The Second Life world is flat

Some folks have gone really excited about the "news" that Linden Labs is going to open source the back-end of Second Life. The amount of attention this non-news has gained, confirms my observation that Second Life is at the peak of the hype. Why? Because there really is nothing new or spectacular here in the story most bloggers and authors refer to. It comes down to Joe Miller, VP for platform and technology development at Linden Lab stating the following at VW07:

• "We’ll be open-sourcing the back end so sims can run anywhere on any machine whether trusted by us or not."

OK. When? Under which conditions? How? Just this statement is not truly shocking if you ask me.

• "We’ll be delivering assets in a totally different method that won’t be such a burden on the simulators."

If I understand correctly, the move is primarily driven by the lack of capacity for the back end run by Linden Lab.

• "Very soon we’ll be updating simulators to support multiple versions so that we don’t have to update the entire Grid at once."

Again my question: when? When is very soon?

• "We’ll be using open protocols."

Which ones? I heard rumors that IBM is having talks with Linden Labs on protocol developnment. With the WS-* disaster in the back of our minds, of which IBM was one of the key creators, we should not expect any added value really here. In fact if I were in a very cynical mood I'd say this is the kiss of death for Second Life, but it's Saturday so I am not :-).

• "SL cannot truly succeed as long as one company controls the Grid."

The bottom line, although it should read that SL cannot survive as long as one company controls the Grid (please note the uppercase G here. As if we are talking about the Matrix. Would have been even more striking if also an uppercase T was used).

Dana Blankenhorn wonders out loud if open source can save Second Life. He invites people to share their insights. My 2 cents is that Second Life is nothing more than a finger exercise for really successful 3D virtual communities, which will not be mainstream before 2009-2012. Linden Labs have done some pioneer work in the area, and they and the users of Second Life (I refuse to use the term resident), including the big companies that have jumped on the phenomenon will have learned for their experiences. But they will come (or already have come) to the conclusion that the Second Life world is flat, meaning they can fall off at any moment.

Beyond Kathy Sierra

Quite frankly I never heard of Kathy Sierra before last week. I could say here thatg I have been a loyal reader of her blog for a long long time, but reality is that I first heard about her when all the blog postings came in about the death threats aimed at her. And obviously a lot of people are interested in this subject:
Most reactions throughout the blogosphere vary from supportive, to shocked, and in fact James McGovern was one of the first who had a somewhat skeptical reaction to Kathy's story. I think this was quite brave by James, and although his later postings about the subject were not as good in my opinion (but I suspect James is going quickly for the 1000th blog posting so he can retire as a blogger as he announced), he has brought up some very interesting points, that even go beyond the whole Kathy Sierra case.
I do not know Kathy Sierra so I do not have any opinion on how she has handled this whole situation, although generally I do feel that you should never bend to those that use violence. That was my opinion last year with all the fuss about the cartoons in the Danish newspaper, and that is my opinion now. But maybe it is different if it happens to you, I don't know. Nevertheless, I wonder what the motive is of people threatening a blogger. It wouldn't surprise me if we are "just" dealing with some bored teenagers who just want some attention, kind of the same breed as those people that write computer viruses (still can't think what's so gratifying about that).
The key about the whole discussion goes beyond Kathy Sierra as I said earlier. James pointed in his post to the single largest threat of the Internet in general:
"In cyberspace it is very easy to become someone else and very difficult at times to prove that you aren't really you"
This has proved to be very difficult in the past and present (phishing, threats on discussion boards, electronic voting etc.), and it will become even a bigger issue in the future. With the advancement and expansion of new forms of collaboration, social contacts and transactions that use the Internet, identity is becoming the key issue. Obviously there is a growing number of people that have a need to take on another identity when being on the Internet. How often do you see nick names, avatars or email aliases that reflect exactly the name or appearance of its owner? Even with some very popular blogs, the writers chose to use a nick name, probably because they were writing about quite some confidential information on their company.
Anonymity / namelessness is very valuable to many people on the Internet, but it will become a complicating factor in the evolvement of the Internet. Especially as it appears as though increasingly virtual spaces / worlds and the real world are blending, this becomes increasingly problematic. Particularly because legislation is still in progress and absent in this area. In fact some people will even argue that the Internet should not be subject to legislation from any country (tell that to China...), and should be subject to the self-cleaning capacity of the World Wide Web and its users.
Which leaves us with the very interesting observation that on one hand the current evolvement of the Internet has the promise of providing maximum transparency, but on the other hand it is threatened by the obscurity of its users. Information becomes transparant, users don't. All the ingredients are there for a dialectic process of change.

Making money with Web 2.0

Loyal readers of my blog will remember that in the past I have written about the possibilities to make money with Web 2.0. Via a Dutch site I ran into a presentation by an Italian consultant who names himself BizMogeek (Business Model geek, real name Luca Grivet).

