"Is not a Monopoly!" Ok… but smells like it.
Last January 22nd Linden Lab organized a press conference about the “integration” of XStreet SL and OnRez in Linden Lab. I was there and i think it was interesting, even what they said can be read in their press release. I wrote a post about this issue some days ago to.
Basically they said is a good investment for them, a way to improve SLeconomy and that they work to make it a better tool for sellers and customers. And i’m sure that’s right and i also think that, someway, i trust more having my money on a company part of Linden Lab than in the hands of someone i never met and i have no information about him. Integrating XStreet to the Second Life web page is something useful, specially for new residents. Also, after the questions of some of the people in the conference they talked about the possibility of expanding the DMCA that protects the rights of creators in Second Life to XStreet too, and that’s good news for sure.
After the questions they asked for comments about it, then i said:
Some people see this business movement as a “monopoly” in the sense you are closing OnRez leaving only, as big distributor, XStreet and also you are taking what was, possibly, the second bigger exchange system, the one in XStreet. Some people may also feel this as an intervention of Linden Lab over a residents business.
As answer to this comment, T Linden (who seemed a bit pissed off because the word “monopoly”) talked about the law restrictions to monopolies, also said we all (Lindens and residents) have to do a huge work trying to restore the confidence we had once .
Ok, possibly the use of the word “monopoly” is not exact in this case, because Armidi has their own web-sales system, because Apez.biz is still running and because they permit other residents create similar e-commerce tools. But we should consider that XStreet + OnRez means more than the 90% of the SL-e-commerce, and this integration means Linden Lab will have, in almost exclusivity, that market, controlling this way all the fees, commissions, content, etc… And even they say they are integrating OnRez in the system what they are doing actually is just to close it. Buying OnRez and closing it they are eliminating the alternative and the competition, and OnRez was an alternative mainly because they had no fees or commission over sales, XStreet had fees and will keep the fees, as Lindens said. At the same time, this way Linden Lab has a stronger control over SLcommerce and economy, so maybe is not a monopoly, maybe we can consider it a “nationalization” in the sense something resident owned is not resident owned anymore. And well, talking about anti-monopoly laws in an economy like the Second Life one is… well… not reasonable.
Surely i will use XStreet, but under my opinion is sure this integration will be good for Linden Lab, what i’m not sure about is if it will be good for the residents, time will tell us… And well, about the “work we have to do all together to improve communication and confidence”, please, let’s be serious. We are customers of Linden Lab so the confidence must be uni-directional, Linden Lab is who have to work to restore the confidence of their customers, not the customers (or residents) themselves. They closed much of the ways of communication, the Official Linden Blog is not a communication tool anymore becuase comments are closed. Forums are not easy to use and may be incredibly confusing. The last Town Hall (possibly only the old residents remember Town Halls) was after the “Open Letter” project in June 2007, and so on…
As always this is my opinion, nothing more and nothing less… but what is yours?
Image taken in the press conference by Radar Masukami and published under a Creative Commons License.
Linden Lab is playing Monopoly?: XStreetSL and OnRez now owned by Linden Lab
Well, it seems some Lindens have been playing Monopoly a lot lately…
As you can see in this post on the Official Linden Blog, Linden Lab has bought XStreetSL and OnRez, the two online marketplaces for SL stuff (clothing, avatars, houses, almost anything…), having this way the practical monopoly over multibrand online web-based distribution of SLgoods (some brands like Armidi have their own web based sale systems outside this two marketplaces and Apez.biz a small on-line distributor is still working). Not only that, this way Linden Lab is buying also the money exchange service of XStreet, the second one after LindeX. Linden Lab will build their new marketplace over the XStreet system, having bought OnRez only to close it.
I’m totally sure none of the residents will think this a good move for them, possibly some may be indifferent because are not users of those marketplaces, but now Linden Lab will have an incoming for everything, also for web-based sales, someway in the style of IMVU. Of course they can do their best for their business but we can choose not to agree at the same time.
Another big question is: “Why Linden Lab decided now to be into content sales when traditionally they preferred to let that to direct relationships between residents?” All this process have some shadows that, possibly, will never be clarified, and the reason that makes me think about this shadows is, basically, the fact that Linden Lab has bought OnRez only to close it. For example, i think is not easy to understand this last movement without taking a look at IMVU business style, because IMVU controls all the marketplace of the system in monopoly, including the money exchange (they don’t have tier, so that is basically their incoming). Some SLbloggers commented also about the possible “bad economic state” of XStreet and how Linden Lab wanted to avoid another big issue in SLeconomy buying it, but this are only rumours.
You will find some more posts about this in the SLblogosphere, but i think Prad Prathivi’s one is really interesting.
So… what do you think about all this?
Image by Torley published under a Creative Commons license.
Freebies… are them for free?
Today i was reading a couple of posts in the blog of Prad Prathivi and Ana Lutetia where they express some concerns about the use of freebies as marketing tools. They have interesting points of view. Anyway, was a bit difficult to explain my point of view in a post comment, and i wanted to know other’s opinion too (there is a pool at the end of the post), so i prefered to post too about this. Of course this is just my two euro-cents.
