second life : there can be only one?

the foreground lights dim as the camera closes in on philip linden (portrayed by christopher lambert.) viewable only in silhouette now, we see an exhausted fighter, his sword already falling from his hands. the decapitated heads of vivaty, metaplace and forterra are still rolling as the bodies that once supported them fall in slow motion to the ground. lightning dances around the industrial setting, lighting philip's face for a moment. queen's "princes of the metaverse" plays in the background as the words of mitch kapor (played by sean connery) echo in the ears of our protagonist... "there can be only one."

or at least that's the image i sometimes get when i hear when about virtual worlds failing. a lot of people have been trying to extract cash from the virtual world, but it's a tough market. and a number of people have commented lately that in the post-hype world, second life™ may be hurting, but it's at the head of the pack and has the market for social virtual worlds more or less locked up.

but is that true? can there be only one?

just to clarify, i'm talking really about public, social virtual worlds. i'm not talking about virtual world platforms or small, departmental virtual meeting rooms. i'm talking about full-on massively multi-participant experiences.

OpenSim is an excellent project; as is SimianGrid. both are open source projects intended to replicate the functionality of linden's server software. the former seeks to maintain compatibility with linden's existing protocols while the later is more focused on next generation VWRAP protocols.

but neither are virtual worlds as much as they are open source software projects. they are both excellent projects, but they both explore the "solution space" of the virtual world domain and not the "problem domain."

no... what i'm talking about is public virtual worlds, with's lots of space for a bunch of people to hang out in world and do those things that virtual people do. this sort of knocks out Croquet / OpenCobalt (which is also mostly a "project") and (sadly) vastpark and teleplace. they're not bad concepts, they're just not massive.

if you look over at the OpenSim Grid List, you see that there are several grids out there, but the number of people visiting them is tiny. why is this? why is it that OSGrid, the largest of the OpenSim grids listed, is only attracting one 200th of SL user base?

my guess is it comes down to functionality, economy and community.

kvetching about features OpenSim lacks out of the box seems to be a popular sport these days. but it probably doesn't do much for the world to repeat some of the more extreme arguments. at the end of the day, some people like the second life permissions system and some people don't. some people like in-game currency, other people don't. but it seems that of the people willing to pay money for virtual space, most people either want those features (so they can do commerce) or don't really care if it's there or not. it seems that few customers are actively opposed to operating in a virtual world with cash and permissions.

without a turnkey system for starting a grid with cash transactions and a robust permissions system, the cost of implementing these features falls to the grid operator. without the virtual economy, it's a little harder to attract people to your virtual experience, and thus your community remains small.

so what can you do to grow OpenSim or Simian or OWL based virtual worlds into mega-monster avatar playgrounds? simple. stop trying to be second life™.

i think the answer to the question "can there be only one second life?" is yes; there really can only be one. but you can go on to have a lot of virtual experiences that are noticeably different from SL, and in many ways product differentiators. so let's not talk about things in terms of second life, and start thinking in terms of "next generation virtual worlds."

the obvious one that everyone is talking about is, "make second life run in a browser." there are enough people out there talking about Unity3D, WebGL and OnLive that a quick round of googling can find you a depth of opinion. (for extra fun, search for "+rezzable +unity3d +opensim".)

the next obvious one is, "make your virtual world more social." it's clear from linden lab's recent moves that they've heard this one. they interpret it to mean "follow the money, integrate with facebook."

another differentiator that is near and dear to my heart is "let info flow in and out of the virtual world." Linden Lab introduced an amazing new feature recently with it's media on a prim and shared browsing experience. but the truth is, putting a web page up in a virtual world isn't exactly new. heck, even sirikata did it. NanoCosm was doing it back in the late 90's. but that's the simplest way to get info into the virtual world.

how 'bout we let in-world groups map to facebook groups and twitter groups? why can't i easily see my facebook friends and twitter followers in world? for that matter, why can't i just log in using my twitter credentials. they _do_ support OAuth, after all.

