Empty Position Leads to Linden PR Void
by Jessica Holyoke on 15/12/07 at 7:17 pm
by Jessica Holyoke
Philip Linden is happy the BBC gave him a big kiss
Earlier this week, residents learned of the departure of Cory Ondrejka aka Cory Linden aka SL’s own Flying Spaghetti Monster, from sources as varied as Massively, the recipient of leaked e-mails, to CBS News, which featured an article on Cory’s departure as Chief Technology Officer, to the Herald’s help wanted ads. As residents and Pastafarians alike deal with the surprising disappearance of Linden Lab employee #4, speculation turned to what Cory’s future plans are, and who – if anyone – will be taking his place.
For the SL media, the situation is difficult, since the Lab seems to have gone into damage control information lockdown. My e-mailed inquiries to the Lewis, the Lab’s PR firm, are going unanswered – leaving us to speculate on how the CTO position will be filled, if at all, and question the Lab’s direction. At a time when one might expect more PR would be better than less, I found out from Catherine Linden, the head of PR for Linden Lab, that she is no longer holding in-world office hours.
While the April 2006 arrival of Joe Miller, VP of Platform and Technology Development, may be a sign that the Lab will weather this change and this is not as big of an upheaval as some are imagining, why aren’t the PR people telling us anything?
As ValleyWag notes, after the news of Cory Linden’s departure broke, Philip Linden managed to pull off an excessively well-timed sloppy wet kiss from the BBC – narrowly avoiding being “left talking to tens, if not dozens of users in a Second Life amphitheater”. While we agree that SL press conferences get old, why are all the PR people hiding?
Blinders Off
Dec 15th, 2007
Cory leaving, Open Sim starting to get a foothold, the major top-secret competitor projects starting to release hints of information…
/me watches as the golden tower crumbles…
If Philip Linden has a brain in his head, he will begin some MAJOR Second Life restructuring, starting any day now. The Titanic that thought itself unsinkable is now staring the icebergs straight in the face.
Wasted Outlander
Dec 15th, 2007
“… why aren’t the PR people telling us anything?” Perhaps because it is none of our business. Linden Lab is not a public company. They do not have to tell us anything. The fact that Philip and Cory have said what they have should be accepted for what it is and left at that. Move on.
Lao-Tzu
Dec 15th, 2007
@ Blind Ersoff: “the major top-secret competitor projects starting to release hints of information” what the fudge are you talking about? Explain.
Blinders Off
Dec 16th, 2007
@Wasted: I would agree Wasted… if Second Life wasn’t a major financial vehicle and merchants weren’t doing business there. There are people who make their living using Second Life and they have good reason to ask why Philip has made this decision and what that decision entails for the future of SL. From what I’ve seen of the knee-jerk decisions made by SL management over the last few years, I have strong reason to doubt the sensibility of this one.
@Lao-Tzu: the competitor projects such as Open Sim and Google Earth and HiPiHi and several other VR worlds that have been kept under wraps while the developers have been wisely debugging PRIOR to release.
Why Bother
Dec 16th, 2007
“@Lao-Tzu: the competitor projects such as Open Sim and Google Earth and HiPiHi and several other VR worlds that have been kept under wraps while the developers have been wisely debugging PRIOR to release.”
Not to mention Meta Places:
http://www.metaplaces.net/
Blinders Off
Dec 16th, 2007
I would like to know why users keep getting the following message on this system:
We’re sorry, your comment has not been published because TypePad’s antispam filter has flagged it as potential comment spam.
I don’t use obscene language in my messages. I don’t flame people (well, with the exception of trollboys), and see no reason at all for some system to flag such messages as spam. It’s borked, folks.
Of course, come to think about it, maybe it’s because it’s an intelligent, learning spam filter and it has just realized the Herald is pretty much all useless spam… ;D
Blinders Off
Dec 16th, 2007
@Why Bother: Thanks for the link! I hadn’t seen that one yet.
