Reality Check: Philip Admits to Wu that SL’s Got no Flow
by Alphaville Herald on 09/12/06 at 12:23 am
For the first time Philip uses the C word: “clunky”. Is the Endgame near?
I always wondered who was first going to pop the bubble. Not to show *us* that something was wrong, but to get Philip to admit to us that there was something wrong. I’m glad it was Susan Wu. It seems like just yesterday the venture capitalist exraordinaire was a juvi hanging out with the H4x0r b0yz on Mindvox and the constellation of little boards that were homes to guys like Phiber Optik and groups like MoD and LoD and I dunno, maybe even Cult of the Dead Cow. But then she found Philosophy, and then a career and her street cred became respectable tech cred and then VC tech cred. So much cred now, that today, when she talks, even Philip must respond. It’s *that* kind of cred. So what does he say when Susan says that Second Life is innovative but “probably not sustainable“? Well, this:
I agree that ‘flow’ will be a key aspect of how Second Life will become truly world-changing, and that it doesn’t have it today! So many things that you do in SL are clunky. Where I would disagree with Susan is that I think it is quite possible that we (Linden) will be able to make some those changes, and that really brilliant content designers in SL will find others.
This remark calls for closer scrutiny…
I think we can all agree that it is *possible* that Linden Lab will be able to make *some* of the relevant changes (‘possible’ and ‘some’ being Philip’s words) but despite the exclamation points and phrases like ‘world-changing’ this isn’t a ringing vote of confidence in Linden Lab.
The other thing that struck me about Philip’s comment was the ambiguity in that last sentence: “really brilliant content designers in SL will find others.” I *think* he meant they would find other changes or fixes to SL (then is he saying they are supposed to debug his software?). Or did he mean that they would find other virtual worlds in which to do their development work? It was a funny remark to make, and of course, being self-absorbed as I am, it took me back to something that *I* said, just a few days ago when I read Susan’s post for the first time:
At first I saw irony in the idea of Susan judging business plans for a platform that she found unsustainable, but then it dawned on me: many of the businesses in Second Life are going to survive Second Life. These businesses can be ported to other platforms. I am starting to think of SL as a metaverse business incubator, and am expecting to see all of them (incl ESC, ACS, MOU, IVM, AWS, etc) thriving in an open source version of the metaverse some day.
I know I know, two years ago I gave a talk at State of Play II saying that some open source platform was going to supersede Second Life, and two years later it doesn’t look like this is even close to happening. But there is too much money involved now. To many people have a serious financial interest in making an open source metaverse a reality. They will find a way.
The paradox in all this is that Philip’s success is what is going to kill Second Life. Second Life was just successful enough to prove the concept — to show people that if they started over and did it right they would get their RoI. It gave everyone a taste, and if you get a taste of crystal metaverse you want more. If he hadn’t given us all a taste it would just be a few academics tinkering around with Muppets and Open Source Croquet, going nowhere fast. But now things *have* to move fast. There is too much money in the game. The dev community can’t wait for SL to fix itself.
But can’t Second Life be repaired? The Lindens characterize what they are doing as changing a jet engine in flight but I guess they didn’t read GE Aviation’s Engines 101: its been determined that that doesn’t work very well. Yes, there are lots of brilliant content designers in Second Life but we can safely bet that they aren’t putting all their pilots in one plane, nor should they.
Honest to gopod I do believe that SL was one of the most interesting and innovative things to happen, possibly since the worldwide web. When they hand out awards for the founders of the metaverse Philip will definitely get one. He better! Or there will be hell to pay from Uri. I really like Philip and the crew at Second Life and I am blown away by what they’ve done, and I can’t wait to see their next projects. But the end game for Second Life is upon us. Almost all of us in SL came from other online worlds. It’s just a matter of time before we move again.
For Second Life this is the beginning of the end. For the metaverse, it is the end of the beginning.
Trevor F. Smith
Dec 9th, 2006
“Second Life was just successful enough to prove the concept — to show people that if they started over and did it right they would get their RoI.”
