My Turn: Corey Bridges - No Time to Go Wobbly - Don't Mistake Second Life's Woes for Industry Instability

We're proud to introduce My Turn, a new op-ed feature at VirtualWorldsNews.com, solicited and unsolicited, from industry professionals. If we haven't reached out to you already and you feel like you have an insightful, argumentative opinion to publish, please get in touch with me at joey [at] showinitative [dot] dom. This week's op-ed comes from Corey Bridges, Multiverse Executive Producer and Co-Founder. Let us know what you think.

"This is no time to go wobbly," Margaret Thatcher once famously said. That's especially pertinent advice right now. Second Life and its owner Linden Lab are going through tough times. And, nascent as the virtual world industry is, many people confuse it with Second Life itself. To the less informed (and even to some people in our industry who should know better), Linden's current difficulties speak directly to the viability of the medium of virtual worlds.

They're wrong, of course; for those of us who work on other worlds and platforms, business has never been better.

Here's some of the news that should make us all bullish on the future of our industry: according to a recent Forrester Research report, in a mere five years virtual worlds will be just as important to businesses as the Web; the ever-staid Gartner Research predicts that in four years 80% of Internet users will have avatars; and, as a sign of industry maturity, there are now many participants in each market segment of our industry--from platforms to service agencies to users of all stripes.

But it's undeniable that dark clouds have gathered over Second Life and some of the companies that have relied on it. I don't think I need to recount all the ominous stories from the last few months, but the bottom line is that many companies and consumers are now avoiding that world. Linden Lab is going through some internal turmoil and may be on the verge of lean times itself. Even staunch Second Life cheerleader IBM has people wondering if it's hedging its bets by mocking virtual worlds (the second article).

When a high-profile ally begins showing public doubt like that, it's natural that we should be concerned that these troubles will affect the wider virtual world industry, perhaps stalling investment and development by mainstream companies.

The good news is that this isn't happening. The companies actually venturing into the medium of virtual worlds with mature plans are getting more excited by, and committed to, the opportunity, even as they move past the hype of the last couple years.

An example: a few months ago, I was in the office of a marketing executive at a major media corporation discussing our company's virtual world platform. She happened to mention that she had seriously investigated building an island in Second Life. When I asked why she didn't take that project forward, she said, very definitively, "Second Life won't work for us." I asked her why she felt such conviction.

She went through a detailed list that she'd obviously thought through and, as I was later to learn, had used to justify her decision to her CEO: it would be bad for her brand, which she felt would be subsumed by Second Life's; she couldn't really customize it or control the consumer experience, so she didn't feel she could create anything very unique or deep; and even if she did make something really compelling, she wouldn't be able to have more than a few dozen people see it at once; and then there were the flying body parts--as she characterized it, the last thing she needed on YouTube was a video of them dancing around her logo.

Now here's the good news: after she listed those reasons why that world was a no-go, she said, "but we're really eager to get into virtual worlds."

Since then, that same conversation has played out again and again for many people in our industry: "We don't want to use Second Life, but we want to build a virtual experience."

"Second Life is dead--long live virtual worlds!" is a ridiculous rallying cry and one I don't subscribe to. There are just as many people in Second Life as ever, even if it hit a population plateau recently. And there's a good chance that Linden will continue to be a significant player in this industry. But I think the most likely outcome is that it becomes the 21st-century equivalent of the WELL--that pre-Web, proto-online-community that blossomed in the early '90s. Widely credited as being the place where "netiquette" developed, setting the culture for how people interact with each other online, the WELL earned its place in history.

But the WELL's leadership was reluctant to take the hard steps necessary to build a real business and discouraged the individuals who tried to. Like Second Life at the moment, that particular online "space" ultimately didn't secure any long-term residents (businesses or consumers) who weren't early adopters. (In another historical parallel, outside the scope of this discussion, the cause of mainstream adoption wasn't helped any when the masses got online, logged on to the WELL with its mildly arcane interface, and were rebuffed by numerous cranky and insular pioneers, who wanted all these damn kids to get off their lawn.) As the doubters began to question the viability of that online community, technology created by Netscape and others helped open up the Web to basically anyone. Eventually, folks moved from the WELL to the wider frontiers of a new medium.

We should all respect what Second Life has done. Linden's impressive achievement has opened up the industry to support newer players and garner serious attention globally.

But the medium is much larger than any one company. To use another British turn of phrase (I've been doing a lot of business in the U.K.), "Keep calm and carry on."

Corey Bridges is co-founder and executive producer for Multiverse, a leading provider of 3D virtual world development technology.

Comments

"But the medium is much larger than any one company."

Amen!

In fact, we should all avoid someone who tries to sell you on a platform controlled by "any one company".