You know, I remember a few decades ago, there was a company that absolutely ruled the pre-internet era. They charged people outrageous fees to tie in by phone lines and converse in simple chat rooms. The internet wasn’t around yet, so it was hot property. The company was known nationwide. It was expensive… but it was the only game in town. It was well known that some of their largest revenues came from cybering.
Then the net hit and the whole chat thing opened up, far beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. And you know what? I can’t even remember the name of that greedy little company that charged people to chat by the minute. (Was it “Compuserve”? I honestly am not sure). To my knowledge, they’re gone.
IBM came out with a nice little computer concept called the PC. They charged outrageous amounts of money for it. A 64K RAM computer with no hard drive or monitor cost $4,000. It didn’t take very long for their competitors to realize they could come out with better computers at far less money. Now we can buy a duo-core comp with monitor and printer and a gig of RAM for 500 bucks, and know where IBM’s PC is? Dead. Why? Because they were greedy and failed to see where the market was going.
Now we have Linden Lab. They are hottest VR property on the market. They charge ludicrous prices and like that old chat company, make a LOT of their revenues off virtual sex. But, they’re not the only company capable of programming a 3-D VR environment, and owning a sim on their board costs as much as buying a new car. They may be the hottest thing in town now, but without doubt a lot of very talented and resourceful people have realized they can do the same thing for a LOT less money. And sooner or later, the VR world is going to be just like the internet… open to everyone for nothing but the cost of a cable hookup. And SL will be a distant memory… just like what’s-it’s-name company that used to rule the roost.
(dividing this into 2 parts to see if it bypassed the borked spam filter]
Blinders Off
Dec 16th, 2007
….
And SL will be a distant memory… just like what’s-it’s-name company that used to rule the roost.
That is, unless Philip and LL look at history and learn the lesson therefrom, and wise up and make some MAJOR choices before someone beats them to it. But from what I’ve seen, not only will they not do so, they CAN’T. SL is so borked that unless they get some very sensible management in there with some very competent programmers, they’re already too far into the danger zone. To tell the truth, I’m not so sure they COULD salvage SL before others beat them to the punch.
I mean, after all, they’ve had years to do so, and I have seen FPS drop from over 600 to a lousy 45 and now even group chat doesn’t work properly. Linden Lab can’t properly program a simple CHAT engine? That’s pitiful.
I’m not being negative here. I’m calling a spade a spade. LL has been like the dot.com enterprises playing games on other people’s money and like those companies, is ripe for market pluck and disaster. Told them that a long time ago and now… here it is about to happen.
So all the above considered, yeah, I think we have a right to ask Philip Linden why Cory was fired.
Why Bother
Dec 16th, 2007
(Was it “Compuserve”? I honestly am not sure)
Blinders Off, it also might have been “Prodigy.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_(ISP)
Boy, I feel old now.
The Grid Live
Dec 16th, 2007
Second Life News for December 16, 2007
From: Second Life Herald Empty Position Leads to Linden PR Void Quote from the site – Earlier this week, residents learned of the departure of Cory Ondrejka aka Cory Linden aka SLs own Flying Spaghetti Monster, from sources as varied as Massivel…
100561, 2711
Dec 16th, 2007
@Blinders re:CompuServe. You raise an excellent example albeit based on a complete misrepresentation of the times. CompuServe wasn’t expensive because it was greedy per-se. You have to realise that there was no communications infrastructure to carry its service. No fixed-price, high speed access. A lot of its expense was simply down to having, in effect, to make a very expensive phone call.
CompuServe was an idealistic pioneer of what became the Internet. Content for the people, by the people.
I think CompuServe does have parallels with SL. CompuServe started out as a very high quality community (IMO unequalled by any of today’s commercialised glitz). CompuServe had the life sucked out of it by… AOL. AOL, which was the McDonalds of the early Internet served up its own brand of crappy AOL Happy Meal. It opened the flood-gates to the lowest-common-denominator, marketing frenzy, that has come to dominate the Internet. A triumph of quantity over quality.