As I have not found his ideas on some other blogs on Web 2.0, I will give a very short summary of his findings here. Grivet identifies 5 business models for Web 2.0:

1. Free: the best known and near-classic model, in which revenue is generated by advertising
2. Free to use, pay for related service: the base product can be used free of charge, for example open source software (MoveableType). However, for additional services you have to pay (TypePad)
3. Freemium: the base product is free of charge (like with business model 2) to a certain extent. If you exceed a specific usage limit (Flickr), want additional service (LinkedIn) or want to buy extra items (SecondLife), it becomes a charged service
4. Freedom to pay: it is up to the users to decide whether or not they are willing to pay to use the service, or you can make a donation (Wikipedia)
5. Nothing free: the service will be charged anyway (iTunes), however you can get a share of the revenue that is generated (eBay, Google AdSense)

This is quite a good effort to describe the possibile Web 2.0 business models in my opinion. Grivet has even created a framework to help position service providers in the Web 2.0 market, as he has added the specific target market (or business area as he calls it) as well in this model: content, application / service or products / software. I find it somewhat questionnable whether or not you should draw a distinction between application / service and products / software, especially as SaaS is blurring the boundaries between those.
Nevertheless, I appreciate Grivet's work, and it is one of the best attempts I have seen so far to describe the different possibilities.
I have one key objection against his list and framework, and that is that there are quite some Web 2.0 startups that appear to have no other business model than attracting the big Web 2.0 players to get acquired by those players. These startups cannot be placed in any category mentioned by Grivet, as their key objective is to get noticed by Yahoo!, Google, MSN and [you name it], hoping that these big guys are willing to buy them out. I would call this business model the Big bucks buy-out (triple B?) model.
Basically, I think Grivet's model should be extended with this business model, but not at the same level as the 5 models he mentions. The framework could be extended with an extra layer, which could be called "Business intention". Here are 2 choices:

• being self-supportive through either one of the 5 models mentioned by Grivet, or
• going for the Big player buy-out / Triple B model

VC's should assess which type they are dealing with, before committing their capital to Web 2.0 startups.

Second Life on the hype cycle

What if you had to place Second Life on a Gartner Hype Cycle? In which Hype Cycle would you place it? Hype Cycle for Virtual Worlds? Hype Cycle for 3D Web UIs? And at which position in that particular hype cycle would you place it? Technology trigger? Peak of inflated expectations?

I would definately say at the peak of inflated expectations, as not a single printed or online chronicle has not written about it yet. If even Dutch grocery stores are opening a complete mall in Second Life, there is no room anymore for denial: Second Life IS a hype.
However, there are already some first signs that the hype may be beyond its peak. Although the State of the Virtual World on the official Second Life blog still show quite some impressive growth figures, there are also some things that indicate that SL hype is nearly beyond its peak:

• All media have already written or reported about it, a second wave of attention from the media appears unlikely (people will pretty soon show signs of Second Life fatigue)
• Only a fraction of users actually stay. Many people try, only few keep coming to Second Life
• Some companies have already announced to close their virtual offices in Second Life after the first forms of child porn were found in Second Life.
• And, as my colleague Ray Valdes mentioned: "Do you want to have a virtual press conference in a world where your public event can be disrupted by flying animated body parts?"
• Some people claim that Second Life is mainly driven (or should I say: populated) by people looking to gamble or for some erotic pleasure (hey, that does not sound surprising for an Internet platform)

My 2 cents on Second Life and Hype Cycles is that:

• Second Life should be placed in a Hype Cycle for Web 2.0, as I consider it a social networking platform / community
• Secondly, I think it should be placed just beyond the peak of inflated expectations.
• Finally, "Years to mainstream adoption" will be the red circle with the cross in it ("obsolete before plateau"), because I think another contender will take the crown from Second Life and will create a highly successful "virtual world"*

* If I had to place "virtual 3D communities" on the Hype Cycle (instead of its most popular current incarnation, Second Life), I would say it takes another 2 to 5 years before mainstream adoption.
Yes, I do believe that virtual 3D communities have a quite bright future, I just don't think that Second Life will be THE future virtual world of choice. Second Life will suffer from the the 'dialectics of progress', in fact you could even say that it will become a victim of its own success.

Adobe Photoshop goes SaaS

The news that Adobe is offering its flagship product Photoshop (or should we call Flash its flagship product after the acquisition of Macromedia?) as an online service has caused quite some speculation on the acceleration of SaaS (Software as a Service).
I find this news interesting for 2 reasons: what is Adobe's product strategy and plan with this move, and what are the consequences of a move to a true SaaS model?

