Linden Lab today announced the appointment of Howard Look as Senior Vice President of Customer Applications and in so doing, Mark Kingdon is upping the ante further with his promise to focus on the “consumer experience” noting as he did recently that “80% of our investment and focus is on our core platform and our core consumer user. We are building enterprise and we are improving the consumer experience.”
Now, I have no idea what Howard was really doing over at Pixar, or Tivo…the Lab says he held ‘executive positions’ but then again I’ve watched movies, and at the end there’s the executive producer, and the senior executive producer, and the executive producer’s executrix and a bunch of people with the same last name as the producers, and for all I know Spot is someone’s dog but he was given a producer’s credit – the only one I really care about behind the camera is the director, everything else is done in post-production anyways where some poor sap fixes all the mistakes made by having too many producers around.
Judging by the general yawns and stifled grimaces elsewhere, folks who are currently USING Second Life don’t really care: they feel burned, many of them, they feel unloved, they want a little of that old magic back and maybe it hasn’t been as easy to find lately.
And balancing development – balancing enterprise use, and consumer investments, and the first hour, and worrying about Rivers Run Red and their folks off behind the firewall, and meanwhile the poor Teen Grid never gets ANYONE’S attention – well, let’s face it, sometimes it feels like the current residents are lost in the shuffle.
But I have to admit to feeling a kind of positive, though maybe distant, drum beat in the face of the relentless wave of new appointments with names like Pixar and Macromedia and AOL floating around on all the new CVs being spit out from the Lab.
The question is: can they deliver? And what are they PROMISING to deliver? Because we’re no longer in “under promise over deliver” territory here, we’re in “magic land”. M Linden is promising JOY after all: “One of our key goals is to make Second Life more accessible to more people by making it easier to use, more intuitive, more joyful.”
Joy is a tall order. And if the new members of the team can leverage the work of those who came before (I mean, let’s not forget all the other Little Lindens who Have Full Names Instead of Initials) then wonderful – because I’m more concerned in the long-term if they can bring back a little of the magic, enough to reaffirm the faith of the folks who live there already, but what would be even better is if we could see a new wave of immigration, of new residents who come because Second Life has been given a Second Look.
And that, I suppose, is where I’m holding out just a little more faith. Because in M Linden’s blog post today, he also made passing reference to the work on the new viewer, and there was something hidden in there which could be deeply significant when he said:
“We’ve landed on a new look and feel for the viewer that I am very excited about. Now we begin the hard work of redesigning the menu structures and tool layouts and modularizing the code base so that it can accommodate the design changes we are making.”
And the part that’s significant is the possible implication of modularizing the code base. Because what that COULD mean is a potential architecture for the Second Life viewer that will allow easier integration of plug & play features and tools (very similar to Rheta’s winning UI entry, above). Currently, the SL viewer runs off of code that’s a big amorphous mess. By modularizing the code, this opens the potential for a base viewer to which modules can be added and removed: imagine something like an advanced HUD, built into the viewer, with one for say scripting particles, or one for advanced building or prim animation. A modular code structure would make this far easier to achieve (although of course I’ll leave it to the coder types to shoot me down) and could open a new front of innovation in addition to a more intuitive interface.
I’ll head off to the forums and see if folks will clarify, but hidden in that little gem amongst all the others is a potential future where the tool sets that content creators and residents have access to are more flexible, expandable, customizable – and that’s an idea that should see light.
Oh – and of course, the photo and blog title is a riff off of the famous Pixar light bulb film which launched them as a force in the industry. Any other interpretation of what I meant was probably your own. 
If Howard had anything to do with the absolutely wonderful TiVo interface, than I’m happy with him.
The Lindens are long overdue for delivering something — anything. When was the last time they made a significant announcement that wasn’t about playing musical chairs in the executive cafeteria?
Honestly, as resident I don’t care who is new sitting there. It’s nice they introduced the new stuff member on the blog, but that’s it. But this is the same as M’s speech. It’s not even a promise to the residents, it’s an advertisement for people who might bring money.
When any of you or me or any other resident needed a promise for joy in SL? We’ll make and find joy, but don’t take our land away and make servers run smoothly.
