The Love Machine #1

Are We Getting Some Good Tweets About Second Life 2.0?

It was a bright, profitable day in San Francisco.

In a posh suite at the Ritz, a throng of high-tech investors and plugged-in analysts gathered for a sneak peek at the next big thing. Non-disclosure agreements were signed and muffins were consumed. Conversation grew to an audible tizzy, accompanied by the clicking of innumerable Blackberries.

Suddenly, a crack team of web-savvy executives strode into the conference room, confidence stitched into every seam of their Armani suits. They gave a brief presentation; it was brilliantly received: the investors opened up their checkbooks, the analysts pronounced the whole thing "webtacular!" and the executive team got back into their magical flying cars and zoomed back to Google.

Meanwhile, several miles away, in an abandoned box factory, some Lindens began to rise from their makeshift beds: cardboard boxes lain across wooden palettes. Around the metal barrel that served as their collective stove, they began to gather, heating tapwater and Sanka in old coffee mugs scavenged off of Craigslist.

"So Talky, what's the word about Second Life 2.0?" asked T Linden, dropping some restaurant sugar into a chipped blue Pets.com mug. "Are we getting some good tweets about that? Got to get some good tweets about that."

"Not really," admitted Talky. "There's more buzz about this 'Botgirl Questi is a guy' thing. The podcasters are particularly upset.

"Who? What?" Philip Linden sputtered. "Nonsense! Listen! We have spent half a year moving everything onto new tabs and renaming the menus. This is a veritable sea change!"

He enacted his metaphor by making swooshing, ocean sounds with his mouth and waving his arms like a surfer. "Surf the information superhighway, Talky. Ride the next wave of innovation and change!" he said, in his best tech guru voice.

"The feedback seems to be that it's, um, too little too late," Talky said. He then stood up straighter, gulped, and continued. "I hate to bring this up again, but you know, I spent years making those helpful videos showing how to use the current interface and if we change that --"

M Linden interrupted. "But we are the first company to ever put the word 'Geek' right on the menu bar. We are programming our contempt for our users directly into the interface. This is groundbreaking stuff. You don't see that in World of WarCraft. Where's the menu bar for 'LAZY SHUT-IN' on your product, Blizzard? Huh?"

"The users are saying it's just a bunch of useless UI tweaks, instead of a true sequel that quantitatively reinvents the game."

Everyone stopped and stared at Talky Linden. "Did you just refer to Second Life as a game?"

"I meant, I meant the world!" Talky said, desperately clutching his scored and pitted Beenz.com mug, his hands shaking. "An actual sequel that changes the world."

There was an ominous silence, and everyone looked to the leader, M Linden.

"Take him to the Love Machine," M Linden said finally, in a quiet, measured voice that augured horror.

Two members of the RESI team seized the sobbing, pleading Talky and dragged him into an old utility room. Moments later, the lights flickered as an ominous crackle, like a giant bug zapper in mid-sizzle, shot through the warehouse. The victim's screams of primal pain rang in their ears like a dentist's drill.

M Linden smiled at the sound, rubbing his hands together, before resuming the meeting. "I do believe the Watermelon has a point, though. Changing the menus around and adding shit to the Website isn't much of an upgrade, T Linden. If that is your real name." He glared at the other executive darkly, with a meaningful glance towards the utility closet.

"Well what do they expect Second Life 2.0 to be?" demanded T Linden. "Some sort of new program with high end graphics, massive concurrent user support, industry standard content creation tools, and breathtakingly realistic avatars? I mean, that's just crazy talk!"

The circle erupted at such a ridiculous notion. "Earth to crazy people! Hello!" laughed M Linden.

"Yeah, what do they think this is, Mars?" said Phillip Linden.

"I know, really! Some kind of Blue Mars!" said T Linden. "As if!"

They stood for a moment, laughing and chuckling, before filing out, one by one, as they did every morning, onto the loading dock where they chained up their old grocery carts overnight.

Tenderly, they unlocked each and filled them with plastic bags, then fanned out through the city, collecting cans and other recyclables to trade in for precious, precious server money.


It was a bright, profitable day in San Francisco.

