I want to rework the old adage –

“Fast, Good, Cheap: Pick Two”

for this context as something like:

“Imagination, Corporate Profit, Freedom: Pick Two”

But yeah – same old same old. Dependence on the Lindens is, well, co-dependence I suppose, an abusive relationship? Something like that. Run your own show, think of them as a utility and take it from there.

LL is going to do some half assed clarification on copyright violation (gor) and earlier rulings (keeping SL safe together) banning violence in some half assed manner, and the community will be furious, and then… that is it. No one leaves, no one changes a thing, LL will continue to think of the community as something creating numbers to present to the corporate industry (300 gazillion user generated content objects created!)

So is it strategy or stupidity – and who is using who? Afterall, controversy is attention for both the blogs and SL.

It’s not just competing with other virtual worlds that matters, it’s competing for attention. For content creators, it’s competing with the myriad 3D development tools that are now nearly free, and easy to use. It’s competition for the talent and desire and will of the people who create this “World of Imagination” because without those talents, no matter how misaligned their prims, you don’t have much of a world. For immersionists, role-players, students, teachers, and business it’s competing for attention against games, and Facebook, Twitter, Moodle, Jazz and Google.

I don’t see masses running off to set up a homestead on OpenSim – sure, some will, but until it’s all one big integrated mess (I shudder to even mention open source, it will be even more chaotic than what we have now, as evidenced by all the mini grids popping up). Why would I go through this all over again? Learning to build, script, texture, animate with some new tool set that will give me pretty much what disappointed me the first time around?

I’m more likely to go to Spore when it comes out and let IT suck up 100s of hours of my life. Or I’m more likely to do what Gif at ESC says and surf the Web and stumble across a lot of little mini worlds, corporate things, casual games – enter Metaplace, another source of competition for my time and what little talent I can offer.

So sure, there’s no major Second Life alternative right now if you mean a 3D make-it-yourself Grid, but there are more and more 3D apps, ways to make things, ways to contribute if you have a bit of talent, and emerging communities to support you, and maybe even turn a profit doing it.

And there are more and more things competing for my attention if I just wanna game.

So you’re right, Daman, the competition is nibbling at their heels and their response? Prok can call it defense against “repulsive” communities, but I call it biting the hand that feeds you.

It’s more that the competition is doing a great job of that.

I wouldn’t be in SL anymore if there was a solid alternative. What is there currently? There.com? Utter crap. OpenGrid? I want to try it, but it doesn’t work properly yet for me. Too experimental still. World of Warcraft? I’m not interested in hacking and slashing through monsters 18 hours a day just to get to level 70 and be accepted into the community.

LL isn’t keeping this from happening, and I’m glad to see that the child-AV folks will be having birthday celebrations of their own. But it does bother me that LL will be using their resources, including my membership and tier fees, to do an Official birthday celebration that’s selective, and that excludes certain groups (and especially because it excludes them from unstated reasons).

This is entirely within LL’s legal rights, of course; they’re a private business. But all sorts of things that are within someone’s legal rights are a bad idea, a sad thing, a mistake, a dumb thing; and I’m quite sure that having an Official birthday celebration that excludes the child-AV folks (and anyone else of similar good intent) is one of those dumb mistakes…

Tx for the well-thought-out posting, and the well-chose examples.