that for 2009.
Beyond that first experience, the general usability of the experience, in terms of finding the things that you want to do, discovering the things that make the experience engaging for you, that typically has to do with the content that you are looking for, hooking up with your friends or your colleagues, depending on what you use, that are going to be most beneficial to your experience -- those are all pretty common problems on the Web. There are things that people have tried that have been successful and unsuccessful, and you know, I think we have as learned a view as any about what to do in those areas.
Industry Standard: There's a new generation of hardware coming out called netbooks. Is that something that's not going to happen with Second Life? Or are you changing something to make it happen?
Yoon: It's very similar to the effect of laptop growth. Remember, when this company started in 1999, laptops were not the majority of computer purchases in the U.S., or worldwide. I believe they are now, right? And the change has to do both with the processing power on the computing end, on the terminal end, and the fact that laptops being mobile, are much more often used on a wireless network which is less reliable than a cable network or a wired network. [Linden Lab founder] Philip [Rosedale] always gave me a hard time about that, because the company I worked at previously was one that made wireless equipment for enterprises, and [he's] like, "It's because of companies like yours that spread the laptop religion, and slows the adoption."
And you know, to a certain extent, you continue to see that. There is a continued movement toward mobility. And I think netbooks are a much smaller factor than, for example, iPhones, and more powerful handheld devices.
So I would say that it's probably still the core part of the experience or the highest-end part of the experience of Second Life, the one that really shows to me the capabilities of the environment, on the higher-end computing platform. We certainly do not need to limit that. If you don't show the capabilities that are possible on the high end, I think that you don't really get an opportunity to develop toward where the world is going.
I know that there's a lot of theory in the industry that what you really ought to be focusing on is the light-weight experiences, Web-embeddable experiences, you can run it on any machine, you can run it on mobile devices, or wi-fi networks. Those things have their applicability too. Absolutely. By no means do I mean to say that you know, any other way of doing it is dead or has any hope. It would be like saying "there's no such thing as an engaging Linux experience." Well, of course there is. But an engaging Web experience, a 2D experience that runs fast and slick -- fundamentally it doesn't show the top end of the range to what I believe we're developing toward as an industry.
I guess I am in the true believer category that says "there's something here that's different that we're trying to accomplish from what you can currently accomplish in your Web experience, your online experience." It's different. The complexity of those 3d objects adds something to the experience in a way that you're not going to get away with, with a two and a half D experience. That's my view. I am not saying that that's the corporate view, but that's the belief that I've had since I have joined this company.
So, you've always got to be developing toward that core. That said, there are a lot of technologies that are available now to start from that base, and call down the experience and make it available on
Comments
Such a long article and no mention of gray textures or objects that appear only after you've flown past them. Six years or more of Second Life and still the claim that used to be on the secondlife.com site "the world appears before you turn to it", has not been fulfilled.
When internet speeds increase to a certain point, won't that eliminate the advantage offered by the use of Second Life prims, enabling the use of meshes instead? Meshes which can be made in programs outside of the Second Life viewer, thus eliminating the need for Second Life builders, i.e., prim builders?
@Chuck - Speeds won't eliminate the advantage because a) less streaming content is always better ... especially in areas where providers start throttling service, and b) prims could be much more complex than what is currently offered. Prims are more like CAD data (e.g. Pro/E); meshes are what you get from a non-CAD 3D modeler (e.g. 3DSMax). As someone who uses both professionally, I'd personally be pleased if they improved the prim tools (e.g. allow builders to draw profiles for extrusions). However, as someone who knows that the platform could benefit from greater support from the broader 3D community, I'm supportive of an importer.
That said, Linden Lab has already broached the subject of both upgrading the prim modeling tools and allowing the import of mesh files. The issue wasn't which to do, but which should take priority. I believe mesh import won.
Why would business people want to use Second Life as a collaborative tool, when there are so many easy to use conferencing and collaborative tools that are specifically designed for the task at hand?
The Second Life system itself is too unreliable for business meetings. Just ask any player (er.. resident) about server and database downtime or client (on your PC) crashes.
The avatar is an extra layer of complexity that business people don't need. The learning curve is steep, and not everyone masters 3D navigation quickly, if at all.
A meeting of avatars is like going to a business meeting where each person has to operate a puppet, and can only communicate with the others through that puppet's actions.
If this works, I'm going to open a puppet supply house targeted at the Fortune 500.
Post new comment