Philip Linden's Twitter Updates

The Twitter-verse has not fully embraced Second Life's sandy-haired former CEO, Philip "Philip Linden" Rosedale, and frankly that makes me as angry as a podcaster on Zindra.

How is it possible that our fair-haired golden boy, the Apollo -- nay, Prometheus -- of virtual worlds, with his pop idol looks and Web 2.0 lifestyle, has a mere 1,000 followers?

How is it possible that Mitch "mkapor" Kapor, with his drab avatar and somniferous Tweet-stream about metanomics and 'socially responsible engineering', has amassed a massive army of 11,000+ devotees? Argh! Go build a bridge out of teddy bears, Yawn-Boy!

Confronting this injustice, I point the Bat-finger of blame squarely on you, the SL Twitter users! But I am sure you will immediately correct your mistake, once you have been exposed to Philip's pithy observations and charmingly disarming insights about life in and out of the Lab.

To aid you in your penance, I have created a screen-capture. Click it for detail:






A larger image is supposed to open correctly in a new tab or window. If not, you'll need to go to the Microsoft and get the patches.

Content Roadmap

Achievements for Second Life

I was checking my Twitter today when I came across a discussion about whether or not Second Life should implement some sort of 'achievements' system to encourage player participation and community involvement, similar to what is done on Xbox Live.

It just so happens my "source" in the Lab has leaked an early draft of an achievements proposal from Linden Lab.

Hmm, I think it needs some work...

Shoestring Marketing, Linden-style

It's not everyday I get an email from Linden Lab that isn't about an outrageous "Incident Report" (I was so not aiming at that guy), so I was quite curious as to what this was all about:



For those of you who can't click the graphic to read the whole spiel (probably because you are in Australia and this unrated gaming content is BANNED), I will give you the gist of it:

You can win 10,000 Linden dollars if you post the URL of your favorite XstreetSL item (from the Home & Garden category, only!) on the Linden Lab Facebook wall!

Yes, that's right you have to go from their virtual eCommerce site to their social media networking page if you need to buy more blood packs for the blood fountains in your virtual dungeon. They couldn't have hit on more Web 2.0 memes unless they made you Twitter about it first and plurk it up afterwards.

So much for you Immersionists, or those thousands of profiles that read "Keep RL separate plz k thx bai!" We avatars now must get out into the larger metaverse and tackle the dangers, the perils, the colossal cacophony of redundancy that is Second Life 2.0! Get ye to Facebook, avatar, and Twitter too!

The rewards are huge, all of 10,000 Lindens. That's about $40 U.S., a truly massive show of marketing muscle in this era of weekly layoffs and economic panic. It's good to see the Lindens being frugal, but maybe they could've thrown in some free "Power Idling With M Linden" t-shirts.

So how do I you win this plum cherry of prize? Enough have people have to click "I like this item" on the Facebook Wall when they scroll through all the other, uninteresting entries and choose "GIANT KITTY COUCH CHAIR WITH 6 POSE SIT ANIMATIONS NEKO" which is clearly the most exciting item of all.



Just keep scrolling down the wall until you find it, and choose "Like" with your Facebook account. What, your Avatar doesn't have a Facebook account? Your Avatar's been banned from Facebook for not being a "real person"?

Sorry then, you're not eligible for this contest!

Your Take: Phone Numbers for Avatars

Linden Lab is rolling out an experimental voice service called AvaLine that lets avatars sign up for real world telephone numbers. What's your take?

Friendly Buttons Adult land speculator	Mitsubishi McGee Lucky Chair stalker	Philnew McBride Metanomics consultant
Can I get a real pizza delivered to my virtual house?	Some politician's going to look pretty damn stupid after they get wiretapped talking to a Bunnypet Hugsalot.	... eBay bought Skype for a billion dollars ... the power of positive thinking ... eBay bought Skype for a billion ... the power of positive...

Meet "A Linden"

Help Wanted

The tireless staff of Tiny Dancing is forever perusing the Linden Lab Employment Opportunities for a new job insight into the future direction of Second Life.

With the recent hullabaloo over the decision to banish all adult content to a new, as-yet-unnamed continent (we suggest "Kanomiland"), we weren't surprised to see the following classified ad appear recently on the site:



We have sent in our applications and will inform you on our progress.

