Fixing Second Life won't save Linden Lab

Yoz Grahame aka Yoz Linden

Another interesting post on New World Notes (James Wagner Au's blog) -- this time featuring observations from ex-Linden Lab developer, Yoz Grahame.

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2014/03/linden-lab-products.html

To simplify, Yoz basically says that no amount of fixing of Second Life will get Linden Lab to the next level or reverse it's decline.

The article has already generated a load of comments ranging from "Yoz is full of it" to total agreement. Personally, I think Yoz has some good points but misses the big picture which really is all about Linden Lab's customers.

One problem, which he rightfully points out, is that various other projects (like Versu, dio, and others) have been ill-defined from market and product perspectives. But then in the same turn, he argues that they have to be done because Second Life itself isn't enough. Well yeah but that's the cart before the horse.

My thought runs more to what are Linden Lab's core competencies? Clearly they haven't been launching new platforms or initiatives. Certainly not consumer marketing. And certainly not buying companies and making them successful. In fact, except for Second Life, Linden Lab hasn't done a lot of things right.

What it does have is a very loyal but frustrated user base that gets ever more frustrated by all the non-sequiturs the Lab engages in. And it has a very unique product in Second Life. I keep thinking what if the resources that were put into some obviously silly ideas had actually been put towards making Second Life run smoothly, be easier to use, have a better newbie experience, etc.

Restaurant analogy 101

I look at it this way. Suppose you run a restaurant. The word starts getting out that your food doesn't taste as good as it used to, your wait staff is surly and your prices are too high for the market. So you get Chef Gordon Ramsay (Kitchen Nightmares) to come in and fix things. (I love this show.) Does ANYONE think he's going to start by ADDING more items to the menu? Or EXPANDING an already messed up restaurant? Or how about moving into a frozen food line?

NOOOOOOOOO!!! He's going to rightfully focus on fixing the food, the wait staff and prices. In short, he has to get the restaurant back to the basics of offering what customers want and are willing to pay for! I think Second Life and Linden Lab are in the exact same position. The brand and platform need fixing from a customer perspective. Now I'm mostly just a public relations grrl in RL but I've been around enough companies that utterly fail when they go after "teh shinies". Once the fixing is largely done, then and only then should the business start going after other opportunities. I mean seriously, even just some simple tinkering with tier & sim pricing would probably have done more to help customer retention than heading off into uncharted development waters.

Anyway, Yoz is obviously a very talented developer but I think his experience at Linden Lab may have resulted in slightly blurry view of things. Plus, almost all the engineers I know HATE fixing things. They love to work on the new stuff. Uggh. Fix what pays the bills first, expand later.