If you can't see the source and run it on your own machines (or your preferred service provider's machines) then move on.

[Prokofy Neva]

That seems like a really blatantly unnecessary hatchet job, Corey. It shouldn't be necessary to dump on Second Life so hard to pump up the volume on other worlds. The other worlds will speak for themselves -- they shouldn't have to be constantly referencing themselves to not-Second-Life.

So...where are they, these robust, happy, free, user-generated worlds? So far, all I see are a lot of...pets...and then your world, which I can't even log on to because I'm getting all these error messages.

I'd like to diversify, but so far I don't know of another service that enables me to run a small business with the minimum of technical knowledge that I have -- everything else either seems hobbled on one shard with company content or requires me to know Photoshop and programming.

I also think that the woes that SL is going through now in fact aren't technical, but social, and that anyone out there thinking that you solve social problems through better technology is going to be getting bit very hard.

The problems like bank fraud, gambling, child pornography, griefing -- these are all functions of people and how they behave online, which technology merely provides the means for, and the setting for, but isn't equipped to deal with in any kind of meaningful way to mitigate the negative and enhance the positive.

Social management and community building will have to become as respected as the technical side of virtuality.

These people worried about being dinged by dongs should realize that Daniel Terdiman of C-NET, geek though he may be, didn't know how to control the island that he let third-parties run poorly for him, and he didn't do the most basic of things to rid the scene of the abusive attacker and his objects.

You wouldn't set up free Yahoo email for your entire office with no filter on it, and let all your staff suffer through Viagra ads. You'd at least put up a filter, or run your own email system on your own servers. Why would you expect to behave differently in Second Life?

I think everybody gets it by now that Second Life isn't going to work for every company in terms of advertising your logo or placing your product; it's not television or radio, and it's not a pet game where you can plop down a concept with a game-god who will replicate it across a whole game space for you.

It simply has to be used differently, not like a trade fair, but more like a focus group, a training conference room, a corporate retreat, etc.

The IBM dissing seems to be about two warring teams within their company, a deliberate strategy to have both boosters and busters of SL to go at it to see who wins, and the tactic each side uses is to try to enlist the blogosphere in the internecine warfare.

[Alex]

Browser comparison is just not right. The better comparison I've heard is - MULTIPLE (STILL multiple!) IM platforms. Why? Because of what Prokofy said above: people are attached to one or two IM platform, because they are the member of community THERE.
I would recommend to think about Instant Messengers analogy more closely...

Also, if you have a '3D browser':
1. Show me the plug-in or 'extensions' mechanism that would suite outside developers' needs.
2. You think that business-model of a billing provider corresponds to a 'browser'? Seems to be an 'AOL browser' then! At least it seems to me, that your business-model is THE AOL for now. And we all remember what this business-model have done to the Navigator lately, don't we?

Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Regards.

[Peter Haik]

Alex: http://update.multiverse.net/wiki/index.php/Writing_Your_Own_Server_Plug-ins
http://update.multiverse.net/wiki/index.php/Example_of_a_Basic_Server_Plugin
http://update.multiverse.net/wiki/index.php/Multiverse_Developer_Wiki

Additionally, the Multiverse team does FAR more to support developers than Linden Lab ever has (unless perhaps you're with one of the select few developers that Linden Lab actually gives support to).

Prokofy:
"You'd at least put up a filter, or run your own email system on your own servers."

That's EXACTLY the point, with SL you cannot run the system on your own servers. While the Multiverse platform still has a way to go with development, I think it shows much more promise for how the 3d internet/metaverse technology could evolve into something more akin to the Internet as we know it today. I think there is a good chance that Multiverse will be further along and better suited to the task before Linden Lab has opened up the server enough for people to run their own.

[Robert Brackenridge]

I'm not sure that we shouldn't take the 2L platform as an indicator of change. 2L represents an area where there is a somewhat open economy, maturity in its business model and it still continues to draw attention. This might just be the best representation of market conditions.

Still we can't ignore the effects of the real world...

Sure you have the Gartner's, Forrester's, eMarketer, and the other dozen forecasters "predicting" the growth of an industry, but what are these broad assumptions based on? At the core of it you will find the assumption that consumers will continue buying a service (broadband) at an ever increasing rate. Will this continue to be true over the next 9 - 12 months? Personally, I don't think so... I don't believe we have reached a point where broadband is a utility yet. As sentiment continues to soften, whether real or perceived, consumers will choose more durable goods over faster internet access. With this softening will come slower broadband growth rates.

So, while 2L may not necessarily represent the entire industry, I do believe it serves well as a market indicator of an audience going through a genuflect as they begin to understand the uses and value of this new media experience.