You Need a Real ID to Look at Fake Tits

This week Linden Lab donned its best BDSM latex Master's gear and pronounced a shoveling of all adult-oriented content to some as-yet unbuilt sexual ghetto. Possibly this new Red Light island will be named Pervopolis or Fruitopia or Freakville. We just don't know.

The delivery of this Commandment was accompanied with all of the usual tact and delicacy we have come to expect from the All-Seeing Eye-Hand, coming in the form of a blog post with disabled comments and a cheery FAQ featuring such euphemistic clabble-dabble as: "implement certain access controls designed to better serve certain constituencies," which is probably trying to say they want to prevent naked dickgirls from walking around the Disney Library, but not one can be quite sure.

Fortunately, we at Tiny Dancing have been leaked an early, first draft of the FAQ, whose answers might prove a little more illuminating... The following is the original frequently answered questions document prepared for and written by the Lindens...



Why is Linden Lab choosing to do this?

Power is not a means, it is an end.

As we sit in the indolent luxury of our secret sims, surrounded by Gorean slaves, captive coders, and imprisoned artists that cater to our every whim and fetish, it is easy for us to grow too complacent, too relaxed. You are always out there, plotting against us, so we must demonstrate out absolute mastery and control of this world we rule, this world we made.

So from time to time we single out a group of degenerates -- age-players, griefers, gamblers, or dildo vendors -- for special humiliation and punishment.

This helps instill fear in the rest of you, turning group against group in bitter acrimony and useless struggle, while we sit triumphant and ascendant upon our mighty thrones.


Why now?

Are you fricking kidding? Have you looked at the economy lately? Look, if one of our high-flying corporate partners demanded it, we would not hesitate to take further action, such as requiring all schoolgirl skirts to extend below the knees or confining furries to some sort of "Monster Island" where they will caper and scritch for the amusement of paying tourists.


What are the short- and long-term plans?

The short-term plan is to watch our forums and blogs for the most outrageous, ridiculous comment you users can create. We will then email them around the office under subject heads like, "LOL! Those crazy pervs r mad again!!". Whoever finds the funniest comment doesn't have to pay for lunch all week.

In the long run, everybody's dead.




Is this something that Second Life users have asked for?

Absolutely. Many of our users are from the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, countries with robust and growing police states, featuring such regressive policies as close circuit cameras on every street, Internet block lists, extraordinary renditions, and secret prisons.

We want those users to feel at home.


How does this move prevent minors from entering Second Life or accessing content?

Actually, we expect most teenagers are smart enough to get around our blocks. It's the senior citizens and technophobic ministers and teachers who will be unable to figure out how to access Monster Island, let alone rez a shopping bag, thus saving us from further embarrassment when we go home and our parents ask us what we do all day.


Will this initiative affect Teen Second Life?

What is this "Teen Second Life?" you speak of?


Will this initiative prohibit certain kinds of content in Second Life?

The following content is now prohibited: pictures of giant penises on your estates that are visible from the map, non-age verified users drinking "alcoholic beverages", particle-driven narcotic attachments, and "Power Idling with M Linden" t-shirts.


Has Linden Lab consulted third parties as part of this initiative?

It is highly unlikely that any actual Second Life users would ask us this question and in such a stilted and clumsy manner; however it is quite likely the third party consultant with whom we are consulting on this initiative was compensated handsomely for contributing this question and its answer to our communications strategy document.


Second Life has always been an open environment; is Linden Lab deciding to abandon that principle?

We are not "abandoning" our principles. We are selling them to the highest bidder.


Is Linden Lab trying to deemphasize the community so it can focus more on the enterprise market?

Communities are for communists. We are a fast-paced, agile process, user-generated social media site that is seeking to monetize its userbase through synergistic embeddable marketing opportunities.


If I have already been age verified, or have a payment method on file, will this carry over for the new initiative?

If you have already been age verified, you will be able to access adult content zones…for now. Ultimately, our goal is to convert you into a paying customer, and if that means indirectly prostituting our many fine entertainers and escorts to get you to sign up for a monthly fee, so be it.


Will this bring any benefits for vendors in Second Life?

Yes. You will have fewer customers, leading to lower sales, eventually driving many of your competitors out of business. This will serve as a net benefit to you.