And sadly that IS pretty much the future of any technology that makes it to the mainstream. Mass markets are only about money. They are the very incarnation of greed.
Seriously, if the VR model truly goes mainstream you’ve not even begun to see what a sordid and shallow marketing tool it will become. The sad thing is I don’t see any good outcome. Microsoft, AOL, Google. That’s what you have to look forward to. We don’t live in a world where ideas get raised to greatness, we live in a world where ideas get turned into sausage meat.
As a community I think SL is already past its peak. To survive in your terms you can look forward to something that is slick, predictable, and insidiously self-serving.
CompuServe is dead. Long live the Internet!
Obscure Doodad
Dec 16th, 2007
FYI Compuserve is not dead. It is owned by AOL and represents a healthy % of AOL’s user base.
Blinders Off
Dec 16th, 2007
OK the antispam filter is being idiotic. Great Zine guys. Have to post the remainder whenever. IF.
Blinders Off
Dec 16th, 2007
@100561 Won’t argue with your points. You’re likely right. Could be that Compuserve was governed in price by ATT. I do seem to believe the system worked flawlessly (except for excessive dropped calls, which again was AT&T)… which is more than SL.
But whatever they were, they weren’t far-sighted. They let someone else take over their market instead of advancing to the point they needed to be.
I don’t really agree with you that VR going public will be a bad, commercial thing. I think it will become what people WANT it to be rather than what Linden Lab dictates. It will be governed not by the need to cover expensive sim fees (fees that exclude most people from owning sims), but rather by the desires of whoever owns the particular land one visits. That is exactly how it should be. They build the home, it’s their home, visitors are guests and can stay or leave as they wish. If they don’t like commercialism, they don’t visit commercial sims. But from what I’ve seen most people on SL love shopping, so there ya are. And people eat at McDonalds every day.
StopAllSpam
Dec 16th, 2007
“OK the antispam filter is being idiotic.”
THEN STOP SPAMMING YOU FAGGOT
GiantFuckingPenguin
Dec 16th, 2007
“people eat at McDonalds every day”
That is complete and total bullshit. One lie after another from you isnt it? If people at mcDonalds every day then we’d all be fat and stuff.
Klaatu
Dec 16th, 2007
There are innumerable examples of early technologies being passed by new arrivals who learn from the pioneer’s painful lessons. The underlying reason for this is investments in infrastructure that make it cost-prohibitive for the pioneer to change and the new arrivals simply implement new technologies and overtake the pioneer. We are rapidly approaching the point where this problem may vanish, at least for companies who are based on software. We’re not there just yet though, so history indicates that LL will be replaced.
But, back to the point of this thread…given the chronic performance issues that have plagued SL since inception, it would seem that Cory was asked to leave rather than jumping ship. The history of SL’s performance is not something I would want on *my* CTO resume.
Blinders Off
Dec 17th, 2007
I have to agree with that Klaatu. I still don’t know whether the problems with SL are because Cory was a poor programmer or whether Linden Lab hobbled his debug work by making more and more demands of him all the time… but it’s for sure SL has been degrading in performance for 2-3 years now. There have been lots of fancy new “toys” and performance has gone down the tubes.
Blinders Off
Dec 17th, 2007
@Gtf: “One lie after another from you isnt it? If people at mcDonalds every day then we’d all be fat and stuff.”
…ooorr, they’d waste their time leaving brainless troll posts. LOL. Come back when you learn how to play with the big dogs.
(Wasn’t gonna reply at all, but LOL, like catching fish in a bucket.)
Steve-O
Dec 17th, 2007
“…ooorr, they’d waste their time leaving brainless troll posts. LOL. Come back when you learn how to play with the big dogs.
”
Relax buddy. You aren’t that intelligent. He posted under the name ‘GiantFuckingPenguin’ so how the hell could it not be a troll post? I don’t think there is a single person who read that post who didn’t know what was going on.
