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CNet interviews Anshe

December 20th, 2006 (Visited 3109 times) Tags:

There’s an interesting in-depth interview of Anshe Chung by Dan Terdiman on CNet’s site.

I am unsurprised that the interview was griefed:

Unfortunately, as the interview was commencing, the event was attacked by a “griefer,” someone intent on disrupting the proceedings. The griefer managed to assault the CNET theater for 15 minutes with–well, there’s no way to say this delicately–animated flying penises.

Between this and the recent Joel Stein assessment of Second Life in TIME, there’s a risk that the penis will become its public face. Uh. Strange image. Scratch that.

Aside from that, however, the interview is worth checking out.

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EndgameRadio » Room 101 vs. Anshe Chung wrote on December 20th, 2006 at 4:35 pm:

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Prokofy Neva said on December 20th, 2006 at 10:59 am:
Yes, that is an interesting interview. There’s one comment I’m still trying to figure out, the concept that land was doubled toward the end of 2004 and therefore devalued. This was done deliberately; the Lindens couldn’t face the howling from their elite in the face of Anshe and others’ successes; when they saw land increase in value and begin to cost more, they adopted a “what about the children” dramatic tone ostensibly on behalf of land-buying newbies, and started a long campaign of hatred toward land barons. Meanwhile, the “children” didn’t care beyond the few sectarians and bought the land anyway.

Of course, if you joined SL in 2004 at that point, as I did, you wouldn’t have that perception of OMG the land is too costly — the land price could merely seem to be what it was “normally.” And while it’s true that if anyone who had bought in 2003 when they changed to the tier pricing scheme tried to sell then in 2005, they’d lose, today, they’d gain, because once again — as happens periodically — there’s a real-estate bubble with a 512, which used to go for about $12 US now going for $75 US routinely — in part because new waves of people come in who have no expectation that a 512 “should” cost $12 and don’t wail at the prices.

So basically, Anshe herself describes her own success at being able to buy up everybody else’s liquidated land — that’s interesting, and obviously she would know better, but my own feeling is that she made money more from buying low on the auctions and selling high especially for land perceived as short in supply, like the atoll continent, and of course telehub mall rentals (like LL’s recurring monthly tier, these monthly rentals seem to me the biggest money-makers).

I wrote an analysis back in November
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2006/11/the_anshe_chung.html#more

The pundits analyzing Anshe often say that her assets aren’t real because were she to try to cash them all out at once, her large transactions would crash the market itself making it hard for her to sell in the market she flooded.

Today, I think that’s no longer true, and her move of $150,000 US is an example, I suppose, but astute watchers of the markets in Feb-Mar would see a Linden lower in value — and also then see the Lindens start to add more controls to their LindEx like “circuit breakers”.
Prokofy Neva said on December 20th, 2006 at 12:53 pm:
Say, I’ve been meaning to ask: am I the only one subjected to having my comments moderated or does everyone get this treatment?
Lost said on December 20th, 2006 at 1:27 pm:
There are so many jokes.
“there’s a risk that the penis will become its public face.” Rush Limbaugh jokes come to mind.
“Scratch that.” Penicillin anyone?

Joking aside, I can understand why so many people have been excited (no joke intented) about Second Life, free form play, user created content, and IP rights being at the front. But unfortunately the biggest draws, can also be its biggest drawbacks. Linden Labs PR machine has done so much to get Second Life noticed by the “main stream”, that they might have underestimated peoples ability/willingness to sink to the lowest levels when given the chance to explore it.
Raph said on December 20th, 2006 at 1:46 pm:

It’s everybody. The blog does it automatically and at this point, it’s kind of on a hair trigger because we get so much spam. I manually approve a good dozen posts a day… I just approved 5, including yours. The blog sees hundreds of spam comments and trackbacks every day.
Steven "PlayNoEvil" Davis said on December 20th, 2006 at 4:07 pm:
Kind of makes you want to rethink that whole TIME Person of the Year thing a little bit, doesn’t it? What is the reflection supposed to be of, exactly, and where do most people read TIME?
Morgan Ramsay said on December 20th, 2006 at 10:56 pm:
I manually approve a good dozen posts a day…

Raph, I suppose you could install a plugin that considers all comments from registered accounts with a minimum number of approved posts to be legitimate… With all this technology, you probably shouldn’t be burdened with so much of a moderation requirement. Of course, comments from unregistered accounts would still need to be moderated, but then there would at least be an incentive for visitors to register accounts.
Michael Chui said on December 21st, 2006 at 1:17 am:
where do most people read TIME?

I was waiting for someone to say that. Everyone remarked on it, but no one pointed that out anywhere in the blogosphere I read. =P Thanks.
Cael said on December 21st, 2006 at 4:42 pm:
Lost: I strongly advise that some time you do what none of the journalists except Joel Stein have. Make a SL character and leave the green zone to where to majority of those 16,000 residents (because on LL’s stats, no way can they prove any more) and find out what they’re doing with their 2.46 CPUs each.

Flying penises is mild. Second Life is a cesspit.
Lost said on December 22nd, 2006 at 10:49 pm:
Cael said:

Flying penises is mild. Second Life is a cesspit.

I have been to SL Exchange’s site and seen some of the “furniture” that is available and I have also been to SL escorts’ site. So, I don’t doubt that it is. Which is why I did say “peoples ability/willingness to sink to the lowest levels when given the chance to explore it.” Which can be said about most MMOs in some form or another (within the abilities of the game), rampant PKing, KSing, griefing, etc…. (Nerfbat: “What Sucks About MMOs? The M Part, Obviously”)

In theory Second Life is great, but in practice it is …. well…. I don’t know. I’m not going to go as far as Clockwork Mind and say that “Second Life Must Die.”, but I do worry about the possible backlash. I have been strongly considering checking out There to get the social, free form play, etc world without the flying penises.

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