How will this program help attract new users?

We're thinking a few lurid and exploitative articles in Maxim, Playboy, and Cosmo about SL's new "adult-oriented entertainment district" ought to do the trick.


How will these changes affect XstreetSL?

XstreetSL already separates Adult content, so we expect no changes to that system at this time. And since it's fairly easy to get age verified on XstreetSL, we expect more purchases of adult items to go through XstreetSL.

We need a bigger piece of the pie, you see.




3/13/2009

Mad Labs

"Blood for the Blood God! Marrow for the Mighty M! Tremble before the spectacle of the Linden who is impossible to name, for to even contemplate his actual epithet with a consciousness and body confined to a mere three dimensions is not possible for meager mortals such as yourselves: to even attempt it is forbidden, lest ye wake things best not disturbed."

- Linden Lab New Employee Orientation Packet

The most disturbing image from the recent vice presidential debate was somebody waving a sign that read, "Dick Cheney in a Dress" -- and this from a supporter of Sarah Palin, mind you. As if that was on any level humanly conceivable a good thing.

While you're meekly pondering the many layers of shivering terror that such a meme conveys, let me sneak in an apology for the lack of blog updates: Between these electoral shenanigans, a stock market collapse, and a new collar around my neck, I haven't had time.

So to keep you entertained, I've reached out to some previous contributors for some fresh articles. First to answer the call was long-time Tiny Dancing contributor, M Linden. Four moons ago, M Linden was a mild-mannered peddler of Internet fruits and vegetables on the aptly-named Organic.com. Then he wrested control of Linden Lab and its wayward band of hippies, neckbeards, and *nix aficionados from a callipygous boy-toy named Phillip Linden.

In this thoughtful retrospective, he reminisces about his first eventful months as the CEO of Linden Lab.

His article has been sitting in my inbox for a while, for which I apologize, and it's possible you may have already seen a later version he posted on the official Second Life blog.

But I still think this early draft shares some surprising insights about the new direction. Enjoy!

~ Kanomi


State of the Lab
by M Linden

My how time flies when you are having fun. In my first four months as your Chief Enablement Officer, our shared social interactive space has been evolving into the new 2.0 ecosystem at netspeed.

During that time, we at the Lab have been busy spearheading new initiatives and breadcrumbing task forces to facilitate positive uptick in your enjoyment matrix.

Here's our progress report.


How are we doing?

We're really getting outside the box on some of our incremental, value add solutions. We just finished up a very proactive third quarter. Yesterday, we hit a peak concurrency of 71,232 ponygirls -- that's an increase of 6% in less than a month. Year-over-year, peak ponygirls concurrency has grown more than 38%.

An even more impressive figure is the number of Gorean Masters who actually logged in and engaged in community-based interactions with their slaves on a peer-to-peer basis this month. Did I say slaves? I'm sorry, I meant differentially-liberated life partner (DLLP).

The big win on this customer flow is that more than 5,942 unique Gorean Masters and their DLLPs logged in and communally leveraged their Excite attachments at some point during the week. That's a big win-win on the consumer satisfaction matrix.

Now you may be querying your knowledge base as to why we're data mining a statistic as granular as that, but it's a product requirement for our segmentation 2.0 campaign. Some major sponsorship partners are already drilling down to core gamer demographic, and we believe the next generation of that wave is to further slice and dice that metric into even more narrowband demos like catgirls and scalies.

Because when I was summoned here, it was to execute this vision. I have that vision. When a PepsiCola says, "We're scaling up a new energy vitalization drink narrow-beamed at online bondage gimps. Where can we bandwidth Power Piss at our key demo?" it's going to be Linden Lab that stands up and says, "Salutations sponsorship prospect! Check out these sims!"


Office Hours

I was power-idling from 1:30 SLT to 1:45 SLT yesterday, October 2nd, inside that big Greek temple conference room, touching base with all of you userbase partners on a micro level. My client timed out, but I had my chat log on, and my executive assistant bullet pointed your grievances on a macro level. I see some black eyes on connectivity still. We're working together for some same page wins on that one.

