Chicken drama - Sion Zaius built up one of the greatest pyramid schemes in SL. His own a bad policy combined with emotional lashing out may have crumbled this brilliant money making scheme.
I have no problem with Sion screwing up his own business - people make poor decisions and pay the price financially a lot. I do feel for the people who thought they could create their own business selling eggs and associated chickeny goods in the Sion aftermarket. The whole chicken empire always felt a bit shaky to me. It seemed inevitable that one way or another the Sion chicken party would be over. Perhaps it is over now or perhaps not. One thing is certain though -- people are distrustful of the future of the virtual chicken. Cluck, cluck.
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I don't know Mystical Cookie personally but I have friends who live on her estate and who have been justifiably upset because of her mysterious disappearance. I fully support Mysti's right to personal privacy and I don't think she really owes the world an explanation for her 6 month absence from the grid. At the same time, I do think that a simple email could have saved many people great heartache.
I am happy Mysti has returned to the people who love her and to her very successful businesses. (I love my Mysti tool and look forward to future updates!) Still, Mysti's hiatus got me thinking about personal responsibility to others and how that sometimes can be in conflict with our own need for personal privacy.
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What I wonder is how do people balance their own needs against those of their customers? How do business owners like Sion, Mysti and even Linden Lab think through the downstream impacts of their own actions? The events of this week reinforce that business owners act in ways that are self interested and customers sometimes suffer. This is not exactly surprising but it is a little disheartening.
The distance between avatar and human and the anonymous nature of our virtual lives inserts an added layer of complexity and uncertainty into business relationships. For me, things like mysterious 6 month disappearances serve to reinforce an uneasiness about some types of internet based relationships.
16 comments:
Bravo Chestnut. Very eloquently said.
JellyBean
(cause I'm too lazy to log into right account) :p
Integrity is Everything
Personal accountability / integrity is a huge issue that seems to be often overlooked in virtual spaces. Those who conduct business purely as a game or hobby, frequently underestimate the value of good will.
With so many similar virtual as well as tangible products and services becoming commodities, the only unique thing that any company has to sell are the intangibles of service, integrity and trust. If you fail to deliver on any of these, it won't matter how good your product or service is, you risk alienating customers and ruining your brand.
I wrote a blog awhile back titled "The Importance of Identity in Virtual Worlds"
http://tinyurl.com/vuturus-virtual-identity
In it I make the assertion that "Whether we like it or not the reality is that knowing people’s real identities is important in today’s business world, even when that world is “Virtual.”
Over the next few years I think we'll see a shake-out in the Virtual World business environment. It is my belief that those businesses that provide their customers with real identities, regular business hours and consistent service and support policies will have a tremendous advantage over those that take a "it's just a hobby, nobody should care who/where I am" approach.
Phaylen had some thoughts on the business model:
http://phaylen.com/?p=164
7seas at least has community, competition, and flexibility to allow people to creatively expand and offer up their own fish or gifts. Plus, the developers are genuinely good folks and haven't appeared drama-prone at all.
-ls/cm
As my First Life often leaves me worn out emotionally, I sometimes do not log inworld to be social for some time.
I go through terrible guild feelings towards my SL friends and lovers though... I fear that it feels to them that I am avoiding or neglecting them...
Very well thought out and written. I avoided the whole chicken thing, it seemed a bit to trendy for Lizzie, LOL. Plus I don't want to HAVE to log in for some virtual pet. I have real life pets and I would rather devote my attention on them. Also I had no clue you had to keep buying the food, that's insane. And I so agree about personally responsibility in this virtual world. Some believe its not necessary because they dont have that face to face or personal contact with the person on the other end of the keyboard. But feelings are feelings regardless of the mode of communication.
And hey one last thing - Oh Kimberlee AKA JB - you better be careful about commenting with more than one identity. You may be accused of stalking or trying to pull something over on the blog writer. Hahahah. JK (inside joke, sowwies Chestnut)
And Chestnut, its good to have you back!
Haha Lizzie - Oh I know it. However it says it on my plurk as well:
JellyBean (Kimberlee) Madison™
:)
S'ok -- I know Kimberlee (aka Jellybean, aka JB, aka Jells) pretty well. ;)
Yak what you feel is totally understandable. I don't want to imply anyone is compelled to log in because I certainly don't feel that way.
I will say if I know I won't be around I do email my partner because it is the considerate thing to do. When I was going to be away on vacation I posted about it because I didn't want anyone to worry about a sudden absence. We do these things in RL for our friends and associates and I think it is polite to do the same for our virtual friends and associates.
Of course there are times when even a short email is impossible and that is understandable. In those instances perhaps a little worry on the part of people who care about us is in order.
I have always felt that communication is key even virtually. A relationship (whether business or personal) on SL is no different considering that there are living, breathing people involved in the circumstances.
I do catch my IMs and such in email and do my best to respond to the ones that need responding to as quickly as I possibly can. I've also given out my email to certain people whom I have to keep track of on SL for various reasons.
Looking back I'm now glad I have never gotten into the virtual pet thing or the prim baby thing. I got enough other responsibilities (and 2 RL pets) to have to worry about all that.
Well said! I've always felt there was a fine line between perosnal responsibility and the need for privacy in SL. I've always been (what I felt was) either too far on either side of the line. It's difficult to find that balance, especially when, it seems, everyone has a different definition of where that line belongs.
Mahala I think you hit on something very important. There is no shared sense of how to deal with these issues so the gap between what people expect is the place where misunderstandings occur.
What a spot-on and well-written post!
I organise the Written Word project for writers. It grew much more than I could ever have anticipated so I'm very aware that it's a commitment and a responsibility. Once it reaches that point I think it's really important to be sure it could carry on without me if I had to leave for any reason. There are ways the responsibility can be passed in most activities. Too many people depend on organisers carrying on so we have to plan for that. You're right about the upset we cause otherwise.
It just struck me...
When the issues with the chickens and lag hit, it was still pretty obvious to some that it was all a pyramid scheme and easy money for Sion at the top of the pyramid.
LL's response to the lag was not to examine the model and think "Is this fraud?" or "Will this result in a collapse?' but "How can we protect the grid from these scripts and objects interfering with customers' ability to use the platform?"
And yet, the "banks" were enough of a threat to require regulation/banning to avoid issues.
Interesting. I wonder where that line is drawn and who draws it.
-ls/cm
As a resident of avendale, and a tenant of Mystical Cookie, I feel compelled to add a comment. Yes, her 6 month absence was unfortunate and certainly devastated her community, with many leaving. However, whatever her reasons for being absent, she maintained tier, and, immediately on her return, contacted all residents and re-paid them their original land costs. In my opinion, that is integrity, and deserves a mention. She could have easily just pulled the plug without a word, as so many sim owners do.
As I said in my post I do not think Mysti owes anyone an explanation for her actions and I am a strong supporter of her right to personal privacy. As I do not know Mysti personally I cannot and did not speak to her integrity.
I do stand by my concluding statement. When business owners disappear for 6 months without a trace it serves to undermine *my* trust in certain kinds of internet business relationships.
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