There will be continued growth in overall numbers, but not necessarily as large as has been projected. Also, the challenges associated with monetization will increase as both competition builds and revenue models are tested, sound familiar? Eventually the marketers will begin to drive the models again, but take heed as a bellwether starts to show what might be a change in things to come. It really sucks to be caught on a boat in the middle of the doldrums. It's always better to have wind in your sails. Ok... Ok... Enough of the pirate analogies already. Aaarrrgh!

[Markus (Pham Neutra)]

I agree, that it is common and completely wrong to set “virtual worlds” equal with Second Life.

I agree, that there is still an exciting growth rate in the industry.

I agree, that Multiverse is an interesting and very promising platform for a certain type of virtual worlds projects …

... but I am a little bit astonished, that this article here is presented as an “op-ed feature”. Dissing a competitor (politely), repeating all prejudices about his products and presenting your own product as the solution for all problems in a certain field is usually called a “sales presentation” ;)

Please don’t get me wrong. I really think that Multiverse IS a very promising platform. But it still has to show if it can fulfill this promise. The projects created on this platform so far are not exactly ground-breaking stuff – as far as they are publicly visible. And it is hard for me, currently, to believe that the Multiverse model will be what the coming Metaverse is build upon. There are so many competitors on the market these days with hugely different approaches. Some of the solutions which are much better integrated with the old HTML-internet – like Metaplace for example – look VERY promising, too.

Additionally it seems a bit prematurely to declare Second Life as a doomed dinosaur who as played its role. Second Life has many shortcomings, no doubt. But (so far) Second Life is still the platform on which the majority of virtual world projects is launched – especially projects from small creative teams. The entry barrier for implementing a cool new idea here is much, much lower than with many other platforms – including Multiverse. Maybe that will be a more important factor for the long term success than a missing open-sourced server - or the often quoted "flying organs" which can easily be avoided within any professionally run project.

I can only second Prok in this case. If the stuff you do is really cool, there is no need to define yourself as "not Second Life". Just do the cool stuff. :)

[Alex]

Hi, Peter,
I know these links, I've read it some time ago and am visiting these pages from time to time. But...!
We were talking about 'browser' ! You (Cory in particular) say your CLIENT application is a 'browser', which I doubted. I was talking about plug-in mechanisms to your 3D-viewer/browser or whatever you call it. That's why the comparison was with IM messengers who ALSO don't provide it and for the same reason. If there is NONE (and I talked to your guys at the VW conference) then it's an 'AOL browser', it holds developers on a short leash, because you need to maintain your, I underline it for the third time, BILLING business-model. You want to be an exclusive ID and billing provider for EVERYTHING viewed through your 'browser'. That's fine, but I'm not sure it's gona work. Examples of MS Passport, AOL and Prodigy and other great endeavours of the past... suggest that it's probably impossible.

Regards.

[Alex]

Addition:
...before Linden Lab has opened up the server enough for people to run their own.

They CAN'T, you know that, Peter, right? They just CAN NOT let another servers to connect to the grid because of just that - CURRENCY!
That's exactly why Multiverse WILL NOT provide browser plug-in mechanisms until it drops the idea of billing provider.
See the analogy? I think it's quite obvious.

Bottom line: Multiverse viewer is NOT a 'browser', as a whole it's a service, comprised of a proprietory viewer and proprietory server softwere bundled in a SERVICE that is offered. User base presumably will be owned by Multiverse ALONE.
I don't know many people who would like this kind of an arrangement for their commercial VW venture. Maybe there are lots of them, but they are pretty much satisfied with what they get from LL and SL, that's all.

Regards(2).

[Prokofy Neva]

Peter, you so well exemplify the ambivalence that small developers have toward these larger developers like Second Life or Multiverse.

On the one hand, you deride Linden Lab for not holding your hand enough, not "being there" for you to help you in your business, although they do have their FIC (select, privileged group they will work with, but not always). So you praise Multiverse for having a more grown-up approach to a decided, organized developers' class approach, which is used by other game/world companies (There). That makes sense, but it also creates a stratified platform then that some can use easily and count on game-god help for, and others, without skillz, can never access.

On the other hand, you deride Linden Lab for not having "host your own" type of server software to be licensed and to get support for.

But Yahoo, which is free, doesn't require me to host my own server, Peter, just to filter my email. I filter it using their tools.

And Second Life doesn't require me to host my own service just to keep prim litter and griefers off my island -- it has tools you can access to do all that (which Daniel Terdiman and Millionsofus simply failed to set up, and monitor, during that infamous press conference).

