The Alphaville Herald

Ludlow Joins Shirkeyjerk

by Alphaville Herald on 09/02/07 at 6:10 pm

Hotspur, Glendower, Mortimer and Worcester arguing over the future division of the kingdom at Bangor, in ‘Henry IV’. Painting by Henry Fuseli.

Let’s see if we can reconstruct what happened. First, there was all the fluff and hyperventilation about Second life having 100k then 1 million then 2 million “residents”, followed by much ridicule in the SL Blogosphere. This was followed by Clay Shirkey coming along a year later saying there aren’t really that many “residents.” To which we said “no shit Sherlock” but of course Clay was then feted as the ubergenius of the new millenium by Dan Hunter and other Eggheads on Terra Nova. This was followed by cries of indignation from the SL Blogosphere and cries of hyper-indignation from Clay Shirkey, and then the heavy guns got involved — as when Henry Jenkins, Beth Coleman and Clay got into a three-way convo about it. Apparently the debate is about played out, because Ludlow is involved now, in part two of an interview on Jenkin’s Blog. A few excerpts are below the fold.

on Shirkey’s critique of SL:

There was something retro about Clay’s critique, and that something is this: it assumes the value and success of Second Life is tied to the number of eyeballs that are converging there. That is, the critique is assuming a push media model of value. But push media is in trouble, and that is the reason that SL is crawling with marketing and PR people — they are trying to come to grips with “life after the 30 Second Spot” (to steal a line from the title of a book by Second Life resident Joseph Jaffe. Second Life isn’’t about counting eyeballs, it is about establishing relationships with quality technical, social, and artistic contacts that have a high impact and will continue to do so, learn from them, and then try to engage them in your own projects.

on Jenkin’s critique (Yike’s Ludlow is quoting Giff! What a Sheep luffer.):

I also have a bone to pick with you regarding something you said in your response to Clay. It is certainly true that Second Life is being hailed as an example of Web 3.0, but no one is claiming that Web 3.0 replaces or even dominates the future of the internet. If you think of Web 1.0 as the commerce web and Web 2.0 as the social web, no one would argue that 2.0 replaces 1.0. This is a point that Giff Constable of the Electric Sheep Company made in response to you and Clay. No one thinks Web 3.0 is going to replace asynchronous communication. It is just something else that is being added to the mix, and it is going to contribute to the commercial and social aspects of the web, but it will also be its own weird thing.

on governance in SL (it can’t all be about love):

The problem with governance in Second Life is basically this: the governance model is one where the Lindens are Greek gods up on Mount Olympus. They don’’t have the time and inclination to deal with the problems of us mortals, but they will dabble from time to time depending upon the whim of the particular god, the kind of day he or she is having, and whether they favor the mortal that petitions them or is involved in some sort of interplayer dispute. That model of governance makes for wonderful Greek tragedies (and comedies!) but it’’s no way to run a country.