In an amazing turn of EPIC FAIL over the week, SL5B keynote speaker Mitch Kapor had the following to say about SL residents – especially the early ones:
The resident reaction, as you might imagine, has been rather poor. Troy Vogel (SLUniverse.com forums) recapped the residents’ reaction much as this: “I’m not in love with you [any more], but I’m going to f*ck you until someone better comes along.”
Ingrid Ingersoll said in the original post, “It was bad enough that we had Philip Rosedale describing his long standing customer’s living situation as “Bad weather, oppressive regimes, poor economic conditions” a few months ago. Now we have Mitch Kapor calling the early adopters of SL (people who had faith in the company, who were more than happy to keep throwing money at it) “marginal outsiders with nothing to lose” in his closing keynote at the slb5. Which I didn’t attend.”
Nephilaine Protagonist: “Huh. And all this time, I was under the assumption that I am a degreed professional in my field who chose to invest my time and talent in a platform that I believed strongly in the potential of. Turns out I was a margin-dweller with no better options before me! Joke’s on me! How in the hell…OK, I was willing to give Phillip the benefit of the doubt that the whole bad-weather-poor-economic stuff was maybe taken out of context or misquoted, but this I heard with my own ears in full context. And I am so. very. insulted. It would be nice to believe that maybe Kapor meant something more innocent than how the comment sounded, but you know what? I’m out of slack to cut LL and it’s talking heads. That was a low blow.”
The bitterness really echoes true.
Oh, and as an aside, no apology has yet been stated.
I loved the comparison he made the to his old students who were early internet users and how they hated all the new AOL.com users. He compared thier attitude to racism. He also made a few points about how the wild west atmosphere of SL brings out the best, and also the worst in people
He really went on and on about the hard time early adopters will have as the SL grows. The thing that gets me is it kind of goes without saying that things will change for early adopters as the platform grows. That’s always inevitable and most people already get that. He doesnt have to make a point of it. You would expect him to try to downplay that and reassure us that we are important to the company
Instead, he makes a point of how marginal early adopters are and basically says “you’re days are numbered, you’ve served your purpose, move on and get over it so that we can move on.”
In a way, I think this speech wasnt aimed at the current users of SL at all. It sounded more like it was aimed at reassuring investors and businesspeople and all the “respectable” future customers of SL. He seemed to be saying them “Yeah, you’re gonna hear alot of pissing and moaning and angry users trashing SL, but that’s just these marginal losers who had nothing better to do than help build SL. Pay them no mind because they don’t matter”
*Goggles* but is unsurprised. I love SL, the concept, the environment, blahblahdyblah. Customer experience: if you take it in a general, private money- making business context? Not all that. And they don’t put a gloss on it do they? With statements like :
“Because land represents nearly 8x more revenue to us than premium accounts, our focus has been on the launching of new land products rather than on enhancing the premium subscription.” Taken from the Q2 official blog statement today.
Ups and downs and backs away slowly
Basically he’s saying, a lot of the early adopters were unhappy with the shit already out there and were wandering around looking for something new and they came to SL.
An example: uuuum, Ok I use Blender because it’s free. It does want I need it to do for the most part. The blender community and I don’t really fit though, because most aren’t using it to make sculpt map. So here I am on the outside of that community. I dream of having a program that can do all this suff blender can do, but also some other things I imagined and have a community that I feel can help and support me for my little SL niche.
Now I read that someone made SLOFT, an in game sculpty creator. It does everything that Blender does and it has a group and a little community around it that is all about knowledge sharing. I, feeling I have nothing left to lose because I’m not really getting anywhere with blender at the moment, go switch to SLOFT, which is outside mainstream programs.
That’s what he’s saying… so where is the offensive part?
Well, since all the Lindens look like totally noobs and unfashionable, the reason why he said all this is totally clear to me:
Because he doesn’t know the Second Life fashion scene with all the talented fashion people who are also successful in real life, live in major fashion capitals and came to SL to educate the masses.
With a quick investigation he would have find the profile of Iustinian Tomsen who is a famous male model and blogger in SL PLUS in real life he is a “Succesfull IT Manager with plenty of time to spare for playing and extensive testing.”
Shame on Mitch Kapor!