Penny
Dec 17th, 2007
@Blinders Off
Just about every post I’ve seen you make was a troll post so I dunno why you think you have room to talk. I don’t care if I saw you arguing with griefers earlier. Fact is, you’re still a troll. Why don’t you just fuck off until you have something intelligent to say?
GiantFuckingPenguin
Dec 17th, 2007
@BlindersOff
“Wasn’t gonna reply at all”
See more lies. You just don’t know how to stop do you? You need professional help mister.
Gaius Goodliffe
Dec 17th, 2007
“…and I have seen FPS drop from over 600 to a lousy 45…”
ROTF! Thank you for that, Blinders. That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all month. The real comedic genius here is, “frame” in FPS can actually mean two entirely different things in the context of SL (or any computer game), but this statement is equally absurd in either context!
For those who don’t get the joke, one sense of “frame” refers to a complete render of the graphics on the screen — it’s utterly pointless to have an FPS higher than the refresh rate of your monitor, which is typically in the 60-75 range. 600 is pointless by an order of magnitude, not to mention higher than any benchmark ever published by any video card manufacturer for their latest and greatest card on the popular game of the day.
The other sense of “frame” refers to a unit of time inside a game engine. In SL, this is precisely 1/45th of a second. Claiming you used to get 600 FPS but now get 45 is like claiming you used to get 800 seconds per minute but now you only get 60.
Blinders Off
Dec 17th, 2007
Gaius, laugh all you like. What you fail to take into account is a third meaning of FPS: what Linden Lab reports in their sim tools.
Now, while I’m sure you’re congratulating yourself pridefully for knowing standard tech information, my post referred to SL stat reports, not any other unit of measure. And SL once reported their own internal measure of “600 FPS”. Now whatever they used to establish that measure, I know one thing: while the main grid has always lagged, at that time private sims were lightning fast. We filled up our sim to the gills and never, ever experienced lag.
So laugh all you want, admire yourself in the mirror all you want, disrespect others all you want. But you don’t know everything, and you so focused on tech you missed the main point. Sorry you weren’t around back in the day, but some of us were, and we remember.
@GFP_ummmm– dude, you’re trying to beat me at a game I already soundly pwned you in, just to prove you weren’t all that smart, and instead of learning the lesson, here you are being pwned again, and you’re too goofy to even realize it. LOL.
Man, I like your philosophy of life: benefit no one, contribute nothing, be a tard. Must reduce a lot of stress to disable that many brain cells. LOL
Blinders Off
Dec 17th, 2007
Gaius, laugh all you like. What you fail to take into account is a third meaning of FPS: what Linden Lab reports in their sim tools.
Now, while I’m sure you’re congratulating yourself pridefully for knowing standard tech information, my post referred to SL stat reports, not any other unit of measure. And SL once reported their own internal measure of “600 FPS”. Now whatever they used to establish that measure, I know one thing: while the main grid has always lagged, at that time private sims were lightning fast. We filled up our sim to the gills and never, ever experienced lag.
So laugh all you want, admire yourself in the mirror all you want, disrespect others all you want. But you don’t know everything, and you so focused on tech you missed the main point. Sorry you weren’t around back in the day, but some of us were, and we remember.
GFP_ummmm– dude, I like your philosophy of life: benefit no one, contribute nothing, be a tard. Must reduce a lot of stress to disable that many brain cells. LOL
Blinders Off
Dec 17th, 2007
@Penny_ummm: LOL a troll calling someone else a troll. There’s something new.
Blinders Off
Dec 17th, 2007
“@Steve: I don’t think there is a single person who read that post who didn’t know what was going on.”
Uh, yeah Steve, duh. Ya missed the point.
Penny
Dec 17th, 2007
“@Penny_ummm: LOL a troll calling someone else a troll. There’s something new.”
