A rather nice interview with Ebbe Altberg was just published on the Engadget website.
I am sorry about sharing links to articles and interviews here on my blog in stead of just articles I write myself, but I think that some of these things are rather interesting and not everyone who follows my blog also follows me on twitter and I still want to share what I find on the web.
And of course, here on my blog I can add a few comments of my own.
First thing I notice is that they used some up to date screenshots, with reporters today it is quite a miracle if they don’t use images from 2007 to illustrate Second Life…
Ebbe says a few things that stand out, I’ll quote them and a few other bits below and then leave you the link so you can read the whole article on the Engadget website.
The privately held firm wouldn’t say exactly how much that adds up to on its own ledgers, but maintains its annual revenue is in the same ballpark as the $75 million figure given to SFGate last year.
“I wouldn’t necessarily want to send an incredible mass of people to come to Second Life today,” he explains further. “Many of them would have the same opinion they had a year ago … It’s very easy for someone who would be an ideal user for our product to come in and end [up] in the wrong place and get a negative experience.”
“We’re going to spend a ton of energy in the coming years on a next-gen platform,” Altberg says. “That’s a big project that we’ve kicked off since I came on board.”
“How do people interact with the world from their phone, from their pad, from their PC and from their Oculus? All of that we’re solving from the ground up with this new code base,”
“We’re building the next-generation platform for hundreds of millions of people; not for millions of people,”
“Would you rather have a really deep and broad product that enables a ton of stuff, and it can only attract 50 million people,” he asks, “or do you want a really dumb product that can attract 800 million people? Or a billion people? You have to choose, sort of.”
“I feel like we’re in a very good place,” Altberg says. “We are the most experienced when it comes to this stuff. We’re bullish; we’re investing; and all the things that are happening around us with Oculus and the market getting excited about these things again [are] great for us. It’ll make it easier for us to attract talent.”
You can read the interview here:
http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/27/second-life-social-network-for-virtual-reality/
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Jo Yardley's Second Life 
I thought you’d like the last quote the most, but left out above… 🙂
…”If we can empower creators to create incredible things,” he says, “they, in aggregate, will acquire hundreds of millions of people.”
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Ha true, I was tempted but got to leave something for the people who go and read the official page!
Mind you, to get even better quotes, its probably best if I interview you myself! 🙂
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I second that! Maybe a “Ebbe Minute” every podcast? With some nice quotable soundbites????
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There is a free glass of virtual lukewarm beer in it for you Ebbe.
Good deal.
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I appreciate it when people reblog stuff and bring it to my attention. So please keep it up!
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Gee, I could tell any moron, “Hey, I’m building a brand new, FASTER car that will be BETTER than the old car. Now I COULD make it go 10,000mph or I COULD make it go just 1,000mph with a sun roof and bluetooth speakers. But please, please don’t even SUGGEST that the car might not even be able to make it out of the garage.”
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Hello Jo. Thanks so much for posting here on you blog what you find out and about regarding Second Life. I don’t have Twitter, so I value your web postings.
I know planning is still ongoing and that many decisions are still undecided and possibly not even considered at this time, but I was wondering if you have yet to come across any discussion(s) about the inworld geography of the soon-to-be-new SL2.0? Such as, will all the mainland continents remain the same as they are now, but start out new, empty and unpopulated, ripe for land grabs on a first-come-first-served basis? Or will there be a whole new world of completely different continents? Perhaps all the mainland continents will be actually connected this time and not have some placed separately on the map as stand-alone continents that can’t be traveled to by vehicles (instead, as is now the case, requiring teleporting from one continent to another).
Might there be a separation of continents for adult-oriented activities, possibly also for another new teen continent again, or even other similar access separations based on content, such perhaps something dedicated only for educational organizations that would then make use of additional portals to access the greater SL world?
Will existing tier-paying mainland residents and privately owned sim owners get to transfer their land and property rights over in-tact as-is to the new world at the same existing levels, or perhaps “grandfathered in” at current price rates and prim allowances if new terms are created in the new world?
Are there any building tools content creators should start weaning themselves off of or start taking time to learn? (such as less old-style layered clothing development in favour of learning the Blender application (or not), or learning more about “fitted mesh” (or something newer, better suited to what might be implemented for the SL2.0 world).
And by the way, whatever happened to the TOS discussions? Did Linden Lab lawyers ever stop dragging their feet and revise the legal terms to indicate that the Lab doesn’t have complete rights over everything users create inworld? Did I miss some conclusion to that debate? I don’t believe I’ve had to re-agree on an updated TOS since that debate arose last year.
Thanks for keeping an eye out for all of us, Jo!
Best, Dahlia Jayaram
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The ToS is being worked on although it is taking a long time.
It seems like the main issue is that a bunch of lawyers created the new ToS and used a lot of legal talk mumbo jumbo.
Still, we’ll have to see what the new one will look like.
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The ToS must be waaaaay back on the burner! I wonder how much work is actually being done on it. I hope the lawyers aren’t being paid by the day (or perhaps LL is saving their money by not requesting any work to be done on it in the first place). Linden style in the past has been to simply drag their feet on issues brought up by residents and rarely respond—if at all—for periods of time so long that everyone either forgets while getting side-tracked on other issues (or life), or simply give up on pursuing the issues any longer when it becomes obvious that the Lab is going to do whatever they want to anyway. Watching these past few months tick away on the ToS issue gives me this same feeling, despite the early-on acknowledgement by Ebbe that the Lab is (was) willing to continue the dialog (not sure how much that has happened recently) and explore how to write the language so it is more agreeable to resident content creators. Note to Ebbe: if you’re short-staffed due to other more important projects, I’m sure there would be plenty of residents willing to help move the ball forward by writing the ToS for the Lab!
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