Two years in a row, Second Life Relay for Life has made headlines for fundraising and organizing many of Second Life's best and most talented artists. Last year, we were amazed at a 12-sim attraction with a "countries of the world" theme that raised $42,000 US thanks to dozens of builders.
Earlier today, I took my first look at this year's track. 32 sims. Hundreds of volunteers, and a huge variety of builds around the theme "quest for a cure". (Which, my company's Creative Officer tells me, was at least partly his suggestion.)
There's so much. There's never been anything like this ever before. And not just in Second Life. The scale of collaboration in a 3-D space with so many things to see and do, so many participants, so much money raised, and so much real estate. The scale is unbelievable.
Hats off to Randal Moss (RC Mars in world) of the American Cancer Society who is the leader and creator of Virtual Relay for Life. Hats off as well to the literally hundreds of volunteers and thousands and thousands of participants and donors. This is the biggest in-world event in Second Life. It's a huge job, and this year's course is awesome.
To anyone who hasn't heard of this, or who has been waffling on going: You really need to see this first hand.
Though, I did throw up a couple dozen snapshots on Snapzilla. I'll leave you folks with my personal favorite view from SLRFL 07, where I actually wow'd out loud:
DO NOT MISS THIS YEAR'S SLRFL!
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p.s. My company's contribution this to ACS this year - full disclosure - was donating the design, build, and script time for the construction of ACS's headquarters sim, "American Cancer Society".
7/28/2007
Relay for Life: Nothing Like It!
7/26/2007
Gambling Banned in Second Life
Banz0red!
Well, it's long overdue. You have this virtual world, and part of its Terms of Service, from the very beginning, included, "You can't do stuff that's illegal in the real world in our virtual world."
For four years, Linden Lab's standard response to, "Why isn't unregulated gambling banned in Second Life?" is "They're playing for L$, and L$ don't have value." Gee, the chips in the casinos at Las Vegas aren't legal tender either, but just like L$, they can be traded for US$ fairly easily and quickly.
Considering gambling games have blighted every club and show up randomly any time any resident feels they can ignore the law and make some easy L$. There was no regard for the lag they generated with their flashy machines, no regard for standards and certification, no regard for how out of place they felt when you want to go to a club and enjoy socializing.
Some reasons why unregulated gambling in Second Life is problematic. Reuters also illustrates why even non-chance based investments should be subject to regulation, too. Then again, after the disgraceful publicity scam that LukeConnell pulled by exploiting thousands of dead America's lives to sell office space next to his unregulated stock exchange, I feel no pity for his theft whatsoever.
Hey, Scripts are Dangerous
You wouldn't run unknown software on your computer, would you? (Seriously, you would? Scary.) So many people in Second Life are naively trusting of scripts that they use in-world. When something asks for money permissions, BEWARE!
Personally, I've built up three years of street cred with my vendor system, I've open sourced it, and anyone can see what it does and that it's not a trojan. But you read stories like people wearing gambling HUDs, and that's just asking for trouble.
I think it goes to a larger issue - new users in Second Life are used to MMOGs that are made by one company, where all the elements are controlled and verified by one company. There's an impression that "whatever's in Second Life must be safe else Linden Lab would have gotten rid of it" or even, "Linden Lab makes Second Life and stuff in it".
No, no, this is the Internet in 3-D. This is the Wild West. The precious freedom Linden Lab allows us to script nearly whatever we'd like means that scripts can be very dangerous, which Linden Lab has committed to deal with in the numerous grid crashes, etc. Second Life is not a game; it's not a MMOG; it's an extension of the Internet.
Economic Fallout?
So naturally, as any good tabloid would, the SL Herald's article takes a negative tone and fears that SL is in for a recession. Meh, not really. The Herald has previously reported that up to 80% of transactions in Second Life are gambling-related, indicating that the US$ figure representing "Transactions in-world" that Linden Lab touts on their main Secondlife.com homepage may also be 80% inflated. My prediction is that this number will plummet, and head down more closely around the area.
Here's today's stats:
US$ Spent Last 24h: $2,083,621
LindeX Activity Last 24h:$261,886
After the ban, that first number will be easily less than half, however, I think the LindeX activity will not drop noticeably . I'll check back and update this entry as it does.
UPDATE: nearly 1 week later:
US$ Spent Last 24h:$801,625
LindeX Activity Last 24h: $169,766
Well, I was right about the US$ spent, but it looks like the LindeX has taken a hit. I will keep monitoring it, but this could mean that 25 - 35% of the money coming into Second Life LindeX was gambling related. I don't think this will have widespread effects on the SL economy as a whole, though certainly the already overpriced high-demand land market may slide and be slightly-less-in-demand. Big deal.
Great Exodus?
No.
Look at it this way: If you're a person looking for a gamble online, do you go to Second Life? No, you go to another online gambling site. Second Life gambling was, at most, a tertiary attraction. I've met throngs of SL users, and they are interested in customizing their look, having property, doing things in groups, sports, parties, but no one says, "I'm here for the gambling."
And frankly, anyone whose main / sole reason to stay in Second Life is gambling - well, they have a problem and should be seeking addiction support.
Good riddance from SL, unregulated gambling! Perhaps one day gambling commissions will be let into Second Life and safer, controlled, regulated gambling will be permitted.
7/15/2007
Bragg vs. Linden Lab: Bragg Wins Either Way
So you may have heard of Bragg vs. Linden Lab.
If you haven't, the summary:
1. Bragg tried to be a land baron in SL.
2. Bragg exploited the auction system and bought sims that were not up for auction yet at $1 a piece, when going rate is $2000US and up.