I saw around two kind of freebies, the ones some creators just give for free in welcome areas, new residents areas, infohubs, or even in their own places or stores, like the resident Four Yip does (she has AWESOME stuff for free or for 1L$). The other kind are the ones you can find in some stores as a Marketing Tool, some directly to anyone, some for Group members of the store.
Personally i don’t see differences between the two kinds, i mean practical differences. The reason why they were built is different but the result is the same actually: some people who can’t afford (or just don’t want to buy) stuff has access to products of different qualities to make their Second Life better or funnier.
Thanks to freebies i had my first stuff, learned a bit about how to make particle scripts, had fun or even helped me to look good. Some creators complain about the freebies because they consider that is damaging their business but i think that idea is wrong. If someone goes to a store and just pick the freebies and nothing else that means he won’t buy the products for sale there anyway, because that person doesn’t wants, or because that person doesn’t like the products for sale or because he thinks they are overpriced. The freebies themselves are not lowering the sales of the merchant. If someone wants quality and exclusive stuff they will pay for sure (meanwhile the prices are reasonable).
The freebie thing is a theme that comes and goes from time to time, this was my opinion but, what is yours?
Image in the post by Torley Linden, published under a Creative Commons license.
SLbusiness… needs to be regulated?
Reading around the SLblogosphere i saw some posts about SLeconomy. Some of them related or asking for more regulations in SLbusiness and economy.
I’d like to remark the really interesting post in Prad Prathivi’s blog, where Prad plead for a trusting system for SLbusinesses, some like the one in eBay, based on references of customers. Personally i find quite interesting the proposal of Prad, even, as he says too, it would be something quite different to do, technically and “socially”. In any case i strongly suggest the reading of the post (as most of Prad’s blog).
In the other side Grace McDunnough, in another quite interesting post, she pleads for a business license system in this case in order to regulate and increase the trust in business.
I’d like to share my view about all this, about regulations in SLbusiness. Every day we have in Second Life transactions for millions of L$ (what means thousands of US$) and the problems you can find are minimal, at least i don’t think is worse than economy in RL. Moreover most of the transactions have values under the equivalent of 10 US$, normally even less. If one have a problem in a purchase due to grid issues normally you shop owners give a solution in a reasonable time for one simple reason: if you don’t have good customer service you won’t have customers, as simple as this. Under my opinion the system works quite good for the 80 % of the transactions.
But, what happen when your transaction is bigger, when we talk about businesses of hundreds (even thousands) of US$ or €? I still think Linden Lab is doing ok keeping distance of this kind of economical relationships, this kind of businesses are RLeconomy, not SL even generated in Second Life. In this case i think the right thing is too sign a contract,and agreement or something legal like that. I think is more a question of common sense more than trust. To make big money business you need to have some information about your provider or customer, and of course, some legal protection in both cases. RL laws in most of the countries provide this legal protection. It seems for me that asking to Linden Lab to care about this kind of transactions is some like asking them to care about something you should care about.
One of the interesting things in Second Life is that anybody can start a business, big or small. The system itself works for most of the transactions, the RL legal system works for the biggest transactions. In my opinion there is no need of more regulations, a license system will just help bigger business and will damage micro-economy.
Image in this post by Ze Moo, licensed with a Creative Commons license.
Avatar Identity
From L-R:, originally uploaded by Torley.
Last friday, my friend Menno Ophelia was so kind to tell me about a panel that was going on about Avatar Identity at the Orange Island.
Torley Linden and Karl Herber also posted about it. The transcriptions of the panels here, in the Orange Island blog.
Some thoughts about that… one, Orange is using his island for something more that a empty merchandising space, at least they organize interesting activities… two, after the panel “Avatar as a personal brand” with Torley Linden, Celebrity Trollop and Saeya Nyanda as speakers and Haver Cole as moderator i was a bit scared.
Above, Torley Linden and Haver Cole during the panel.
For the name of the panel you can imagine what was about, the avatars as branding in the sense that some avatars are the “image” of corporations or businesses in Second Life, Torley as a representative of Linden Lab, Saeya as the image of her own business and Celebrity as the image of fashion blog and magazine.
Some concepts of the panel were really interesting, specially for content creators, some advices from Torley about your avatar as your image (really good advices). Torley said that Lindens are a exemple for some people as models of avatars, Khamudy Mannonen and me had to disagree, specially about Philip (this man needs a hairdresser NOW!). 
After some minutes someone started to talk about avatars as a “registered trademark”, well, were talking about the possibility of register an avatar as a trademark and that was the scary thing.
Right now you can have full rights over your creations, i mean shape, clothes, skin, animations, and attachments if you created all (i think that’s the right way) but you don’t have rights over your avatar in itself, just over the parts you created of it. It sounded to me really weird, like some person in Real Life asking for register his image. My avatar is a extension of myself, a representation of what i want to show and tell about me. Register that, for me, is like registering your way to wear a jacket, or the way you drink a Bloody Mary. So, for a moment, i felt all the “corporation concept of life” around: All can be sold, all can be registered, all is a business…
For me not all can be sold or registered, not all is business, i don’t think business is over ethics, i think ethics is over all. After listening all that, Kham and me decided to wear a group tag saying: “Not a brand myself”.
All the images in this post are by Torley Linden, shared under a license Creative Commons 2.0
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