Linden Lab and selling the fantasy

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Iggy O has posted on the “In a Strange Land” blog regarding a recent Linden Lab marketing piece that evidently appeared on the SL web site. I’m unclear if it has shown up in other contexts as well. But it certainly is “interesting” for a number of reasons. I don’t know if it will beget a reaction from potential new customers...but it certainly got a reaction from many existing ones.

Iggy’s reaction was, I think, representative of what many thought:

“So this vision is the best that Linden Lab can do for us today? This is pretty far from what creative residents have built on Linden Lab's infrastructure. The Lab currently seems to be casting about, wildly, for customers. The campaigns flail back and forth, from the far slicker and interesting 'put some steam in your punk' images that ran a couple of weeks back to...this.

It's The Sims....”

My own initial response, which I posted on the “Strange Land” blog was an extension of this:

“...it is rather suggestive of something I have always suspected about the Lindens--even back in the "Philip" era.

The people at the company simply don't "get" the majority of us. It is not just that they don't understand or appreciate the diverse majority of their customer base--they seem to be downright embarrassed by us. They may even be a little bit afraid of us. Otherwise, I believe they would have followed a strategy encouraging their staff to more aggressively engage with the residents on their own turf rather than from the safety of "office" hours.

Yes, back in Rosedale days, someone at the lab had a more sincere appreciation for a certain element of the artsy-freaksy cool creator class people, but they still seemed confused, unsettled and uncertain with regards to the rest of us loonies, especially in the historical/literary/rp based communities. They weren't terribly supportive of us, and certainly never acknowledged us.

So is this new focus on marketing to "norms" all that different from the days when they focused on celebrating and recognizing (they really didn't do marketing in those days) a different particular limited class of people?

I think I feel a Dio Rant coming on.”

Basically, I think that reactions of people like me and Iggy come from a sense that what happens in SL--and the majority of the people you will encounter on the grid--are not represented in that advertisement. I have spent a lot of years in this goddam pixelated vale o’ tears and covered a shitload o’ territory in my time, but by Gawd, I don’t think I have ever seen a happy white suburban family quite like those photoshopped folks in the picture...not even as a parody, or in some kind of bizarre John Cheever-esque vision of suburban hell.

That just isn’t us. Those people are not in SL, at least not in the places I’ve explored.

So I was ready to let go with both barrels and have some fun with it. But then...instead of spewing the usual verbal pyrotechnics framed within the context of my SOP of “shoot first and then maybe think about it a decade or so later,” I thought, "well, maybe there’s some rational reason for this." I tried to think about it as if I was a marketing person, and look at the situation through the filter of that peculiar world view. And yeah, I could see how you would design marketing pieces that feature what isn’t on the grid as an element of your efforts to broaden your customer base. You don’t market to the people who are already here, you market to the folks who ain’t.

Now just to be sure, I thought it would be nice if I could get someone from the Lab to confirm my suspicions on this. So I wrote to T Linden the following:

“Hi Tom,

I would very much like to have a comment from a Linden about the recent trend in LL marketing that seems to de-emphasize the creative aspects of life on the platform, and instead pursues a market segment that appears to be more "The Sims" type of audience, as is suggested by the recent marketing piece showing a happy nuclear family in front of a boxy suburban house.

I would assume that part of the strategy here is to try to go after a market segment that you have not already significantly engaged--as you currently have with the existing "creative" type resident population. I could argue that it makes sense for you to put your marketing emphasis into going after people who aren't already in the fold. But it would be nice to have someone from the company to actually state that...or whatever the strategy might actually be.”

And bless his heart he wrote right back to me:

“Our marketing strategy contemplates *both* creatives (with the value
propositions of "create your world" and "make money from your
creations") and to consumers (what you might call the "sims"
demographic) who need to buy/consume the experiences and products that creatives create.

One dynamic here is that b/c the ratio of consumers to content
creators in SL today is something like 20:1, and in the broader world
is probably something like 100:1, we have to spend disproportionately
to acquire consumers. As a result, that marketing and message is much
more visible, so I can understand where you are getting the impression
that is our focus.

Later this year, when we ship Mesh import (enabling a whole new set of
content creators, content, effects, and experiences) I expect we'll
lean our marketing mix towards acquiring new creatives - as there are
100s of thousands of users of 3D studio and Maya for whom SL is a bit
of a black box today, with unfamiliar tools, characteristics, etc.”

So yeah, it was about what I figured.

But I also found T’s reply interesting with his distinction between “consumers” and “creatives”--especially as I consider myself a mixture of both: one of those people who is a probably considered a “creative” in terms of social/educational situations and interaction (rather than much actual stuff-type content), but who relies on other content creators for most of the virtual buildings and artifacts I use to enhance and augment the situations and interactions I help organize. At the same time, even with my limited building skills, I do enjoy sometimes making stuff if no one else is making something I want or need. So it’s not always clear who is a creative versus a consumer.