Im NOT a troll you god damn bastard. Now STFU before you get stabbed in your sleep. I know john gotti’s daughter and can call in a favor anytime I want to.
Jacques
Dec 17th, 2007
@Blinders: You sling the term ‘troll’ around like it’s the ultimate pejorative or something. Calm down, please.
That said, I know Penny in real life, and she happens to be a polite young woman. We just want some civilized discussion rather than derailing this thread into another quagmire of ‘omg u troll, griefer, 60 IQ’, bad insults go here, etc.
So can you lighten up?
Blinders Off
Dec 17th, 2007
I hadnt even posted in this thread until now so someone is using my name. Also I would like to take this opportunity to announce that I am coming out of the closet. You can come to the party on Help Island Public if you like.
Faggotron
Dec 17th, 2007
@Blinders Off
STFU I CAN PWN YOU. NO IM SRS. I CAN DO IT ANYTIME. REALLY.
GiantFuckingPenguin
Dec 17th, 2007
“@GFP_ummmm– dude, you’re trying to beat me at a game I already soundly pwned you in, just to prove you weren’t all that smart, and instead of learning the lesson, here you are being pwned again, and you’re too goofy to even realize it. LOL.”
NU UH. NO YOU DIDNT. I SOUNDLY PWND YOU. NO GO GIT HALP FOR YOUR LYING PROBLEM.
Blinders Off
Dec 18th, 2007
“@Jacques: Penny is a “polite young woman”? LOL Jacques, don’t look now but I think she just blew a great big hole in that statement. Unless of course, your definition of “polite young woman” is someone who curses like a sailor and threatens people who disagree with her opinion. LOL.
Please kiddies, go ahead and play your pointless games. I have whole lot of things better to do with my time than monkey around with a bunch of no-life children. Bye bye.
GiantFuckingPenguin
Dec 18th, 2007
“Please kiddies, go ahead and play your pointless games. I have whole lot of things better to do with my time than monkey around with a bunch of no-life children. Bye bye.”
See even more lies. If you had anything better to do you wouldn’t have come here in the first place.
Cinda Valentino
Dec 18th, 2007
@Blinders Off
SHUT THE FUCK UP BEFORE MY E-MAFIA COMES TO YOUR HOUSE IRL AND ORBITS YOU
Cinda Valentino
Dec 18th, 2007
@Blinders Off
“@Jacques: Penny is a “polite young woman”? LOL Jacques, don’t look now but I think she just blew a great big hole in that statement. Unless of course, your definition of “polite young woman” is someone who curses like a sailor and threatens people who disagree with her opinion. LOL”
SHUT THE FUCK UP BEFORE MY E-MAFIA COMES TO YOUR HOUSE IRL AND ORBITS YOU
Witness X
Dec 18th, 2007
MORNING
http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/12/empty-positions.html?cid=94029380#comments
HEY GUISE READ THAT
BASICALLY IM EVERYONE WHO POSTED AND MENTIONS BLINDERS OFF
WHICH IS LIKE 9 PPL
Witness X
Dec 18th, 2007
To Witness X: I doubt anyone here is unaware that the same person was leaving the flamer posts, which is probably why BO didn’t reply to them. Since you even left fake messages using BO’s handle, you just added proof to his valid posts. You’re congratulating yourself for using an old tired trick of posting under multiple fake names. Wow. All you really did was draw attention away from what was otherwise an important thread. While you may think this is impressive, I doubt anyone but you is impressed. The point BO made was that the Herald is being allowed to be overrun by flamers and trolls. I think you just proved him right.
GiantFuckingPenguin
Dec 18th, 2007
“All you really did was draw attention away from what was otherwise an important thread”
MISSION FUCKING ACCOMPLISHED, KTHXBYE.
GiantFuckingPenguin
Dec 18th, 2007
@Witness X
Oh and thats why he argued with just about every name I posted under while I copypasta in irc and lol’d.
“…ooorr, they’d waste their time leaving brainless troll posts. LOL. Come back when you learn how to play with the big dogs.