and assets. Second Life's asset system requires you to upload images and what-not to their servers. why couldn't i just point to a texture or a COLLADA .dae file out on the web somewhere and say: "when i drag this item out of my inventory, i want you to go out to the web to get the data used to render it."

so i think my key point here is... don't try to recreate second life. it's been done. it attracted a fair number of people and a lot of hype. move on, do something better.

the next five years of SL : or, yet another rambling blog post about second life

so the recent tumult at linden lab got me thinking about the lab, second life™, virtual worlds in general, people's brains and business. and apple; i live in the bay area, so when the subject turns to "turn around stories" we start talking about apple.

yes, you know.. apple. the people who make the iPad, iPod, iPhone, iTouch and iEverythingElse. it's hard to believe, but there was a time when apple products were the domain of artists, students and assorted nut-cases like me who just wanted to be annoyingly different. before the iPod, apple's profits came from selling half-rate knock-offs of the Xerox Alto system software wrapped around well designed, but marginally manufactured hardware. (that is until they started selling half-rate knock-offs of the Xerox Alto system software wrapped around Avi Tevanian's master's thesis micro-kernel wrapped around well designed, but not completely marginally manufactured hardware.)

now don't get me wrong, i'm not a wintel bigot; nor am i an apple hater. i'm just telling it a little bit like it is to make a point. in the 1990's and early 2000's, you were a fool to waste time with macintosh products. they were temperamental, expensive closed boxes and using them set you off from the wider community of PC users and the bazillion programs you could run under windows.

as much as guy kawasaki likes talking about how the early mac team was trying to build something "insanely great," the mac operating system rested too much on it's laurels. throughout the late 1980's and 1990's, apple's steve-jobs-less leadership frittered away it's leadership position shuffling business units, preparing them to be the "next new thing." while the public was introduced to a stream of "interesting" products like the newton, powerCD, quicktake, cyberdog, opendoc, pippin and macintoshTV.

so by the mid-90's, apple's arch-nemesis to the north was nipping on their heels with Window95 and MS Office. the good news for apple was the decision to build user centered software with GUIs instead of crufty command sequences was vindicated. the bad news was that the courts allowed microsoft to rip off apple's look and feel.

and then steve jobs returned from the corporate hinterland, slashing projects, killing divisions and laying off staff. at the time, apple employees had a term for it, it was called "steve-ing." as in... "wow. they laid off the kitchen staff for mariani 1, i think imaging products division is going to get steved."

so jobs came back, turned apple around and today iPads are flying off the shelf and jobs hob-nobs with guys who can launch nuclear missiles at the google campus.

but what changed? why are apple products now cool? (yes, this is where we start talking about second life)

apple products are cool because apple products appeal to both a user's need for functionality AND the user's emotional closeness to the experience of using those products. apple products are cool. they delight. when you use them, they treat you like a movie star. they make you the center of their little device universe. they are cool and that coolness rubs off on you. so no matter how much of a dork you are, if you're using an iPhone, you feel like one of the cool kids.

can we say that about linden lab products now?

okay. loaded question. let me ask it another way. how does second life have to change to bring back that sense of emotional closeness?

waaaaaay back in 2005 and 2006, the hype cycle was in full swing. everyone was convinced that this was the wave of the future and we would soon all be virtually working in our virtual offices. so you couldn't teleport or you crashed every 15 minutes or the whole grid had to reboot every thursday. it wasn't a problem because you were experiencing "the future." and when you participated in the future, it made you cool.

but the future was a reasonably crappy place to work. prototyping real products in SL was annoying at best, and often impossible. you could have a virtual PC on top of your virtual desk in your virtual office, but it was just a prop. you couldn't use it to collaboratively edit documents with people in your virtual crib until very, very recently.

second life was a taste of the future; distance would soon be a thing of the past. we would have meaningful human interaction virtually.

but the promise of second life wasn't enough to keep the broader community of technology innovators "emotionally engaged." that a core group of enthusiasts drove the content creation economy with such primitive tools is testament to the creativity and ability of second life's residents.