So I have to conclude, just from where I sit, as a kind of unskilled amateur but power user, that Second Life just offers me more open-ended opportunities where I don't have to suck up to devs or divas to get something or pay more to have a corporate account and yet have something pretty usable, and have tools that I, as a dummy, can fairly easily master. So it just creates more opportunity for more people.

I fail to see why we need to argue about whether something is a "browser" or not because I think we have to become more sophisticated and diverse about what the Internet *is*. We can't be children, expecting our one sand pail to fit everything in the sandbox.

Browsers are for text-based Internet sites, plug-ins like Java or Quicktime whatever it is you mean by plug-ins are for viewing content passively on those websites.

3-d world software will have to be more complex, and therefore proprietary as requiring more payment of developers and a business model that can pay back venture capitalists and keep innovating for customers. So instead of browsers, there will be viewers.

I fail to see the benefit of Linden Lab rapidly open-sourcing the server code and/or thinning out SL to a browser with only text (as they will soon offer) just to satisfy some geeky prescriptive notion of what the Internet "must" be, which is that it "must" be something everybody can grab and tinker with and add widgets and plug-ins to.

I think we can see with Facebook that these markets get pretty saturated pretty quick with plug-ins and widgets added on top of the basic platform, and while it's interesting, it isn't *the only* path for the future Internet.

The diversity of the future Internet should be ensured, so that it can bear proprietary worlds, open-ended sandbox worlds, flash worlds, closed worlds, open worlds, text-based sites, etc. without fear or favour.

[Tele3dworld]

This reminds me of the "old" times when Software went through the BASIC phase. We all learned a lot from using it; but you would never use it as a serious programming Language for all the obvious reasons. This has now become evident with SL shortcomings are emerging. The customer wants reality not primary school stuff; lego bricks are for kids not adults. Stop the blah, blah , blah and fous on the future. Change is overdue.

[Peter Haik]

I will say that the changes and upgrades coming (Havok4, Mono) will do a lot to help my feelings for Second Life.

I have a hard time believing in a system that has more stability problems over time than less, that cannot add features (like html on a prim, more effective governance tools) that have been begged for for many years, that consistently has billing issues, support issues, and god knows how many other issues where the only answer is to put it in jira or file a support ticket never to be answered.

Perhaps my wishes for running my own server versus entrusting it to yahoo! is rooted in enterprise use vs home use.

Second Life does have the people, it does have an accessible system that people can build on top of, but it doesn't mean that it's the only system that should be considered the long term answer. It doesn't mean that others can't come to the table and attempt to solve a lot of the problems in the same way.

"So I have to conclude, just from where I sit, as a kind of unskilled amateur but power user, that Second Life just offers me more open-ended opportunities where I don't have to suck up to devs or divas to get something or pay more to have a corporate account and yet have something pretty usable, and have tools that I, as a dummy, can fairly easily master. So it just creates more opportunity for more people."

Sketchup may become that very tool in other worlds, which will allow you as the unskilled amateur to build in these new spaces. Then it's just a matter of getting the appropriate world built around the tools to enable you to express yourself. The amateurs on the web have blogs, myspace pages, other hosted solutions that let you do your thing in the place you like. No, it doesn't exist yet outside of Second Life and SL will continue to prosper for a long time, I'm sure. I will continue to support the efforts of other teams and platforms to enable an offering in the virtual world space that solves many of the problems presented in new and interesting ways.

[Peter Haik]

Re: billing. I don't think the billing is connected to the client as a browser, as the client connects to worlds, and the world owner is billed. The worlds themselves then choose whether or not to bill the end user.

Similarly, the question isn't about whether Multiverse is accessible and easy for the end user to build on, but individual worlds build on top of Multiverse. The direct comparison to SL will come once a world launches that allows for land ownership and user generated content. I know these are coming.

[Christian Scholz]

It is interesting to compare Second Life to "pre-web" as it goes into quite the right direction here. Away from Walled Gardens to an open grid.
Of course this usually means losing control for PR/Marketing but the same is true for the web.
As for opening the server code there is a project ongoing right now, called the Second Life Grid Architecture Working Group which's aim is to open up the grid and to create a protocol. This pushes Second Life quite a bit into the area where the Web is right now as it allows theoretically everybody to host their own server.

Yes, this is means freedom and this is what some old-school marketeer do not like but this is what I think a virtual world is about. It's not about 1000 small worlds. It is one big world. There is a huge discussion about Data Portability going on now in the web scene and virtual worlds should actually be part of that.

Maybe Linden Lab goes down, who knows but if the SLAWG project is somewhat mature then it will live on it's own. Driven by an open source community.

Yes, Second Life has many problems but it also has many features other platforms do not have. Or they are not yet as big. Who knows which scalability problems in technical and social terms lurk there?