Philip Rosedale and Mark Kingdon discussed their visions for Second Life at the Community Convention in San Francisco, and while two sides of the same coin perhaps, they looked forward across vastly different time horizons and with, perhaps, diametrically opposed messages. On the one hand, Philip talked about how the rate of change will mean that Second Life (SL) has barely begun, the change will be significant, the change will be upsetting to people already using the platform; and on the other, Mark Kingdon (M Linden) talked about how there’s a linear, thoughtful, and solid plan for sustainable and reasoned growth and we should all take assurance from how well ordered everything is.
Now, I love Philip, and I love the fact that he wanted to borrow a slide that we helped put together for Robert Bloomfield’s talk, but little did I know that the slide he borrowed would be his entire presentation. Because I probably could have told him that he ran the risk of being wildly misinterpreted, like the time he called Second Life a terrarium or the other time when he said that SL is great because there’s no eye contact. So I have no one but myself to blame for passing along the above image, which he titled “revolution or evolution”, and which can now be wildly misinterpreted to mean:
- That reality is slowly returning the wilderness, and our cities will eventually look like the above, with us, I suppose, living in the basement plugged in via headsets to virtual reality.
- Or, that Second Life will eventually look like this
- Or, that change happens, get used to it, and the change may be slow or it may be quick and painful, just like in Detroit?
I think he probably meant a little of all of the above. Philip talked about the fork in the road ahead: there’s reality (which may or may not look like Detroit) and there’s virtuality, which is sure going to look a lot better than the above, and which probably won’t look anything like we imagine it.
He was tossing numbers around like a billion users in virtual worlds (and, one presumes, a big chunk of those in Second Life), and he kept referencing Ray Kurzweil (which is a bit frightening, I find his vision of technology to be insufficiently cautious about the negative implications and scenarios) related to exponential rates of change, how one technology doesn’t just progress linearly from the previous but sort of jumps off of it and springboards to – well, to something else, including eventually our ability to manipulate all of the atoms of reality.
In any case, Philip left us with a few main thoughts: one, you haven’t seen anything yet; and two, there will be changes made to Second Life that don’t please the current users, or that don’t please the current hard core users anyways, the ones who would spend the money to hole up in San Francisco for nearly a week.
Now, when I think of the kinds of change that will upset people, I think of things like mesh imports say. Or linking virtual to actual identity. Or banning sex from the Grid (in follow-up questions Pip assured us that sex is here to stay, maybe just slightly partitioned off). But who knows, maybe Philip was talking about having a new viewer that you implant in your brain – although I figure for many hard core users they’d be the first to download it.
M’s World View
In contrast to Philip, M came across as a man with a plan (or the guardian of it anyways). And a key take-away listening to M is that Philip did what they always tell leaders to do: hire someone who is NOT like YOU.
Which isn’t to say that Philip isn’t good at being organized or communicating in ways that the majority of humanity actually understands, it’s just to say that Mark (M Linden) clearly excels at that, even though he did a pretty decent job displaying his wandery/dreamy side through a slide show which he nonetheless compared to watching an hour of family vacation slides.
But let’s give M credit – he needed to show his “Grid cred” and prove that he knows how to terraform. Don’t worry M – you pass. Well, you pass in ONE way, although I’m sure all the coders out there will never respect you unless you can grok code or whatever it is that coders do, but we’re in that one together – I can only admire coders from afar myself, and am happy for the Philip’s of the world.
But the big take-aways from M didn’t have anything to do with the crash stats, or the growth in users, or the satisfaction scores from those user surveys they do – it had to do with his articulation of a broader strategy past the “hey we need to make the first hour easier” stuff. And that broader strategy seems to be fairly deeply based in the idea of bringing Second Life to more people using the tools of social media, and embedding it there, and building stuff to make that happen.
He was slightly non-specific but asked us to ponder what it would be like if you could enter Second Life without actually logging in – maybe you don’t have an avatar, but somehow you learn about a music event say, and you watch that event from the Web, and then decide to log in.