for the broader community of content designers who wanted to use SL to build things that would interact with the outside world, or even live mostly in the reified world, the time to frustration was often much shorter than the time to delight. and when you have a tool that frustrates you more than it delights, it's hard to have emotional engagement.

and that's where we're at now... second life is a pretty cool niche with a comparatively small community of people using it to build engaging experiences. for the last several years the business guys at linden have been trying to figure out how to break out of that niche.

philip rosedale's return to the helm of linden has invigorated the community, and everyone seems to have a different opinion of how the world went wrong and a different narrative for restoring it to its former glory.

some view SL as a "platform." that is, linden's value lies in it software. either as a service (as it is now) or as a product (like SL/Enterprise), they say that untold riches await the lab if they could just figure out how to market it properly. to grow adoption, you simply reduce costs, develop new markets and watch the cash roll in.

others view SL as a "community." that is, it's value lies in it's community, waiting to be monetized with search and ad sales. make it easier for facebook and twitter users to convert into SL users and watch the cash roll in.

and some people point to steve jobs' success in converting apple from a maker of second-rate computers into a consumer electronics powerhouse and say the lab should adopt an "experience" strategy. "engage customers and give them an experience that is emotionally meaningful for them." perhaps that means enhancing the graphics capability or enhancing in-world music events.

but the truth is, none of these approaches will work by itself. linden and second life are at an inflection point, much like apple was in 1996 when steve jobs returned to re-orient the company. apple had it's strategic re-organization that involved layoffs and management changes.

but one thing to consider is it took steve jobs about five years from the time he returned to the time the iPod was released. so even if linden is pointing in the right direction, it could be years before we see the next big thing out of the lab.

VWRAP still seems to draw breath, despite linden's reduced participation

so a couple hours ago, josh bell (aka joshua linden) sent out an email indicating linden lab (makers of the Second Life™ virtual world) no longer has the capability to actively participate in (or lead) the VWRAP working group within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

from josh's email message:

Linden has reduced engineering resources tasked specifically with implementing the standards emerging through the VWRAP WG process. Linden will continue to be engaged on efforts that directly align with business goals and current development needs, and in fostering the ecosystem around Second Life ... For the near term, however, Linden will not be explicitly funding production of specifications or implementations related to virtual world interoperability. Linden Lab continues to be supportive of the standardization process and we hope to be able to be more actively involved at some point in the future.

josh goes on to say that he'll be continuing to serve as working group co-chair, but will participate as an individual, not as a linden employee.

I plan to volunteer my personal time to mediate discussions as co-chair of the working group, as long as there remains interest in tackling issues within the VWRAP WG charter. As individuals, many other Linden Lab employees are and continue to be involved in standardization efforts, around virtual worlds and other IETF efforts.

so... does this mean that VWRAP is dead? i think the answer would be "no, not dead, but it's definitely a metaphorical gut punch."

at the end of the day, corporations do not participate in IETF activities, individuals do. so linden's decision to pull resources from it's participation in VWRAP does not automatically shut the group down. but, it's no secret that linden sponsored many of the activities, instructing it's employees to participate in the standards development process on company time.

but it's hard to sugar coat this pill; the loss of a large commercial interest is going to cause a bit of confusion in the near term. individuals are likely to still participate, but without linden it's unclear who would be deploying VWRAP based services. at the end of the day, we can specify whatever we want; but if no one actually uses the specs, what's the point?

but all is not lost; the business motivations that led to the formation of the VWRAP working group are still there. there is still a market in virtual worlds for education, enterprise and entertainment. specifying protocols for virtual world services is still useful for driving down the costs of virtual world hosting and for supporting innovative ecosystems. in short, the fundamentals are still sound.

but there's now a bit of an "influence vacuum." the 800 lb. gorilla has quietly exited the tent, leaving a couple 300 lb. gorillas and a number of consultants. so, it will be interesting to see if any of the remaining players steps up to take a leading role.

our efforts in VWRAP are still useful, but the individuals involved in the standardization effort are no doubt interested in whose business requirements will drive the effort: IBM? Intel? Reaction Grid?

so... anyone interested in driving a low-mileage, late-model IETF working group?

