This Week on Tonight Live, Fast Easy Fun with Mitch Wagner, Tribbs Nirvana and Noobs with Carl Metropolitan

Last weeks show with the Emerald Owners, was a blast! but its now onwards and upwards, I’m sure most of you still have many many questions about Emerald, and will be watching to see if you get a more trustworthy better client from them, and we wish them well. But its now time to catch up on some other stories that were pushed off the “FRONT PAGE” (as it were) when the Emerald Story broke.

I sense a feeling of great hope within Second Life, and yet I also feel there is some great uncertainness. Under the reign of M LInden there was a huge push towards Serious Business, Education, and new users, at the sacrifice of the regular users of Second Life. The existing and dedicated residents during this time let Linden Lab know in no uncertain terms, that they now felt unwelcome, ignored, and not part of the future picture that Linden Lab were painting. It seemed Linden Lab wanted more and better “NORMAL” users, money through serious business, and credibitlity through Education.

Readers… you do not need a history lesson, but Philip Linden/Rosedale in both his Q & A appearance with Wallace Linden and COO Bob Komin recently filmed by Treet.tv and his 2010 SLCC keynote seemed to  promised us a better running platform, more consultations with the existing residents a renewed focus on doing less more, and of course FAST EASY FUN!  But since I watched those speeches I’m worried..the scrapping of the Community Gateway program with hardly any notice, and no community consultation?…reducing concierge hours during the times we Aussies and the Europeans are actually using the client?(used to be 24/7) I wonder if this is just the promise of doing less more? or part of focusing on us the community?…Was all of that original hope I had misplaced? I’m wondering if the new Tshirt slogan  ”FAST EASY FUN” is actually aimed at the Linden’s and not US! Tthey are FAST scrapping programs and making it EASYer for them and having FUN doing it?

Mitch Wagner is a Freelance technology journalist, professional blogger, social media strategist, author of the Computerworld Tool Talk blog, social media director for Palisade Systems and host and creator of the Copper Robot podcast, (there is no acronym for all of that as far as I know..) In his work as a journalist for Computerworld he made the prediction, during the Linden Lab 30% Staff layoffs that the sackings could be the beginning of the end for Linden Lab, “I’m afraid I don’t see much of a future for Second Life” he said….this gloomy view coming from an usually quite optimistic Tech journalist, who clearly loves Second Life. I invited Mitch on find out how he interprets these latest changes and the new philosophy coming from the re-instated CEO Philip Linden/Rosedale. Yes, its a bit of crystal ball gazing..but Mitch oftne gets a very good insight into the inner workings of Linden Lab. And recently interviewed Philip Linden.  Mitch has recently stopped hosting his Copper Robot interview show in  Second Life, the show still exists but is no longer just about Second Life, there were some frustrations he had with the platform that lead to this. I’d like to find out what tipped the Mic so to speak..

Music!

This week we also welcome a delightful singer and V’logger on the show Tribbs Nirvana, she does have a little of the hippy in her for sure, here music and songs are just wonderfull, and she like a lot of musicians were dragged into Second Life by a freind and stayed.

Community Gateway Program Scrapped!

As my post from yesterday notes, we are also going to hear from a very disgruntled Carl Metropolitan who along with many other communities were responsible for a great many retentions from newly signed up residents being guided to the Community Gateway that he ran at the very large and popular Caladon group of Sims. I went out to the sims, went through some of the orientation found it very clear and understandable and met a 1 hour old Noobie called Joshua, who spend some time with me telling me what he first hour was like. I then went in “under cover” to discover for myself what the experience was now like! and I was shocked frankly I had no idea it was that bad.

From the Announcement by Linden Lab “As we move towards this goal, we are ending the Community Gateway (CG) program, effective immediately. Ultimately, we want new Residents to be able to begin their time in Second Life at any location, connecting immediately to user-created experiences that interest them. For example, if you’ve joined Second Life because you’re interested in a re-creation of an historical site, then we want you to begin your  experience not by walking through a welcome area, but by exploring the space you came to enjoy, and learning basic functions as you go. With our current model, there’s too much distance between new users and the amazing Resident-created content they come to Second Life to enjoy. We’re working now to close that gap.”

Carl and the other Sim owners included in this project were informed that the project would be scrapped about 18 hours before hand. This after over 2 years of service and spending money and time to set up a Gateway to help noobies work out the maze that is second Life. There will be now sim owners dumping their sims as their traffic drops no  doubt, and the weird thing is that Linden Lab haven’t really set up an alternative…unless what I experienced was it! Have Linden Lab done such a huge back flip on their viewer 2 drive to get more noobs to stay, as to ignore them now? lure them in with a glossy amazing website only to find out on entering that they have been duped?

As I did say jokingly in my other post I invited a Linden Lab spokesperson on the show, but with short notice and being as it was the weekend this was not possible.

I’d like your comments, I’ve already noted the ones already on my Under Cover Post. During the show we have an in-world and on-web live chat that you can also contribute to during the show. I watch that chat during my interviews and often take my questions with references to the questioner from the chat and comments to put to our guests. You can join the in-world Chat Group at any time by doing a search for the “Tonight Live with Paisley Beebe” group, or when you visit the studio you can click the sign there on the day, and join also. You can also watch the LIve show at www.treet.tv/live and join the in world chat there .

Come to the Live Taping and join in the inworld discussion during the show! Your questions to guests in chat will be noted.

• The SLurl for our Studio ishttp://slurl.com/secondlife/Northpoint/153/48/29 Doors open at 5.30pm and not before to conserve lagg during rehersals.
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We also have an overflow area with Live Screens Set up at Club Treet next door to the Tonight Live Studio http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tropical%20Treet/65/107/24