Reacting to Rosedale on LL press strategies and more

Thank you, Robert Bloomfield (aka Beyers Sellers) of Metanomics for creating an opportunity for me and my fellow bloggers Wagner James Au, Christian Renaud, Tish Shute, Ben Duranske, Nic Mitham and Dusan Writer to address key points made by Philip Rosedale, Linden Lab’s founder, former CEO and current Chairman of the Board, during your recent interview with him.

I’ve never met or spoken with Philip, but I look at photographs of his luminous face, radiant with an almost transcendent beatitude, and think about the immersive world he championed - and that I have such an insatiable appetite for - and I just want to thank him from the bottom of my pixilated heart. Moving forward though, I have a personal stake in Second Life®’s success, so I’m not going to pull any punches.

At Robert’s suggestion, I will speak to Philip’s responses regarding Linden Lab’s strategy for balancing the needs of all its communities and how it deals with the press, which you can read in context here.

Philip, I know that you were caught up in the conversation about security features and controls that folks from enterprise and education are asking of Linden Lab, and I realize that you had no way of knowing that your words would be scrutinized under the lens of public and community relations.

A little about myself: I’ve held senior positions in domestic and global marketing, public relations and community relations on both the agency side and in-house, representing companies and organizations in many different fields, including but not limited to high tech and entertainment. I’ve also managed accounts that became media darlings for whatever reason, to the extent that the coverage and the demand for information and interviews far exceeded our ability to manage it all, so I can well understand what it must have been like during that period between spring 2006 and summer of 2007. It’s a little like trying to stay dry when it’s raining sideways.

I’ve been vocal about my criticisms of some of Linden Lab’s marketing, media relations and community outreach tactics in the past and my feelings remain unchanged in some areas but are happily much improved in others.

* My biggest beef with Linden Lab is the way it lets loose some eye-brow-raising dictums to the community and then acts like it didn’t. Case in point:

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: But you do have some control over the perception. I know, for example, there were controversies over the Second Life fifth birthday celebration where certain groups were in, and then they were out, and then they were in, and they were out. It appeared at least to be Linden Lab attempting to manage then and reduce the perception of not safe for work behavior.
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Inevitably, this is such an exciting new space that there is a lot of media hype, so I think we do sometimes try to tone things down a little bit. I think we need to do more of that as time goes by, to just say, “Hey. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.” Reasonably speaking, here’s what the picture looks like. It’s not all one type of content. It’s not all business use. It’s not all marketing. It’s not all any one particular type of thing. It’s funny, mostly our PR strategy has simply been to help connect and embellish the stories that kind of come from the community anyway. I mean, for every stressed-out story about people’s love lives or infidelities or whatever in Second Life, there’s a story that’s equally good about people meeting in Second Life, or some people learning in Second Life, or whatever.

I am pretty unclear on what you just said here. Do you mean to say that Linden Lab needs to restrict participation from events like SLB5 more or that you need to tell the media that it’s a diverse community and to get over it?

Many Resident groups labored an entire year to make SLB5 the best that it could be only to be informed that their participation was not welcome, and then that it was, and then that it was but only in certain ways… Again, Second Life is as diverse as the Real World. How hard is it to make both PG and mature sims available for an event of this nature? Linden Lab’s management and communications in this regard were disappointing, polarizing, and unnecessarily hurtful. As Chairman of the Board, I would have liked to see you step up to the plate here and address this situation more fully. An apology would have been in order, too.

• We're different, diverse and we like it that way.

You say:

PHILIP ROSEDALE: I think that you’ve got to let people broadly create content in as open a way as possible. There’s a meeting in the middle. I think enterprises will recognize that the utility gains that they can get from taking advantage of virtual worlds are very high, and they’ll be willing to tolerate the fact that, yeah, if they wanted to kind of brand approve their neighborhood, the fact that they’re in a virtual world, and, yeah, there’s content they don’t like in a virtual world, they’re just going to have to live with that.

What are you doing to communicate this? Taking a pro-active stance would save you a lot of trouble, time and money.

* Since you are making a big push to attract corporate participation and monies, I think it would be beneficial to develop ways to better inform incoming companies and organizations that are just getting started in Second Life about best practices.

For example, you might show them the difference between an in-world facility that has ongoing avatar representation and events, and one that simply builds out a sim and then expects people to come running. Tateru Nino over at Massively just wrote a good blog post on the topic of unstaffed versus staffed virtual presences. Two excellent examples of companies that are succeeding in this regard are Warner Brothers’ Gossip Girl and Languagelab.com. In fact, why not build out a tutorial for companies and educational orgs to show them what works?

