Linden Labs is worried that the competition may have learned from its mistakes. In the meantime, it’s by way of Google that I ran across this mouse, constructed specifically for use in 3D applications including Second Life (according to its Web site):
Linden is spending so much time with its head in the back of its servers that its neglecting its role of supporting advocates, champions and evangelists for the value of Second Life. What I’d LIKE to hear Rosedale say is:
Until now, we’ve played favorites and we’ve given them more reasons to moan and complain than to celebrate and its my personal obligation to stop calling myself an evangelist and start to call myself an enabler of an entire community of evangelists, individuals and organizations. My job is not to defend SL and spin the latest crash statistics but rather to empower others with a vision, enable them with tools, and make them feel engaged in a powerful and creative community that is not building just a utility, but is creating a new world.
In the meantime, Linden might want to head over to Google to see how it can learn from the future competition and stop worrying whether the competition has learned from it. Google keeps highly active blogs written by Google staffers. They’re topic specific and provide a window into its outreach strategy. What strikes me about some of these entries is the parallel to Second Life.
Google Partners on Autism, Second Life Quiet on Asperger’s
Based on positive feedback on the use of SketchUp for autism, Google created a partnership with the “Boulder, Colorado chapter of the Autism Society of America, the Boulder Valley School District, and the Life Long Learning Lab at University of Colorado to provide children with software and guidance that may help them to express an idea or even develop a life skill.”
Meanwhile, in Second Life, press coverage on Asperger’s was primarily generated by the University that developed an in-world simulation to help people deal with the condition.
Promoting Third Party App Integration
Over at Google, they actively promote and celebrate the work of third party developers, whether creating tool sets that integrate with SketchUp, or virtual spaces such as Scenecaster.
Scenecaster Posting
Energy Analysis Tool
Plug-Ins
Over at SL, the main source of information is on the WIKI, which in my opinion has some great information but because Linden primarily lets the users run the show isn’t as helpful as some sort of information clearing house. Trying to sort out how to sculpt, for example, is an exercise in total frustration. There are some wonderful tutorials, but SL does nothing to properly aggregate and put these tutorials into context. They don’t celebrate when software such as Archipelis creates an SL specific sculpting ability, and I highly doubt that the Lindens contacted Archipelis to say “hey, anything we can do to help?”
Now, I’m not arguing that there isn’t a ton of content out there on every conceivable topic, and that SL has a community of advocates who post blogs, tutorials, links, insight, opinion and commentary that taken in total is a flood compared to Google’s trickle. The difference is one of mind set. Google codes and then realizes that once the code is released to the world that’s where the fun stuff begins, rather than “that’s when the debugging starts”.
Google won’t succeed in launching a virtual world simply because it has a massive talent pool, it will succeed because one by one, third party by third party, it’s creating relationships, promoting the work of others, creating deep and sustaining relationships, and promoting. One day soon, we might hear Linden complain that Google learned from its mistakes and wonder why its been relegated to a low-cost ISP role on the 3D highway. My question back will be: why didn’t you learn from them when you had a chance?
February 7, 2008 at 3:46 am
Um, did Google actually make a streaming 3-D interactive world?
February 8, 2008 at 5:54 pm
I believe you’re right, Dusan. And as far as Prok’s comment – well, no, they haven’t… but they have been providing services for a streaming 3-D interactive world for as long as they existed – enough so for Microsoft to try to eat Yahoo. You could argue it isn’t the same, and likely you will, but you’ll note Linden Lab implemented… Google Search. Not rocket science to connect the dots.
Good post, Dusan.
February 8, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Naw, Prok is right Taran. There’s nothing to learn from a company that hasn’t launched a streaming 3-D interactive world so I retract my recommendation.
Linden doesn’t need to learn about managing large, complex, systems that require diabolically clever engineering and strategies in order to both serve the globe and millions of concurrent users and terrabytes of data yet avoid lag and crashes.
Linden has nothing to learn about how to move beyond a mentality of being a virtual world ISP from Google, which moved beyond the mentality of being a search appliance to think more creatively about what business it was in and develop business models that have upended traditional advertising.
Linden has nothing to learn about how to sandbox new features, roll them out effectively, modify them based on user feedback, kill the ones that don’t work, and yet do it in a way that doesn’t add new bugs, user adoption issues, or create instability in its main grid, er, brand.
Linden has nothing to learn about how to create a work environment that’s the envy of half the planet, that attracts some of the brightest talent, and that retains its top staff or, when it loses its top technical talent, doesn’t create a firestorm of concern or bad press.
Linden has nothing to learn about how to effectively manage expectations for future performance, whether financial or service-specific, thus earning increased value for its shareholders and users in spite of flying in the face of conventional wisdom on needing “spin” and lots of chest thumping about Windlight, er, Google docs.
Linden has nothing to learn from a company that has proven itself effective at doing community outreach, partnering, research, publishing, advocating, and communicating even when it is entering business domains where it clearly intends to upend entire industries.
Linden has nothing to learn from a company that started as a few guys and some code and grew to become a synonym with simple and effective user experiences, a verb, and a bunch of zeros.
Linden has nothing to learn from Google because Prok’s right, they haven’t built a streaming 3-D interactive world.
They’ve just transformed the real one.
February 13, 2008 at 4:17 am
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