Donations

This is a kind of continuation post from my last blog post entitled The Greenies Problem. This entry is going to be about Donations.

If you ask me, it is entirely reasonable for any place in Second Life that offers an event to the public to have a donation / tip jar area for offering events or resources. When we look at something like the Greenies, they would likely make a lot more money from donations than charging an admission fee.

One example of an area in Second Life that offers free entertainment but gets donations is the Music scene. Every musician makes a good sum of money for doing the music and also the venues make money from it as well. The venues could easily say “You can’t get in without paying L$1000″ and in some cases they do when it is a big musician like Louis Volare.

Another place in Second Life that offers a service to residents is the Destination Station. Itazura recently added a tipjar for people to donate to. Again entirely acceptable because they make no money for promoting these places free of charge and is a hell of a lot better than any standard telehub.

Soon enough SLPN will be getting a donation jar as well and we have some cool stuff coming down the pipeline.

Harper Berseford made an interesting comment on my last blog post on the Greenies that I completely understand the point of view of.

“They have to insure the survival of their business so they can provide MORE content and pay the electric bill to keep the server running.”

Again, my argument has always been, If they people like it, they will be more than happy to donate. If I ever see a donation jar at a sim that is fun, helpful, informative, entertaining etc. then people will donate. Combine that with Merchandise (Greenies sells merchandise already!) then THEY will surely make money.

The Greenies Problem

I know this is old news but I feel like I had to write about this. A while ago on Podmafia we explored the Greenies sim which is an amazing build that all newbies and oldies should see. However they are now charging for entry into the sim, which in my opinion sucks.

OK L$99 doesn’t seem like a lot of money, but to a newbie that’s like L$1,000,000. When a newbie joins Second Life it can be a daunting experience and I think it is important to let them know about the good stuff quick so they can understand what is cool and possible about the virtual world.

What I’m trying to say is that Second Life builds when its a public place that you want people to visit should not be blocked off at all. The only times something should really be blocked off is a residential area or if someone has been banned.

When you think about the Internet  you get websites that need to be paid to gain entries to certain areas, most of which never really work out well. Second Life is entirely the same, people expect to visit somewhere and be able to explore it for free. Sure there’s a cost attached to it for the service provider but they can make money other ways like Donation kiosks that can help facilitate the venue or merchandise.

I’m sure that Rezzable is making some money from the Greenies but to be honest I think they are already successful enough to not need to offer a charge for admission. I’m sure events like the Hair Fair make them money and the Greenies has always seemed to me like a good promotion of what Rezzable does.

Basically, charging for admission in my mind is a stupid idea and if people start copying the idea then it will negatively impact Second Life.

I am sure most of what I said has been said before but I don’t care because this is my opinion that has been badly written. Also thanks to Dakota Blackmountain for pointing out a typo

Getting Somewhere…

For over a year I have been using an open-source piece of software called OpenSim which is a reverse engineered Second Life simulator. (If you don’t know what a simulator is, it is the thing that gives you land and prims and all that happy stuff). Ever since it was released I have always felt that those servers would one day interact with the Agni grid.

Another thing that I love about the OpenSim project is the ability to run your own simulator locally. This is great for a variety of reasons. Testing scripts outside of Second Life, Building Practice, Tutorials etc. I basically love OpenSim. There are a few problems with it i’ll admit. It is still unfinished in terms of physics, inventory and usability but this will all be ironed out in the future.

So, recently the main grid was able to connect to an OpenSim server, which of course excited the hell out of me. Then this happened to appear in my feed reader. Open Grid may still be in it’s early days but it is something that makes me excited for the virtual worlds. This obviously opens up so many possibilities such as independantly run servers.

I will continue to keep watching the space and finding out what happens with OpenSim because whatever it will bring. It will be a good thing for all.

Not long now…

… I hope …

In case you aren’t aware, for about 10 weeks my main machine which could handle Windlight well went out of action. At first we thought it was the Motherboard that was bricked so we sent it off with the warranty and then found out that it was not the case. So then we discovered it was really the graphics card that was to blame for the problems. Assuming that everything else is fine I should have the machine back very soon and enjoying Second Life like I should have. It’s annoyed me to no end because I wanted to fully experience things like SL5B and the Relay for Life.

