Seduce me to spend more!

The other day a rather well known SL designer released some new female fashion items, and within hours I read excited reports from friends and acquaintances. I sent my girlfriend Skinkie a photo and as expected she fell in love with the creations as well, so we TPed to the shop. There, we found 10 color variations in exceptional quality at the steep but justified price of 400 L$ each. A lot of the designer's items are available as fat packs, but this one was not. As I did in the past I IMed the designer and asked if a fat pack are available, but she was not online. We spent half an hour in the shop, and after trying on the demos we settled for 4 of the 10 packs which were the ones we both liked best. There were another 4 packs we both kind of liked, but did not see as "essential".

Today, I received this offline IM:

[1:44] Wellknown Designer: hi peter, sorry - i spend too much time on each color to justify discounted fatpacks

This left me confused. Already now, I have spent 1600 L$ on her creations, and I made it clear that I was willing to spend more than that. All versions together would have been at 4000 L$. Had she had a fatpack for 3200 L$ (10 for the price of 8) or even 3600 L$ (10 for the price of 9) I would have most likely bought it. So the lack of a fatpack "cost" this designer 1600 L$ or even 2000 L$ of additional revenue.

I asked for some mindshare among the folks on Plurk, and the majority agrees on my assessment. Especially since the tedious process of boxing up the items has been done already, offering a fatpack is not a lot of extra work. I realize that I am in a privileged position to be able to afford the prices mentioned - some commenters on Plurk said they would have to carefully chose one or two items maximum. On the other hand, being involved on the sales side of ~flirt~ fine prim jewellery showed me that while the large majority of customers buy one ore two items, there are still a surprisingly high number of people who buy fatpacks with a 3000 L$ pricetag.

• As a content creator I think you are well advised to address all kinds of potential customers: the ones on a budget with good and affordable single items, as well as the ones who are willing to spend more with attractive bundle options.
• There is such a thing like the "upper class of shoppers" in SL, who is prepared to spend large sums of money. Designers should make it as easy for them as possible the spend it.

I will not stop to shop at this designer's outlet since she offers quality and I know her for quite a while. But she could have 2000 L$ more in her account by now, which ultimately some other designer will benefit from.

JIRA: Optional text for payments to show up in transaction history

[This is an issue I have filed as VWR-9597 on JIRA]

Avatar-to-Avatar payments show up in the transaction history as "gift". However when buying services, paying staff or other non-vendor transactions, it might be good to know what the payment was actually made for. I suggest an extra input field for freeform text, where the optionally entered text would show up in the transaction histories instead of "gift".

As an addition, llGiveMoney(key destination, integer amount) could get an optional 3rd string parameter with the subject/description line as well, and thus get rid of the "Object pays" nuisance in transaction histories.

If you think this is a useful feature, log in to JIRA with your SL username/password and vote for it using this link: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-9597

Visit the Rezzable sims as long as they are still there

Two days ago, RightAsRain Rimbaud of UK based Rezzable announced something that should have sent shock waves through the SL blogs, but surprisingly has only been picked up by one major blog so far: paid admission to the Black Swan sim.

With immediate effect, you have to buy (and wear) a device for 199 L$ in order to visit Black Swan. The device allows permanent access to the sim - if you don't wear it, sentry drones hovering around Black Swan will eject you. RightAsRain said paid admission in Black Swan is a test run and might be implemented in other Rezzable sims, and in fact the drones hovering above the sims are a familiar sight for visitors of sims like Surfline.

The 199 L$ are not a large sum of money for me, and certainly money well spent to see the truly magnificent creations of Black Swan. For Surfline, on the other hand, while being one of my favorite places, I would not spend the money. And also not for Crimson Shadow which - apart from being a stunning build - is predominantly a shop.

What strikes me as odd - and concerns me to a degree - is that this move on behalf of Rezzable has DESPERATION written all over it.

