Dear Philip,

You indicated that your return to the helm would result in a return to transparency. While many of us have been waiting and hoping for this, it seems that we have the same opacity we learned to endure under Mark Kingdon.

If you want to instill confidence in us, Philip, you’re not going to do it with a quick Tweet that “SL is growing, not failing.” This is not communication, this is PR. If Second Life is indeed growing, tell us how it is doing so, something that gives us the confidence that you’re still genuinely connected with what’s happening in the grid. Because, Philip, the global economic catastrophes of the past few years have conditioned us to be deeply suspicious of voices that declare “Relax, everything’s just fine!”

At the present time, there is absolutely no reason for us to believe that Second Life is growing. The mainland is pockmarked with large swaths of abandoned parcels and plots of land are selling for as low as a L$0.5 per m2. We’ve just seen massive Lab layoffs, and the Lindens we relied upon to help us have been replaced with temps equipped with problem-solving laminate cards and no apparent sense of the grid. Mark Kingdon was fired in the middle of SL7B and no explanation was given. The Community Gateway Program was closed. The Teen Grid is being shut down. European offices that were just opened have been shuttered. Avatars United has been closed. And now the announcement that discounts for non-profits and education are being eliminated at the end of the year. Oh, let’s not forget Burning Life has been stripped of its Lab affiliation – as well as its name.

This is not to say that all of these decisions are terrible. Avatars United was a bad acquisition idea from the outset, and I hope that Mark didn’t spend too much money on it. I get the feeling, though, that Mark burned through a significant amount of the Lab’s money on his blind vision for the company.

As we enter into Second Life’s seventh year, the company seems – to many of us who are kept on the outside – to be forestalling bankruptcy for as long as possible.

The grid is starting to feel like Iceland.

We realize that Second Life beats with the heart of a corporation, not a democracy. We agree to Terms of Service, rather than forging Constitutions. We don’t get a vote – except for the money we spend on premium memberships, land auctions, estate purchases, tier, classified ad fees, show-in-search fees, and Marketplace commissions. Yet that money is truly the lifeblood of Second Life. For a very long time, I’ve tried not to become overly cynical about it all, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to remain positive. I look at my Linden Dollar balance and I wonder if now is a good time to cash out everything but the essentials, and I know that I’m not alone. Money talks, and lately, it seems that our money is the only voice that we have left in our little vitual world.

Second Life is wonderful, and there’s no other grid out there that can touch it. That does not, however, mean that Second Life can’t fail. One need only look at the demise of Blockbuster Video this year – a company that roared over the competition by early innovation, and yet died because management seemed deaf to changes in customer needs and choices.

Second Life is wonderful, but for most of us, it is not a necessity by any means. Any more than a daily Starbucks double-espresso cappucino is a necessity. Life in a virtual world truly is a luxury hobby.

Second Life is wonderful, but our concerns falling on deaf ears time and time again … isn’t.

Let’s face it, to the majority of the aware online community outside of our world, Second Life is a joke. But to several hundred thousand of us, it is worthy of a grand swath of our free time, our social time, and our creativity. The larger online world doesn’t “get it” – but we do. We bring our friends in and we show them around and we take them shopping and we ease them through the various rites of passage and we help them become the next wave of enthusiastic residents.

We are the evangelists. But like all evangelists, we need a message. We need vision. We need to feel as though we still belong. That we still matter. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” And right now, there seem to be a lot of promises and a lot of reassurances, but no vision.

Your only Twitter post since SLCC is a seemingly-terse response to a comment from someone who stated their opinion that SL was failing because you don’t pay attention to social networking. Your response was “Oh yes I do! Plus, SL is growing, not failing.” If Second Life, at the end of 2010 – in the wake of massive layoffs, firings, cutbacks, closures, rate increases, and resident attrition – is indeed growing, then you need to explain to us how this growth is occuring. You seem to forget that we no longer trust that a company means what it says when it doesn’t provide evidence to back up irrationally exuberant claims of growth and stability. Stable, growing companies do not need to assure anyone that they’re stable and growing – its self-evident.

When communication fails, guessing and rumor and misinformation step in. Case in point, the Microsoft buyout rumor. I doubt I’m not alone in speculating that Linden Lab is seeking a buyer – perhaps somewhat desperately. Which leads us to ask, “Who might that buyer be, and how will it impact us?” And the flip side of the question, “What if Second Life is selling, but there’s no buyer – what then? Just how dire are things on Battery Street right now? And what happens if the time comes when we’re told that Second Life is indeed going dark? Will we be given the time necessary to back up years of memories?”

These are questions that are being asked, Philip. If our fears are unfounded, then you need to talk to us – and soon. But more importantly, you need to listen to us, and prove that you’re listening to us by having a conversation with us. And not just one token Tweet, but regular and substantive conversations with your residents. Because we are so much more than customers.

Or at least we like to think so.

Show me you’re listening.

Please respond.

Best Wishes,

The Avatar Known as Marx Dudek

PS: Give us back our identity. We are not “Residents in the Second Life™ Virtual World”. We are Second Life.

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The total opposite seems to be Nyte’n'Day. Yesterday I saw a "new releases from Nyte’n'Day" on a blog, and went over there to have a look… and I have to say, I was awed.

