There has been way too much drama with the developers involved in the Emerald Viewer project. Just this weekend, one of their senior guys, probably the guy who really was the cornerstone for the project resigned. On the Alphaville Herald there was an article covering his resignation and the events surrounding it. It turns out that the source code being complied for the Emerald viewer from Modular Systems LLC is being complied on individual developer computers and then assembled into another compile for release to the public. This means there is no possible oversight into the compiled source code from one developer, which means, no one knows what’s in that part of the code.

On an open source project such as the Emerald Viewer, which manages such personal and sensitive information such as user names, passwords, personal chat communication, Linden account transactions, personal voice connections and it resides in the system and application directory’s on your main hard drive, it’s insane not to have transparent source. The reason its insane is not for Modular Systems, it’s insane for you or I to use that viewer. Modular Systems LLC has no employees, they have no head quarters, they have no phone number, or any way to contact them except through their forums. We don’t have any idea who these people really are…so what is the risk to them? Very little. Combined with the known fact that the Emerald team is made up of ex-griefers from Second Life, some of whom have been perma-banned from SL and with this revelation that even the other developers of Emerald don’t really know what’s in it, its way past my time to uninstall Emerald.  Just so you know, I use a number of open source products here in my RL software company and we can call these folks on the phone, we know who they really are, and if something went very badly we would know who to hold accountable. Not true with the scary Modular Systems LLC. I have been a user of Emerald since their early days. Today I have no idea how I could build the way I build using Second Life’s Viewer 2, its just so awful to use, so I became dependent upon Emerald. But as time wore on and I read more and more about these developers of Emerald I began to realize that not everything is as it may seem with these guys. Something is wrong here. Even the whistle blower who was a key person at Modular says something is wrong.

So, I uninstalled Emerald this weekend.

After looking around, reading their website, seeing who they seem to be, reading the forums and asking some questions from someone who would know, I installed the Imprudence viewer. It may be another open source company but let’s just say I currently have a sense of trust in these folks that was lost with Modular Systems and Emerald. I will end on this note, and if you use Emerald please pay close attention to this, Imprudence is faster, easier, higher FPS, nicer UI, better features and overall a much better viewer, in my opinion, than Emerald. I have a lot of good things to say about Imprudence.

Now here’s the kicker. I was talking on the phone to a close friend of mine, who is a super opinionated, senior software engineer, who thinks Emerald is the only viewer that anyone should ever use for Second Life. I told him about my change of viewers. His response was something like “pfffff…you have no idea what you’re talking about, Modular is the only group out there with a good viewer!” One day later I get an IM from him in world, “[8:29] name_removed:  Ancient, um…I am using Imprudence…thanks for telling me about your using it. I don’t really know how to say this after all this time being the big Emerald fanboy, but I just love Imprudence.” - Ancient1 Aeon

I rented a store this weekend at the Fermi Sandbox. Its a balcony store and you can read more about it and see pictures in the article I posted on the Home page.

Our casual clothing line of jeans and shirts is in development. The initial launch will have six pair of men’s and six pair of women’s jeans and approximately 28 different shirts including t-shirts. Look for the Ancient brand of casual clothes in the shop right in front of the Back Street Club when we launch in early July. The product line of commercial drink dispensers is being designed. Each product will have Modify rights so the new product owner can brand the drink dispenser and the cups and glasses with their own logo. The first product to reach testing is the Office Coffee Maker with steaming pot built around the same commercial coffee maker design I see here in my real life offices. The coffee maker and pot dispenses steaming mugs of coffee, with each mug having plenty of space for your company logo. In the design phase is the espresso machine, the multi-drink (coffee, tea, hot chocolate) dispenser and the ever popular multi-cocktail dispenser with multiple types of drinking cups and glasses, all of which can be logo branded on the machine and on the drink holder by the new owner. This line is ideal for your SL office, or as a gift through our gift vendor to your customers. The full product line will be in the store summer of 2010. - Ancient1 Aeon

I created a new building over the weekend, a new store and residence for Visions Texture Designs and Keiliani Kirax the owner. It’s a 48×32 meter two story building with the residence on top and the store on the bottom. I made extensive use of Skye textures from Alex Bader and created an open floor plan, a modern design for the store and a more Old English residence with the use of archways into rooms, traditional English wallpapers and dark wood panel flooring. The 93 prim, brick exterior building, is located across the street from my store on Hamnida and it’s just a short walk down the sidewalk on the hill from the NCI South training center, and right next door to the NCI Sandbox. The new owner seems very pleased with her new place and I was substantially rewarded by Ms. Kirax. <big grin> - Ancient1 Aeon

Updated September 4, 2010 – Wow…was I ever wrong. Emerald is now dead. I think I will keep this post just to prove what an idiot I can be. — Ancient 1 Aeon