Must your website depict everything in such a bland state? Why not occasionally offer corporations some alternatives and ways to rethink their virtual environments, like images of Syncretia by Alpha Auer? Or meeting areas like Sugar Seville’s incredible auditorium seating at the Odyssey? Help prospective clients to see what the future of education, architecture and business looks like. Ravenelle Zugzwang just addressed one aspect of this in an excellent blog post about alternative seating.

* Regarding press management, Rob asked and you replied…

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: [T]he Wall Street Journal had that big article about the guy cheating on his wife in Second …. Is that something you guys are trying to manage so that it doesn’t stigmatize Second Life for the enterprise community?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Well, again, I mean I think the answer there is yes. Certainly, when I talked about security being a requirement for the enterprise community. And I think that content restriction and separation and insulation is a part of, is kind of a close cousin to that part of the problem. So I think that we’re doing the right things, thinking about how to better support the enterprise in looking at how to move Second Life more behind the firewall if we can, add security features, add controls for those users. That said, http, the web protocol, moves around a lot of different types of data, some of it certainly objectionable to enterprise users, and enterprises still use it. So I think that there is a future where, again, there’s a single standard; maybe the branding is a little different, but there’s still a single standard for how you use virtual worlds and how you interconnect them. I think that’s going to work out because, again, I remember the early days of the web. There was, of course, a real concern that corporations were being stigmatized by building websites because there were so many other websites that they thought were objectionable or adult content or whatever. So I guess I’m not kind of giving you a clear answer because I don’t think there is one.

People take up new technologies as a means to a way that will stimulate and nurture their own varied interests. You stand to benefit if you pro-actively demonstrate and pitch stories to the media to show them what’s cool in the way of user and 3rd party content and concept development. In this regard, your media relations strategy appears to be reactive in the extreme. There is no way you will be able to stifle all the empty sim and sex stories, and yet an ongoing proactive campaign about cool content and in-world initiatives will make the bad press much less visible and important. It isn’t hard to identify great content and stories if you just follow the blogs, and I know your staff does monitor them. Maybe your new PR person will be able to help with that.

* Please don’t limit yourselves to just pitching the business press! Diversify and share the cool and positive stories more!

Why isn’t this dress by Eshi Otawara being written up in W magazine or Vogue or Elle? It is certainly oozing in style and it is definitely newsworthy enough.



Or how about this hairstyle by Sinnocent Mirabeau?



Look at how AM Radio is using Second Life to restore Real Life photography… and while we are on the topic of AM, his wheat fields have raised enough money for a herd of Real Life cows to benefit third world communities.

I think many publications would be fascinated to learn that they have not one but two choices if they wish to visit and experience Escher’s Relativity House in-world.

In fact, why not aggressively look for ways to encourage crossover and show them how Second Life is beginning to have a genuine impact on the way people live their Real Lives? Other virtual worlds and digerati are often sailing past Second Life in this regard nowadays.

* What is Second Life? I was shocked to read the boilerplate (descriptor) in your press release dated September 3, 2008. So this is what Second Life is to you now? I wonder, fellow residents (corporate, educational or otherwise)… does this description mirror your experience in Second Life and express the advantages and opportunities you see in it?:

About The Second Life Grid and Linden Lab
Consisting of a series of sophisticated content creation, land management and transactional tools, the Second Life Grid is the technology platform used to power the Second Life virtual world. Provided by Linden Lab, the Second Life Grid platform enables businesses of all sizes to develop their own virtual world environments. Whether connected to the Second Life mainland or secured and blocked off from public access, custom virtual environments increase internal collaboration, enhance customer engagement and reduce overall business costs.

Linden Lab is the company that created The Second Life Grid platform and hosts the Second Life virtual world. Founded in 1999 and headquartered in San Francisco, Linden Lab was created by former CEO and current Chairman of the Board Philip Rosedale. The company is led by CEO Mark Kingdon, former CEO of Organic, Inc. and counts noted software pioneer Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corporation, among its board members.