Second Life : Hits and Misses

Word on the street is Linden Lab, makers of the Second Life™ virtual world, is in the process of laying off staff and shuttering remote offices. The few stories have surfaced over the last couple days are fueled by rumor and inductive reasoning. ( See Tateru Nino's story "Linden Lab Laying Off Staff, Closing Singapore Office" at massively.com for an example. ) Tateru's narrative is well told, but as of yet, Linden hasn't commented publicly regarding staff reductions. Reports of instability in the Linden Dollar exchange, the departure of key employees [*] and a failure to meet resident growth expectations have been feeding rumors of Second Life's demise.

But I'm not ready write off Second Life just quite yet. A lot of cool stuff came out of Linden Lab and even if the rumors of lay-offs are true, there will remain a nucleus of highly competent people delivering innovative new services.

So while we're waiting to hear an official word from Linden about staff changes, let's take a quick look at some of the Linden Lab hits and misses.

1. *HIT* User Generated Content (aka UGC)

Linden didn't invent the concept of "user generated content," but they were one of the first groups to really run with it. While universes like There.Com and ActiveWorlds also allowed UGC, Second Life allowed users to upload textures and build content in-world without prior editorial constraint.

We're in a world of "remix culture" where content innovation is fueled by the never ending stream of ubiquitous, culturally relevant media. In other words, we create meaning by reworking existing context in new and better contexts. Whether it's an artist that places a virtual Gandhi avatar in a virtual jail cell or simply a group of people gathering in world to discuss ideas, society as a whole benefits from the understanding and insight that comes from placing old media in a new context.

In the future, Second Life will be remembered as the first popular virtual world that understood this interplay between media and context and made it easy for participants to communicate "insight" by means of radical juxtaposition of common, socially relevant symbols.

2. *MISS* User Generated Content (aka UGC)

But it's not all goodness and light out there on the grid. There are serious issues with content theft and misappropriation of digital assets. Linden's process for dealing with IP theft follows guidelines established after passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA.) While the Linden process appears in accord with US law, it does little (if anything) to prevent IP theft. Instead it provides a mechanism to repair damage already done; it requires IP owners to police the entire virtual world looking for infringers.

UGC is Second Life's "raison d'être." Without it, it would be an exceedingly bland experience. Some would argue that this virtual world is based on a system that ultimately discounts real world IPR by making infringement laughably easy.

3. *MISS* Pornography

The most obvious issue with the lack of prior editorial control on user generated content is the presence of pornography and obscene adult materials on Second Life's main grid. Expression of every carnal delight may be found in second life, ranging from "mildly unusual" to "outright obscene." Second Life is very clearly an "adults only" space; do not leave your children here unattended.

4. *HIT* Pornography

One person's obscenity is another's harmless fantasy. People are sexual creatures and stigmatizing physically pleasurable activities as being "dirty" or "obscene" does little to advance society and culture. Providing a space where individuals may come to terms with potentially embarrassing fantasies in an anonymous manner might actually have mental health benefits. Members of the transgender and fetish communities may experience very real emotional distress that prevents them from exploring taboo subjects in real life. The virtual world provides a safe, anonymous space to develop an understanding of the sexual self. This is in no way a bad thing.

The virtual world can also be a place where the disabled are able to explore their sexual persona. In the west, we sometimes force disabled people into a very non-sexual corner.; sex and disability can be a taboo subject in mainstream culture. For many disabled people, creating a sexually explicitly avatar in a virtual world can be liberating; especially as they have direct control over the degree to which their "real life" disability is expressed in the virtual world.

5. *HIT* Group Building

Most virtual experiences use assets created by a single person on a single desktop machine. Sure, digital assets can be created by groups of talented artists, and I'm guessing that most are. At the end of the day, there's only one person with one mouse altering one copy of the digital asset. Once the change is complete, the asset is saved in a file and distributed to other participants in the creative process.