Remember, you don't need to proactively make an appointment for Office Hours, just touch down for the meet and greet and we'll workshop and do some concepting. You can find my office by engaging my Inventory button, then interacting with my Landmarks folder. If you miss it next time I'll send out a PowerPoint.


Electronic Arts' Spore

I wanted to get our ducks in a row on this one as a competitor threat because I was getting good twitter from some peer group competitors on LinkedIn. So I mandated a threat assessment report from our boots on the ground team of customer satisfaction enablers. Then I interfaced with the e-tainment game client itself. It was sporing. Ha ha!

Take a memo, EA! You may have engaged more potential eyeballs than us right now but they aren't clustering on your site. Our users are 95% stickier than yours -- and if you don't believe me, just check out our Bukkake sims around 2 AM, Berlin time.


What's Next?

With more core competencies and a new client satisfaction matrix, we're going to ramp up our monetization processes.

And if that doesn't uptick some positive outcomes, I'll ask Hank Paulson for a bailout. After all, we have a lot of failed banks in Second Life too.


>:|

New Advertising Slogans for SL

We have received a leaked memo from an insider in Linden Lab, informing us that new CEO M Linden plans to replace the current slogan Your World, Your Imagination with something snappier.

According to our source, here are the leading contenders...

• Try it again, we fixed it
• Come Camp With Us
• Listen to your Inner Perv
• The un-Warcraft
• Some of Our Best Women Are Men
• Let your PC do the walking
• Random ugly shit
• Log in, turn on, lag out
• Existence is suffering
• Please don't squeeze the Excite-scripted bottoms
• When you absolutely, positively have to grief
• Strong enough for a man, but gentle enough for a fur
• Can you hear me now? No.
• We're like eBay + Match.com for the Sims!
• 50,000 Catgirls Can't Be Wrong
• Imaginary clothes for real people

and the winner...

• Hey guys! Now you can fake an orgasm too!

Power Idling With M Linden

Commemorate the inauspicious arrival of the next CEO of the metaverse with your very own "Power Idling With M Linden" T-shirt.

Crafted by the award-winning designers of the Tiny Dancing Brand Center, this unique polycotton blend combines the quick-rezzing features of polyester with the sensual feel of virtual cotton.

Celebrate Second Life's diversity by choosing from our broad range of one color and one unisex size.

Perfect for groups who need an inexpensive option for conformity, or to wear for your next session to Linden office hours.

No child labor, bots, or campers were involved in the creation of this product, and to reduce our environmental impact on the metaverse, we will donate one blog post to the promotion of this product.


EDIT: If you do not have an SL Exchange account, you may acquire this t-shirt in-world at the not yet open for business Tiny Branding Dancing Center.

:)

Rolling Restarts

It's important to read blog.secondlife.com every day! Sometimes you'll see a blog post they put up accidentally before it comes down and they fix it! Like this one, sent in by eagle-eyed TINY DANCING reader Darkchylde Daggerheart!

-Kanomi

Rolling Restart for Part of the Grid, Some Time, Maybe, I Dunno


Hello small children.

LinusX Linden here. I have a Technical Announcement for you. Don't be scared! For you LSL "programmers" out there (LOL!) that means we is having rolling restarts on our servers. For you retarded art school dropouts, let me explain it in terms you might be able to grasp: UR WINDOZE PC MAYBE NO WORK NOW.

Or try and "picture" it this way, if you can put down the finger-paintings and sex clothes long enough to listen to a programmer and Libertarian: When your car stalls out, you get out and push with the brake off to start it again.

Of course, I just call Triple A because I am a highly-paid Network Management Administrator, and my hydro-electric Hydrogen Hybrid Diesel Ethanol SmartCar has zero mechanical difficulties thanks to its precision German engineering augmented by my unconventional "modifications" to its CPU and catalytic converter! LOL!

But all of you little people in your Toyota Camrys and Ford Explorers should be able relate to my above description as you sit in traffic, being programmed by the Mass Media to buy Kentucky Fried Dead Things and not to vote for Linus Torvalds, assuming your brains have not totally been atrophied by cell phones, television, and re-runs of "Friends."

For those whose brains have been entirely atrophied, here is a text message you may understand: SL DOWN. IS NO MORE RKELLY POZE BALLS 4 U. OH NOES!

