue of teens and predators, but they also offered that the Linden’s really need to pay experienced SL-ers to provide content for the teen grid. And I quote:
The way I see it, Linden Lab should bite the bullet and invest some real cash into having its most talented users create content for the teen grid–nothing will kill this venture more quickly than a weak first experience, and a world filled with hand-me-downs promises just that. Besides, what incentive do users have to donate, particularly when they are paying a subscription fee to “exist” in Second Life, let along real-world dollars spent on virtual property. Ironic that Linden Lab can ask for something for nothing while charging something for nothing.
Tony Walsh
Dec 20th, 2004
Thanks for the coverage, Urizenus. I remain keenly interested in how LL will handle the development, execution, and maintenance of the teen grid. I appreciated Robin Linden’s effort at the Town Hall meeting on this subject, but remain fairly skeptical of LL’s view on how teens and Second Life will get along.
I know that LL is privvy to information I don’t have, so I’ll have to trust that they’ve got this all worked out, however I have worked on a number of youth market ventures… how does that saying go? “Never work with kids or animals?”
The most important thing Robin mentioned was that LL is going to meter entry into the teen grid. By doing this, they will save themselves from some headaches. But of course, people don’t get truly ugly until they’ve grouped together in large numbers