As for Adobe's strategy: I predicted earlier this year that Adobe will be acquired by Oracle. Although there are still some rumours that Oracle's first acquisition priorities are with BI vendor Business Objects, I still believe that an Adobe acquisition by Oracle is very feasible, not in the last place because Oracle might consider Adobe as the doorway to the new, emerging market of rich user interfaces and desktop computing (Acrobat, Flash, Photoshop, video editing stuff). If Adobe manages to leverage its web presence with a Photoshop SaaS offering, it will probably become an even more attractive target for Oracle. This move by Adobe has not and will not go unnoticed, and the exposure Adobe is getting for its SaaS efforts, can create the right momentum for the acquisition by Oracle.

In the second place, I find this news interesting because it is a test case to see whether the open source business model works for software as well. We should not be mistaken about the Adobe plans: it is nothing more than offering only a limited set of Photoshop capabilities on-line, it is not like all the very sophisticated functions from the desktop version are incorporated in the online version. Add that to the fact that Photoshop online is what is called an "ad-supported online service", and it becomes clear that also with Photoshop as most people know it, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
In line with the Web 2.0 business model discussed before, Adobe is giving away something expensive but considered critical, hoping to get something valuable for free that was once expensive. It could be a way of attracting customers and make them want the full, desktop version of Photoshop, or it could be a true step towards "good enough" software offered via the Internet. The question with the latter is: what's in it for Adobe? Will they charge users in the future for using the online Photoshop? Will they gain income through support and services (I wonder if this will work: I predict that online communities will emerge that provide peer-to-peer support for online Photoshop users)? Are they only doing this for brand recognition or to win sympathy?

Many people applaud the SaaS model, because they feel it is important to cut down on physical media, and replace this with online storage. However, the SaaS model requires a much higher bandwidth, and not only that: it requires a reliable connection to the software that is consumed as a service. You do not want to be in the middle of editing your pics from your latest holiday, and all of a sudden find out that your connection is slow, and the HTTP request from your browser times out. Another aspect could be the enormous media exposure that such initiatives could get: are the online services prepared for the huge peak load when influential media have a story about it and all of a sudden everyone wants to check out that cool new service.

According to Adobe's plans, Photoshop should be online in 6 months. Enough time then to think about some of the above issues, and I will follow this with great interest.

How much is that Vista in the Windows?

Microsoft Canada has accidentally published the prices for Vista on their web site. These prices give some insight in what to expect when Vista finally hits the market, but the prices have been taken offline already. Although Microsoft have already announced that the prices for Vista would be about the same as the prices for Windows XP, it is still interesting to see what this will really mean. They also announced that they will publish the prices after "Release Candidate 1" is released, which is planned for September. For those that cannot wait, here is the highlights of the list that has been taken of the Canadian MSFT site:

• Windows Vista Basic Edition, the cheapest basic version of Vista which can be compared with XP Home edition, will cost 259 Canadian dollars, which is 233 US $ and 182 euro.
  Side note: Windows XP Home cost 199 US $ in 2001. A difference of 34 US $, or 17%, which is not bad if we take the effects of inflation (approximately 3.5% per year) into consideration.
• Vista Home Premium Edition, that combines characteristics of Windows Media Center and the Tablet PC-edition, will have a price raise of 13%, i.e. 299 Canadian $ (269 US $, which is 211 euro).
• Vista Business would cost 379 Canadian $ (341 US $, 267 euro). This is 7 % cheaper than Windows XP Professional.
• Vista Ultimate (what's in a name) will cost twice as much as the Basic Edition: 499 Canadian $ (449 US $, 352 euro).

SOA just vendor talk?

"‘SOA’ may have meant something once but it’s just vendor bullshit now."

Very interesting yet highly questionnable statement by Tim Bray. Without giving any reasonable argumentation for this bold statement, he dismisses SOA as something that does not matter anymore, and he says we should rather focus on what he calls Web style. Of course, the highly fashionable term Enterprisey is used in his post, and increasingly people are using this term to dismiss SOA without giving any argumentation for dismissing it, other than "SOA is Enterprisey". It is kind of like what open source zealots throw at you when you talk about MSFT: "oh, that's FUD!".

I do agree with Tim that simplicity is a virtue when working with the web. After all, the Internet has been such a big hit because of its simplicity. However, Tim misses the fact that the services he talks about when discussing the Web Style thing, are a completely different thing than the services we talk about when discussing SOA. I wrote before that there is something fundamentally difficult when talking about "services". There are different kind of services, and probably the name "web service" has not been the best choice. The Web Style kind of services Tim speaks about are fundamentally different from services you will usually use within an SOA. I wrote about this before too: WS-* services and REST services are not competing, they are complementary. Web Style serves another purpose than SOA. Consumer-facing services have other QoS requirements than high-volume, cross-platform A2A transaction services. One service needs to be simple and flexible, while another service should seamlessly integrate with different platforms. Different requirements ask for different services, which in turn ask for different implementations. That is the reality of today's IT world.

Once again: it is all a matter of perspective.