While I believe strongly in competition, I also have some understanding of consumer behavior.
When I first logged onto Second Life I downloaded a file for a minute or so, then launched and was in-world within one minute.
Today I went to check out ReactionGrid and OpenSim considering there is some buzz in higher ed about them.
I had to download 2 files for ReactionGrid, neither of which were described well, and the list of instructions was outrageously long. Then, the system rejected my password after all that. So, okay, what a pain but I reset the password and the system then rejected its own password.
At OpenSim, I clicked on the download file, after confusing to non-existent instructions, and the file would not download.
With all its problems, Second Life is supreme and there is no close second, nor is there any evidence that a viable competitor is on the horizon.
Back to consumer behavior; consumers don't want or need a hassle or a bunch of geeky instructions. They want a product delivered, with the consumer in mind.
Anyone disagree or agree? Leave a professional, informed comment.
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We admit the login instructions are in need of improvement & work at making it easier all the time. You can call our login system a joke but to dismiss the work of your peers in education using our platform or on their own using opensimulator should not be included in that assesment. Once you login and get settled there are more challenges still to Opensimulator but enough of a working platform to do many innovative things and meet a great community. I offer all users to ping me at my Skype "pcmash" for live help getting acclimated. Thanks for your feedback Mark....
ReplyDeleteThank you for the offer of live help. I have tempered my comments in the blog some, as your opinion is well spoken.
ReplyDeleteReactionGrid is a really good team and the plateforme is really great.
ReplyDeleteI log my avatar sometime and i never have a problem. Maybe the first step for add a login url in the viewer is not user friendly but it's wonderfull story for the moment...
It can be a hassle logging into Reaction Grid if you have never accessed any OpenSim based grids previously. However I do have a suggestion, there is a viewer out known as "*Imprudence" which actually has Reaction Grid as one of the default grids you can log into. The viewer also performs 10x better (From personal experience) than the Hippo Opensim Viewer does under higher graphics settings and even lower ones.
ReplyDeleteI do hope you consider giving it a second try as it is really a great community of individuals and groups.
*Download links for Imprudence:
-Windows: http://bit.ly/17v0A4
-Mac(Intel Only): http://bit.ly/qDwYO
-Linux: http://bit.ly/24K3TP
Sometimes you hear about a new service/world and you go to join up with high hopes and the first impression is a big flat flop. This happened to me with Second Life on a rude welcome area. I fled and didn't return for years. On return there was still many frustrations especially the first hour be it login or learning to navigate. Now we have Opensim with its many options for connecting to various worlds that compounds the situation. But once in and under our PG TOS all of a sudden a feeling of safety comes over you. K-12 can join, families can roam together. Now think about you, Mark, creating your own world with it running as you see fit. This is the beauty of raw but fast developing Opensim. I think what you would find is there is room for both in your exploring of 3D. We have never said we are a replacement for Second Life only an opportunity as a wrold and platform to form more niche experiences as a compliment to our big brother Second Life. Thank you for considering the other side & you watch as we take this feedback and turn it into something positive where your frustration helps others after you. I have days myself wher too many things go wrong in a row on my own world but most times I have an enjoyable experience. Keep the feedback coming!
ReplyDeleteI'm a developer of collaboration tools for immersive environments. I specialize in SecondLife and, with ever-increasingly frequency, Open Simulator tools. I also work for the University of Oklahoma College of Continuing Education, helping develop training solutions for businesses and government organizations.
ReplyDeleteI've had a region in ReactionGrid for nearly a year now (was one of the first to venture into ReactionGrid and stake my claim). I've also been developing tools in SecondLife for nearly 2.5 years. When comparing the two services regarding reliability of performance & quality of support, ReactionGrid wins in my book. They are always responsive, capable, and pleasant when responding to issues I encounter. Plus, there are multiple means of connecting with their staff (Skype, inworld IM, Phone, Twitter, email, web trouble ticket). I have had no similar positive experiences when I encounter technical problems in SecondLife. This professionalism is the reason why I now do all my development work within ReactionGrid, and why I steer clients needing an immersive presence to them.
You are exactly correct that consumers don't want hassle and technobabble. They want and need ease of transaction. They want someone that will provide a good product, with good support. And that's exactly why I see ReactionGrid as a strong service provider. And I almost guarantee you, the folks at ReactionGrid already have a plan to improve the process that gave you trouble.
We have to disagree with this statement: "With all its problems, Second Life is supreme and there is no close second, nor is there any evidence that a viable competitor is on the horizon."
