It seems that everywhere you look, there are yet more dire predictions about Secondlife in it’s death throes.
I’ve been hearing this kind of stuff for years now. I’m sure there are quite a number of these doom and gloom writers who are just jostling in the queue to be the first to say ” I told you so!”
I’ve just read a blog post written by Landon Linden on the Secondlife blog, which you can read for yourself here
There may have been other similar posts prior to this one, however I am not aware of them. Therefore, I will write about this particular post with surprise and astonishment.
This is an excellent post, because:-
– it gives good, useful and apparently honest information
– the writer assumes that his readers are intelligent, and has not fallen into the oh-so-common blog post of writing in a terribly ‘dumbing down’ manner
– the post admits fault, going back some years. It also describes how not everything is under the control of Linden Lab, who are at times dependent upon the integrity of other services
– this is a post you would expect to read in a COMMUNITY environment, as it shares information honestly
– Lindenlab has apologised for the breaks and failures that have occurred over a period of time
I am really impressed with the post. I don’t know whether this is as a result of the Board easing up on knowledge exchange restrictions, or Ebbe Altberg, the new CEO, flexing his communication skills, or simply a Linden Lab employee doing his job. I hope it’s a combination of all three things. I will quote just a short piece here:
We want to apologize for all of the recent problems and the frustration they have caused. We too are frustrated and are intent on making our service better. Few things give me more pleasure than every day helping to make Second Life a happy and fun place. Thank you for your patience and support. We simply could not have a more devoted user base and for that we owe you better.
Maybe it is a sign of good things to come, and the constant ‘evolution in action’ that is a key component to the virtual world environment. Perhaps those doom predictors and naysayers can go hide under the rocks they have lived under for the past 10 years :)
Photo taken on the boardwalk in Juicy Sim, March 2012.