Now comes the technical explanation. Those of you who wear "shoes" and have "jobs" and use "Windows" instead of rolling your own *nix kernel may safely skip the next part because you will never understand it before the heat death of the Universe:

This alleged proposed conditional rolling restart maybe won't possibly include a new server deploy, because we are reconfiguring the rollout reconfiguration from the asset servers, or to be more specific, we are retabulating the grid asset server data base pocket zeppelin stimulus package paycheck gangster computer god.

This will affect your server unless your green-eyed left-handed redheaded avatar is a 1.45 sims taller before and or if you check less than 3.003.33 (check under Properties > Avatars > Renders > Lookups > Tables > Displays > Weird Fucking Numbers rolling on the screen) and then by checking the server return address to see if it is a class 4 paladin region or a class 5 horde region because we use that outlet for the WOW connection.

So roll a programmatic million-sided dice and if it ends up over 233000 in Dog Years / Milliseconds times the speed of a hypothetical UFO outgassing anal fluid in tight orbit around the sun, then your avatar will be ruthed. So hearken.

"And a Childe shall be brought unto the circle, and, having its throat Stricken and its Tail sundered, it shall be offered to the dark gods with the words that ye Priest shall pronounce solemnly as he hurls salt over the shoulder of the left, and the shoulder of the right, and the testicle of the left, and the testicle of the right, and he shall recite:"

IA IA! RLYEH
WGET HTTP://KERNEL.ORG/PUB/LIN/KUTULU/KUTULU-2.6.9.TAR.BZ3
IA IA! KUTULU
TAR XVJF KUTULU-2.6.9.TAR.BZ3
SERVICE -F KUTULU

Thank you for your patience,

-LinusX Linden


:o

SL Fashion Police Deputized

As part of a new community outreach program, Linden Lab has granted special administrative powers to members of the Second Life Fashion Police, in effect 'deputizing' the staff of the popular fashion crimes blog.

"We have been looking to get more residents involved in the day-to-day running of Second Life," commented Katgirl Linden, Linden Lab's Assistant Manager of Blogposts. "After our successful 'mole' program in which creative builders were employed to build roads all around the grid, we were looking for another group of residents to get more involved in the community. The 'Police' were a natural fit."

Under the new ordinance, members of the SL Fashion Police will be authorized to warn, cite, and fine residents who are in violation of good taste on the public grid. In extreme cases, such as nudity in a PG area, bling at weddings, or an impossibly gigantic ass, the offenders may even be caged, ejected or banned.

"We're really excited to be working with the Lindens on this project," said Sgt. Natalya Agincourt of the SL Fashion Police. "We know they're getting more Abuse Reports about inappropriate fashion than they can handle, so we're happy to help out."

Members of the SL Fashion Police will be issued special, extremely tasteful uniforms, created by a cadre of top fashion designers.



:o

SL Grid Status Reports

Recently Linden Lab has moved the Second Life Grid Status Reports into its own area away from the main SL blog.

While most of these reports are technical in nature, rest assured that Tiny Dancing will monitor these issues daily and bring the most interesting and relevant to your attention without hesitation or delay.



[RESOLVED] Partnership not working correctly

We’re currently aware of a problem with the Partnership feature for avatars Philnew McBride and Bunnypet Hugsalot. It seems there is an issue where Philnew created an alt to date Bunnypet's best friend Creamycat Tizzy and Bunnypet found out and they muted each other and broke up. We are investigating and will post updates as needed. Thank you for your patience.

[UPDATE] These issues have been resolved. Philnew said he was sorry and he has promised never to do it again and Bunnypet has forgiven him. Thank you for your patience.



[RESOLVED] In-World Communication Issues

The 'Black Box Nightclub' group chat channel is currently experiencing an excessive load caused by the mention of a clothing sale at an unrelated merchant. While this is being looked into, please avoid activities such as speaking on the Black Box Nightclub group chat channel.

[UPDATE] It is not necessary to refer to the original chatter as a spammer.
[UPDATE] Calling the person who called the original chatter a spammer is also spamming.
[UPDATE] No it's not dumbass.
[UPDATE] Yes it is numbnutz.
[UPDATE] Will you all plz just stfu?
[UPDATE] GROUP NOTICE: These issues have been resolved. Anyone who ever chats on the Black Box Nightclub group chat channel ever again for any reason, even to beg someone please to call an ambulance because of a goddamned heart attack, that person will be kicked out of the group and added to the Black Box Nightclub Ban List forever.