I still remember the early days of Rezzable. Beautiful sims started to appear, and its creators hid under a veil of secrecy. Residents speculated about the purpose, while enjoying the barely-seen-before wonders. Slowly, the veil got lifted, but still there was no apparent business model recognizable. The most likely explanation was that they were building an impressive showcase in order to acquire corporate clients for custom built sims. Well, maybe I have lived under an SL rock, but no corporate account brought in-world by Rezzable comes to mind. In fact, RightAsRain Rimaud even explicitly named L'Oreal as a corporate account that pulled out from sponsoring Rezzable.

Yes, after a certain time, we saw a little commerce going on on Rezzable sims. Some clothing on Surfline and Crimson Shadow, or the availability to purchase statues and miniatures of exhibits. Certainly nothing to sustain Rezzable as a company. And now the admittance fee to Black Swan. So let's do the math. Rezzable has at least 25 sims. Even after the reduced pricing of late, this will amount to some 7500 US$ on island tier alone. Per month. Throw in staff and office locations in RL, to end up with a very significant monthly cost - and no apparent business model to generate revenue.

Enter the admittance fee. Traffic in SL is an issue on its own, so let's just speculate. I think it is safe to assume that Black Swan attracts 100 visitors a day, which makes 700 per week or 2800 for the month (let's disregard repeat visitors for the moment). Those 2800 visitors multiplied by 199 L$ for the admission fee leaves Rezzable with a comfortable 1500 US$ revenue, enough to pay the tier of 6 sims. But there is a flaw in the calculation. Several flaws indeed. Flaw number one is repeat visitors. I personally was probably 10 times or more on Black Swan, and a lot of my friends visited multiple times as well. For the sake of this example let's assume 10% repeat visitors. Then there is a lot of people who can simply not afford the 199 L$ admittance. Half a year ago, I would have thought it over several times before spending that money. So let's assume 1/3 of people who CAN'T pay the fee. And certainly a number of people who have the standpoint that sims in SL should be free and therefore refuse to pay the cover charge. Let's assume another third of those. That leaves us with 30 paying new visitors a day or 450 US$ a month - which barely covers the tier for 2 sims. If however my assumption of 100 visitors a day was wrong, and it would only be 50, then the admission fee would exactly cover the tier for the Black Swan sim itself. Nothing I would call a sustainable business model.

My personal interpretation of this move is: desperation. Maybe their venture capital has run out, and the corporate contracts they were working on pulled the plug. Yet they have a lot of monthly cost, so some of that needs to get covered no matter what. An admission fee is one option for that, and even though I personally think it is the wrong answer, I wish them luck with it. SL would be less beautiful without the Rezzable sims.

In the end it boils down to the question whether SL can be profitable at all. Yes, we all know about profitable SL enterprises. My own company, Babel Translations, is very profitable - but only within the SL economy itself. Others, like escorts or clothing designers, generate RL profits - but only as 1- or 2-men shows. I personally think that SL can not be profitable if you have a company behind it, with RL wages and other RL costs. I wish Rezzable would prove me wrong, I really do. But I doubt it. So my advice is to go and visit all the Rezzable sims, as long as they are still there. Because the sims will be the first that gets shut down should the money run out.

Sugardaddy

Several months ago I friended a friend's friend, who used to hang around with the same group of people I was. She always was tight on money, so when clubbing we shared winnings from sploders with her, or gave her the odd item during a shopping run. Sometimes she IMed whether I could "loan" her some L$ - never much, sometimes 30, sometimes 50. I didn't mind at all - back then Babel Translations was in its beginnings but I always had some Lindens in my account. And I smiled inwardly about the word "loan" since I knew how tight she was, and that I'd never see it again.

However, the requests came more frequent. And from others in the group I learned they experienced the same. It started to annoy me, especially since she usually never started a conversation herself or made any suggestion for activities, unless she asked for money.
One day, she asked again, and I had enough. I told her I'd give her 500 L$ now, but then I want to never get asked for any money again. She fell silent for 2 minutes. And then she replied "Uhm... ok". I sent her 500 L$ and deleted her from my friends list. I never heard from her again.

That was an incredibly sad experience.

