Continued Hints And Allegations of Stability and Business Tools

The BusinessWeek article, Beyond SecondLife has a few interesting quotes:

... [w:Linden Lab], the creator of [w:Second Life], doesn't think that building a series of separate virtual worlds is a good strategy, director of marketing Catherine Smith says. The company, however, is working on allowing corporate players to increase security by hosting their own servers that could keep their back-end data separate from Linden Lab's main server. Last fall hackers obtained the credit-card details of many Second Lifers...

Well, first off - of course SecondLife's Director of Marketing 'doesn't think building a series of separate virtual worlds is a good strategy' - she's the Director of Marketing. That's like asking a child if they think ice cream for dinner is a good idea - one shouldn't be surprised about the response unless the child says 'no'. Aside from being a filler paragraph - it happens to be true. A bunch of separate [w:virtual world]s isn't a brilliant idea, but it will be the only way to enforce some [w:open standard]s when it comes to this bleeding edge of the internet.

The interesting part here is the 'allowing corporate players to increase security...' bit. Admittedly, the article seems a little confused - but as for me, an individual, I want to be allowed to increase security better. The focus toward larger corporations is disturbing in this context, as [w:Small and medium enterprise]s are very advantageous for individuals and even the larger corporations. This is one of the implicit failures of present industry and media- discounting the small and medium businesses which can thrive in a virtual world under the right circumstances. While everyone was busy celebrating Anshe Chung (in various ways, some more entertaining than others) - no one really focused on the other people who have been making a living providing virtual goods and services. Apparently having an in with Linden Lab assists in those things.

I think I can speak for perhaps the majority of SecondLife residents - alternate accounts not included - when I say - We Want The Same Tools That The Big Corporations Get.

Now let's put this into a different context: Linden Lab is apparently opening up a little. According to Mitch Wagner:

...Linden Lab will open Second Life registration data to third parties, to enable users to log in to Web sites with their Second Life credentials. Linden Lab sees this as primarily useful for Second Life-related content on the Web, such as forums, wikis, and blogs for Second Life users. Second Life content now on the Web includes a photo-sharing service for screenshots taken in Second Life,, and stores where you can buy products on the Web and have them delivered in Second Life.. Linden Lab wants to encourage that kind of activity.

Linden Lab also plans to open its proprietary instant-messaging system to the Internet, so that users who aren't logged in to Second Life can still exchange text messages with each other. One option being considered: Connecting Second Life IM to an existing chat protocol, such as the open source Jabber.

Last week, Linden Lab announced acquisition of a five-person company that Ondrejka said will vastly improve the appearance of the virtual world. Windward Mark is currently best known for making realistic atmospheric effects, lighting and skies in virtual worlds. But their mission is broader than that. ...

Yup. Fair enough. I took a look at FirstLook, and that's cool. But - what about all that landbot karma being burned? What about the potential for Spam coming from SecondLife servers?
And what about residents potentially being fined 150% for receiving what Linden Lab suspects are funds which are illegal?

I've never been impressed by cosmetics much, and this is what this all seems to be - cosmetics, promises of fixes and a lack of acknowledgment of many issues which plague residents financially - affecting small and medium enterprises.

Perhaps someone should explain to Linden Lab's accounting department that a thousand people with 10 dollars are worth more than 1 person with a thousand dollars. Of course, this is the way of the world - but what's the point of changing the world if you are going to recreate the same thing which required the world in the first place? Perhaps it is true that every revolution carries with it the seeds of its own destruction.

Open the Server. Let's get some open standards in place. Then Linden Lab can focus on the issue which it has neglected: Policy... and the rest of us can do our own policy if we don't like Linden Lab policy.