So while I was in the downtime I managed to get my old computer up and running again. During the downtime some things went wrong with the machine. But it gave me a chance to experience Second Life from the older hardwares perspective. It intrested me because I always hear people with low end machines complaining that their machines are unbearably slow and get 1fps. It makes me think, what exactly are they putting the Settings at with the viewer. Case and Point this screen capture of my settings, hardware and frames per second.

This machine right here is about 4 or 5 years old now. Yet I seem to be getting 17fps on this low hardware. The only problems I get sometimes is that the machine will hang for a few seconds. But that is down to the machine having 512 MB of memory. Now I understand that some people having laptops and they really do suck for Second Life if they are cheap laptops but the fact is if you buy one of those cheap laptops you are shooting yourself in the foot for any 3D application. I know because I got one for the laptop and yes it sucks big time. I wonder what other people with older hardware get when they are on Second Life. If you read this blog let me know in the comments.

Moving On…

So. Maybe you have heard or maybe you haven’t.

But I am going to be leaving Nowhereville. Why?

Well. I figured that I would leave to make way for a change to Nowhereville. Theres some prime candidates who want to move in and it makes sense that I should leave to make way for change. I have always been a big believer of change and the good it can do but having looked back at Nowhereville I just don’t think it has changed all that much. The major changes to the island were mostly on my parcel(s), Gomem’s parcel, When the Newggenheim came in and when Caleb changed things around. But now it probably needs a major change and I believe that may be around the corner, and it’s gotta be good…right?

But what about you, Stuart?

Well. I am moving to Podcast Island. Why?

To be honest not a lot happens there. It needs to be injected with new life and events to make it seem more active. The main event that happens each month is of course the Podcaster Meetups. But with SLPN moving in there will be more events garunteed with the live podcasts we are starting to do more and more at SLPN.

What the Plurk?

Since Yxes wrote a post about Plurk…I will too.

Plurk is a Twitter-like webapp that in my opinion is brilliant. Why do I like Plurk so much that I have mentioned it on Podmafia two times and blogging about it now? It’s because Plurk is simply better than Twitter.

To me Twitter is a chaotic mess that you can’t really catchup on without going through pages and pages of tweets and adding people more and more to see what was replied to and by who. Not to mention that it is intertwined with the Fail Whale.

Plurk makes it easier for me to catchup on what’s been happening with people and also to read the threads of conversations. It also seems to be a good way of getting traffic fast. Case and Point, Yesterday I was flying around Second Life when I got an IM asking if I wanted to try out the PlurkHUD. Since I am a sucker for BETA I tried it out and gave my location away with the tool. Then GoSpeed turned up and GoSpeed told people where she was. After a while a whole crowd of people came and was just having fun and while Plurk is currently small in size of community it is seemingly quicker to get traffic.

Am I a plurk fanboy? Yes. Do I think people should leave Twitter. Yes. Will it happen. I don’t know.

But if you want to add me…well add me!

Strike Time?

OK, I am going to discuss this whole SL Blogger strike thing. I myself a blogger am blogging about a blogging strike. Yay Oxymoron’s!

So, Gwyneth is leading a protest about the whole copyright and licensing thing about the lack of a clarification. Even though there was a clarification.

Linden Lab’s clarification

Why didn’t the linden’s address the bloggers?

Pretty much because they aren’t going to go after the frickin bloggers. The bloggers help promote Second Life so why the hell would they go after the bloggers?

It’s like saying that Apple sues all the blogs for talking about the iPhone. It’s crazy. They didn’t even take down Fake Steve. So why the hell would Linden Lab even take them down.

The copyright thing goes after people who are profiting by infringing on the Second Life copyrights. SLPN was sorta affected in a sense because we may in the future recieve cash sponsorship to help out the costs of running the network. Hence why I did some changes like just branding it as SLPN, Podcasts for the Metaverse

My blog will not change UNLESS Linden Lab says, you gotta change this. Because lets be honest, they will only give you a written warning about the content if its deemed to violate in a way they don’t like it.