In the meantime, I got "rich" for SL standards. Babel ist performing very well, and I got hired for marketing concepts, custom scripts and custom animations. Those close to me know I enjoy sharing and making gifts. My SL riches mean little to me, I enjoy the liberty of not having a fridge to fill or a car to fuel. I like shopping, I enjoy to not have to restrain myself. If I meet a halfway polite and intelligable newbie, I not only give my "Newbie Welcome Folder", but usually offer some L$ as well. I tip in clubs, galleries and museums. To sum it up, I want myself and those close to me or those offering good service to enjoy this wonderful life as much as posible.

I learned some lessons though. I enjoy making gifts, but I learned that gifts can make people embarrased or make them feel obliged. So I learned to ask if they would allow me to give them something. Only recently, my friend Pika politely refused a gift. It had only a value of 150 L$, but she would have felt uncomfortable accepting it. I'm glad she told me, and it was perfectly OK with me that she paid for the item herself. And some weeks later, she gladly accepted one of my own creations - without any commercial value - as a gift.

Others are less shy. One of the newbies I helped out, and with whom I had the occasional chat, seems to mistake me for a Sugar Daddy - according to Wikipedia this is "a rich man who offers money or gifts to a less rich person in return for companionship or sexual favors". How did it start? We had rather normal talks for several months, but one day I suggested we could go shopping together. That's what I said - going shopping together. NOT "chose everything you want and I pay for it". However I seemed to have opened a floodgate. The amount of IM's I got whether I'd be available or have time exploded. During an excpetional bad SL-wheather day, we manage to visit Canimal, and I actually felt compelled to buy her an item. Already when I did, I knew it was probably the worst idea I had. And forseeably it even caused more IM's.

/me sighs

For the world to read: I am not a Sugar Daddy. I will never try to buy affection or companionship. There is much, much more I can offer than money. And true friends don't ask, and don't expect money or gifts.

/me sighs again

Another sad day.

Too cheap?

My lovely sister Chey is about to relocate her island, and is extensively using a tool called Rez-Faux by creator Lex Neva. I decided to cold-call Lex and offer her translation services. To my huge surprise - and Lex' as well - she was already considering to get some texts translated, and she was even considering to specifically use my services for this. "Good timing", as she mentioned - indeed.

However, what made her not contact me so far was the fact that my service offerings were too cheap! Cheap prices, so her line of thought, equal cheap quality. And since she has a serious business, she wants and needs quality of course.

On the other hand, I often have clients who gasp in disbelief if I give them a quote, who think that 900 L$ for a 300 word notecard is outrageously expensive.

The problem is of course the different perception. People like Lex, who get a substantial amount of US$ or EUR from their SL work, tend to think in RL categories. Lex knows what services cost in RL, and she thinks in RL categories. The job I got from her would have been something along the lines of 40 EUR / 50 US$ in RL. To see the same work offered in SL for 1500 L$ made her suspicious regarding the quality.

On the other hand you have SL residents, who are struggling with their first business attempts. Who probably camped for weeks or poledanced or DJed their virtual bums off, in order to afford a stall in the cheapest mall. Translation costs of 1500 L$ seems unbelievably expensive to them - something they might - MIGHT - afford in the distant future when their business generates a little revenue.

So why are we so cheap? Or why are we so expensive? We are so cheap because my company - Babel Translations - is a purely SL company. Of course the amount of work in a translation is the same as for a RL translation. But neither myself nor my translators expect to get rich by this - in RL terms. Almost all of them are RL translators too - they know excatly what their work is worth. But by immersing completely into the SL economy, 1500 L$ is not "peanuts" anymore. This translation job in RL - with its 50 US$ revenue - allows them to have a nice dinner in town. They need 4-5 of those jobs per day, to pay their bills. But in the SL economy, 1500 L$ is not peanuts. It pays the rent for two weeks. It buys a new dress AND new hair. In fact 1500 L$ get your farther than 50 US$ do.

And why are we perceived expensive by others? SL has a tendency to skew perceived pricing. Last Call is giving out high quality clothing in their "eternal sale" for 100 L$. In many resident's perception, this lowers the price for quality. What they forget is that LC sells probably thousands of outfits each day, generating hundreds of US$ each day. What Babel Translation offers is an individual service. It is real work involved, and we can only ever sell one copy of each. So asking 3-4 L$ per word is a fair price, and for those thinking in two economies, it's a real bargain.