And just a thought...if the lab is going to try attracting more of the “consumer” market segment, are they perhaps selling those folks short by offering things like a jolly, idealized, whitebread suburban lifestyle as the product to be consumed? Yes I know, that old white picket fence ideal is a powerful mythology these days, as economic, socio-political and environmental considerations make that lifestyle even less of an attainable reality than it was in the post-WWII “good ol’ daze.” For many people it is as much of a far-off fantasy as Battlestar Galactica, Hogwarts, or 1870s Deadwood.

Nonetheless, I would hope that as the Lab seeks to engage these “consumers” who are needed to grow the population in-world, they balance this one sort of fantasy with the others that can be attained on the platform. Even the “consumers” have the potential to be “creatives,” not only of stuff, but even more so, of shared narrative. Don’t just assume they’re all boobis americanis, longing to settle in a virtual Levitttown and crank out 2.5 prim babies.

Don’t sell them short. Show them more of the different “lifestyles” that people in world have evolved--historical and futuristic, literary and arts-themed, mechanoid and fur-covered.

Oh, and one other thing, before we wander off onto other subjects: while I get the whole idea about marketing to the people who aren’t your customers yet, there still is the need to keep the existing customer base happy.

In other words: you provide exciting, engaging marketing materials to hook the people you don’t have in the fold yet...

...and you provide good responsive customer service to hold the people who are already in your camp.