* It’s clear that you already think of your Residents as stakeholders, and Torley does, indeed, amplify our awesome, but so much of the intense goodness in Second Life never sees the Real light of day because Residents don’t know how or when to promote themselves to Real Life media. Linden Lab might be the greatest beneficiary of all if it empowered Resident groups with the tools and basic know-how to do their own pitching. Your PR agency might conduct regular seminars with and for in-world groups to help them implement their own media outreach to the Real World rather than keeping all this positive news inside the garden walls.

* Hype is overrated and trust and credibility are paramount. How can the media – and the Residents! - trust you if you make this claim?

“Second Life® is …inhabited by millions of Residents from around the globe.”

Not only is this published in numerous places on your website, but your press office has been quoted as saying as much. Your Residents know the truth. Daniel Tierdeman over at CNET knows the truth. Tateru Nino at Massively has published the truth. Anyone who spends a little time in-world can easily see that the vast majority of the registered members never made it in-world (probably held back by technical difficulties as I was initially), and several millions more simply never came back. So why oh why do you persist with this fallacy? How or why should we ever believe another word from Linden Lab again?

* I don’t see enough messaging about the fact that it is a fantastic platform to unite and help educate people all over the globe in an economically sustainable and an environmentally friendly space with distance learning, cross-cultural programs, collaborative experimenting and communicating prototypes for nearly every field including agriculture, space and medicine research. Please stimulate research and showcase your own and third-party stories about the cost differences of having a brick and mortar storefront or school, or the savings in time and money (and to the environment!) when it comes to using Second Life as a meeting ground. This press release by IBM about its Virtual Green Data Center tells a timely and positive story.

* Not long ago and on Metanomics, I mentioned that I’d reached out to your press office on behalf of Burning Life 2007, seeking assistance with Real Life media outreach and in-world promotion. That help never came. I’m glad to see that this year you’ve promised to make an effort to secure Real Life media coverage for the juried artists. Still, one week is not enough time for all that other quality content (twenty two sims brimming with creative goodness! Thank you for that) to be celebrated and reported on. Let bloggers in early and encourage their writing this up to maximize exposure.


Philip, all my thanks to you for shepherding this brave new world into existence, and thanks, too, to the many incredibly talented people at Linden Lab. Together, you've dramatically changed my life and made it infinitely better and more interesting. I look forward to the coming years and to looking for ways to spread the word about its transformative powers.

Mr. Pixel goes to Washington

Update: You can view the testimonial here.

Our own Larry Pixel (aka Larry Johnson, PhD), CEO of the New Media Consortium (NMC), testified today, along with Philip Linden (aka Philip Rosedale) - soon to step down as CEO to become Chairman of the Board of Second Life's Linden Lab - before Congress and its Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. The topic: "Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium.” You can read what Larry had to say here.

It's a shame that Philip didn't publish his prepared remarks on the web, as well. For the record, I'd be happy to share my thoughts with the marketing and public relations team of Linden Lab. I think they need to pull up their socks, don't you?

ZOMG - Philip Rosedale (Philip Linden) is stepping down: Will creativity still rule the roost?

I've just learned from Tayzia Abattoir that Philip Rosedale - known to most of us in Second Life as Philip Linden - is stepping down as CEO to Linden Lab, the company he founded and has led since 2002.

According to Adam Reuters, who got the exclusive story, Linden Lab is actively recruiting for a new CEO. Philip will then become chairman of the Linden Lab board, replacing Mitch Kapor, who will remain on the board.

The biggest news here to Second Life users is that this will surely have an impact on the culture (or counter-culture) and the governance of our virtual world, especially when you consider that Philip abandoned the original concept for what Second Life should be - a combat game, or a simulated environment - after he attended the Real Life annual desert happening Burning Man - and determined that, like Burning Man, Second Life would be "a wonderland of creative projection" - (Quote lifted from "The Making of Second Life," by Wagner James Au).

The bottom line here... the virtual civilization that Philip Linden birthed and has nurtured to date, places creative people at the top of the hierarchy. Will this change, and if so, who (or what) will rise to the top of the food chain?

Does Second Life's hood ornament need a new avatar?

Tog Frog saw "a horrible photograph" of Philip Linden - aka Philip Rosedale and Linden Lab's CEO - in a Real Life German newspaper yesterday. To add insult to injury, Tog's RL friend commented, "This is your Second Life? Looks like a bad cartoon," and Tog took this to heart.

Together with Petronilla Paperdoll, Tog has founded a group called "NAFPL - New Avi for Philip L," expressly for the purpose of creating a new look for our Commander-in-Chief. "I think it's time to do it... and it should be fun. It doesn't look good for Second Life's #1 figurehead to be wearing such an old avi," said Tog who, by the way, is a very new Resident in Second Life. This little critter was created, it's typist tells me, specifically for the Philip mission.