Looking forward to get some comments on this :-)

Who's afraid of the blogger?

It seems that my promising career as a movie star came to an aprubt halt. After getting hired by the same person for a second time, he IMed me the other night. Since he explicitely said I could both leave the movie-link on the blog as well as "do as you wish", I would like to share this rather bizarre conversation with you. I don't know WHAT this person is afraid of though...

[14:17] XXX: hello peter
[14:17] Peter Stindberg: another one? :-)
[14:18] XXX: nope...pls can u remove the posting I am a movie star from your blog... the transaction is commercial and not might to be pulished
[14:19] Peter Stindberg: The movie is on YouTube?! That's as public as it can get?!
[14:19] XXX: i did not know u were a blogger...should have pointed this out... sorry
[14:20] XXX: you can off course post the movie... what i am talking about is the story
[14:20] XXX: this includes the fee we paid as well... that is not intended to be public domain
[14:20] Peter Stindberg: What exactly
[14:20] Peter Stindberg: Ah, ok
[14:21] Peter Stindberg: So is there a Zero too little or aZero too much at the end, that bothers you?
[14:21] XXX: i did not know you had a blog.. should have made this clear
[14:21] Peter Stindberg looks at the post right now
[14:21] XXX: peter we are a rl world business....we cannot have commercial transactions published this way
[14:22] XXX: sorry, i should have made this clear... but i did not know u had a blog!
[14:22] Peter Stindberg: It's in my profile :-)
[14:22] Peter Stindberg: OK, I stencil the amount out.
[14:22] XXX: must have over looked that
[14:23] XXX: pls can u for the sake of our business relationship... modify the posting
[14:23] XXX: not just stencil the fee
[14:24] Peter Stindberg: Modify in what way?
[14:24] XXX: sure we have no problem with posting the movie and telling your readers about the acting... but the story
[14:24] XXX: I exchanged a few IM's with the person, and he said it was for some sort of tutorial, and whether 250 L$ for 10min would be ok. Since he wanted to take a look at me, I TPed him in, he let me stand, open my mouth, check my teeth and said I was just fine
[14:25] XXX: I checked the profile of the guy which was rather bland, and mentioned it to Avarie who - without a second's though - said "Must be porn!".
[14:26] Peter Stindberg: Well, you DID act quite funny and unprofessional, I'm sorry to say. Avarie and me made it for the fun, not for the peanuts you paid. And you did never mention it was a commercial thing - otherwise I had asked other prices.
[14:27] XXX: that is unfortunate
[14:27] Peter Stindberg: A tutorial sounded fine by me.
[14:27] Peter Stindberg: And it WAS fun.
[14:27] Peter Stindberg: But now it looks rather different.
[14:29] XXX: i do not intend to argue or exchange unplesant words... it will not cost u anything to pull down the post... but if you do not want... we will not die
[14:29] Peter Stindberg: I mean SL is not another third world country. I run a business in SL, and for a reason I do not accept RL jobs.
[14:29] XXX: ok
[14:30] Peter Stindberg: OK, I'm not very emotionally attached to that post. I'm open to a serious sugestion.
[14:30] XXX: never mind... do as you wish
[14:31] Peter Stindberg nods
[14:31] Peter Stindberg: Good luck with your project.

Plywood Man for sale

My wise older sister Chey gently (ahem) nudged me to put some of the items I developed in the past up for sale. Being notoriously good at not finishing things, I used my involuntary sick-leave to tidy up some of the projects. The first item, which will be availabe both in Chey's new shop Flights of Fancy as well as on OnRez, is the full avatar Plywood Man. I created that one when sculpted prims were introduced, as a hommage to the old style prims. Enjoy!

