Linden Lab’s product road map, presented this week at the Second Life Community Convention, amounts to nothing less than a bullet fired into the business plans of many Silicon Valley Web 2.0 companies and, if it succeeds, puts the Lab on the path to a possible liquidity event that could be the surprise success story of the decade.
That at least is one optimistic interpretation of how far Linden Lab has come in articulating a vision for the Second Life brand, and while there are hurdles and hungry competitors in the wings (can you say Google, or Cisco, or who knows, maybe even Amazon), no one said life in California was easy, except maybe when it is, like when you’re surfing with a Blackberry in one hand and a chai latte in the other.
Now, I’m a starry-eyed optimist about virtual worlds. And I’ve looked at almost all of them - Forterra and Icarus and so on for corporate stuff, and Blue Mars and Metaplace on the consumer side, and game platforms and Web-based ones, and while it’s easy to come away from what amounted to a Linden Lab product launch meeting (jammed in between a bunch of user workshops) with that glowy feel-good thing you get when you see shiny new things, I’m going to stick with a premise for a bit (and get into the more fine-grained critique tomorrow maybe):
Linden Lab set out to change how people interacted on-line. After a period of unwarranted hype, they got lost in the Twitter/Facebook/Ning/Web 2.0 wave. Having been written off, or at least consigned to the “cute but hardly Netscape” category on the radar screen, they’ve regrouped, they’ve beefed up their senior executive team, and they’re doing stuff which, if well-executed, could be a global game changer because, if they succeed, they will have created an alternate (yet integrated) version of the Internet.
Consider: the Lab’s new strategy for Second Life doesn’t simply use the tools of social media to increase platform penetration, it co-opts those tools entirely. First, they have launched a strategy that will begin to provide multiple access points to the Second Life experience for different user types. Second, they will launch a series of viral social media initiatives that generate network-effect growth by leveraging the current highly passionate user base. This can easily lead to a rapid global expansion of its user base. This network effect could quickly see Second Life exceed the user base of all the other MMOs/virtual worlds, and start to trend towards Twitter or Facebook-level user numbers.
OK - so…yeah, crazy, I drank the Kool-Aid, or too much Starbucks…whatever…and my premise here isn’t that they WILL pull it off, my premise instead is that if they do, Linden Lab will have done something that seems at first glance unthinkable: they will have created a viable (yet integrated) alternative to the Web itself.
But let’s run with this - at least for today. A kind of mental exercise (or fantasy) if you will. Because it’s interesting, at least, to ask whether what the Lab showed us could BE game-changing, and they were things that I think were partly obscured in the last few day’s reviews of Web sites and viewers and the shiny graphic stuff.
Second Life is NOT a World
Linden Lab’s main product, Second Life, is perceived as a walled garden, a game, a “heavy” application that will have a narrow audience amongst a few geek gamer types, a bunch of educators, and maybe some business types who want to save money on meetings, or do some interesting stuff with sales force training.
But the Lab’s new product road map and hints they dropped over the past few days suggest that the Second Life brand of next year will be significantly different from the brand we’ve come to know, love, (and hate).
The shift to “Second Life 2.0″ is based on a few things they need to get right first: the fundamental “must win/cost-of-entry” propositions:
- They MUST make the technology more stable. (Or at least as stable as Twitter?) And they’ve made great progress on this front but still have tons of work to do.
- They need to make the system scalable - and behind the scenes they are deploying a new architecture to push content into clusters and to decouple the interlinked systems which are bottle-necks to billion-user level scalability.
- They must improve the churn rate for new users.
But it’s this latter point where the Lab has turned things on their head. Because churn rate has usually been focused on the “first hour” and making Second Life easier to get into and easier to learn.
I picture a brainstorming session where Mark Kingdon pushes the team to come up with ways to help people learn faster, and the answers are things like the viewer (a new one’s coming), and a better registration portal (coming), and search (getting there). And then he asks the question: “OK, that’s all fine, we’ve gone from maybe 1 hour to 30 minutes - but what would it take to get it down to FIVE minutes.”
And that’s the key to understanding that the Lab now has a different view of what “getting in world” means. It’s a game changing shift in thinking: instead of worrying about the first hour IN WORLD, worry instead about being able to engage new users in the Second Life brand within MINUTES.
The Lab may well succeed in turning the tables on the new user experience because they have turned the tables on their own thinking: it’s not the first hour in Second Life that matters, it’s delivering value in whatever way you need to, on whatever platform makes sense, so that you can have a meaningful experience under the Second Life brand whether that’s from the Web, your iPhone, or, sure, in world.