Thank you, BBN Management Team.



[RESOLVED] Lecture Uninteresting

We are receiving multiple reports from residents that the in-world lecture "Deconstructing the Metaversal Metanomic Body Politic" is "turgid shite" and "grad skool copypasta." We advise residents not to try and teleport into the event at this time.

[UPDATE] The lecture has been removed from the Events Calendar. Thank you for your patience.



[RESOLVED] Transaction History embarrassing

We are currently investigating an issue in which Coolguy25 consumed large quantities of wine coolers last night and spent $5000L on dungeon equipment, which is way more than he can afford and besides his apartment can only hold 36 prims and the Swing-N-Spank by itself is 48 prims, and it's all kind of useless since his girlfriend doesn't log in anymore anyway and what the hell was he thinking, god his head hurts and shit, he really needs to piss.

[UPDATE] Resolved. The vendor has agreed to refund the Swing-N-Spank but not the other items, and Coolguy25 has upgraded to a premium account, a primmier apartment, and a cold shower.

:o

What's Your Take? - Campers & Bots

Linden Lab is getting rid of traffic rules that favor campers and bots in favor of a hand-picked, editorial showcase of locations. What's your take?

Coolguy25 Retired camper	Philnew McBride Unemployed CEO	Darkchylde Daggerheart Highway designer
They will never take away my memories of sitting in a chair ... and sitting in a chair ... and sitting in a chair ...	Damn, there goes my seed money for High School Musical inSL.	If Linden Lab wants to mature as a platform it must showcase the individual creative contributions of multinational corporations.

:]

What's Your Take? - SL's Dire Future

Mitch Wagner of Information Week recently called the financial future of Linden Lab "dire." What's your take?

Mitsubishi McGee Notecard Spammer	Ozma Sojourner Mermaid Fetishist	Davros Prototype Stripclub connoisseur
Why don't the Lindens quit fooling around and get themselves some jobs? Anshe Chung hires coders that are willing to work.	If Second Life goes bankrupt, I'll just go back to my first love, my husband.	There is only one answer to all of life's little problems: more catgirl.

:o

What's Your Take? - New CEO

Linden Labs has announced the hiring of its new CEO, an ad executive from organic.com who will go by the in-world name of "M Linden". What's your take?

Coolguy25 Bling enthusiast	Bunnypet Hugsalot Hair model	Darkchylde Daggerheart Primcock sculptor
I am cautiously optimistic. I ordered some asparagus from organic.com one time, and it arrived crisp and on time.	I have sent "M" a group invite to my Story of O themed bondage simulation.	So they hired somebody with no experience keeping complicated networks with tens of thousands of concurrent users up and running? Great, he'll fit right in.

:o

Après moi, le déluge

The slogosphere is on strike! The Lindens have conceded too little, too late! The avatars want no more of your virtual cake, monsieur! In the wild spirit of these times, we at Tiny Dancing will strive to fill the void of Second Life-related entertainment with this epic story chronicling Philip 'Philip Linden' Rosedale's adventures in France.



The man in first class had sandy blond hair, a salesman's smile, and the rugged yet boyish good looks of a GQ model, provided the GQ model was modeling something that appealed to paunchy guys past middle age: like a watch or something; a De Beers diamond for the second wife.

But this man was no wristwatch model, forever doomed to smile with interest and pleasure at a metal band coiled around his own forearm. This was Philip "Philip Linden" Rosedale: technological visionary, founder of Linden Labs, and sperm-father of the metaverse. As the jetliner touched down at Charles De Gaulle international airport in France, he was busy keying a new 'To Do' list into his Blackberry: "1) Visit louver 2) buy Kanomi flowers 3) get a big win-win sale like the IBM one!!!"

This was going to be a good trip. He could feel it. He was meeting with the president of the largest consortium of winemakers in France, and he brought with him that same sense of euphoria, like back in the go-go days of the Internet Nineties. This could be big, RealPlayer big. Just think of it: Virtual vineyards in Second Life. He could change the world. Again.