Dues paid

What a strange day. Readers of my blog know that my love-life in SL was not very successful. However I managed to retain a friendship with my ex-wife Djanna, and since she knew I worked on skins in the past she asked for my assessment on new skins she intended to buy. In that process, she very cautiously asked for a loan. After hearing that that would be no problem for me, she then replied "OK, then in January you get xxx Linden$ from me" - where XXX was about twice the amount. To my suprise she did in fact remember a previous loan AND the partial rent of our joint property.

Talking about money I decided to take a look at my transaction history, only to find that - on the very last day covered in the report - the alt of my first SL-love sent me 800 L$. I contacted the alt (who in the meantime is the main account since the original account got deleted), and she told me it was old dues, and that she never forgot them and had to pay them back as soon as she could.

Both incidents actually made me feel better. Not because of the money involved, but because of the underlying intentions.

Suddenly poor

When the translation office started to generate some revenue, I was reluctant to hold too many L$ in my account in fear of thievous scripts. That's when I learned about banks in SL, and after learning a bit more (and steering clear of Ginko) I deposited some money at JT Financial, Midas and SLIB. Midas always looked the most straightforward to me, constantly adjusting interest rates between 0.1 and 0.2 percent. Also Midas barely got mentioned in negative context on the blogs.

Seems that finally Midas got into trouble as well - the ATM is inaccessible, my savings locked and probably lost. However the owner appeared in the bank and answered my questions, so that's a good sign.

Peter Stindberg: So what happened?
Midas Commons: I don't know but Luke the boss of the WSe has created a lie about what happened that he has placed on the WSE announcement board
Peter Stindberg: Checking the WSE site right now. You're positive to recover at least part of your assets?
Midas Commons: not for the short run. Luke pushes the buttons on the WSE and has even posted a complete piece of lying rubbish about what happened for the companies to be delistedc
Peter Stindberg: Are you going to try for the long run? I mean, you standing here seems to me that you are not prepared to give up.
Midas Commons: what can I do? besides mount a boycott and a protest that people seem unitnerested in?
Peter Stindberg: So apart from the protest, any ideas and plans how to move on? To save what's being able to be saved?
Midas Commons: I am not sure I have to see how the Sl press reacts
Peter Stindberg: I'm surprised it's only on SL Reports so far.
Midas Commons: I will have to check backin later today

I probably lost a substantial part of my savings today, making me all of a sudden very poor. You might comment that I was foolish to deposit it in the first place, and you're probably right. Still Midas Commons seems to be a straightforward person to me. I hope he gets this sorted out.

"Fascinating Peter. I will pass that along" or: Office Hour with Philip Linden

ZOMG I met Philip Linden last night! The log-in message said there was an office hour with him imminent, so after checking on my IM's I teleported to his - well - platform in Waterhead and was among the first handful of avatars to arrive. A quarter past Philip opened the discussion and asked for issues. I expected a rush on him but actually it was quite civilized and constructive. However with more and more avatars arriving, it got more and more chaotic and - well - bizarre. High on the list of topics - or shall I say complaints - was the gambling ban. What scared me though were people asking - and even volunteering - for a police force, and where people who simply do not seem to grasp that this is a game we play!

I have a 10.000 word chat transcript which gets more and more chaotic towards the end. I try to give it some structure and post the highlights below:

My initial question:

[14:15] Peter Stindberg: I have an issue with the "Search" function and uppercase/lowercase in non-English languages.
[14:15] Philip Linden: Peter... can you explain?
[14:16] Peter Stindberg: Yes. If you search for "Translator" results come up for "translator" as well. That's good. If you search for "Übersetzer" (Translator in German) unfortunately NO results come up for "übersetzer".
[14:17] Philip Linden: Fascinating Peter. I will pass that along.

Philip Linden on banking (this on'es for you, Nobody):

[14:19] Jay S.: lol, is there any new policy concerning the Ginko scandle, Ie it looks more like a ponzi scam
[14:19] Philip Linden: jay we haven't created any policy thusfar on bank, etc.
[14:19] Philip Linden: we try very hard not to make rules we do not need to.
[14:20] Philip Linden: We haven't made any about banks
[14:20] Jay S.: ok
[14:20] Philip Linden: I would note that there is a lot of transparency around projects like Ginko
[14:20] Philip Linden: moreso that in the real world

Philip Linden on the physics engine:

[14:20] Enzo S.: When will we have a new physic motor for vehicules ?
[14:20] Philip Linden: Enzo we are getting quite close.
[14:20] Philip Linden: Active work going on.