(Wasn’t gonna reply at all, but LOL, like catching fish in a bucket.)”
and
“@GFP_ummmm– dude, you’re trying to beat me at a game I already soundly pwned you in, just to prove you weren’t all that smart, and instead of learning the lesson, here you are being pwned again, and you’re too goofy to even realize it. LOL.Man, I like your philosophy of life: benefit no one, contribute nothing, be a tard. Must reduce a lot of stress to disable that many brain cells. LOL”
and
“GFP_ummmm– dude, I like your philosophy of life: benefit no one, contribute nothing, be a tard. Must reduce a lot of stress to disable that many brain cells. LOL”
(yeah he did that one basically twice, lol’d)
and
“@Penny_ummm: LOL a troll calling someone else a troll. There’s something new.”
and
“”@Steve: I don’t think there is a single person who read that post who didn’t know what was going on.”
Uh, yeah Steve, duh. Ya missed the point.”
and
“Please kiddies, go ahead and play your pointless games. I have whole lot of things better to do with my time than monkey around with a bunch of no-life children. Bye bye.”
So cry moar, fgts. You got trolled.
Kalel Venkman
Dec 18th, 2007
“The point BO made was that the Herald is being allowed to be overrun by flamers and trolls”
ITS TRUE. THE TROLLING MUST STOP. THATS WHY I MADE THIS NEW SYSTEM WHERE YOU CAN NOW AR SLH TROLLS TO LINDENS TO GET THEM BANNED. ALSO DONT WORRY, IF CINDA VALENTINO SHOWS UP AT YOUR HOME IRL I’LL SEND YOU A BOX THAT CONTAINS THE WORD GRIEFER WITH A RED ARROW POINTING DOWN IN GIANT LINKED PRIMS SO YOU CAN REZ IT OVER HER HEAD MAKING IT EASIER FOR THE LINDENS AND THE FBI TO FIND HER. IF ALL ELSE FAILS I’M SURE INTLIBBER WILL SHOW UP WITH THE CONSTITUTION.
Ric Mollor
Dec 18th, 2007
Though Linden Labs is not a public company they partially promote Second Life as a business platform. Sooner or later the customers are going start asking for more accountability before making investments in a Second Life presence. Until that visibility happens it would be very difficult to choose SL to represent your business in the virtual world.
On it’s viability as a entertainment platform it seems as if the back end design of SL currently work against controlling costs. Currently each ‘sim’ of SL is kept running even if there are no users present. Additionally there is no load balancing across the grid so even if there are 10,000 empty sims 50 avatars in one place can cause plenty of problems.
If other virtual worlds start offering ‘free’ land or homes how will LL compete? That would certainly put them in a position that may be difficult to counter.
Klaatu
Dec 19th, 2007
Hmmm, it appears this thread is not moderated for on-topic posts…..
Klaatu
Dec 19th, 2007
It appears this thread is not moderated for off-topic posts. All these rants have nothing to do with the topic.
Kalel Venkman
Dec 19th, 2007
“It appears this thread is not moderated for off-topic posts. All these rants have nothing to do with the topic.
Posted by: Klaatu | December 19, 2007 at 12:46 PM”
STOP MAKING OFF TOPIC POSTS BITCH BEFORE I FIND U IRL AND SPRAY YOU WITH MY FAGGERY DAGGERY DOO SUPER DEATH RAY AND TELL YOU TO HALT IN THE NAME OF JUSTICE AND STUFF.
GiantFuckingPenguin
Dec 19th, 2007
YES ALL THESE RANTS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TOPIC. GET BACK ON TOPIC YOU BASTARDS!!!
GiantFuckingPenguin
Dec 19th, 2007
“It appears this thread is not moderated for off-topic posts. All these rants have nothing to do with the topic.”
YES ALL THESE RANTS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TOPIC. GET BACK ON TOPIC YOU BASTARDS!!!