Or maybe Mitch didn’t stop to investigate and found out that those people who pretend to be so very hip and successful in real life are nothing but copycats.
For example: Iustinian Tomsen told us in his blog on Friday, March 28th, 2008:
““Working hours are from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm – that means if your flight returns at 4:30 – you owe the company half an hour.”
That is how my Friday started, so let’s put to good use that half hour, write a post on my blog”
Source: http://slstyle.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/oh-hai-i-made-you-grey-kthxbye/
Wow, what a successful IT manager with flights and stuff. But then, I’m really sure, Mitch didn’t stop to investigate and found this:
“”Working hours are from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm – that means if your flight returns at 4:30 – you owe the company half an hour.”"
Yes. Exactly the same sentences but written on Sunday, February 10th on a different blog from another person: http://sharkbait.computerworld.com/?q=node/2171
Maybe. I’m not sure. But is there any chance that Mitch thought of those copycats and pretenders when he stated all this?
Noam, I don’t think that’s what he’s saying at all.
You have to realize that big money people like this don’t just make these speeches off the top of their head. He’s not ad-libbing, this is a prepared speech that’s probably been revised and looked at by a few people. The specific language used is very important in order to get the right message across to your audience. There are alot of different ways to portray early adopters in a positive light when you want to celebrate them: as pioneers, explorers, believers, the faithful, etc etc. Instead, he made it a specific point to use negative terms, and to focus on examples of BAD behavior by early adopters. I really don’t think that was accidental at all.
Here’s how I see it: I *WANT* To see it like Noam sees it. That really Mitch wanted to say was how Noam’s comment interpreted it. And, for all purposes, it probably was meant that way. BUT… (and here’s the but!)
1. As Annyka says: SOMEONE had to have read this and approved it or well given him feedback. So it’s not like only his eyes saw this speech.
What probably brings people to SL is the Possibilities.
2. Phillip’s earlier comments repeated by Ingrid in the SLU discussion: oppression and bad weather bring people to a fantasy world? That may be for some people but in my part of town bad weather means the electricity goes out. Can’t use the Internets without electricity
3. The Trademark situation. There are early adopters who built fansites and offshoot sites for residents to build a community and they spent hours and money and YEARS of their life developing it and suddenly b/c it has SL in it, they have to change it or face possible problems. Encourage the residents to promote the product and then shit on them.
There’s plenty of examples but those are the few bigger ones. There’s some changes going on at LL and within SecondLife and how they see the platform being used. Unfortunately the residents who helped build it are in the way.
And that’s my opinion. I hope in time the actions of Mitch and LL will remove this bitter taste in my mouth.
This is awful. I have been upset for days over it. Its bad enough that there is always someone who leaves a comment after an article on SL about it being only Sex Resorts and Greifers, but now we KNOW that many of the Lindens also choose not to really explore their SLives past Sex Resorts and Sandboxes.
Anyone in the Fashionista set KNOWS what potential lies in Second Life. LL is so dependent on us to create the SLuniverse cause they don’t have a clue. They are so clueless they use that as their marketing tool. But they refuse to give us the tools to create this world. Support sucks, they dont believe in us, they don’t bother to deal with us or our concerns. If this was RL, we’d be staging a revolution right now.
We can’t build the second life of tomorrow without fair rights, support, protection…wait a minute…this sounds kinda familiar…
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all avatars are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Avatars, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Second Life Residents; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present Linden Labs is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these Residents. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
1. LL has refused LL Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
2. LL has forbidden his Residents to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till LL Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
3. For Quartering large bodies of content thieves among us:
4. For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any theft which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these Sims
Seriously
They can kiss my ass if they think my SLife is disruptive
/me goes off to script her cannons
Anyone got a good iron texture?
I agree with Annyka – these types of speeches are prepared well in advance, and are reviewed by numerous people. My gut tells me that LL is preparing for something that is going to make the original adopters very unhappy, heck may make us all unhappy, I dunno. This presentation is setting the tone for it. What is truly upsetting to me personally though is that the good friends I have that are original adopters, are devastated by this speech.
I want to kick the powers that be at LL for that alone.
Once again, they manage to insult the people who started the growth that made SL what it is today. Who were there when it was still beta, who had the patience to stick with it, and without whom LL would never have come this far with SL. Is it really so hard to respect the people who invested their time, money and creativity to a new and flawed, but promising project? LL needs to change their SL slogan.
