Wow. That was some big news last night with the XStreet SL/OnRez acquisition by LL!
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out the LL Blog, where they announce that Onrez is closing within the month and XStreet SL is being worked in to LL’s existing services.
Discussion on this topic has been rampant – whether on the SLU forums, the official SL forums… Plurk was littered with numerous discussions on the matter all night.
I won’t say it wasn’t a shock to me – LL has historically appeared to be fairly hands off with third party sites. That sorta changed earlier last year as they rolled out the trademark guidelines and took on Rivers Run Red as a content developer. Still, when this news came to me it started as a dubious rumour, substantiated by an individual even more dubious. *shrug*
So imagine my surprise when the rumours actually happened to be true? Heh. What’s next? Will the rumours that the Teen Grid and Main Grid are about to merge actually come to fruition?
Actually, this brings to mind a reason why LL might really want to do this – if the TG is INDEED merging with the MG, with the systems XstreetSL and Onrez currently operate under, there is no way to police what content underaged users can get their hands on (the fact that kids can ALREADY get their hands on pretty much anything on the Internet with minimal effort is neither here nor there).
I think we’ll probably see tighter policing of content on Xstreet in the future for this reason, even if the Teen Grid never merges with the Main Grid.
It would probably be a good thing, sans policing, for SL users to be able to actually search for items in a decent, organized manner and receive those items without having to risk failed teleports and hopping across the grid for one or two items. That said, such implementation would need to take place in whole, not in part, which seems to often be the case with most new projects at LL. Anyone remember the promises that Windlight settings would be server side or could be passed around as assets? How about flexie sculpties? Or the current implementation of oblong sculpts in the release viewer – which handles oblong sculpts *poorly*? Or hell. How about higher load priority for sculpt maps?
LL has a long history of starting new projects and moving on to other things before they are finished. Granted, Xstreet is already considerably developed and has been for some time (mind you, I’ve never been a big fan of their search engine – it is often as difficult to search for things on SLX as it is using SL’s existing search tools), however if LL is to do anything with the site, as it proposes, aside from running it in name only, then an in-depth integration process needs to take place that takes user input in mind.
While this could ultimately be very good for LL if done correctly, It is very difficult to say whether this change will actually work out well. There are a lot of things about this merger and acquisition that don’t really work in practice, like the fact that with their buyout of Xstreet, LL effectively now has two currency exchanges. While they say they don’t expect to have to do anything about it, it’s pretty clear to me they *must* if they are to continue to approach the integration of XStreet in to SL with transparency and fairness.
If LL truly wants to make this transition work, they will need to examine the reasons why folks DO choose the Xstreet exchange and endeavor to integrate solutions for their own system. IE: provide more payment and cashout options (not less), provide a faster cash-out process, etc. All things they could have done (and better) without acquiring Xstreet and Onrez though, honestly.
Persephone Milk brought up concerns this morning at SLU about such an acquisition causing a monopoly, and that such a monopoly would cause stagnation and lack of innovation in that area, which I agree with. This is exactly why – Yes, they got a solution faster by simply buying it, but in doing so, they removed any choice or advantage to dealing with anyone else. If they drop the ball on improving what they have just acquired, it will be the residents and content creators who have to pay.