Life

"Listen with an open mind, but don't try to remember this stuff. There's no quiz at the end." Jack Kornfield







Friday, March 18, 2011

Yes, We were recalcitrant

*****************************Where we come from***************************** **************************************************************************** I think this will likely be my last post about Spewer 2.ought oh... and unless something else absolutely ridiculous comes from the keyboard of Wagner James Au, my last comment here about Mr. Au. In case you don't keep up with the latest drama in our blogosphere {is there such a word?} Mr. Au of New World Notes infamy recently blamed the downturn of Secondlife on those oldbies/midbies et al who refused to march blindly to the drumbeats of The Benevolent Monarchy. Yes and no. I believe without a doubt the single worst decision by the Monarchy was the creation of viewer 2 as it was configured. While most of us fully supported many of the new features, we balked at the complicated poorly thought out UI. Almost without exception the populace rejected the new viewer... not because it was new, but because it was poorly thought out, had so much hidden, was difficult to use for building, had weird panels that hid much of our screens, broken search functions, on and on ad infinitum. My best guess is that because the Monarchy had spent so much capital on that viewer, and would have their investors wrath to deal with if they withdrew it, they had little choice about retaining it. I can almost hear someone in a meeting saying, "We're stuck with the viewer, the users will come around if they're forced to use it". Well, a lot of people wouldn't be forced to use it... they left Secondlife for other grids. Others just left. Perhaps the saddest part of the decision to force the use of Spewer 2 has to do with those just entering Secondlife. The viewer that was supposed to make The New User Experience easier... didn't. Secondlife may never see the kinds of numbers that Failbook has, and as Mr. Au has said, without growth Secondlife will never see it's full potential, or perhaps survive. But Secondlife would be well served if we just retained more of the reported 86% of new users that never log back in after that first confusing venture. They will never get to see the true magic that is the Secondlife myself and so many tens of thousands have found. That's darned sad. I spent my last working years in the business world. Contract or no contract, it's imperative to keep the customer happy. While the Terms of Service make it abundantly clear that Secondlife is a take it or leave it deal... we are customers first, we pay the bills. If we have been recalcitrant, maybe we were right. And so it goes My love to you all, brinda Namaste नमस्ते

3 comments:

  1. teehee "Spewer 2"

    I spent seveal hours last night with the CSULB students studying me (lol). Viewer Spew was so confusing for them, I spent most of the time Googling their interface to help them find stuff...

    ... and spent several hours last week with a panicked long-time SL resident, who's installation of V2 borked her machine so bad, she was deterioratingly-invisible for 5 days, despite her intimate knowledge of SL's asset server mischiefs and quirks. Only wiping at the disk level straightened her out again. That isn't recalcitrance; that is "d00ds! yer doin' it wrong"

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  2. Yes! And now I see that the "updates" are mandatory. I have been trying to keep one alt using Spewer 2 in order to help nooblets and I still sometimes have to IM Immy to find something.

    Just to clarify... While my viewer of choice has become the Ascent viewer.... My desktop icons include: Phoenix,Firestorm,Emergence,Imprudence,Kirstens S21,Snowglobe,Singularity,Spewer2,Hippo,InWorldz,and 1.23.5
    It's not like I can't adapt.

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  3. Have you tried the new basic viewer option in the latest Lab release already? No inventory no more, but all kinds of funky teleport suggestions to places that undoubtedly pay real money to get listed. Such a pity that the new residents who use the basic viewer, can't even buy themselves some shoes.

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