While mum on the specific plans for some of this, consider that the Lab announced (or strongly hinted) that:
- You should be able to experience Second Life events FROM THE WEB
- You should be able to have meaningful interactions through your cell phone
- The number of voice minutes used in Second Life is roughly 1/3rd that of Skype and the second largest in the world. Voice is a winning application whether you’re in world or not.
This suggests that the Second Life brand will no longer be solely about a world, but rather represent a rich tool set of communication, social media and immersion applications that allow you to seamlessly shift from 2D to 3D experiences and back again, to tap into your social network through your phone, to have a voice chat in a 3D environment or from an “Avaline” mini-app.
The Game Changers
OK - so all that’s fine, but at the heart of it is still a 3D world, and it’s one that competes with games, say, or Blue Mars, or 3D-in-the-browser. And the world is looking a little creaky maybe.
So a few of the game changers include allowing mesh imports, which serves a few goals:
- It opens up Second Life to a new wave of content developers who are currently creating 3D content in external applications (Blender etc)
- It makes the world LOOK better
- It lets the Grid plug into standard game and 3D development pipelines, running side-by-side with in-world building.
Another game changer is rendering, with a shift over time to shadows and light and maybe even Cryengine (Tom showed rendered shadows and mentioned they would be available for PC only, which hints at Cryengine perhaps).
And finally, the ability to browse the Web from within Second Life itself or what has traditionally been called HTML-on-a-prim. Other platforms do the same, of course, such as Sun’s Wonderland or Croquet or other open source virtual environments.
But the ability to browse the Web while in world does something else: it closes a loop wherein content can be streamed in world, and interactions in world can be sent “out” in order to enact Web-based changes, which can push content in-world to 3D objects.
It’s not simply about browsing Google, it’s about creating the full value chain from Web-based services to in-world 3D content to Web site to in-world browsers.
The implications of that for things like e-commerce are fairly stunning.
Why Investors Would Be Bullish on Second Life
Look - venture capital is a weird animal. Business plans in Silicon Valley are often untethered from reality. In this case, the problem with Second Life might be that it HAS a reality…not some sort of vague back-of-the-napkin Twitter-type proposition.
And venture capital guys like big gutsy numbers. So with this in mind, here’s how I’d pitch Second Life and Linden Lab to the VC guys:
- We have (perhaps) the largest virtual goods markets in the world. We will retain this, grow it, and better monetize it.
- We have the highest level of user engagement - higher even than Facebook in terms of hours. Our goal is to be a global “engagement” leader - in terms of both users and hours interacting with the SL brand.
- We will grow to 100 million regular monthly users within 4 years. We’ve built the social media infrastructure to support this, because users will be able to “log in” to Second Life experiences from anywhere.
- We will redefine Web-based content, because we have one of the most prolific user-generated content communities in the world today. With the addition of embedded Web content we will redefine engagement with social media and with information.
- Upon or before a liquidity event, we will open source our servers. We are currently “clustering” servers so that with open source servers, anyone can host “mini Grids” and we will sustain our business through identity management, a full e-commerce/economy functionality, and virtual goods markets.
- Based on this, we will scale to a billion users within 5-7 years.
In order to achieve this, your venture money will be used to:
- Put a lock on virtual goods by buying out existing 3D content aggregators such as Renderosity or Content Paradise.
- Purchase or merge with compatible partners in Asia, either in the virtual world or the social media space.
- Massively expand our advertising and marketing efforts, using social media networks as the primary drivers for attracting significant numbers of new users.
- Buy out Vivox, a Vivox competitor, or otherwise get a voice infrastructure of our own so that we can effectively own a leading global position in voice-to-voice chat.
- Create cross-platform and other partnership opportunities with media or game companies in order to leverage the fact that people come to Second Life to “play”, thus building on the move to casual game experiences.
- Create cross-platform opportunities in movies, music and other broadcast entertainment, leveraging the ability to share experiences in the consumption of media using our 2D and 3D engagement space.
- Launch a “Second Life in a box” product through major retail outlets such as Best Buy.
- And finally, being a Lab, we will aggressively explore new interfaces including haptics, hands-free cameras, tablets, mobile devices and surface computing.
Now, the nice thing about this proposition is that you can have a relatively high burn rate on investment, because the platform is otherwise paying for itself. So let’s say - hmmm, $50 - $75M to make the above happen? With a ‘liquidity event’ probably in the several billion range if all goes according to plan.