Hehe…not foot-in-mouth…..more like foot AND mouth….even if he really meant what Noam thinks he meant, he should learn to phrase his speeches in a way that they are NOT ambiguous like that and potentially offend thousands of people…or fire whoever writes his speeches. That was a DAFT move.
/me takes up arms w/ Whimsy. I’m ready for the revolution!!!!!
It been quite obvious for some time that the want to get rid of the content creators who want to hold on to their intellectual property. Step back and take a look at their business plan.
They want an open source environment. The want you to be able to teleport from one grid to another. They make the great majority of their money not from content but from tier. They sell server space and don’t give a crap about anything other than that. They have screwed over the content creator and the land investors time and time again with no regard.
We, the content creators, do not make them anywhere close to the amount of money the non-content creators do. By purposely insulting us they hope we all leave so they can move forward with larger more open plans. Plans that support big business which brings them big money. A world filled with free, high quality content is something people and in turn, big businesses, would be more inclined to cling to and throw their money at for hosting services.
Well, thank god these dispossessed souls found SL. From the way Mitch describes them, their only other option would have been to become serial killers or something.
Or to kill themselves. The poor, displaced misfits.
Sorry to go slightly off-topic here, but did anyone read Cmdnt. Lassard’s….er, I mean, M. Linden’s speech?
I must admit, while his speech was gracious and complimentary to the in-world denizens, one wonders if he really has an idea of what said denizens perceive this metaverse to be.
Big money and technological aptitude do not necessarily translate into literacy. And by literacy I don’t mean the ability to read and write, but to effectively convey what someone wants to say. It wouldn’t do any good if the speech has been revised dozens of times by somebody who’s not very eloquent.
I think Mitch Kapor just pulled a George W. Bush. And a bad one at that. I’m not standing up for Kapor, I think he should have consulted a professional PR agent or at least looked up the meaning of “connotation” before making such a poor choice of words. A thesaurus might have been helpful too.
A few tweaks here and there would have made all the difference:
*pioneers = this is good, leave it
*marginal = outside the main stream (ok, this is where he probably did consult a thesaurus, and it backfired. Should have looked up sample sentences in a real dictionary, not the one that came with the word processor.)
*dispossessed = um, there’s really no hope for this word. He probably thought it sounded intelligent for whatever reason.
*people who feel they don’t fit = people who are unique (they don’t fit into the average user crowd because they want more out of a platform)
*who have nothing left to lose = people who aren’t afraid of losing their time, energy, and talents by investing in a new and unstable platform
*who were impelled by some kind of dream = now this is pretty good, why can’t Kapor have used more phrases like this one?
*who may be outsiders = people who think outside the proverbial box (or cube-shaped prim)
I don’t think Kapor meant to insult the entire SL population in his speech. I do think, however, that he has embarrassed himself and Linden Lab by not taking this keynote address more seriously — and use a dictionary for lag’s sake!
Nevertheless, this poor displaced misfit feels right at home here, and it’s been an awesome 2 years in SL with the rest of you talented marginal outsiders
Crappy speech or not, I’m staying and having an awesome time.
Wild West?
Ok next time some numpty steals my content, splays it over the grid. Showdown.
I will shoot them after 20 paces then spit then bury them in the ground.
Er isn’t that how the Wild West was settled? I wouldn’t even know I am not America like now the majority of the user base. At least, I guess, he didn’t mention the war.
*saddles up and heads off into the sunset*
coughs
@ Morph “Because he doesn’t know the Second Life fashion scene with all the talented fashion people who are also successful in real life, live in major fashion capitals and came to SL to educate the masses.”
sorry I always just chuckle over the educate the masses commentary.
Guess that explains why customer support… well… isn’t.
A man like that can not foster an environment where customer’s are taken seriously. How can customer needs be taken seriously?
All along, I thought it was incompetence… I’m not sure if I should be happy its not.
necro posting as a marker for future readers.
I guess we all now know what Kapor was talking about a year ago when he said things needed to change.
Out with the old and in with… hey where did all the customers go?
Holy necropost, Batman! In light of recent events, however, this was worth bringing up.