Last time I went to N&D they had this small place in a skybox, and were doing a huge "everything 50% off" sale (which usually is the writing on the wall, as far as shops in SL go)…

Now, they have a full sim, and they didn’t "waste" store floor space for landscaping at all. The place is huge, and full of nice stuff, too!

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An example for going mainstream is Curious Kitties Deviant Kitties. The owner now has a new shop called ploom, and with every product announcement comes this distinctive “Seen that already” feeling… What happened to the time when Curious Kitties was unique, and distinctive? The hairstyles from D:K were definitely identifiable as “typically DK”. The hairstyles that come out of ploom are more like “is that truth, or ploom, or maitreya, or whatever?”

An example for disappearing completely is Nadeshiko Soul. They used to sell absolutely amazing kimonos, and their mini kimonos were unique. Same was true for Samurai Soul, the men’s line from NS. Now the owner seems to concentrate on Bijoux, their “normal clothes” line. And while the designs from Bijoux are definitely pretty, and definitely worth their money, they are just “more of the same”…

why do shops give up their unique selling points so easily?

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There are so many creative and imaginative people around.

Here’s a picture of a place that I came across today, that totally speaks to the point.

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here are a few quotes…

Blue Mars brags advanced graphics, no lag and mesh orientated content (this means the clothes are fabulous).

And here’s a picture of those fabulous clothes:

Is it just me or is that a really sad joke?

And don’t get me started about "fabulous graphics" in general. My laptop runs SL in ultimate and Blue mars looks like I have dirty, grey glasses on while running SL at minimum.

"no lag"… of course not, with no users…

Anyways, BM needs another 5 years to mature. And even then it won’t be competition for "real" virtual worlds like SL and others, simply because of the missing "your world, your imagination" principle… in BM only people who can afford their own sim can create their own world.

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That was not my intention.

Thankfully, I got some more facts about the MoM 100K raffles that basically turn my previous post into a piece of shit pretty good example of bad blogging

I’ll say it again and more clearly:

It was not my intention to accuse Ministry of Motion of anything.

To the best of my knowledge their contest is true and fair, the top winners are listed on their flickr site, with pictures.

Thankfully there are still stores with integrity and business sense around. MoM is one of them.

Edit: Aug 01, 2010

The winners have been announced:

1st Place winner, Teren Aridian,

2nd place: Honey Cardozo

3rd place: Umma Nitely

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The object ‘**WIN L$100,000!! & collect your NEW FREE dance animation**’ in Second Life has offered you inventory.

Log in to accept or decline this inventory.

= **WIN L$100,000!! & collect your NEW FREE dance animation** is owned by Nomasha Syaka

Makes me wonder… Ministry Of Motion is doing these "Raffles" quite regularly. If I’m not totally mistaken, monthly.

That would amount to 1.200.000 L$ per year that is given away… or in real money, 375 us$ per month.

Now lets see, what are the terms to enter the raffle…

1. You will receive one entry for each purchase of any animation at Ministry of Motion between June 18th 2010 and July 31st 2010. If you buy a multipack of ten animations, you will receive ten entries.
   So basically you get one raffle ticket per purchased dance. Sounds OK to me so far.
2. On the day of the drawing, August 1st, you must have Ministry of Motion listed in your Profile Picks. (see instructions below).
   They get free advertizing. Nothing wrong with that either.
3. No employee of Ministry of Motion will be eligible to enter the contest.
   A-HA! It does not say anything about alts of MoM "Employees"…
4. First Prize of L$100,000 will be selected by a random number generator.
   In Real Life raffles like that are held under supervision of a notary public.
5. Second Prize will be a copy of all Ministry of Motion Dance Animations (Transfer only)
6. Third prize will be Avatar’s choice of 10 Ministry of Motion Dance Animations (Transfer only) and one Nomasha Syaka Guitar.
7. By registering MoM in your picks, you will receive a free animation. It will take about 24hours to register, then you can return here using this LM and click one of these signs again to receive the animation.

Kind of reminds me of two other events that went quite strangely…

… the sintimacy photo contest, first prize supposed to be one million linden dollars, the announcement of winner was postponed several times, and I don’t think there HAS been a winner so far.

… the paper.doll logo contest, design a store logo to enter, first prize 5000L in cash and the complete summer collection, not one single peep about the contest has been published after the initial announcement. And the deadline is 4 months past now.

Not to mention any number of "best in …" contests where the winner just happened to be one of the employees of the club / the girlfriend of the DJ / the wife of the host…

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… and it has almost convinced me that “men’s fashion” in Second Life basically means “gay vampire teen elves”.

Someone prove me wrong please.

Seriously… there are so many awesome designers out there, making such awesome stuff for women in so many different styles… why does men’s fashion have to be uniformly ugly, with only a very few notable exceptions (and even those exceptions are becoming pretty boring by now since they are all just repetitions of the same thing)?

I mean… how many different tuxes and “good suits”, how many different sneakers and jeans, how many different t-shirts does a guy need?

In SL, where clothes don’t wear out? One of each, with the single exception of t-shirts from T Junction maybe

And when a guy as those “one of each”, what is left?

Not much unless you want to look as if you’re wearing a costume.

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