Please remember LL, that you need both new and existing customers. Don’t hide in those offices--there’s a world out there that isn’t as scary as it seems. And you really don't have to be embarrassed by us.

~~~

Merging the Second Life Adult and Teen Grids -- "Who's on first?"

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So what is going on with the idea of merging Second Life’s Teen Grid and Adult grid into one big happy world?

This is something that has been kicking around as a rumor since early last year. There are those who argue that the ghettoization of adult content into Zindra was in preparations for this (personally I think it was perhaps more directed at defeating the widespread perception that “SL is all about pixel poking” in order to help attract more business and education customers). Obviously, if they decide to do so, it’s going to be a real challenge to make that kind of merger work without killing what makes SL a remarkable and engaging place for people over the age of 18 (and I’m not talking about sex).

I began thinking about the possibility a lot more after “There” closed, because such a large part of the customer base in that particular virtual world seemed to be made up of the pre-18 demographic. Some of us suspect that the demise of that platform was at least partially brought about by “There’s" reliance on a market segment that injected only a relatively modest income stream into the economy of that world.

So the other day, when I had the chance to run some questions past T Linden (Tom Hale, LL’s Chief Product Officer), one of the questions I asked him was the following:

Diogenes Kuhr: “On the issue of what we can learn from "There" a big question is what is going to happen regarding younger players--there is some consensus that the nature of the demographics in "There" was part of what worked against them--their chief administrator said as much in his farewell post. You will find some persistent concern that SL is working towards an eventual incorporation of the teen grid into the main grid, a supposition that has been reinforced by the attempted isolation of adult content in Zindra and the combination of main and teen forums. Many people are worried that if this does in fact happen, it is going to have a negative impact on the viability of the platform and on the SL experience for both younger and older residents for a lot of reasons that we don't need to go into at the moment. But bottom line is, will SL continue to provide a separate experience for younger and older residents, even as the Lab works toward a broader adoption of the platform?”

And he replied:

T Linden: “While the success of kids and teen virtual worlds does highlight that there is a potential opportunity in that space, we do not have a plan to merge the grids. If we did have this plan, there are lots of regulatory and legal requirements, technical improvements (eg in terms of maturity ratings for content, chat moderation etc) that are much lower priority than our current list of "things to do". Of course, never say never... but it's not currently contemplated (my bold)."

Ok...cool. Seems pretty straightforward. Sounds good and reasonable in fact.

But then, I start seeing tweets about what M Linden (the BIG Boss) was saying in his speech at the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference this weekend. And apparently he was saying that this kind of merger IS being contemplated.

I have not been able to find a transcript of what M actually said, so I could only go on what people were telling me they heard...or were told that someone else had heard. The best source I could find to this point is a brief mention in Grace McDunnough’s blog:

“When asked about merging the teen grid at the VWBPE conference M Linden confirmed that a combined adult/teen was a distant future dream, but would emerge slowly through ‘thoughtful evolution’."

To say the least, this left me utterly confuzzled. So what’s going on?

Some commentators on Twitter argued that M was perhaps trying to say things that he thought the educators “wanted to hear.’ My response to that was..”why would educators want to hear that the teen and adult grids were going to merge?” The kind and thoughtful Riven Homewood explained to to me thusly:

* Community colleges & tech schools typically have students ranging from 16 to late 20s, - 18 and over is hard for them.

* All colleges & universities find it hard to use SL for recruiting because of over 18 rule.

* I have no direct experience with the teen grid, but people I know have explored using it & decided it wasn't worth the hassle

*What I hear is that educators would like to be able to take students to the great builds on the main grid & hold mixed-age classes

*I suspect many of the people at M's talk were too new to really understand the issues. They all just wanted M bears :)

Ok....so that kind of made sense to me, although I'm not sure I’m still not really sure that the merger would be worth the effort. But then Riven came back at me with one more thought, after we talked about the new Media Consortium/LL joint project to develop “Hakone,” a “walled garden” environment that seems to be a variation of the "SL Enterprise" separate mini-grids, but designed specifically for education customers.

Riven further observed:

“...a mixed-age separate education grid might solve a lot of problems, but not the one of showing great main grid builds to students.”

And while I can see that yes, there are some cool things that could be shown to younger students on the main grid, wouldn’t a more important goal be to provide them with an active learning experience--rather than a passive one--on a safe, relatively grief and flying penis-proof independent grid, where they can really get engaged in world building on their own? Remember--”don’t just build a classroom, build an experience!”

And ultimately, even if some educators might be interested in getting their younger students mixed up in the main grid, has anyone actually talked to the students about it? I keep seeing serious and disturbing indications that younger people are not real comfortable about entering into life on the adult grid. For example, I have on several occasions encountered groups of obviously younger players in-world (we shall take a leap of faith that they were in fact over 18), who were all using voice, and when they found that I and the people I was talking with were NOT using voice, they became hostile and suspicious. They wanted to know why we weren’t on voice--what kind of twisted and evil truths were we trying to hid?

Now mind you, I hate using voice because: A.) it usually doesn’t function well for me; B.) I prefer the immersion of typed chat; and C.) I like having a copyable record of what gets said. Plus, voice just doesn't frakkin’ work for roleplaying, because so much of what you do in SL rp is to type out your “emotes”--descriptions of facial expressions and certain actions that can’t be represented with the avatar itself. So I got my reasons. But I don’t need some uppity kid giving me a hard time because I don’t use voice...

And this is even more interesting and disturbing because I am told that in “There,” voice was used a great deal, and that the numerous (and mostly younger) players “shunned” anyone who relied on typed chat.

That indicates to me that if even younger players than we have now were coming on to the SL main grid, they would perceive it to be an uncomfortable and semi-hostile environment. The ironic thing in all this is that I have read comments by many people who left “There” because they considered it a “perv-fest”--so maybe using voice really doesn’t give the younger players the assurances of safe social interaction that they’re looking for. Regardless of that, it would seem that SL just isn't the kind of environment that many of them will percieve to be agreeable to them.

