Linden Lab, the company that runs Second Life, just announced that they are launching a $10,000 "Linden Prize" for "an innovative inworld project that improves the way people work, learn
and communicate in their daily lives outside of the virtual world." The criteria include:
- Work in Second Life that also achieves tangible, compelling results outside of Second Life.
- Distinctive,
original work using Second Life that clearly demonstrates high quality,
execution, function, aesthetics and technical sophistication. - Work
that has the capacity for inspiring and influencing future development,
knowledge, creativity, and collaboration both inside and outside of
Second Life.
This is a substantial increase from previous initiatives, including USC’s "Public Good" challenge that offered $1,200 to three winning projects and the Foundation for Rich Content which has been providing small grants of $80 for projects that enhance Second Life in some way.
Applications are due January 15. Head to the Linden Prize site for details.
CORRECTION 7:30pm EST: I added an extra zero over here in my haste. It’s 10K not 100K! Doh. Sorry, Lindens!
Read well…they said:
“The Linden Prize will award one Second Life Resident or team with $10,000 USD, paid in Linden dollars […]”
“Paid in linden dollars”, and since it’s kind of a gift, the winner(s) can not exchange them (the 10k bucks) in US$ or other currencies.
This also means that it’s monkey money that the winner must spend into secondlife like by buying virtual land (and pay its tier in real us$ to Linden lab) or local Secondlife virtual product…
The winner is supposed to have been using secondlife to improve first life and gets money to improve secondlife with…
Tortuous…
I’m not sure the idea is from M…sounds more another “Zee” thing…
Honestly, the cash prize is not that much to really make a difference for a company anyway. So it would have to be more for the prestige and recognition of creating it.
The cash award is just a nice perk, even if in “fake” Linden dollars.
Linden Labs are simply asking the users to create their income pathway for the future. They have no direction so are tasking you and I to give them and their business a sense of purpose that will create their income stream for themselves.
They feel we are sufficiently gullible to tell them how to turn their product into the big money. After all, many many contents creators, realtors, party organizers, builders, bankers and inventors have been turning their little business’s into real dollars for the last few years, and because Lindens don’t tax those sales, they have been missing out on the income.
Now, they have no clue how to grow their business, so they turn to their hard suffering residents, and as a joke, offer squillions on linden bucks as a meaningless carrot. Where is it going to be spent, with land prices tumbling as islands are getting turned off by the dozen per day, and a falling Linden Dollar Value to the USD. The winner will take weeks cashing out their winning, as the transaction limit will preclude it, and the value of the Linden Buck will follow its own market trend of collapsing. The Lindens will, however tax that conversion to USD thus ensuring your prize, is not quite as rosy it seems. It’s not a paradox, it’s more a last ditch desperate attempt to gain credulity.
We have been suggesting good things to do in SL for years and they have hardly ever listened to us, now we are leaving in drove for Open Life Grids and other sims, they are asking “What can we do”? It’s too little, too late.
I see the only way for Linden labs to survive is to meet other real world challenges head on for once, and instead of adding more gizmo’s and gadgets.
River Ely
Rivers Blog: –
http://rivers-rock.blogspot.com/2008/11/linden-labs-loses-direction.html
see my friend…
Since the hype of end 2006, beginning 2007.
What happened?
Lots of companies came to SL.
Who remembers Pontiac?
A German big bank
A swedish “ambassy”
etc etc etc…
The swedish ambassy is still there, but it’s “dead” and most of the corporations that came to sl are gone…
Before the hype, most of the economy of SL was supported by the casinos…the clubs were “free”, land wasn’t too expensive, SL wasn’t too big…The casinos supported even “culture” on SL. It was in their interest to have many people around.
Then came a new “vision” of SL economy…
LL took 7 “terrible” decisions, one after the other, trying to justify them as well as they could. Often through absolutely stupid arguments:
1- They borked off the casinos. Some kind of legal/moral decision. trying to give a “clean” image of SL to the corporations coming in mass to SL. They justified this with the legal US argument against internet gambling. They could very well have found a international localization system…they weren’t hot for it. The law were running in the sens of their feelings/vision.
Investors (small ones) reacted by injecting their money in rentals, housing, shops etc…the measure of “traffic” that was important became vital.
2- They flooded SL with new continents and mainland regions! The land that was quite expensive, but selling well, stopped selling at low level (final buyer). They killed the land market and the map became yellow…land for sale everywhere. It continued until they understood by themselves and stopped producing regions like dead leaves…it was too late.
3- They imposed sales taxes (VAT) on EU (RL) citizens…25% more for some countries. Sale taxes are not the same in all EU countries some countries impose 16% and others 25%…Even if they were REALLY obliged to impose the VAT, they could have found the smoothest way (making people pay the lowest rate possible its jurically possible, ask for references and you will get them). They didn’t care. I was paying 25% more…
4- They lowered prices for islands from 1600 US$ to 1000 US$, making people who paid 1600 US$ feel like shit, and the sim sales exploded. People investing in sims and SL surface exploding. This without having more people loggin in :)-…they created dispersion.
5- few months later, they opened the market of open spaces (low resources SIMS)…attractive objects. reasonnable prices. Residents jumped on them immediately
abandoning “classical” sims…
6- They modified traffic system and imposed their new search system and their showcase regions. Could anyone tell me why the “ancient” most advertized place on SL, Svarga, the most complex functionning artificial life system on SL is NOT in their showcase???
Linden lab have total control on where they want new residents to go and where they dont want them to go…
7- and last of the magic number of bizarre decisions: they are highering the tier and price for the low resources regions :))))
waaaaahhhhhhahahahaha…
Listen to the argument they used:
– we sold them to you to use them as open spaces, not to live into them…
same if someone sells you a tractor for a certain price, but will ask you for more money if you use it as a private car…
Now, let us just notice that all tehse decisions were taken after John Zdanowski (Zee Linden) was hired as CFO of Linden Lab…
Please, google this:
+”john zdanowski” +HouseValues
Thanks riko. I love your blog!
Lucas
A lot of LL actions have been efforts to minimize the potential damage to their marketshare from real world laws and regulations. I.e. DMCA takedown notices, gambling legislation, VAT tax, etc.
It’s a very competitive environment for VWs and their monetization strategy has always been a bit hard to grok.
The first major positive effort in awhile is their partnership with RRR to create a more secure business collaboration environment. This is their next positive step. We’ll see how much traction it gains them….