It’s a lot like our experiences with Metanomics in some ways, and our experiences with a group of accountants (FASRI) in another: give people a taste of what it’s like to be in world by participating in events from the Web, and maybe they’ll log on.
But his strategy was a bit broader, and seemed to include some kind of Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn referral kind of idea, putting SL widgets and who knows what else out on the Web, and driving cross traffic and getting your friends to come in.
The big “IF” at the end of that however was “IF they don’t get massively frustrated in the first 10 minutes”.
Second Life needs to turn from a 5 HOUR orientation (get in, get around, find stuff, shop, meet people) to a 5 MINUTE orientation – by which they don’t just mean learning to walk, but instead mean getting yourself kitted out and embedded in a community.
We’ll see how that goes – tomorrow morning’s presentation by T Linden (Tom Hale) promises a reveal of the new viewer – or a screen shot at least, and I’ll be front row, because I’ve been placing a lot of faith in their ability to crack the puzzle of usability through the viewer.
There was more of course, and I live blogged a lot of it, but the combination of Philip’s multi-year billion person time horizon, and M’s practical ‘let’s get this moving and working and growing’ message was a pretty dynamic way to kick off the morning, and will set the tone of the next 12-16 months of ‘life on the Grid’ – a period that I think will see a tipping point (yeah, I know, I hate Gladwell, it’s true, but he didn’t invent the term) into a noticeable growth curve.
It only matters that people find a use for it – for work and/or for play – because it’s people, and not tech, that will make virtual worlds really happen. Everything else is one geek deluding another geek with silly dreams of dinting the universe.
I’m so tired of this delusion that tech will make it good, all we need is more and better tech and it’ll all be OK. People make it good, it’s always about people, it’s ONLY about people – and Linden Lab seem to know **** about people.
SL will find its mainstream audience and there’s one thing for sure – they’ll use it for something, or in some way, that none of us really predicted (altho’ we’ll pretend we did) and it’ll make much of what we currently say about it seem SO ridiculous…
I’m wondering if one of those changes that not everyone will like will be the introduction of some sort of mixed-age area, or a new policy on the Teen Grid. I would love to see them get more involved with the Teen Grid or begin a kind of integration, anything to stop the area from the state of decay it is in now. Honestly, I think the changes will have nothing to do with that, but will speculate about it.
If they can make SL more accessible, I think Philip’s vision of seeing it become as ubiquitous as an internet browser might be able to come true.
“Now, when I think of the kinds of change that will upset people, I think of things like mesh imports say.”
According to Lindens I interviewed for _The Second Life Grid: The Official Guide to Communication, Collaboration, and Community Engagement_, support for mesh imports is already in the works. Folks should be able to import their existing content, but at least initially the ability to edit it once it’s inworld will be limited, similar to sculpted prims.
I’ll be happy to get you a review copy of the book if you like, Dusan.
Kurzweil is more than “a bit frightening,” he’s a full-on fascistic horror, as he would like to remove humans and replace them with bots, and replace the physical world with illusions using nanobots in human bloodstreams and virtual-world immusion. He says this very literally and clearly in his videos, so to somehow not recognize that and condemn it seems part of the problem, not part of the solution.
There’s nothing “inevitable” about this, of course, unless these crazies use force. Which they’re quite prepared to do by using the nudges, the browbeating, the social media pressure, all the ways and means they have to exert force on people without coercion that still leads to the same thing.
In trying to parse what Philip is saying here, I’d have to figure he means some kind of use for business or use with RL names that will remove the SL names and remove the SL “world” that was a continguous virtual world of its own, with its own dynamics, in favour of a simulation of real life that both shapes real life and then is shaped by RL.