Second Life's model is different. Building is an inherently social experience. Assets are created in the same virtual world participants inhabit. In fact, it's quite easy to find groups of people collaboratively building virtual things in one of the many "sandboxes" spread throughout SL's main grid.

The Second Life build system is the 3D equivalent of tools like Google Docs or Etherpad, when one person rotates a piece of an object being built, everyone with an avatar in the vicinity immediately sees the result. Everyone can immediately critique (or approve) the change.

6. *HIT* Digital Economy

To be sure, selling things in Second Life can be a pain. But over the last several years it's gotten increasingly less painful. In many online virtual worlds and MMORPGs, you can only buy content from the company running the experience. Turning the virtual world into a venue for individual-to-individual transactions is a true "hit."

Transactions totaling millions of US Dollars are executed annually. Real people are making real money selling bits; and that's a beautiful thing.

7. *MISS* Land and Object Backups

In an ideal (virtual) world, the content you create would stand as an eternal testament to your creative prowess. Sadly, we live in a real world where software bugs, database failures and system crashes conspire to delete the fruits of your online labor. In Second Life, you build on the live system. While there are backups occasionally, it is all to easy for your content to mysteriously disappear.

Products like Second Inventory allow individual content creators to explicitly save their creations. Linden Lab appears to have an "uneasy truce" with services like Second Inventory. You may find some Lindens privately acknowledge the utility of backing up content, but no one will go on the record publicly praising or damning the service. Second Inventory (and similar utilities in third party viewers) can too easily be corrupted into a tool that could allow unauthorized content copying. Supporting such a tool would not be a move welcomed by Second Life's content creation community.

So a content backup tool, which would be of great utility to content creators, could also be perverted into a weapon that could destroy the livelihood of that same community. Maybe someday there will be a tool that gives people the ability to backup and restore content they own, and only content they own. But until that facility is perfected this feature is probably going to remain too dangerous for general deployment.

8. *HIT* Spatial Voice Chat

A fair amount of attention has been paid to virtual worlds as venues for education and business events. Whether you're talking about using the virtual world to teach classes or meet with your business partners, the experience is still pretty compelling.

A lot of people ask, however, "how is Second Life different than a chat room or a WebEX presentation?" And you'll get a lot of different answers to this question. But I recently had the opportunity to watch new users learn a bit about the virtual world. These were people who were technically savvy, but not "Virtual Worlds People." I was a little surprised to discover that after they learned the interface, they found the experience "reasonably compelling." When asked why, their response was... "it was easy to figure out who was talking."

So... virtual meeting planners take note: real people like it when it's obvious who's avatar is speaking.

9. *MISS* Walled Garden

Second Life has aspects of other great online systems: it has the social networking of Facebook and Twitter; it has the ability to host content like Flickr; and it has the ability to host group conversations like IRC or Google Chat. But Second Life is not Facebook or Twitter or Flickr or Google Chat. It doesn't do any of these things nearly as well as these sites.

And maybe that's okay. Second Life is about creating immersive 3D experiences. It is not about image hosting or IRC chat sessions. The 3D experience creates an engaging social context that you just can't get from the 2D web. It's okay for Second Life to not be as good as Twitter or Facebook on the whole social networking thing.

But what isn't okay is that I can't link my Second Life identity with my Twitter identity or my LinkedIn identity. My FaceBook friends are not automatically my Second Life friends, and that's a problem. The "friction" involved in engaging my external accounts in the virtual world means it will never have the size and scope Linden's executives keep talking about.

Until Linden breaks down the garden walls and allows virtual land, assets and identities to be hosted by external organizations, Second Life will remain a pleasantly curious island in the sea of internet commerce and communication.

Conclusion

So there we have it, my short list of Second Life's "greatest hits and misses." What are yours?

* In the interest of full-disclosure, I should remind readers that I worked for Linden recently, though my role probably didn't qualify me as a "key" employee.