I set out this weekend to build a 48×24 meter two story building for my partner in Second Life. She needed a retail store and an office/residence which I combined into one two story building with the store on the ground floor and the residence on the top floor. I use both Viewer 2 and Emerald, although 90% of my current online time is using Emerald. I am now quite familiar with V2 because I used it everyday for a month before going back to the Emerald Viewer. I must admit that month that I used V2 was the least productive building month I have had in SL in years. So, Saturday morning I started out seeing if there have been any improvements to V2 for builders. Sadly the answer is no. For serious builders there really is no choice but the Emerald Viewer from Modular Systems. That is not to say there are not some avatars capable to using V2 to their advantage, but for me and the content creators I know in Second Life the ease of use for Emerald Viewer far outshines the buggered up user interface of V2. Emerald offers the user some extended interface options under the Edit/Preferences/Emerald settings and also in the Emerald menu which when applied thoughtfully will get the most out of the creative process that can currently be gotten using the available tools and interfaces. Of course Linden Labs needs to greatly enhance the user toolset, but since they could not manage to do that under the guidance of the company founder for six or more years and then under the other CEO with over 300 employees at his disposal, I seriously doubt the founder who is now back in the CEO job will make any significant moves to enhance builder tools. Don’t ask why. But I will give you a good clue as to why…the founder and former CEO were not content creators or builders. They were casual tourists in Second Life, almost noobie like avatars who flew around a little while and got tired of the whole experience very quickly. And that’s where Modular Systems comes in. Necessity is the Mother of Invention. With a small team of people they engineered a quality viewer in an open source shared environment that has captured the hearts and minds of those who are serious about Second Life. This weekend while on my build platform I got a couple visitors from the NCI South training center which is across the street from my store and workshop. You can see my place from NCI and from their classroom and I often get visitors while I work. Visiting me were two avatars both new to Second Life, one having been in a month and the other a few days. Curiously the one month avatar was using Emerald while the other was using V2. I inquired why after only a few weeks in Second Life was this person using Emerald. The answer I was given may be a big problem for Linden Labs. What she said was that she came to Second Life to have a hobby and meet people and after a few weeks and some NCI building classes it was evident to her that using V2 was a huge obstacle to building and she had found out she loved to build. The problem for Linden Lab is that builders often buy premium memberships, land, things on xstreet and in world and are the content creators and product consumers that drive the Second Life economy. Since this girl, 23 years old, fresh out of college with a good paying job, chooses to use the Emerald Viewer, and is the dead center of Linden Labs target customer base, what chance does Linden Lab have of creating more of these customers if they keep touting V2 as the default viewer?  Maybe its time Linden Lab got with the program and only offered the Emerald Viewer. In all likelihood it would over time have a positive effect on revenue and avatar online time. - Ancient1 Aeon

The article published today in New World Notes about the financial condition of Linden Labs reinforces what I have been saying for years. The investors allow senior management to be hired at Linden Lab who are so disconnected from the loyal user base that the senior management cannot make good decisions for the direction of the company because being so disconnected from the user base, they don’t know what the best sales channel is for Second Life. Basically the ills that befall Linden Labs are a direct result of rich, highly educated, successful business investors not intellectually wanting to challenge Linden management, or just not willing to put the effort into, holding Linden senior management more accountable for their decisions.

The best sales channels for Second Life are these:

• Its fun.
• Building in SL makes a great hobby.
• People can meet other people and hang out.
• You can have virtual sex, which apparently a huge number of SL’ers seem to really enjoy. (That isn’t a bad thing, its weird but not bad.)
• You can sell products, land and rent property in world and on Xstreetsl.com (you can even make a lot of money doing that).
• You can learn about intellectual things.
• You can have meetings and exchange ideas.

Look at the list and ask yourself this question: Has Linden Lab…

• Advertised how much fun SL is? No.
• Provided new building tools that would encourage the growth of content creators? No.
• Fixed group chat or fixed just regular chat so it works really well for those meeting other people? No.
• Made virtual sex a bad thing that should be shunned from SL? Yes, they created a slum area. I’m not a big proponent of virtual sex, but so many people in SL are seriously into this that it makes up a sizable percentage of the user base. I mean, you have to deal with the issue in a positive way, so many of your customers do this stuff.
• Made it easy to sell products on xsteetsl.com? No, its a rather involved setup especially with doing product maintenance, and even if you have a Premium account you have to pay Linden Lab for this. And what about the content creator who does not sell much, you made it too expensive to sell on xstreetsl.com thereby discouraging them.
• Offered free land and houses that directly take away the revenue of people selling house and land and renting places thereby hurting the hand that feeds Linden Lab? Yes.
• Fostered an environment where universities would prosper in SL? No.
• Created the tools that would make meetings in SL a dream to pull together and have noobies come to the meeting? No.