ReplyDeleteLinden Lab's term of service agreement makes Second Life inappropriate for anyone who has any sort of valuable intellectual property they wish to develop using these platforms.
OpenSim is still alpha, but it's highly effective and functional. Being able to code connections to existing back end systems is a boon for anyone with actual applications. We recently rolled out a new design concept for 3D Web sites, which can be viewed on two publicly accessible grids. The original file remains behind our firewall, and updates are a snap. Changes are made to our back end database and changes propagated to our Fashionable Grid region. The changed region file is then uploaded in the other grids. Our corporate presence in Second Life isn't as comprehensive because we can't move the region to this proprietary platform, nor can we update it easily. Everything there is manually updated. In comparison to OpenSim's ease of use, Second Life = Epic Fail.
Social networking still rules on Second Life, because of the rich content and user base. But enterprise and education will increasingly find OpenSim-based worlds such as ReactionGrid to be a better alternative because of lower costs, increased flexibility, backend integration, and tighter control of the user experience.
We've experienced plenty of the same issues you have in all of our grids, but we've also had exceptional development support to iron things out - except in SL.
Something else which we are finding increasingly critical is the user experience. Kyle mentions how grim his first hour experience in Second Life was. Fashion Research Institute has now funneled more than 50,000 new users through its Gateway in Second Life, so we have appreciable data on immersion, first hour experience, and new user behavior. We have experienced the full range of human expression which is not widely suitable for our primary focus on students and educators. But because the Gateway is publicly accessible, it does mean that individuals show up and express themselves in quite tawdry ways. What we really like about our OpenSim-based presence is: no adult content.
While OpenSim isn't yet ready for the mass market consumer, neither is Second Life, as it happens. In my fashion design practice, I design for mass market and sell 8-10 million units of product with wholesale sales of about $36 million per collection. Creating for the true mass market is very different than what Linden Lab's Second Life looks like, and in my expert opinion I do not see either of these platforms as being quite ready yet for the lowest common denominator mass consumer.
We've been working in OpenSim as content creators since September 2007, when we began alpha testing the code base. Our recent publication, "Shengri La Spirit: A Designer's Perspective of the Making of OpenSim" is available on Amazon if you have any curiosity about what it was like in the early days of OpenSim. Our experience with OpenSim-based regions and grids has given us enough data to support statements about how well OpenSim compares to Second Life.
We maintain presence on four grids, and the most expensive and least reliable is Second Life.
Naturally, your own usage needs will drive your choice and opinion. But to suggest Second Life is the supreme winner simply does not take into account all of the variables which need to be considered in selecting a platform. Our data strongly suggests otherwise, at least for our use cases of enterprise and education.
Shenlei Winkler
CEO, Fashion Research Institute
Thanks for the comments, yet they contradict themselves. While you speak of Second Life as an inferior choice, you also list data suggesting it has been a wildly popular marketing (and sales?) channel for your corporation.
ReplyDeleteTrue it is that the "lowest common denominator consumer" still has difficulty in using a 3-D multi-user virtual environment, yet the Journal of Information Systems Education (peer-reviewed academic journal) that 80% of internet users will have a virtual presence using an avatar, by the end of 2011.
This can mean many things as simple environments like FarmVille on Facebook qualify within that data parameter. But for consumers looking a rich experience that does not require a frustrating login experience, Second Life reigns supreme. Your own sales data seems to prove this true.
When a viable competitor does approach Second Life, and it will happen eventually, SL needs to address its significant problems with griefing and unwanted sexuality. Hopefully Linden is listening.
It is only frustrating if you make it frustrating. You could have as I said chosen an easier alternative. So the frustrating logon experience argument is null and void. Hippo OpenSim Viewer... Imprudence... Meerkat... tons of tried and true viewers that work with both Second Life and OpenSim so if you had a bad experience, it is more than likely your own doing for making things more complicated than need be.
ReplyDeleteNot sure why anyone feels they need to be anonymous when making comments, but there are some good points here. For the record, I did try the Hippo software.
ReplyDeleteThe main point of my posting is consumer behavior as related to new products in the market, especially in a market dominated by a major player like Second Life.
Regardless of the "keep a good attitude" and "never give up, never surrender" advice, consumers are not looking for a hassle. On the contrary, they are looking to avoid it. That is where ReactionGrid and OpenSim need to rapidly catch up.
Whether or not the in-world experience of these two is better than SL as someone stated, is immaterial if access is too restrictive, which it is currently.
But as stated above, I believe competition is good and everyone needs it. SL will improve greatly or fade away, once it has a viable competitor. And, it is only a matter of time even though nothing truly looks promising at the moment.