Crazy? Maybe. And probably tomorrow I’ll post a whole different view of this (there’s a massive and unanswered question, which is: “What happens if you lose your current users because they don’t like where you’re headed” but, again, that’s for another day).
So…what do you think? If I had a few hundred shares in Linden Lab to sell - are you buying? Or you going to keep your funds in Lindens instead?
The idea of making Second Life events available from the web does have some copyright, broadcast right issues attached to it. Music Island has some performers who appear with the permission of their record companies because they are appearing live in a virtual room with an attendance of 50 or 60 people. If that were to be available to millions online, the story would be very different. Also there has been no move (that I’m aware of) for copyright organizations to move in on the many popular entertainers performing cover tunes or the DJ’s spinning CD’s in virtual clubs. You put that out there on the larger internet and who pays for the rights?
Great writeup! Please keep us updated? I’ll RSS to this post and look forward to additional news on the second life revamp!
wow, great article and perspective!
you want passionate second lifers, look no further than yours truly and social nut Subquark Hax (subquark.com)
he speaks, on his own dime, at conferences about the use of sl as an elearning tool. he aspires to be a mini Torley (Subquark was even asked to come speak to the Taiwan government on how to maximize sl!)
you hit the nail on the head with sl having MANY passionate people that
i am pretty wound up about it too (12 sims - 2600 twitter followers & 700 facebook friends - all sl-only related)
i hope you write more on this, it’s fascinating the possible direction and one that Linden lab could certainly pull off (imo) =)
Kate Miranda raises the specter that too many associated w/ Sl and LL have blithely, to be kind, ignored. The battles over the intellectual property rights are going to be staggering, as there continues to be rampant ignorance on the part of content creators (I’m thinking especially of music, which Kate so rightly points out) in SL and nothing is being done about it. Performance rights have not yet emerged as the battleground because venue owners haven’t been slapped by ASCAP for allowing performers to play covers w/out compensation to the interested parties …
Where’s my deck chair? I wanna be sitting down when we hit the iceberg.
(Mind you … I’m an alt and my “real” av is heavily involved in the production of live music in SL and is quite passionate in his support of it!)
I totally agree on the content protection, IP and other issues. There are tons of other questions and concerns - one panel at SLCC for example looked at the fact that the average wage in Second Life is in the pennies or something, hardly minimum wage in ANY country.
But yes - huge issue.
And youTube had the same issue. And Facebook. And…and….
In other words, they need to be dealt with much as other platforms deal with it, but that doesn’t put a dent in the “going mass market/billion dollar IPO theory” does it?
“Another game changer is rendering, with a shift over time to shadows and light and maybe even Cryengine (Tom showed rendered shadows and mentioned they would be available for PC only, which hints at Cryengine perhaps)”
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. Is LL just trying to become BlueMars Pt II, then? WTF. Going from cross-platform compatibility to Windows only for major new features is NOT progress. They could do this without cutting off the Mac and Linux communities, but yeah, it might take more work. Clearly they aren’t willing to do that.
Sorry, but I didn’t even see the rest of the article after that. Sons of bitches.
Radar - I’m with you on this one. But I’m nearly positive it’s what Tom said - I should watch the video again. I have no idea why they’d do that and it would create a nightmare scenario in my mind - part of the reason I called it a game changer for the flip sides of both something better to look at, and something that would be highly, um, agitating.
“which hints at Cryengine perhaps”
Nope, it just confirms LL still use Mac and Linux versions of OpenGL which don’t have the full set of shadow extensions. All fixable, if they can be bothered. You can’t just switch to Cryengine like you’re upgrading your graphics card - it’s not just a pretty renderer, it’s the physics engine, the avatars, the whole engine (the clue’s in the name).
[…] Writer’s Blog Post on the […]
Well, if this is true,I’ll be leaving SL sooner than I ever thought possible. If you are right, this heralds the complete absorption of SL by the corporate real world, rendering it just another business/communication tool, exciting the same sort of money hungry creeps who brought us the recent recession/depression. Everything that brought me into SL, and makes it so, awesome (most of the time), the fantasy, the creativity, the anonymity, the ability to be people (and other creatures) different from who we are in RL, and change identities as easily as changing clothes, this is all threatened now. Don’t some of you e-commerce/e-learning fetishists realize that getting away from the effing “Real” world, and keeping it out, was what attracted us to SL in the first place. Voice alone will destroy the often dream like quality of the best SL sims and experiences. Just Aerobreeze or the Gardens of Apollo once a horde of airhead chatterboxes on their cell phones are unleashed inworld. I shudder at the thought! The limited version of voice that is available now is bad enough. I have yet to meet an avatar who uses one whose vice matches their appearance, usually leading (for me) to much disillusion and discomfort. Also, people seem to be more careful what they say in the main in type chat (even if they aren’t always so careful with their spelling) than they are in voice. When voice becomes common, or even mandatory (and one will inevitably lead to the other), you’ll see the amount of drama and griefing explode, bank on it.