I am generally very suspicious whenever I hear the word ‘joy’ in an official context.
It’s marked on my bullsh*t bingo card, pardon the term.
in another topic, you can follow this link to that EU repport about virtualworld and economy
http://www.enisa.europa.eu/pages/02_01_press_2008_11_20_online_gaming.html
Anyone remember the last time we tried to log on and got the “We’re Busy Fixing Stuff” image?
I’m as self centered and demanding of instant gratification as any other resident, I suppose. But every once in a while I get a bit of joy from pondering the complexity of the enterprise and the fact that one more day has dawned and SL hasn’t crashed into a pile of smoldering rubble.
I’m with dandellion here, more PR from the Lab instead of some hard facts and words we could count on. A couple of days ago I told you in chat that I’m watching the blog for new staff additions – waiting mostly for the introduction of “DamageControl Linden”. I don’t think this one here is it.
What is needed are some goodies for the residents, goodies that come into effect quickly, better immediatly – not again promisses for a bright future sometimes in the middle of next year. Some more advantages for premium users. Upping prims to lets say 20,000 per region. LL has to GIVE something instead of just taking and taking more again and again. And not something mystic, not some background gimmick or shiny display, but something that each and everyone can really feel and count and take advantage from himself. And as I said, it has to happen quickly. The UK was able to drop the VAT by 2.5 percent within 2 weeks, to fight the effects of the economic crises right NOW when they happen, not sometimes next year when even more damage is done. LL should be able to give something right NOW, too, to show the residents that they really are as appreciated as all the hot air comming from M’s mouth claims.
I think you over simplify not only Howard Look’s credentials, but make a broad sweeping judgement of how movies are made (not to mention the added complexity of computer-animated movies.)
I dare say there was never a single camera necessarily used in the conventional sense on WALL-E, or Ratatouille, so then who is the director?
Look has a long running experience in managing and working on cutting edge design teams, and even if you don’t want to give credit to the Linden’s in this fabulous free agent pick-up, believe me, you should.
Nicolo Luminos
I think you’re reading too much into the quote about modularization. I’m pretty sure it refers only to the UI widgets. The UI is in the process of being converted to XML definitions. The functions that those widgets can perform is still hardcoded. So you’ll be able to rearrange the deck chairs, but you won’t be able to make the freighter look like a clipper ship. And working with the XML code is probably as hard as working with the C++ code. Have a look at it in the skins/*/xui/*/ directory. It surely makes internationalization easier, but building the panel you show above would still require an expert.
He recently left Pixar? (you must ask yourself why anyone would leave Pixar to go to Linden Research)
He was part of the Tivo team? (if that UI is indicative of what this guy has in mind – pffft!)
A SGI guy from way way back.
SGI = Failure!
M Linden and his “cheers” is just more of the same BS we’ve come to expect from these clowns. M – want some advice? Fix your organisation, sort out your Goverance Team and whilst your at it – pull your head out of your ass with regard to this commercialism speak you put out on the 2nd Life blog!
Well, now they’ve found the Look, they just need to find the Feel!
Obvious pun, but someone had to make it
Joy to the world. Nice screw job on the OpenSim. Great good ole boy network being created.
Switch to OPenSim, and really be on the cutting edge for less the cost…like free..free is good.
I meant nice screw job on the Open Space islands. Not OpenSim. OpenSim is free, and how does 45,000 prims sound and still great performance.
remember when the blog was used to communicate to the residents? when it had updates and new features and apologies and relevance to the residents? now, it’s introducing, X Linden or “Manager Soandso” head of Nothing Particularly Exciting Phase II…
Well I am willing to stick it out for one more year / see what happens in Linden Land / however I have all ready established an account on OSGrid / i guess i will float back and forth between the 2 and possibly 4 different virtual worlds over the course of the next 12 months / and make a decision then
JayR Cela :_)
I’m a little disapointed with them touting that 76,000 number. Half of that number consists of bots. When are they going to fix the bot problem?
http://greendots.typepad.com/green_dots/2008/11/index.html