Amen!
Prokofy Neva
Dec 9th, 2006
I *think* he meant they would find other changes or fixes to SL (then is he saying they are supposed to debug his software?). Or did he mean that they would find other virtual worlds in which to do their development work? It was a funny remark to make, and of course, being self-absorbed as I am, it took me back to something that *I* said,
Yes, it’s both.
Of course it was an incubator. The FIC was the way to reward the fanboyz, and not just with 4096 m2 tier-free for life and winning all the building contests and having Jeska pose for your shopper ads, that was just small beer. It’s about letting all these guys sherpa in the gentlemen explorers. They realized that if they were generous about this, letting people like Reuben or Sibley take care of the big companies, they’d keep a distance, they’d focus on trying to keep the plane flying rather than on marketing, and they’d also keep themselves at a distance from any big distaster. If SL really flops, these big spenders on campaigns and “development” in SL won’t so much be staring at Philip Linden across a table in RL or SL, they’ll be stairing at Reuben Steiger or Fizik Baskerville or whatever. And what can they say, “Sorry, the Lindens are patching today? Oops, there’s a bug now on that feature, we can’t do that?”
so they get energy, free labour, then press coverage, then plausible deniability — what’s not to like? And far from feeling set up for failure, these folks are polishing and polishing their resumes. They are the only ones with portable knowledge, yes. I’ve written about that many times, Uri. They will come out on top. Because they don’t depend on land stuck on servers or on dresses stuck in inventories and meshes and behind log-ons.
And no, I don’t think they are going to sell or close. You know how everyone thought TSO would die? It’s still there. My god, my rare little puppy ADogMorePreciousThanLifeItself is just fine. The pool table is a joy to play unlike the crap in SL. And people still make groups and do stuff there. Perhaps it will all die next month? No, they’ve been saying that forever.
Remember that time Philip said impatiently to me, when I bitched about how there were no flippable books after 3 years of this stuff, “Someone will make everything.”
Yes, “someone will make everything”. I think probably his brilliance is in that he was able to let it go and not assume he’d do all the making. He got a lot of other people lifting the bricks.
Waiting to be deleted Sativa Prototype
Dec 9th, 2006
SL cannot in its current state survive and as far as I can tell pulling all these PR stunts is the equivalent to shooting themselves in the foot, multiple, multiple times.
You have a platform that is buggy, has been for YEARS, has seen no dramatic improvement or stabilization since, well I can’t remember when.
After 3 years of this, 3 YEARS, they cannot update their own code without hosing the system. They are still weeks out from an update and haven’t returned the system to its pre-update state of wonkyness.
In a world where computer speeds and graphic cards are becoming insane and changing rapidly you cannot run their crappy code efficiently and the laughable graphics are getting worse by the month.
So this is where LL decides, hey, lets get some bitchin PR that will drum us up some business, increase our userbase, and make this thing work. Which in a way could have worked, but it’s a gamble, you are gambling that people are going to like a laggy as hell, graphically bad, crashing, breaking, sandbox.
And we have seen the answer, people sign up, look around, say “Meh”, and leave. PEOPLE WON”T EVEN STAY FOR FREE! How insane is that? If SL was the end all shiznt that the PR hacks are saying it is why aren’t people staying? My god you can make a million dollar inworld, you can go to tree lightings, etc, etc.
So I say SL is dead. I’m happily awaiting until the day my avatars deletion can lower the population by 1.
There is no way they can go to a new engine without a total rewrite, and the haven’t the manpower. Hell the guy doing the mozilla integration is doing it in his spare time in the evening. Over a year later, still no inworld browser to speak of.
And I’m sorry Uri, but this is a joke, please tell me it is.
“When they hand out awards for the founders of the metaverse Philip will definitely get one.”
Philip kludged a graphics engine onto the back of MUSH/MOO code and called himself an innovator. That is what he truly will be remembered for. That and driving a product with little competition and shown demand straight into the f-ing toilet.