Philip on community self governance and policing:

[14:20] Tree K.: I was asking about how much Linden Labs wants to offload on to the community, as in the lindex, money, legal issues etc. in the future? As much as possible? Will SL eventually be entirely community run?
[14:21] Philip Linden: yes as much as possible, tree
[14:21] Philip Linden: SL will grow faster than we can grow our company team
[14:21] Ginger R.: Philip, do you think we will ever see a police force here? I think as in rl the presence might be welcome!
[14:23] Philip Linden: i don't think we ever want any kind of 'global' police ginger

Philip on server source code and colocation:

[14:22] Electron E.: i would like to know if ll ever plans to opensource the sim server code, so that people can run their own sims on the grid... How would this effect ll's business plan and is this in the forseeable future?
[14:22] Nathan M.: have you consider renting servers to different countries to run
[14:23] Philip Linden: electron yes we are going to open the server code.
[14:23] Philip Linden: nathan, we are working on how to let other companies run servers.
[14:23] Philip Linden: working on that now.
[14:24] Peter Stindberg: Colocating servers in Europe would be a huge relief for us Europeans. I second Nathan in that.
[14:24] Philip Linden: longterm there will be many servers that LL does not run.
[14:24] Philip Linden: Yes that would be a first priority! Europe, australia.

Philip on LindEx:

[14:24] T.: what about the lindex, will that always be owned by linden labs? Would you consider opening the "buy" in the pie menu to link directly to paypal?
[14:24] Philip Linden: We might consider that tree.
[14:25] Philip Linden: We built the lindex because there needed to be a safe and stable way to exchange currency.

Philip on Voice and lag:

[14:25] lorinz G.: don't you think that there has been rather more lag than usuual since 'Voice' came on line
[14:25] Philip Linden: I'm not sure lorinz because it is too early to see stats. If our crash, frame rate, and server framerate stats show us something is broken,
[14:26] Philip Linden: we will divert everyone we have to fix it.
[14:26] Philip Linden: We measure 'lag' to the extent that we can in 3 ways:
[14:26] lorinz G.: my karting lap times have gone right out of the window
[14:26] Philip Linden: server frame rate, client frame rate, and crash rates.
[14:26] Philip Linden: the last is indirect.

Philip Linden on griefing, police and live support:

[14:26] Nathan M.: we seem to have issues out of the hrs that lindens are not there to assist like when a sim goes down or a griefer can we get someone 24/7 just for sim issues
[14:27] Philip Linden: we need to add capabilities to better handle griefing.
[14:27] Ginger R.: yes Philip i need powers
[14:27] Philip Linden: for example we are working on some ways to share ban lists
[14:27] Philip Linden: which could be great.
[14:28] Crash G,: phillip, if you greif with style does it make it ok?
[14:28] Philip Linden: well does it make people happy crash?
[14:29] Philip Linden: we need more controls for landowners to control there own space.
[14:29] Electron E.: maybe an LL database and an example script so people can make their own antigreif security
[14:29] Peter Stindberg: You realize that shared ban lists bear a huge potential for abuse?
[14:29] Philip Linden: yes peter but i suspect that they will only be widespread if trusted and well administered.
[14:29] Ant W.: you should be able to choose who you share ban lists with
[14:29] Philip Linden: this is an interesting topic.
[14:30] Crash G.: some of the most fun ppl i know are greifers
[14:30] Philip Linden: really widespread banlists will probably need courts of some kind,
[14:30] Philip Linden: to ensure that the users of those lists are adequately informed as to why people are on them.
[14:30] Peter Stindberg: Put someone you don't like on that list, and he/she is not only banned on your parcel, but on many others too.
[14:30] Philip Linden: Right Peter.
[14:30] Philip Linden: But banlists with a reputation for such behavior would not tend to be used.
[14:31] Philip Linden: Some folks have already built such systems
[14:31] Nathan M.: if i own a 512sq lot in a sim what can i do to stop sim attack
[14:31] Philip Linden: Nathan we will make the sims more resilient to crashing.
[14:32] Philip Linden: But ultimately sharing a public space will still have some risks and rewards.
[14:32] Ginger R.: so..courts but no police..
[14:32] Philip Linden: i think there are likely to be more local forms of police
[14:32] Electron E.: i will sign up for a local police force the moment in becomes available
[14:33] Philip Linden: These are big issues.
[14:35] Ant W.: I personally am against structures of goverment and policing bodies here
[14:36] Ant W.: that is LL's job
14:36] Philip Linden: Ant I disagree. We should not be trying to meet the needs of people from every country in the world as to governance.
[14:36] Philip Linden: we need to build tools.
[14:37] Philip Linden: how does the internet deal with griefers?
[14:37] Philip Linden: We need to solve it that way.
[14:37] Ginger R.: yes people to have the power and the tact to deal with these griefers
[14:37] Nathan M.: u can only deal with it by giving us support 24 hrs
[14:37] Tree K.: technology cant solve social problems, the community needs to solve them with education, influence, and telling the lindens what tools would help
[14:38] Nathan M.: if we dont have powers to stop give us people who do
[14:38] Peter Stindberg: That's a generalization Philip: there is no such thing as "the internet". You can secure your webservers, you can tighten your forums, you can ignore users in chat. But there is no general answer.
[14:38] Wyn G. doesn't think a SL Police force is the answer.
[14:38] Philip Linden: Right Peter.
[14:38] Philip Linden: But I think the same will be true of SL.

Obviously glad to change the subject, Philip Linden focuses on a question by my friend lorinz and commenting on Open Source:

[14:39] lorinz G.: to change the subject Philip, how about support for twin screens - to put menus out of the way?
[14:39] Philip Linden: lorinz i think that would be cool.
[14:40] Philip Linden: probably not something we should actively work on right now because most users don't have 2 screens.
[14:40] lorinz G.: it would make life easier
[14:40] Philip Linden: but a great open source project that I would love to see.
[14:40] Philip Linden: Open source has been working really well, btw.
[14:40] Electron E.: i have a 5monitor set up
[14:40] Philip Linden: You are scaring me electron.
[14:41] Alykia C.: 2-screens. "The game could use a system to be -able- to detatch chat from the main screen of SL so thsoe who -have- 2 screens can put chat and tools on another screen to not clutter the graphic screen itself."
[14:41] Philip Linden: yes alykia i agree that would be cool. we need to change the basic windowing strategy tho.
[14:42] Philip Linden: I'd love to see more screenshot ideas from community on how to improve the UI btw.
[14:42] Philip Linden: we need to see more examples.
[14:42] Peter Stindberg: Check out Nicholaz Beresford's blog, Philip, he put up screenshots of a better Voice layout there the other day.
[14:43] Philip Linden: Peter do you have URL?
[14:43] Peter Stindberg: http://nicholaz-beresford.blogspot.com/

Philip on the Wii:

[14:46] Tree K.: any plans to translate actual RL movement into avatar movement, with say, the Wii controller?
[14:47] Philip Linden: Tree, I think we will do something like that soon.
[14:47] Philip Linden: Or better yet someone in open source.

Philip with devastating news on scalability:

[14:49] Peter Stindberg: Philip, is there a way to find out which sims share a physical server? If not a published one, is there a way to ask in single cases for that information? And are neighbouring sims on the same servers, or is there no pattern there?
[14:50] Philip Linden: Sometimes Peter there are neighbors. We don't give out that info.
[14:50] Peter Stindberg: No offence meant, but "1 core per sim" isn't exactly what gets teached as "scalable" these days. I assume changes will be made eventually under the hood?
[14:51] Philip Linden: Yes Peter, we would like to have ability to dedicate many cores to a sim.
[14:51] Peter Stindberg: Like to have - or working on? ;-)
[14:51] Philip Linden: Turns out to be a harder problem than you might think.
[14:51] Philip Linden: Not working on it.
[14:51] Philip Linden: When server is open source that will all take off too!!

