Not quite. Hardly anyone on the SL blogosphere have covered (in detail) the unwanted moves/changes Linden Research have made since Mark Kingdon stepped in as CEO. Quite disturbing, that people want to keep Linden Research’s unwanted activities to themselves rather than publicize at least some of them.

A few bloggers have (lightly) touched on some of the issues, with a few mentions here and there…

Then there’s biased** Linden Research orientated presentations and ads to boost concurrency numbers – which, of course, ignores the main problems Linden Research have caused (to it’s customers, especially the *paying* ones).

* Biased, since these reports never seem to cover the critical, concurrency-dropping issues at hand.

Unless you’d like to argue with Raph and all the egg heads at Terra Nova, I’m not creating some new definition here. Not all games are virtual worlds nor are all virtual worlds games, and each may be neither.

While I may be an amateur ‘journo’ or whatever the put-down is supposed to be, I’m merely adhering to the definition of most of the literature and consensus on the topic arrived at since the days of MOOs and MUDSs.

It seems to me like you’re misdirecting your anger at Linden Lab towards me. Happy to oblige, I suppose, but I don’t take kindly to being asked to take a ‘reality check’.

It’s the amateur “journos” like Dusan who tries to link casual gaming with RosedaleLindenBoardKingdon Life.

Publicity stunts like this are not going to fix the Second Life concurrency problem, as the issue solely lies with Linden Research, and Linden Research only. Board-appointed CEO Kingdon’s 19 months’ of force-feeding destructive, unwanted policies and changes as well as failing to fix server-side issues, joining hands with griefer groups etc.

Mis-management is the *key* issue.

With friends throughout the world, I am learning more online than ever before through this social media. I also find myself to be more confident in face to face interactions as a result of my social experiences in virtual worlds.

I smell a rat. Marketing spindoctoring to get people offline, and back on the couch blinking at the pretty picture show of flashing lights and Pepsi ads. No thanks. Days go by without me watching tv now and I do not miss it one bit. I’m linked in with the world And I love it.

xo ~ Skylar Smythe

The ultimate ramifications of the rapid, widespread and radical shift from physical to the virtual are anyone’s guess. Singularity or meltdown? Beats me. Although individuals can certainly make personal choices, I think that for humanity as a whole, for better and/or for worse, there’s no turning back.

I posted just a few days ago on this topic in “Social Networks, Fast Food and Evolution”: http://botgirl.blogspot.com/2010/01/social-networks-fast-food-and-evolution.html

VR is their conduit straight to our id. VRs break down inhibitions and open the path to our subconscious with absolutely no barriers. The military wanted to do this once with drugs.

But now they won’t have to resort to that and neither will the advertisers.

but are we not alone anymore? seems were really just alone with a machine.

its gets unplugged. and youre not connected to anyone.

simple. eh.