@Prok – couldn’t agree more. I’m tired of reading about SL in the Standard and the Guardian (which, sure, is UK and so on….and it’s great to have a few advocates at these kinds of outlets, but we really need to get out of the techy box).

As for advertising – yes, yes, yes. I wonder if they’re waiting for the new viewer? And why don’t they have SL kits in Best Buy yet?

Lewis’ idea of fun seems to be to organize a lot of articles on…religion in SL…to counteract what they see as too much hype about sex in SL.

I’m trying to think of any major story for which Lewis could take credit, and I’m not getting any.

LL has a huge liability in Google news readers, because the phrase “second life” is almost always about a second life taken in a car accident or a double amputee getting a second life with donated limbs. There’s a lot to overcome there and they often supply their own copy of an accident going somewhere to happen with their policies like the homesteads stuff and Zindra.

But you can’t supplant good working and knowledgeable press contacts with hype off prefabricated press releases.

LL needs to get out of San Francisco and California where the mass media isn’t, and away from the tech media, which is both cruel and sometimes overly adulatory. They have a lot of their positive coverage coming out of the New York Times, which is a miracle and one they can’t even take credit for. So they should work with a New York or Washington (or both) firm that puts them into the East Coast and international media with more thinky stories and art and culture stories. Education is a dead horse now and should just be left to be covered by the educational sims themselves in their local media.

And the thinky pieces I mean are just the predictable stories about how fabulous it is that they raised money for relay-for-life or Beth Noveck appeared in SL again (ugh) but more about the social and psychological and political dynamics of virtual worlds as prototypers, incubators, etc.

On the other hand, to be honest, I think the gap between their culture and the rest of the world (especially here in NYC) is so great that they can’t paper it over with PR.

The Lindens also need to make up their minds about why they aren’t advertising in magazines, gaming blogs, TV, etc. Is this a concurrency problem or what? I mean, do they want new customers or not? They need to bite down on that one hard and not let the coders’ predilections for holding up progress on stability with ever-new not-wanted features (like bulk permissions) stop them from upping concurrency if they can.

PR that gets across when I mention Second Life to a friend they don’t think I am… a freak? I connect with fellow vets, with people around the world, people who disagree with me, people who enlighten me, etc… It’s not WoW and I so want people to see that.

The big thing I have taken from SL is I am ignorant on a lot of things (most) around the world and all I needed was to talk to someone in a different place to get that…. My good friend in Sweden has so opened my eyes to things I was thinking about from the USA view that I know were a bit off (now).

Now, as for AO (area of operation you civie dirt bags), when I pay 23 a quarter + 8 a month I don’t expect someone to drop to their knees, but three+ days for a support ticket is not working. JIRA is broken as well. I never post there because (and I hate to sound like a pussy) there are bullies I don’t want to risk a ban over because I will go off something awful.

Pull Mark back. I’ve got videos of Mark and Papa Phil speaking. It’s sad, but Marky Mark can not get anything across and Phil is like talking to my stoned nephew and his dreams. Let’s see a residents counsel (like that toothless body we saw in that film Hamlet pushed in Metaplace – EVO?? — someone please correct me).

I don’t why Linden doesn’t make use of the pretty smart blogs like… (Ugh this hurts) this one at times.

Okay, no more… I’ve already watched Degrassi:TNG this week and Dusan is overloading my great white north fund.

I would think Linden Lab could do something similar….just replace ‘faculty’ with ‘residents’.

Culturally, LL need to have a much better dialogue with their customers ( I use the word customer rather than resident in this case, as I want to imprint the importance of resident fiscal contributions to the company). By doing this they will set a precedent for their PR firm to follow.

Even the best PR firm can only take their lead from the company that they are contracted to work for. If LL fail on the cultural shift they need to make in order to better interface and engage with their customers/residents, then their PR agency won’t be able to do any better.