And then the pro-gamblers started to take over:

[14:45] Graciella P.: mr. linden, i have been trying to contact yu daily wishing to reach a compromise regarding this new ban, and even bringing ideas to you through notecards, etc
[14:46] Graciella P.: is there a time that we can arrange to sit down and discuss this issue together, please?
[14:46] Graciella P.: to reach a compromise that suits all of our needs?
[14:46] Philip Linden: Hi Graciella... haven't had time to read yet.
[14:46] Graciella P.: i can meet with you any time, day or night, just let me know when and i will be there
[14:46] Philip Linden: I assume you are talking about policy regarding gambling?
[14:46] Graciella P.: we wish to discuss this without disturbing your meetings
[14:47] Graciella P.: yes sir, that is correct
[14:47] Philip Linden: Graciella can you send me an email... philip@lindenlab.com

Only the goodies now:

[14:53] Bolle B.: If this is really "OUR WORLD & IMAGINATION" then there should be no laws or policies from Linden....... pls comment on that
[14:53] Philip Linden: we aren't going to take a position of judgement.
[14:53] Philip Linden: we simply want to keep SL growing and accessuble.
[14:55] Bolle B.: Another question: Mr Linden: do we get democarcy, so we can VOTE aout policy changes in the future????
[14:56] Philip Linden: Bolle, not on decisions that would risk the operation of SL or make it very difficult for us to make any progress.
[14:56] Bolle B.: So we live in a dictatorlike society ????????
[14:57] Peter Stindberg: Bolle, we don't live here - we PLAY this!
[14:57] Philip Linden: Look for an update to the gaming FAQ. I don't have answers on specific games for today.
[14:57] Mithik V.: do you see a reversal of this policy if the rules regarding gaming change in the US?
[14:58] Philip Linden: Mithik, yes we only seek to comply with law.
[14:58] Philip Linden: If things change in the US, we would change too.
[14:58] Allana H.: Philip wouldnt be basing the company outside the USA or even as some american casinos done by opening daughter companies abroad wont give more economical and better economical boost than forcing non-american users playing according to amercian laws?
[14:58] Philip Linden: Again, on principle I deeply believe that we are not here to pass judgement or set social policy.
[14:58] Graciella P.: but there are compromises available that can help you to comply with us law, as well as allow us to still have our gaming. i'll email it to you again, philip, so that you can read it and run it past legal. :D
[15:01] Mithik V.: Philip: another question: since this business decision effect so many business that were based on gaming, their income was genrated from gaming, and payed tier through this income, would there be slight compensation on tier for those businesses that are now in a situation to loose everything?
[15:02] Philip Linden: No Mithik. The Linden economy overall is much larger than the revenues of Linden Lab, therefore we cannot take on liability for it and also not tax it.

Feeble attempts to get back to other issues:

[15:04] Ante F.: what was this meeting supposed to be about?
[15:04] Philip Linden: This is my office hour, Ante.

[15:05] Tree K.: Philip what has been a great experience for you in SL? something you remember most?
[15:06] Philip Linden: Watching that 'vincent' video... that was very moving.
[15:06] Philip Linden: for those who saw it.
[15:06] Paul B.: van gogh?
[15:06] Philip Linden: being inside a van gogh, tes.
[15:06] Philip Linden: yes.

[15:07] Tree K.: I read a notecard from a person with terminal cancer who died a few months ago, she said she was able to be a dancer in SL even though in RL she had no legs due to the cancer
[15:07] Philip Linden: wow tree that is cool.

Due to notecard size limits I was unaware of, my transcript stops here. I hope you can estimate the amount of confusion and chaos during the second half of the meeting. I was overwhelmed with the rapid fire of chat lines, and I wonder how Philip Linden kept up. I hope he has a chat log too, and I hope he and some staffers have a look at it and try to dig into a few things. I personally think it was a fascinating experience.