And if your scenario holds true, can the government be far behind? First the IRS maybe, and then what, virtual cops? And then, to add insult to injury, the few really welcome changes are only going to be available for Windows users? That’s enough to make consider moving to Blue Mars, except, oh yes, they’re Windows only, too!
If Linden Labs is going to thrust this domestication on us, the least they can do is give me something I can really use and want, like the ability to backup my avatar and all other content I purchased inworld to my hard drive, so I didn’t waste time and money for nothing once I’m forced to flee the suburban sprawl of the Brave New Second Life.
Hey Dusan, thanks for all the great articles, the news and commentary are always welcome. However, despite all the nice updates and features coming, none will affect the “churn” rate. Why? People don’t abandon Second Life because it’s too difficult, they go away because there’s nothing to do, and the Lab’s focus on the idiotic dream that business users want the added complication of a virtual world to do what can already be done with the web or more practical applications continues to be laughable. Even those who drank the Kool-Aid are bound to be an insignificant userbase with limited growth.
It’s funny you mention gamers. Gamers loathe Second Life. They laugh at the concept of “IRC Barbie” or if they’re willing to give it a try, are the fastest to leave. Secod Life could be all the things the Lab wants and the “platform” is today, but in terms of aceptance and mass use, the lack of necessary systems to implement modern gaming tropes will always kepp Second Life a niche application. Where much of the infrastructure for creating gaming worlds is there, the necessary 20% to “get there” in nowhere on the Linden roadmap. And that is sad, sad because the Lab appears to be embarrassed by the possibility of mass acceptance which must be why they focus on tiny markets and ignore the millions of people who already engage in 3D space. A million unique users play Halo 3 every day, while millions more socialize, watch movies and voice chat, or play other games on their Xbox 360. People would come for the games and stay for the rest if Second Life added just a few features to enable building experiences they advertised back when I joined (in 2006) but they seemingly have no interest or just hate the idea. Why convert millions of gamers to the other aspects of the system when they could target a few thousand souls dragged in for “work”?
Tom Hale pointed out that “Play” was the number one thing that potential new users clicked on off the (hideous) home page (the one with those um pods or whatever). This doesn’t mean that SL should shift to being a gaming platform, but rather a place where people can ‘play’ in all its manifestations. (BTW - did you hear Philip say that, um, Linden Lab is pro sex basically? lol)
Gamers are not a target market. Casual gamers ARE. Two different things.
I’m talking the 40 year old who has never played an MMO and for whom Halo would be too intense - but who loves playing Puzzle Pirates or something when the boss isn’t looking.
And I’m talking Vixxen - role playing, immersion.
And I’m talking virtual sailing clubs, and sky-diving and Zyngo. All the stuff that gives Second Life its sense of immersion and play.
Now, when you see what they did with the new Web site, and when you see what they did with the search/map feature - it was stunning. And I could really see how it will feel a lot more like exploring a world, finding things to do, and being able to get in world to have a good time and then share that with social networks which may OPTIONALLY include links to ‘real life’ networks.
In other words, I don’t think that these visions are irreconcilable - although I’ll side with you Clubside and say that games in the Halo/X-Box mold probably aren’t in the cards anytime soon - think MadPea instead - fun, 3D puzzles with some social stuff layered on; vampire RP sims; and maybe a few, um, game changers that don’t rely on first-person shooter mechanics but are more like, hmmm, Little Big Planet or something.
all nice and pretty.. but without the proper VALUE and Protection for the “CONTENT” brought INTO the platform by third parties pros - forget “blender”, hardly used at all, were talking Autodesks products for pro 3d, all this is just like the original vision of web3d from a decade plus ago.
they must resolve the open source viewer security issues and how they at this point dont balance, but destroy any inworld content monetization on real world economic standards.
*applauds Cube*
I have to say, I’ll be very very very curious when the new viewer comes out, because I’m convinced it will be highly NON-interoperable with other Grids. I mean - most of it is based on, as Tom said, making it a VOICE client with friends lists, instead of a friends list with voice tacked on.
(Yeah, I know, the emphasis on voice is getting a little irritating…and to SEE it, I didn’t make that leap, I just think Tom didn’t word it very well…it was just to say that voice is more intuitively integrated).