3. Linden Lab kicked out Bragg and confiscated all of his L$ and land holdings in SL.
4. Bragg is a lawyer, so he decided to sue.
And the court summary:
1. Bragg claimed he was entitled to the sims he bought for $1. That has subsequently been dropped.
2. Bragg is allowed to sue from his state, rather than in California as Linden Lab's Terms of Service insisted.
3. Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab, unsuccessfully requested to be left out of the defendant list.
Bragg's basic claim is False Advertising. He claims Linden Lab has stated that land is "own"able, and that the land and L$ confiscated when he hacked Linden Lab's auction system should be his.
Now Bragg appears to be trying to subpoena all the big players in Linden Lab and behind Linden Lab.
It should be patently obvious that Bragg doesn't care about winning or losing this case. Sure, he's looking for money, but this guy sees a market. He's a lawyer, and if he can continue the publicity circus, he could very well go down as "The man who first tested virtual property rights." and secure his place as an "expert" in virtual property law. Thus, the celebrity list he's asking to subpoena acts as a way to boost publicity.
Hindsight being 20/20, Linden Lab should have paid this guy off once they realized he was a lawyer with nothing better to do than make himself a star. If Linden Lab is forced to dole out tort money, and then to have to treat all of its land as other peoples' property - that'd be a huge setback.
For us consumers, it might be a benefit. But honestly, the government is so far behind making adequate legislation for technology, especially in the Internet, that I think any ultimate decision may wind up being totally unenforceable or just plain messed up.
My Opinion
Honestly, Bragg doesn't have a chance at winning the lawsuit. He violated the law in hacking the system, and Linden Lab did what any good ISP has done: permanently kicked him off the system. If I were to hack my ISP, I would expect them to do the same thing, regardless of what value of my website or any customers to my website.
But that's moot. Bragg's a long-term thinker, here. If he loses round 1 at the local judiciary level, then he appeals, and guess what? More publicity.
My advice
Linden Lab should / should have filed a criminal complaint against Bragg for hacking, and press to get him debarred. He's a criminal for his hacking, and criminals shouldn't be able to be lawyers in court. Bragg either knew what he was doing with manipulating the auction system was a crime, or he's a complete idiot. His lawsuit and positioning himself as a virtual law expert clearly shows he's not an idiot. I have to conclude he's a conscious criminal, and to him I hope he suffers for the rest of his life knowing that he's a sleazy, unethical, criminal.
I did a bit of poking around. An article about Bragg said he was in Pennsylvania, so I checked, and found Bragg had no disciplinary record findable on the Internet.
I was, however, able to easily find PA's code of conduct shows that disciplinary action can be taken on lawyers that:
8.4
(b) commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects;
(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation;
in the comments it notes:
"a lawyer should be professionally answerable only for offenses that indicate lack of those characteristics relevant to law practice."
And it would seem plainly obvious that if someone hacked / exploited a website for attempted personal gain, then it is absolutely relevant to the law practice as Bragg is representing himself in an Internet law case.
So, Linden Lab, why not? This guy's a criminal. Have at him. Even if you don't get him to lose his license, it may be enough to remove him from representing himself at his case, and that would be a blow to his overall goal of being a virtual world legal expert.
7/11/2007
How Second Life's Land Store Should Automatically Work
Let's make this entry cut-and-dry.
Problems:
- Linden Lab charges to rename a sim.
- Linden Lab charges to move a sim.
- Linden Lab charges to transfer ownership of a sim.
- Linden Lab does all of the above actions manually.
1. Automate renaming sims in the land store.
Seriously, how hard is it to automate changing a piece of data in a database? I can change a regular flat-web site's DNS records easily, and it's automated. Registering a domain name costs as little as $5. Why then can't Linden Lab automate this? Why does this cost $50?
2. Automate sim relocation in the land store.
The land store already lets a user reserve a space on the grid automatically. Why then can't we automate moving sims? It would seem to me that the mechanism is already in place, and just needs to be tapped into.
The only complication I see is if you want to move your sim next to someone else's sim. How hard would it be to then automate it, make it into a "pending" state, email the owner of the neighboring sim for approval, and provide that other person a link to the land store for approval automatically?
No, instead it's a $150 per sim fee PLUS you have to manually submit a ticket to support.
Automate it! I'd still be willing to pay $20-30 per sim move, but $150 is ridiculous!
3. Automate sim transfer in the land store.
Like the other two suggestions, this should be a no-brainer. If I want to transfer ownership of a domain of a regular website, it takes an email to the domain host and change of DNS records. Free. No $100 transfer fee as Linden Lab levees.
...
Yes, this will take some programming time on Linden Lab's part. But for the few dozen man-hours it might take, Linden Lab is saving a ton of money and personnel time. They could even charge reduced rates for the automated system, and be making pure profit from transfers / relocates / renames.
Further, Linden Lab's current method is simply not scalable. As the number of private sim-owners increases, Linden Lab will need to put exponentially more people there to deal with this. These solutions solve a problem of inevitability.
Paradigm Shift?
Then there's the cool thing. Let's say it's cheap to move your sim. I know of lots of people interested in forming their own continents with their private sims. It's a no-brainer - it's what Linden Lab started with - a continuous continent. By removing these expensive fees, people will have no barrier to do this, and they could reorganize and form whole new land masses. Locality would suddenly become important with private sims. With the thousands of private sims out there, we'd literally be looking at a whole new world in Second Life, one where people can live out the "building a new country" dream that Philip Rosedale set forward half a decade ago.
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