Some time ago, AngryBeth Shortbread poked fun at Philip's avatar with her Bootleg Phil Machinima. Looking at this vid again, I had to agree with Tog, so I paid up the $25L to join.

We took the red pill

IN FEBRUARY 2007, Larry Johnson (aka SL's Larry Pixel), CEO of the New Media Consortium, gave a speech entitled "Down the Rabbit Hole: Or how the NMC took the red pill, got a Second Life, and found love on the 3D web."

Dang, that's a GOOD title. I had to borrow a piece of it cause the thought keeps ringing in my brain. For those of us who didn't abandon SL after those first few bumbling, bungling days, and went on to grok that this is the arena where the action will unfold in the coming years, it turns out that the red pill was pure manna.

Celebrating that which is Not Possible IRL takes it one step further.

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This notice was issued to NPIRL'ers on August 24, 2007:

3star Tyne's fab freebie "Glass House Mary" was a huge hit with the NPIRL ladies - The PERMS are MOD/TRANS, so guys can give it to their best girl. ^.^ Thanks 3star!

THIS just in...

NPIRL member Foolish Frost - master scripter and lead builder for Toxic Garden Rezzable - tp'ed us in last night for a zippy peek at the prototype for the Zero-G Spherical Ride. Can't reveal much, but suffice it to say that it involves riding a surfboard around and inside planet earth at a high rate of speed. Weeeeeee!

Foolish described his work as "building solutions." He said people ask him "is this possible?" and he finds out. Still no word on when the final reveal will take place.

ANGRYBETH SHORTBREAD

"I think, therefore I am frustrated." Thus begins NPIRL'er AngryBeth Shorthbread's profile, and our plunge into her scripted, multimedia world.

Here's the short list on AngryBeth:
* She's collaborative
* Her work is as much about the development journey as it is about the final piece. She doesn't mind letting you in on her work-in-progress.
* She is generous with her information. Grab her education tool freebies. Google her and you will find that she doesn't hesitate to explain the techniques she employed to accomplish each project.

AngryBeth collaborated with Brian Eno on his 77 Million Paintings 4-location show in SL, June 29 - July 1, 2007, which you can read about on her blog. 77 Million Paintings was produced by Cyrus Huffhines of blueair.tv, in cooperation with Alexander Rose, who oversaw the project, while AngryBeth built the installations.

She is behind The Collective - an ongoing research project of the Design for Digital Media Degree at Leeds College of Art and Design into the pedagogical and vocational value of SL.

You will find a good collection of her work at her studio, The Pencil Factory. Tp to The Port and look behind you for another teleporter to the Pencil Factory, and then:
* Get your DNA scanned
* Talk to a well that talks back
* Mix your own tune with the Synthagoround, an in-world remixable tool consisting in synced patterns she created with Garageband. You can see/hear her own composition here.
* Send an email to the invaders and watch em grow!

Then, take the teleporters behind you to the next two floors:
* Super-Collider
* Don't miss the Synthy - Cube on the roof. Way cool!

There's her sparkling work with in-world vids:
* A Whale of a Tale, winner in the Best Story category of the 2006 Alt-Zoom Machinima competition:
* AngryBeth's "Scary Hole" film noir Machinima from June 2006.
* Finally, her "Bootleg Phil - masquerading as god" piece is a hoot. For it, AngryBeth reproduced Philip Linden's avatar and had a bit of fun with it - along with a mask of Philip Rosedale. Consequently, the practice of being Philip Linden has become a tradition of sorts at The Port.

Take home a memento from your field trip and pick up your own copy of the Phil Linden avatar near the main teleporter at The Port.:P

URGE TO SPLURGE MALLS

Malls in SL can be wacky and most assuredly NPIRL:

There's the mall inside a humongous refrigerator (there's some fun hospital equipment for sale inside o.O)
The Refrigerator

Check out the Chinese mall that is completely surrounded by a giant dragon snail.
Chinese Mall

This mall's art statement, discovered by 3star Tyne, features a rather soggy view of life in 2030.
Happy Dispatch

WELCOME to our newest members - in order of appearance:
Catherine Omega
Ian Pahute
Keystone Bouchard
Foolish Frost
LittleToe Bartlett
Botany Black
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