All of the best sales channels were neglected. Why? Because there are good business people and ordinary business people. Second Life is a great concept that has always been run by ordinary business people. Who always kicks the ass of ordinary business people? Why great business people of course. I will leave you with this thought: Right now there are 101,000+ users logged into imvu.com (which is a virtual world I have never been in by the way, seems like its for kids) and 49,000+ users logged into Second Life. Who is kicking whose ass in attracting a user base? Now if imvu.com has a great business person in charge, they would build a better-than-SL-like world for those 101,000 imvu.com users to migrate to and in doing so pull away 60-70% of Second Life users and thereby destroy their Second Life competition. Those investors at Linden Lab better hope there are a lot of ordinary business people just like they are in this immersive world business. - Ancient1 Aeon

Reading the Second Life Blog about the 30% staff layoffs and knowing the history of software enhancements that have come from Linden Lab does not bode well for the future of Second Life. With a staff of 300 they were nearly stagnant with their software enhancements. Since I know the software industry first hand I’m not going too far out on a limb when I say that the lack of software enhancements was solely due to lack of focus and lack of proper development team management. Perhaps with a leaner team they can attain momentum, but it seems they are retaining the same development team management so it does not look good for Second Life customers. Yes the user base is huge, yes the monthly logins are huge, and yes the avatar to avatar (xstreetsl.com and in world products and land) transactions are an astonishing $50 million USD a month, and yes there are tens-of-thousands of regions paying monthly tier and yes this means Linden Labs may well have gross sales of over $50 million USD annually, but is Linden Lab able to become profitable and pay back their investors? What is the exit strategy for the investors? Linden Lab has never, to my knowledge, answered the question of “are you profitable?” which is always a telling sign that a private company is not profitable. I have said it before and I will say it again and again, it really appears to me that from the top down, the management at Linden Labs does not seem to be the caliber that can grow the company or turn its revenue into a cash flow that repays the investors. So many mistakes, so much lost time… - Ancient1 Aeon

The Back Street Club is officially open, we have even had some folks dancing and partying. Bot Core (see the About section) is currently the DJ playing a media stream however I am looking for a manager, partner, leader to take over the club and promote the business. You can see the ad here. With a fully equipped DJ podium and performance stage, animated microphones, the best stage lighting in SL, café style seating, self serve bar, Intan dance floor with lots of dance animations and an exceptional patio and outdoor setting I figure this club with the right management has a great chance of getting a crowd on the good nights. Stop by at the SLURL in the right column and visit the new club. - Ancient1 Aeon

The big news is that I partnered with my SL friend Epos Imako and I now have his IMAKON vendors in my store. Epos makes some the best scripted product in Second Life. I have expanded the Ancient Homelands mainland land holdings and moved the store into a new building. This seems to be my “modus operandi” in Second Life. First I buy some land, then more, then more, then more. Then I move to an even bigger location finally ending up with my own sim. Well, not this time. My 8,277 mainland property is enough for now and with the new store I have more space to put new product into than I will build in the next two years. I am now right next to the NCI (New Citizens Inc.) sandbox on the Hamnida sim which is directly adjacent to the Second Life South Welcome Area. My new Lecture – Podium is now on sale. It was first given away to teachers at the EDTECH retreat during a recent convention and has received rave reviews. The Safe House is nearing completion and Ancient’s Gazebo was just this past weekend put on sale. The Safe House is another Ancient Homelands home with the full systems treatment of security, windows, doors, lights, built in balcony teleporter and our exclusive built in furniture rezzer with high quality free furniture upon demand. Ancient’s Gazebo has dozens of high quality textures in the texture changer, so you can mix and match parts of the gazebo until it perfectly fits your land. I have not gotten out on the grid lately to take pictures and post them on Flickr but during this spring I will venture out to the newest builds and takes some photos. The mainland store has good traffic and I’m really quite amazed how many more people wander into the store on mainland than they did on my former estate sim. - Ancient1 Aeon

The Ancient Homelands web site from January of 2008 to January of 2010 was a blog. This new site is not a WordPress blog its just a plain old HTML web site. With the old blog I was always in a little bit of anxiety to publish something so that the site would attract more readers and Google would give me higher rankings. The old site did well, with many hundreds of postings, mostly product reviews, but I don’t care for that anymore, it was too much work for too little return, and anyway…how many people read some silly old man’s blog about Second Life? This is a product web site with support documents for my customers. That’s all it is. There are no more tweets from my now closed Ancient Homelands Twitter account and no more SL Facebook friends. This feels better, sort of liberating. This site contains dry and uninteresting short articles about my products and for customers looking for web based support documents, they will find those also. I left SL for a couple months in late 2009, closed down my store, took my products off of Xstreet SL (they are still off as of this update) and thought about my hobby in SL for a few months. At the encouragement of friends I am back, but this time I have opened a three level store on mainland, not like my former 17,000 meter estate store. And now, with my new attitude towards Second Life, I’m taking my time building new products, and I’m no longer being anxious that I was not in world today. So visiting here will be boring. Check back sometime, maybe something changed. - Ancient1 Aeon

Living in California and working with a WordPress expert in Egypt has been great! I hired him through RentACoder.com and I am glad I did. What a good guy he is. He did a terrific job setting up this new WordPress blog. Some of you who have repeatedly visited Ancient Homelands over the past three years will remember when it was always a blog that reviewed products and made commentary on Second Life. Well, that is back to some extent. There will be limited product reviews of other builders products and some personal commentary about Second Life. My blogs have never been as active as serial blogers but I will make regular posts just as I have in the past. Too bad I deleted the old blog last year, it had over 200 product reviews on it. - Ancient1 Aeon