And that lack of perceived comfort is a two-way street. Now I know this is going to make me sound like some old geezer yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off her goddam lawn--but you know, I’m not sure that a lot of the current customer base--the majority of whom, of course, are not predators and creepy axe murderers--would be all that comfortable with an increased presence of younger players coming on as individuals (not in classes). I can’t tell you how often in the last five years or so, the bad behavior of some jerk de jour was explained away as “oh well...he’s young,” (meaning late teens or early 20s).

To be a successful and happy resident of SL--ie, one who does not piss off every sentient entity you encounter--takes not only a certain degree of technical proficiency, it also requires a certain level of socialization. And of course, before you bright young geniuses start lambasting the cranky oldtimer for painting you all with the same broad brush, yes, I know there are young people who are great to work with and who have oodles of maturity, and yes, there are older players who wallow in their own infantilism. It’s not all black or white. But there do seem to be certain tendencies among certain demographic segments that do seem to repeat themselves.

So that brings us back to the whole issue of should the two grids merge or not. My gut feeling is to say no--I really don’t think it would help the company make enough extra money in order to make it worth dealing with the extra issues...and yeah, face it, it would create a plethora of problems. Even with careful forethought like M was talking about, anything that is done to--or on--the platform usually becomes a jolly festival of unintended consequences.

Maybe they can plan like crazy and mitigate the potential quicksand puddles. Maybe. But in the meantime, they really kind of need to get their story straight.

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Comings and Goings at the Lab -- Claudia takes over from Pathfinder

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In light of the recent elimination of Pathfinder’s position with Linden Lab, a great many residents with an interest in education have expressed the fear that LL is moving away from promotion of the platform as a tool for educational purposes.

To some extent, this is understandable--but to be honest, as far as I can tell, the departure really means nothing more than a particular person who seemed to be an advocate of education in SL just won’t be around any more. People come and go. It's just time for Pathfinder to continue his life's journey elsewhere, and I hope he does well in his next gig.

That said, I should also point out that I never had any contact with Pathfinder (John Lester irl), because like many Lindens, he was simply irrelevant in the course of my activities on SL.

To be honest, I was never entirely clear on what Pathfinder’s real role was--at various points in his time at the Lab, I was led to understand that his title was something like “Evangelist, Market Development.” Although education was clearly one of his concerns, there were always indications that his role was to promote the general idea of Second Life (the evangelism bit) and to develop a marketing strategy that would seek to attract not just educational institutions to the platform, but also other types of potential corporate and institutional customers. Even as he was leaving LL, Pathfinder stated that he had been involved with healthcare as well as education customers.

So did he really make a big difference to education on the grid? Maybe he did. I have been told that he was responsible for bringing in some very large institutions of higher learning to SL. But again, being totally honest, I can’t really say for sure what his impact was. All I know is that I have talked with some educators who actually did have contact with him, and they did not find him to be particularly helpful or pleasant to work with. I am sure there are others who did in fact find dealing with Mr. Lester to be a useful and positive experience--but I just haven’t come across any of them yet.

But as they say at Swamp castle, "let's not quibble about 'oo killed 'oo."

The larger question, of course, is what comes next.

Many people seem to be assuming that the Lab won’t do anything to fill Pathfinder's role--that they eliminated his job, and therefore have eliminated the idea of having anyone addressing the interests of educational customers. I was wondering about this myself, as the Lab made no announcement about it that I could find. I decided to take advantage of the fact that T Linden (Tom Hale, LL’s Chief Product Officer) had recently added a comment to an older post on Miss Emilly Orr’s blog, in which he offered to answer other questions “off-thread.” Being the presumptuous old harpy that I am, I decided he obviously addressed this not only to Emilly, but to the rest of us who had commented on the thread, and I sent him a message asking if I could run some questions past him.

Mr. Hale graciously agreed to do so, and some of the things I asked him to comment about were questions related the departure of Pathfinder. He replied that while “we can't really discuss the departure of employees,” he was able to tell me the following:

“Claudia Linden is taking on Pathfinder's responsibilities, and she's been a strong and capable advocate for Education and Educational institutions in Second Life.”

Of course, as "head of educational support" (I apologize that I am unsure of what her exact title is, but I have seen her described thusly), Claudia was already substantially engaged with educators on the grid. So whatever it was that Pathfinder did is being added to what she already does. And clearly it's an ongoing process--today Claudia launched the first iteration of a directory of educational institutions in Second Life, which can be found here.

So I was gratified to see that she's as busy as ever. Now mind you, I’m going to be watching this particular project, because this directory thing was a pretty straightforward and focused single step: it seems to be structured as a simple directory of institutions of higher learning on the grid. I will be very curious to see what gets done in the future to promote and support the activities of individual educators and theorists, as well as non-traditional educational groups that are developing the most innovative and interesting learning opportunities on the platform.

Still, I was really freakin’ happy to hear from T that somebody had in fact been given the job of looking after whatever aspects of education that Pathfinder was looking after. I think it was a really important step to hear this from the proverbial horse's mouth.

I know I can be awful hard on the labsters sometimes. But like I have said before, I really try to be as fair as I can--I try to give credit where it is due. Hell, I was tickled just to see a Linden commenting on Emilly’s blog, which which must feel a bit like hostile territory for them. I have to admit, boys and girls, sometimes I feel like I’m a foam-at-the-mouth fanboy compared to Miss Orr. She's brilliant and hard and passionate, and so I thought it was brave--and damned smart--of T to not just be reading her stuff, but also to comment and to offer to chat further.

I keep hammering at this, but I think it is true more than ever that as the platform continues to evolve, the Lindens need to come out of the ivory tower to see and be seen in more venues and more discussions. Office hours are fine, but they have to visit more of the odd crevasses and backwaters of the grid and have more informal conversations with those of their current customers who have the perception that the Lab is not interested in them. In times of uncertainty and change, a company has to step up its efforts to communicate with their customers--and not just the highly vocal minority they usually interact with. It has to be demonstrated that they are going the extra mile to make a sincere effort to understand what we want and what we need. Things like T commenting on Emilly's blog certainly qualify as just that.

In sum, this is another of those occasions when--being the wild-eyed, spit-dribbling optimist that I am--I am seeing some things to be encouraged about.

And I wish Claudia well with her continuing efforts to support and encourage Education on the grid.

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