Something's Up

The times they are a changin'. The crowds in SL seem to be dwindling. A few top performers are still making a draw especially newer performers who are exceptional. I wonder if the audience has a 1/2 life in SL.

In Firstlife you have the possibility of a geometric increase in recognition and audience participation. Over the past month I have visited many regular shows and spoken withlong time performers both noticing the decrease in audience and confirming such with the performers I've talked with.

What's up here?

Subjectively, I believe it's a combination of factors and I think only a few solutions can be effected although there are other critical elements which could be quite favorable but I feel will never be implemented.

As you know from a previous blog I discussed what the performers could do to increase their audience so I will, instead, focus on other areas

Problem: We are losing many venues in SL and their audience dispersing in SL or simply leaving SL.
Solutions: LindenLabs needs to take an active role in these solutions since the residents can do nothing on their own.
1. There needs to be two types of EVENT listings. The current one (which could be vastly improved and the Lindens have been quite aware of this but have done nothing.) Another would be to highlight Venues based on several different statistics. Popularity of the Venue. The amount of time the Venue dedicates to performance. A better category set up. Also, Venues should be able to pay for size of font and bold, italics, color or whatever makes sense to stand out in the Event listing. Here we are with a still boring Event listing service that excludes much and erroneous categorization.
2. When logging on we could use something better then the one line click to a single show (BurningLife etc.) Instead have a box with 5 upcoming shows in the next hour of note and the ability to click directly to events from there.
3. Hippo Group and similar non SL group managers fail to give crucial data. Example: there needs to be information regarding each fan member's last log-in and the ability to delete those not in world for a period of time by setting that amount of time.

Whether Linden Labs understands the value of anything besides education is questionable. Their inability to create digital copyright for creators and their disregard of the entire entertainment industry (except for SLCC lip service) is very destructive. There needs to be a dedicated group at LindenLabs who understand how to cohesively bring various fractions together for similar desires. There are many ways to do this in a digital push/pull social world. I just wish they would find one of them.

Lauren