Lupus Delacroix
Dec 9th, 2006
“After 3 years of this, 3 YEARS, they cannot update their own code without hosing the system. They are still weeks out from an update and haven’t returned the system to its pre-update state of wonkyness.”
Prok thats called legacy coding, its unfortunately the nature of the game when patching. If this were a single player game it would be hard. Since its essentially an MMO it gets 10 times worse as you have to attempt to factor in load into your equations as well.
This is not to make excuses for them, they should have rolled back when they realized that the patch broke too many items.
Lupus Delacroix
Dec 9th, 2006
oops it was Sativa what posted that comment, my bad.
Random Writer
Dec 9th, 2006
“”So I say SL is dead. I’m happily awaiting until the day my avatars deletion can lower the population by 1.”"
The sad part is, for thier fluff, the accounts that cannot be accessed anymore, whether it be time lapse, ban, deletion or otherwise still show up in the total accounts, and the assets are still stored in the db, but you can never access that account again.
Doc Nielsen
Dec 9th, 2006
And you all think the investors are going to sit there with sick grins on their faces as SL goes down do you?
Maybe, but I think $20 million has a stronger personality than that. Yes, SL is in deep, deep shit.
And the investors are definitely aware of the developing situation now. They – well, the bulk of them anyway, are not prepared to see their investment pissed away by poor management leadership.
As I pointed out in my article earlier this week, LL has as near as dammit no recoverable assets. The choice is stark. Either write $20 million off, or remove Philip and his crew’s control of SL, put in some professionals, prioritise stabilisation of SL, appoint an independent third-party development team to build SL2.
Might be possible with a further $10 investment.
The investors DO know that a WORKING SL has a proven draw and an excellent retention rate. So throwing another $10 million in isn’t quite as mad as it seems.
The huge danger now is that the investors only take half measures. Something like replacing Philip with one of the VPs (who I’m sure a now eyeing him with that famous ‘lean and hungry look’ while running a thumb along their dagger blades). That will simply result in a prolonged and very expensive death struggle for SL.
The only workable solution is that SL’s entire association with LL has to be terminated. All the staff are effectively ‘contaminated’ by Philips ridiculous excuse for working practices and simply won’t accept normal ‘I pay your salary so you do as I direct’ management – Philip told us that himself at the last town hall!
So SL cannot possibly be rescued without a new broom. Let’s hope the investors realise THAT.
It’s actually very sad that things have reached this point – oh, I predicted stormy waters in the past if LL didn’t get it’s act together, but I never really and truly expected things to come to this. Still, SL remains recoverable – IF the right people make the correct, maybe hard, but necessary decisions.
Taras Balderdash
Dec 9th, 2006
I asked the Avatarian Oracle in SL the following question:
Can the Lindens save SL?
The answer was:
The wall collapses into the moat.
Regroup with allies.
Rebuild and start a new cycle.
Cocoanut Koala
Dec 9th, 2006
Sounds apt, Taras.
I agree with Doc.
coco
Lordfly Digeridoo
Dec 10th, 2006
The sky has been falling on SL since December of 2003 when they announced the switch to tier.
The investors have been ready to pull out of SL since 2003.
People have been gunning for a replacement to SL since 2002.
Welcome to 2007, I’d like an order of more of the same please.
Brace
Dec 13th, 2006
LF – SL doesn’t have to shut down entirely and go bye bye for it to be deemed as a failure. In recent articles here and on Clickable Culture there was a phrase “the RL businesses in SL will outlast Second Life”.
I know you are amongst those who are doing the RL/SL thing and thats cool and all that, but when it gets to the point that its not workin up in here – yall can just move on to the next application.
If you think the workability and functioning of SL is the same as it was in 2003-2004 then you might want to take a peek without those pinkish red tinged spectacles yer wearin.
SL can chug along as its been going – downhill – and chug along forever, but it won’t be the smashing success, better than sliced bread thing it was dreamed up to be.
happy chugging!
And Doc: Werd.