I should add that, sure, the prospect of mesh imports can be intimidating for those already used to building with prims. However, it will make SL much more attractive and useful to those who are familiar with traditional modeling and will help make SL more mainstream. Not to mention we’ll all benefit from it. Remember how the Grid looked before sculpts? It’s a different world now! I think this should be viewed like sculpted prims, only better. I figure we’ll see a lot of activity similar to the sculpted prim shops where Residents purchase sculpted parts to retexture for builds and resale (hills, shoes, stock shapes, etc.).
Kimberly:
No need for a review copy, I bought the book – and it rocks.
(Trying to get around to reviewing it for the site, time has been a little sparse is all).
Your comment in the book about mesh imports jumped out at me, and I had wanted to confirm where you got that information. I’m wondering however what you think the policy decision process might be at the Lab, and what the timing might be.
We’ll see at this morning’s keynote by T Linden whether he mentions this at all on the road map.
Thanks for your comments – mesh imports into second life are clearly planned, it’s a question of when the plan is implemented.
I am sure Kurzweil understands the possible negative implications and scenarios of exponential technology growth, but chooses to focus on the bright side instead. With so many politically correct nice and meaningless exhortations to caution that we hear these days, it is refreshing to hear a visionary like Ray.
Does anyone know how to watch Ray’s talk? Is it on Youtube or something?
Philip and Mark can be, of course, both right from two different angles.
I’m not sure why the introduction of mesh imports would be so very disruptive. Sure, it would change both the look of things in-world and of course the build tools would have to change somewhat just as sculpties have done. However, from the prospective of a casual builder/scripter such as myself, meshes would be just another thing to learn. I ain’t skeered. Bring it on.
Just to add to the discussion, and I’ll post more shortly, but the Lab today announced plans to launch mesh import in 2010 (footnoted to say, well, things can change) and showed a preview of the application.
Dusan, it’s great to learn about that announcement from LL, because I wouldn’t have been able to post a date or much solid info about what considerations are involved. My information about mesh import plans came from Joe Miller, along with other exciting info about upcoming features and plans. (By the end of the meeting with Joe I was literally cheering.) Tom Hale was another great source of info about upcoming LL plans.
I think SL and LL are really at a turning point this year. As I conducted interviews and worked with LL to connect with the right folks to get info and to confirm it for inclusion in the book, I became very aware of changes at the Lab. Some of my overall impressions were that the new folks coming into LL are the type to make sure the trains run on time, even the “newbies” among them are really excited about SL and enjoy being avatars themselves, everyone over there is working their butts off, those who think SL is cool now ain’t seen nothin’ yet, and that SL isn’t “threatened” by opensource grids or other competitors. I also approve of the increased caution about early announcements of things like launch dates and discussion of new features.
Thank you for buying my book, Dusan. I’m glad you like it! I thought a review copy had already been sent to you. Next book I will make certain of it.
Whatcha Eaton, mesh imports will be disruptive for me, at least, for a couple of reasons. One is that, as happened with the advent of sculpties, some existing content in-world will become obsolete. It’s worthwhile, though! As well, I like to build in-world – as an avatar pointing at prims and making things from them, along with the rest of my team, in a virtual workshop that I couldn’t recreate in real life. It’s not the same as sitting alone in my office looking at Maya (or Photoshop or Poser). That said, I don’t think meshes are going to doom regular prims anytime soon. It’s not as if we’re using sculpties for everything now, or as if they’re better than regular prims for everything.
@Kimberly: thank you for explaining that from your point of view. I understand better now.
Like many other new features which were labeled “disruptive” before their introduction, I guess mesh import will not be a big deal. Those who want to use it will use it, and the others will happily do without. Better a beautiful thing made with prims than a ugly thing made with meshes.
[...] (or Mark Kingdon as he’s know in the atomic world) re-emphasized a few points he brought up at the recent Second Life Community Convention but went further, according to a [...]
[...] my possibly delusional fantasy of how the Lab thinks about these things, I have this idea, based on what M said at SLCC and during his trip to Paris, the keynote by Tom Hale and his presentation at the [...]