Head in the Clouds

Well, if anyone thinks that cloud-based SL is gonna change the fortunes of the ailing Lab they are mistaken...well... maybe not. Maybe if someone who has more money than sense gets a very good sales pitch from one of the Boys they MIGHT buy into The Myth of 100 Million Users.... but it is unlikely.

The following is my first 7 minutes in SL on the back of the cloud....




I landed in the middle of a deserted shopping area and managed to find my way into a shop...




...only to find I had no money so couldn't buy anything...




...so I picked an avatar from a set of 20 odd....didn't count exactly...




...and chose London from the destination guide...lots of people want to visit London, afterall...




Hmm...*thinks* not much like the London I was imagining...





....still no hair... v dodgy outfit and I'm walking like I have something inserted....

Ok...this SL isn't for me, I think.....but if you wanna go see a poor version of SL without a download....its here. The video clip you see at the top changes ... sometimes its declaring the wonders of music, sometimes lots of people in a pub doing typing together....

Tateru has more technical info ...here... with a good set of comments following..

Now there has been a few people on Twitter retweeting a post that expresses the view that people who hate Viewer 2 have held back the development of Second Life.

The logic, or lack thereof, goes like this.... IF more people had used Viewer 2 it would have been fixed faster.

IF it had have been fixed faster we would be a step nearer to the 100 Million Users...

A 100 Million Users is what any REAL business person wants, (the rest of us are fools)...

Now, the flaws in the logic, and the emotional language used, point to a rant style frustration which is easily recognised. The frustration comes maybe from the dawning of the awareness that viewer 2 is not a silver bullet, cloud technology is not the killer app, and that not even a great mesh implementation is gonna save SL from its own self-destructive tendencies. Repeated references to media on a prim and Display Names is not gonna impress anyone as these features pale into insignificance when put alongside poor customer care and costs.

OpenSim has now 130,000 users according to Maria .. here. The exodus continues, these are not people looking for media on a prim, or display names... these are people who are fed up of Sucking Life, and the Boys.

You have just to read the LURV coming the way of the Founders of InWorldz to know EXACTLY what people want from a service provider... you don't need a degree in rocket science..

So, The Cloud..... well... there have been a total of over 20 million sign ups to SL in the course of recorded history, so... getting people to sign up has never been the problem. Will a poor graphix, dumbed down version of SL improve the future outlook for the Boys... nope.... and their current decision to hide their figures does nothing to inspire confidence either. My viewer 1.23 no longer shows concurrency.

So... let the fanboys rant at me for not using Viewer 2, as Brinda (I think) said... "you like it, you use it"... it's really not my problem and the delusion others suffer is hardly of my making. I feel your frustration but, to paraphrase your own attitude.. "Deal with it"

Peace..

:))