And just remember…theres only 49 days left if your super-paranoid that the Lab’s is out to get you

Remember, It’s only a Server

Last week the Lindens announced that they were going to be introducing a new land store system which promises almost instant delivery of sims. With this a price drop was announced for the purchasing of Estate simulators.

When the new Land Store launches, setup fees will be:

* Normal Islands: USD$1000 setup
* Normal Openspaces: USD$250 setup
* Educational Islands: USD$700 setup
* Educational Openspaces: USD$175 setup

For some reason people started to interperet this as being a move against the OpenSim project or that the Lindens are having poor sales.

But if you take a logical approach to it. You will realise that it really isn’t the case. The fact is that technology gets cheaper and cheaper. Take an iPod for example. As more features and storage is added, the prices drops. This is the way that the tech industry moves and it obviously ripples into Second Life.

But wait, what about OpenSim?

Well… I am pretty sure that just last week, it was announced that OpenSim and Linden Lab are working together to integrate OpenSim servers into Second Life.

How is that going to work?

I think that they will probably have a message that pops up every time you enter the area of an OpenSim based server like, “This is a third-party server and Linden Lab is not responsible for what may happen”.

Personally I am excited about the prospect of having third-party servers in Second Life as this will lead to even cheaper server options for people. Of course all the backing up is down to the third-party or you instead of Second Life, hence the cheaper aspect. After all part of the cost for sims is that you need to pay the maintainence fees, backup charges, bandwidth etc.

As stability slowly comes to Second Life…so does some really exciting stuff that I just love the idea of.

Avatar Rendering Cost

Another new thing in Dazzle in the Advanced section is called Avatar Rendering Cost. This helps to calculate the whole lag that an avatar is ultimately causing. This can help banish some myths about avatars and prim hair stuff etc.

My avatar usually doesn’t wear prim hair since the skin has hair painted on to it. All I really wear is 2 trainers (sneakers to the yanks) and a suit (which is actually a nod to the Tenth Doctor in Dr Who).

Anyway, I tried out this setting and found that my rendering cost was typically 105-110. Which is actually a brilliant score. Compared to Jane2 who at the time had a cost of 2500.

I also tried it out with some prim hair on and that brought it up to about 505. So in a sense I am happy because my avatar is grid friendly and stuff and in a world filled with lag. Especially events, I am doing my part to bring down my “Prim-Emissions”

Somebody Dazzle Me?

OK so the next release candidate for SL was released featuring the new and amazing Dazzle UI. As much as the Linden Lab™ says that this is more than a colour change, it really just is a new lick of paint to an interface. and I personally do not like the interface..

It doesn’t seem to change the core way that it is laid out. That is a problem for me because I am a resident of nearly 2 years of age and I still to this day find things in the interface that I didn’t know about in the beginning days and it makes me wonder, what does the new Second Life resident think of this interface.

Not to mention…Dazzle is too…vista-like for me. Some argue that it is more Aqua like but I don’t think so. Its more of an Aero on spearmint flavoured steroids. The more I use the interface the more I want the old interface just because of the colour. Maybe if Linden Lab™ implemented a skinning scheme where users can create their own interface, sort of like Firefox does it, then I would be happier. Possibly people could sell their skinned SL themes but only as an option. Sort of like what they are planning with Windlight.

The only feature I like in the client so far is the in-built Anti-Aliasing. To those who do not play games and most likely will not of heard of this amazing technology. Anti-Aliasing is the art of pixel smoothing in 3D graphics which makes everything look a whole lot better. In some enviroments 2X is fine. Snapshot lovers will want to go as far up as possible to get the best photographs as possible.

Don’t think that going all the way to 16X Anti-Aliasing doesn’t affect performance. It puts a lot more pressure on a graphics card. Top that off with Windlight/Draw Distance and everything else and you have got to need a powerful rig to handle it all.