In any case - the new viewer will have ‘deep integration’ with the social media/Web site/friends list/group and voice features - so doesn’t that mean it will be mostly borked on other Grids? Is that why Snowglobe exists? To maintain an illusion of interoperability?
What I WONDER is whether this allows them to shift in the direction of a ‘more closed viewer’ with, perhaps some of the content protections you’re talking about.
Finally, I have to say that the new rules for XStreet and the clamp-down on brand infringement, and the content protection road map, seem to lean in the direction of much tighter controls - but not perhaps for the reasons we’d like, but instead to protect larger brands who might be able to come back with THEIR virtual goods.
As far as controls over bringing the goods in world - I can’t help wondering whether the acquisition idea doesn’t fit in there somewhere. But also - what can you do about it, really? Will the Lab vet mesh content? Or will they keep working on DMCA complaints and hope it sorts itself out at the user level?
Doesn’t matter from the macro level - they need a business plan that the VC guys and the IPO lawyers and Microsoft (or whoever will buy them out) can be happy with, and frankly transaction-level content ripping from existing 3D libraries will be less concern than a lack of policy or widespread abuse.
[…] Lab wants to expand the use of web-media in-world, and Dusan Writer analyzes the (probable) thinking behind this: This suggests that the Second Life brand will no longer be […]
A stable voice system would be fantastic for performers in-world who use it, the musicians and voice actors. The current setup is frustrating and prone to system freezes. And it gets wonky as soon as a lot of people link to it.
However, this move away from the mac worries me. Especially when many gaming worlds are moving to embrace it, and the users it brings. It may not be a massive legion but its enough to make money. And I don’t see them moving to cryengine, it would break almost everything in-world.
Unless…they already have deals with individuals and companies to insert ready made content in world with the new system. This would ensure these lucky individuals an almost clean slate opportunity. And most current residents would be hard pressed to catch up.
Clubside is right, gamers have a pathological hatred of Second Life. There is just no use trying to court them. Gaming in general is still viewed as a wasteland of misfits. But the gamers have the notion that they are a few steps above the average Second Life user. They are less loserish, I guess? Whatever that is worth.
Second Life already consumes a lot of bandwidth… As things like this progress, people on low datacaps (as low as 200MB!!) are going to get a nasty shock when they receive their broadband bill.
Explained in depth here: http://tinyurl.com/p4w2hj
here: http://tinyurl.com/rbmwcr and here: http://preview.tinyurl.com/qwyc5n
Linden policies and workspeeds are too unfavorable to seriously invest, I’d imagine.
Linden intervention in public affairs, Linden scaremongering etc instead of working hard to create a *platform* just puts me off when I think about it.
[…] Dusan Writer continues to ponder where Linden Lab may be going with Second Life. […]
tech Companies that “get” valuation from the distribution of OTHER non paid companies media content, never seem to be an issue in the valley.
Shell game economics with other peoples money, till someone has to pay. Viacom- Google, like AOL/ TW before is yet to be a done deal;)
What again must be “reinvented” is not the idea of a closed platform, but of closed file formats and open file formats, and how they interact. which is why web3d standards were always open standard file thinking, not open source tools like viewer thinking.
anyhow- the rule is simple , if RL business cant use the stuff, then no one pays for it to be developed. If the expectation is “consumers” will pay for it, then you need to eventually OWN the content you combine with the tools/platform service, cause consumers dont pay billions to make consuming essier/faster / better?..lol, all they pay for is the media they love or want or think they need.
I still think itll be impossible for one company to own the 3dweb with even the scale that AOL owned the “connected dial up email/web services” with “maybe” 15 milllion users in 1997.( they never had the reported 26 million)
Box the tech for business to mess around with. add scalabity to the so called “grid” and IP protection for realife law of business, so that economic vlaues can get beyond slave linden pay of pennies, and then theyd have a toy business, a vacation business, and an entertianemnt business that would dominate the digital nets…. or they should just sell out to APple or SONY already and let them market it.:)
nice post, thanks for digesting it down to something i can understand =)
as long as voice can still be toggled off to reduce CPU strain, i’ll be a happy camper. i have never done audio isl, i like the veil of sl and my first project was for a Deaf artist so i came to enjoy the silence that is part of what sl is to me today
it’s a break from the chatter and noise of rl for me (plus, i am always in several IMs and can’t imagine if they were all talking to me at once!) =)
oops, scratch that last comment, i had two browsers open and was commenting on the new sl viewer post you had up (derr!!!) =p