Watching Second Life developer Linden Lab handle community relations is like watching a wildly schizophrenic parent raise a child. One minute they’re cuddling their offspring and the next they’re chaining them to the bed. The truth is, LL’s community relations aren’t broken – they would have to have something to break first, and there’s little indication they have any guidelines in place to break. Why else would they expend so much effort attempting to promote a creator-friendly environment – going so far as to institute both an in-world currency exchange and point-to-point teleportation in apparent attempts to prime the content creation engine – but do such a horrendous job working with them directly on high-visibility projects? If they had a real set of worthwhile guidelines in place, these issues wouldn’t arise… again and again and again.

If you’ve read my previous entry on the Second Life/Wells Fargo Stage Coach Island advergame meltdown (Link), you have some background. If you need additional clarification, Clickable Culture has parsed much of that same information and posted something that might help (Link). But in the end, all you really need to know is that there are too many creators asking questions and bluntly saying that they’re now hesitant to work with Linden Lab on any future endeavors. That’s not good.

In any event, I’m here now to post the next official(?) Linden comment on this mess (the best we have for now). From Reuben Linden:

OK, here goes with some clarifications:

1. 30 sims were purchased by Linden lab by Swivel Media on behalf of Wells Fargo for the purposes of the BETA project.
2. Bedazzle was hired by Swivel to create the content for Stagecoach Island
3. Approximately 20 vendors created clothing, attractions, etc. for the island.
4. Shortly before launch, we all realized that a single group would need to take ownership of the vendor items in order make the process of maintaining/modifying the build possible
5. Linden Lab, acting on behalf of Swivel, negotiated “buyouts” of the content to compensate the vendors for the right to use their content for the BETA period. These vendors were also promised the $L for any sales that resulted during the BETA period (this has not yet been paid and is a very small # due to limited participation)
6. When Swivel Media ported the content to ActiveWorlds, they confused Cubey’s content with content created by Bedazzled. I believe Cubey and Swivel and working out a resolution to this now.

I’ve already pointed out one questionable line item on the forum. And I see some other things said here that don’t really answer some questions that need attention. How anyone believes Linden Lab will open source the SL client when they can’t handle transparency at this level is beyond me.

I feel kind of bad about this. A couple months back I went to see how the folks working on opensource real time video and effects editor Jahshaka (Link) were coming along and saw a new post asking for users to vote on a user-interface (Link). The entries seemed really nice just from what I saw posted (I’ve never loaded Jahshaka an am now just waiting for release 2.0 to go gold), but I decided then to wait to report on the winner. Well, I forgot all about it until I posted an entry over on the Core77 site today reminding me of exactly this kind of socially-networked product development (you can read that Here). So, better late than never I guess and here are the co-winners. Above is the “SuperG” interface (explanatory Link) by Ron7, and below is “Almost Flat” (explanatory Link) by EMC.

I’m looking forward to playing with this software but, I have to confess, that’s now partly because I’m getting a chuckle out of this bit from the site:

While the Super G design is by far the most popular, the Almost Flat design was developed with the community and was a great project in and of itself for us, as we got to see the design grow as it was nurtured by others! The final jahshaka 2.0 design will combine elements of both of these!

Seems the ol’ “combine elements of both” tactic transcends the boundaries of corporate R&D.

{Top image Copyright © 2005 Ron7 and bottom image Copyright © 2005 EMC}

I’ve been keeping an eye on Google Video for some time. Not because I intend to use it. And not really even because I’m interested in the content micro-video businesses springing from this new service will offer for download. I’m watching it because, for now, it’s the closest thing yet to an online system for distributing 3D files to the masses for home fabrication (I’m differentiating from services aimed at niche markets… like sheet metal fabrication people). What am I watching for? Reasonable content management and how the mass market responds to the service.

Already, I expect we’re going to see plenty more old movies and television shows on Google Video (and Apple’s service and elsewhere). And we’ll see plenty of poorly-made, independent video as well… enough to choke on (this comment goes back to my thoughts on a time-based Long Tail and the future ecoToroid – Link 1, Link 2, Link 3). But if the market decides to take advantage of good and reasonable offerings (like it did with Stephen King’s pay-per-chapter online novel), there’s a chance – perhaps a good one – that overall quality will decline; that voices will decide on their own not to speak. That’s not a “fer sure” thing, but a real possibility. And just like high-quality movies, good 3D models take real effort to create. Something that too many people who’ve never created one know nothing about.

Perhaps we’ll see an iTune’s style DRM system built into some future consumer 3D printer. But we’ll also probably see it hacked within hours. One can look at the example set by Lego, but then Lego allows their software to be hacked – not their hold-in-your-hand product. By their own admission, Lego has an eager stable of IP lawyers ready to deal with infringements of the tangible kind.

I don’t know what the answer is. But Google Video might provide some clues and perhaps some lessons. So for now I’m reading articles like C|Net’s coverage today (Link) and trying to see a future that allows me to have a 3D voice. Because I’m realizing now that ever since King’s failed experiment in trusting his fans, I’ve been silencing myself as well, or I’d already have 3D files available for download.

Forget all the Lego Mindstorm NXT development (highly-recommended Link) and Lego “design your own product” stories circulating for now and take a look at what average people are doing with just simple, non-robotic blocks over on eclectic-niche website Etsy (Link). Like cyberpunk author William Gibson said,”the street finds its own uses for things”… especially, it seems, simple little plastic blocks.

Lesson learned: lowest common denominator products (i.e. simple, basic and easily manipulated by hack-minded consumers) are inherently more capable of going viral in the marketplace due to they’re ability to mutate; just like a real virus. I never thought of Lego as a biomimetic product, but I don’t doubt that it is.

via Wonderland

{Image Copyright © 2005 Nanobonbon}

Nice entry over on Guy Kawasaki’s new blog called “The Art of Innovation” (Link). Don’t let the uncreative title fool you, it’s worth reading. In particular, I liked this:

Don’t worry, be crappy. An innovator doesn’t worry about shipping an innovative product with elements of crappiness if it’s truly innovative. The first permutation of a innovation is seldom perfect–Macintosh, for example, didn’t have software (thanks to me), a hard disk (it wouldn’t matter with no software anyway), slots, and color. If a company waits–for example, the engineers convince management to add more features–until everything is perfect, it will never ship, and the market will pass it by.

Guilty as charged.

Read his entire entry though. The above clip isn’t the whole story.

via TP Wire Service