Listening to Thor talk one can hear the idea of central government trying to shape social behavior. Rather than giving users, customers, and merchants a stable environment and letting people figure it out. The Lindens keep changing the search game. Businesses leave in frustration just as they leave centrally planned RL economies. </end search rant>
TM: 29:30 Colossus Linden takes over to discuss the changes being made to make Linden transactions more user friendly. The idea is to streamline and simplify infrastructure to get Linden currency into new user’s hands. Reducing the time from signup and world entry to the point where they buy or get Linden Dollars.
One part of that simplification is getting SL Payment systems to work with more currencies in more countries.
Another part is simplifying the process of buying Linden Dollars. That process will have a new viewer side purchase process. The goal is to make it easy and to inspire confidence. The web side has the same goals. A path for the new user that just wants a quick Linden Dollar purchase is being worked on and some of the changes have appeared over the last month. A path for more experienced uses and merchants is also being improved.
Overview
We were not given a road map of coming changes and plans. I doubt the Lindens have that detailed a plan. Much of the ground they are traveling is new to virtual worlds. Considering the other topics discussed at SLCC and Rob’s stating the Lab has other products than SL coming out, one could assume that this virtual worlds sales system is much larger than SL in scope.
Their planning is more of a goals oriented plan. One goal is how to get more people into the SL economy faster. Another is how to handle the transactions and payments as painlessly as possible. Another is how to make use of the products easier. Another is to make access to products easier and more efficient. I think they will fall on their face on that last one, but we’ll see.
In practical terms, they hope to make it more obvious to new users why they may want Linden Dollars, how to get them, and how to use them.
Q&A
TM: 36:30 Q&A starts.
TM 37:20 What does economic participation mean? (One cannot hear the question the audience asked, unless they are repeated by the speaker. So, some I omitted.) To the Lindens economic participation is when a user acquires Linden Dollars and uses them.
TM: 39: 30 Can one sell boxed and unboxed content with Direct Delivery? Yes.
TM: 41:20 Freebies. Some activities hinder economic activity. Colossus provided a good point. While there are Freebie Hunts where people hit a 100 stores to get just the freebies, would a person that goes to that length to get freebies actually ever buy something? It is hard to say, but probably not. Also, most of the people casually collecting freebies also buy things. Colossus has been looking at the issue for years. There is no clear answer. Charging for freebies, essentially removing them, is as much a problem as having them. Unless there is some unified shift in opinion among to overall user base of SL, things are not going to change.
TM: 45:15 Why is the Lindex meaningful? The answer the Lindens gave is rather bland. They say it is just one of their portfolio of economic indicators that gives people and idea of what is happening. The Lindex shows how stable or unstable the SL economy is.
I’ll give a different answer. In the USA the stock market index just set record changes. Dropping 600 points in one day jumping up 400 points another day. If you day trade these are fabulous days. One that knows what they are doing can get rich in days. It is high risk and one can make a mistake and go broke. The point here is that money can be made playing the market. Playing the market is different than playing the stocks. When one buys a stock they are betting on the company and that it will do well. They can look at business in general, the economy, the company they are buying in particular, and decide if they think it will prosper.
When one plays the market all they care about is whether the market moves up or down. If it does not move they cannot make money. In that case they have to play stocks. Playing the market is for the big kids that can actually push the market up or down. The little guy usually gets killed. Thus the reason the market managers try to keep things stable to encourage people to invest.
The same is true in SL’s economy. If the Lindex were bouncing up and down like the stock market did, people would be interested in playing the Lindex to make money. As long as the Lindens keep the Lindex stable one cannot make money speculating on the Linden currency. I can keep Linden Dollars on hand for when I want to go shopping or pay rent. I won’t be losing the value of my money because the Linden Dollar loses value. It makes the difference between people gambling with the Lab on the Lindex or people just buying Lindens to use in world. For our purposes in SL stable is good.
TM: 46:50 What is the Lab doing to address developer needs? The Lab is aware they have not done much over the last several quarters (years?) to help developers bring in new content. They are just starting to think about what to do for developers.
TM: 48:40 What can the Lab provide in the way of analytical tools to help developers? The Lab has no specific answer. They are considering ways to package data and user analytics as a value added package. I think this is too nebulous for them to say more. But, at least they are thinking about it. What read between the lines is the Lindens want to get SL growing at a significant rate. Once they have new users coming in, staying, spending money, and the stats are looking good, they will more open to providing stats and user metrics to developers to improve their marketing.
TM: 50:15 What impact is the Linden Homes project having on user retention and overall economy? Initially the Lindens saw a rush to participate. Since then it has been flat. They have seen player retention go up among those participating. The Lindens see the homes as a stepping stone for people to move them into the retail and wholesale land rental business. While they do not see it as harming land rentals I didn’t hear any hard stats to support or disprove the idea. They feel the product is a bit stale and they are looking at doing something else.
TM: 52:15 Do people have to continue to use Magic Boxes during the migration period? No. Once Direct Delivery is rolled out one can change over as quickly as they choose. One the roll out is complete there will be a time where they close down the Magic Boxes. Everyone will eventually have to move to Direct Delivery.
Summary
The Lindens have good goals for improving commerce in SL. Whether their implementation is going to work remains to be seen. Improving commerce is closely tied to the new user experience. We probably won’t be seeing much change in the economic numbers until the end of the year. Direct Delivery will be out in about 3 months. That should be nice. Hopefully the new Delivery Notifications will make things easier for new users.