4 months at the LabI recently celebrated my fourth month at the Lab and it has been a terrific adventure so far. As the leader of this amazing company, what have I been focused on? Leading the company’s efforts to make Second Life more relevant, more usable and more reliable.
How are we doing?
Good question M(ark) ......
First M sets out to let us all know how much better our inworld experience has been over the last month: "We wrapped up a very busy and productive Summer here in the Northern Hemisphere with great results to report." - umm maybe he should ask the Residents instead of the number crunchers? Up until the last 10 days I would have agreed with him, but I guess he is looking at averages.
"First off, each week since August 31st has brought a concurrency high. Yesterday, the peak hit 71,232 – that’s an increase of 6% in less than a month." I would love to know the ratio of actual users to BOTS!
"We simplified the registration process to make it easier for Residents to join, registrations are continuing at a healthy clip" See comment above.
"All are indications that Second Life is becoming more relevant, more usable and more reliable."
Great job 'M' except you are not listening to the actual people who use it, numbers cannot give you a complete picture as long as you allow alts/bots etc! But it certainly makes you look good to commerce looking for figures.
"First Hour Experience: Shortly after I started, we kicked off a project to reinvent what we call the “first hour experience” (our web experience, the viewer, and the way we acclimate and acculturate users inworld) for new users. We’ve made great progress and will be working with an award-winning interactive design firm to help us complete the reinvention and bring it to life. Yes, we are creating a viewer that is new user friendly! Stay tuned for updates."
Great idea - thanks to Dusan writer who came up with it a while ago, maybe you should look at some of the ideas that came up there? After all they were Resident created!
"We are now at a stage in our development where we need to add additional product strategy, product development and product management experience to help us better tailor our product offering for each of our key markets. We’ve found just the right person to lead this important transition in the company. His name is Tom Hale (he will be called T Linden) and he is a technology industry veteran, having spent the last 14 years at Macromedia and Adobe where he held a variety of product strategy, development and management roles. Tom joins Linden Lab as Senior Vice President, Chief of Product. Read more about T Linden here."
Congratulations to Mr Hale - I hope he knows what he has taken on!
"Linden Lab is buzzing with activity. We’ve just completed a major strategy project to define the areas of focus for the next 18 months and we are in the process of translating those strategies into tactical action plans." Again sounds good, but what strategies? What plans? Guess its on a 'need to know' basis and we the Residents 'don't need to know'?
"To support the strategic initiatives we’ve identified, we’ll be hiring 60-70 more people over the next several quarters. This is all part of our commitment to ensure Second Life remains the largest and most successful virtual world." More staff can only be a good thing, lets hope they can focus at some point on Resident experience!
On the positive side of things I would say it is good to see some improvements and see the areas where Linden Lab is focusing - all area's and in need of improvement.
The discussion is in full swing in the FORUM with 'M' actually clarifying some points there.
Although from reading the post I find it slightly condescending and half trying to convince us, as Residents, that things are getting better. I feel that Linden Lab as a company is pulling further and further away from the Residents, this has been happening for quite some time. It is good that they are utilising the forums a lot more but the place most of us go for information is the blog which is pretty much dead now.
As for Resident early experience the one tool that all newbies (and older Residents) need to utilise is Torleys Tutorials yet these have been shoved to the side and removed from the main blog where they should be! Bring Torley back 'M' - he is the one Linden that actually cares about Resident experience, shoving him to the side is paramount to declaring you don't care!
By Dana Vanmoer
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