The plane landed. Customs was a formality, a chauffeur gathered his bags, and he was whisked off in a limousine to his appointment. Along the way he placed a quick call to his cohorts back in the States: "Hey guys, I'm down in Paris. Yes, let's have that meeting about the rogue bloggers like we planned. It will impress the client, okily dokily? Talk to you later."

His call complete, during the long, slow ride afterwards, he noticed how Paris traffic was deeply inefficient. Musing at first, he then began to furiously fulminate ideas, comparing the traffic on Paris streets to packet traffic on the net.

Ideas came a dozen a minute, and he furiously made notes into his Blackberry: "Parisians should use virtual taxis to attend virtual jobs. Using multi-agent learning algorithms to route virtual traffic. Download a new client each day, before journey. Talk to Mitch ASAP!!! Maybe call him? Impressive!!"


Shortly thereafter he arrived to meet his host, the president of the winemakers. Monsieur Claude du Vin was a prototypical Frenchman: portly, with a sweaty Gallic nose and the florid countenance the hue of a fine Merlot. The man's breath wafted through the luxurious office like a supermodel's vagina, freshly tasted.

Philip 'Philip Linden' Rosedale stepped forward and squeezed the man's offered hand with a firm, steady American grip, the kind of grip you can invade a country with: "Howdy-doody, my friend. Let me begin by talking to you a little bit about 'virtual worlds', what they mean for the winery industry, and why I am so excited to talk to you about virtual wineries today." Without further ado, he began to unpack his laptop.

Monsieur du Vin waved his arms emphatically. "I am familiar with the 'virtual worlds.' My son, he likes the Warcraft, no? Or the buggy, European equivalent. Now I would like to see this virtual world as a business idea. And please hurry, I only work four hours a day, for three days a week, as is our custom here. So if you please, get right to the part that gives me money."

Philip 'Philip Linden' Rosedale gave another gracious smile "Yes, yes of course," he said, smoothly shifting gears deeper into his well-practiced pitch: "Second Life is the perfect evolution of the traditional working environment. 'Space' as we know it no longer needs to constrain the ambition of the corporation. Economics has become 'Metanomics.' Dollars and Euros are just electronic entries on a computer screens.

"We at Linden Labs are boldly pioneering this global move towards virtual business spaces, not only by developing these cutting edge technologies in concert with our user community, but also by employing these tools ourselves in our corporate culture everyday." As he spoke, he powered up his laptop.

"We hold all of our company meetings within the world of Second Life, allowing colleagues who are traveling or working remotely from home to fully participate in our planning sessions. Company wide notices about our parties, holidays, and not parking in my parking space, are all handled by the in-game 'Groups' and 'Announcement' functions.

"Each worker has a real life cubicle and a virtual one, with the complete freedom to customize and decorate their virtual cubicle with as much freedom as the real one. Even our customer service teams work strictly inside the world, carefully answering each customer service email in world, using an 'instant messaging to email' interface and monitoring our Forums one post at a time, using HTML on a prim."

Monsieur Le Vin interrupted: "But monsieur, isn't that inefficient? Can't your workers just walk down the hall to talk to their colleagues?"

Philip 'Philip Linden' Rosedale shook his head. "No no, not at all," he said. "Our coders are busy coding. Our concierges are busy concierging. Our communications team is busy communicating. It is completely inefficient for them to get out of their desks and walk down the hall and into a conference room that has to be booked in advance and may not have enough chairs, and so on, when they can simply rez as many chairs and conference rooms as needed in the virtual world."

"Allow me to demonstrate," Philip 'Philip Linden' Rosedale said, as his laptop finished booting up. "I am about to attend a crucial staff meeting with our marketing and public relations team. This will be a real meeting with real people in a virtual space, and I think you will be impressed. Once I log in, you will see how easy and effortless it all is." With a flourish, he fired up the Second Life client, typed his username and password, and waited to log in.

After several minutes, his host asked: "Why does it not let you log you in, monsieur?"

Phili 'Philip Linden' Rosedale pounded his rugged wrists on the keyboard: "Because it's a fucking piece of shit!!!"



Le Fin