You must put a lot of work into blogging this much!…

My theory of the FIC is proven over and over, in every way, on every day. One proof of it is the way Hamlet, in the official guide to SL, and other posters, like yourself, have to try to disparage it as being about “jealousy” or about “the kool kids who naturally succeed anywhere”.

These kool kids had *help* and plenty of it — feting is the word I used to explain the process of media steerage, enablement to win contests (sometimes the sole winner!), specials, perks, privileges that are often very out of sight and out of mind in an NDA.

The FIC has been institutionalized, if anything, in the SL Views meetings and in the AWG organization. FIC now includes corporate FIC like IBM. The theory persists in classic form, with its modern adaptation merely manifesting in a greater appetite (Aimee in 2004; IBM in 2008).

The FIC is so obvious to all that people like Philip or Hamlet have to work overtime to cover it up and lie about it.

BTW, my ad is a kind of parody. I think most people don’t want to buy space on a controversial avatar.

There is no proof that there is such a thing as a FIC. There is just the fact that some people float to the top (as they do in real life: by honest hard work or by elbow wrestling) and some people do not float to the top. I am one of the many thousands who do not float to the top and so are you. The difference is that I couldn’t care less while you do. You’re so important in your own damn head that you rent out space in your profile, it being ‘the most read’ according to yourself. However, I never did see an ad there. Maybe that tells you something about your importance in our virtual world.

You may have a point about the old media, I grant you that. But first of all that point doesn’t exclude the one Gwyn makes. Both developments have played a role in the growth of SL – the same growth which has killed the relative importance of some experienced residents, since they’re awash in an ocean of new ones.
Which brings me to the second point. You base your analysis on the so-called FIC. Not only is it an unproven concept, it is so 2005, Prokofy. Times have changed.

(I also marvel that people never call you on writing posts even longer and denser than mine ever are, but that’s because you’re FIC, I guess.)

I do understand your need to wax eloquent about all your social media web 2.0 dreck, and the theories may be all sound, but the application is hysterically false and misleading.

Sure, there was a Fansite Toolkit. Like any game or MMORPG in those years. It had the logos and it had a line about making sure you specified that use of them was not intended to infringe — and even with this toolkit, you had to commit not to using this to sell stuff — LL gave only a very few authorizations to sell things with that hand logo, i.e. T-shirts. I remember discussing this at length with one of the people who was angered that so many others got to use the logo seemingly without reprimand, yet he had to get a restrictive license merely because he had asked.

But this wasn’t any viral marking campaign, and it didn’t lead to anything like what you claim — the millions of sign-ups. That’s utter hogwash. The sign-ups came from old media like Business Week. If residents played a role in pumping up old media, it’s because people like Anshe or even Aimee or FlipperPAY gave interviews, not because they maintained websites (not a single one of those three, and others much in the news like Kermitt of Tringo fame, ever maintained any fansites to my knowledge, unless you would try to characterize slboutique.com as a fansite, which would be stretching it). Torrid, Francis — any example you give here are people who did not make fansites, or websites or any kind, but gave RL press interviews.

Indeed, the reason I was permabanned from the official forums was for criticizing this steerage of LL toward the press and even scholarly coverage. You may recall I complained about Pathfinder coming on the forums and gushing about an article by Betsy Book (now a VP at there.com) fanning Aimee Weber and Cubey Terra in a scholarly paper touched by the Terra Nova set about branding in virtual worlds. I pointed out that the Lindens set this sort of thing up, fan it, then fan the fanning of it, and it’s all pretty insular. I remarked that Aimee’s name was “like a cheerleader’s” and Cubey Terra’s name was a kind of inside joke, given that his aircrafts weren’t earthbound lol. I pointed out that these avatars had made the kind of branding that worked in virtual worlds relying on MMORPG culture, but it wasn’t clear how it could enlarge further. For that I was hounded and abuse reported by little fanboyz like Hiro Pendragon, and removed from the forums — the Lindens conceded at the time that I hadn’t violated the TOS, but it was a move made as a “business decision” — not only did they want to protect their mascots like Aimee and Cubey from any sort of criticism whatsoever (and gave them a total pass to be mean on the forums) — they wanted to make sure that all future such mascoting was protected. Linden’s marketing plan was about the FIC, and not about fansites.

The combination of SL entrepreneurs eagerly willing to give interviews, the Lab’s own strategic placement of their maskets on the wires and in local papers and then national and international news — that’s what brought the sign-ups. The fan sites were neglible.

In fact, the one really high-trafficked website — THE highest trafficked site! — that emphatically used the hand-eye logo and the marks all over its page, with the fansite understanding, and with a disclaimer as required by the then-fansite rules was…the SL Herald. The SL Herald could hardly be described as a viral marketing plan fanning Linden Lab, Gwyn — what are you smoking?! You can’t advance this theory of crowdsourcing viral marketing techniques and then remain obdurately blind to the unintended consequence here — that the Lindens created a viral hate campaign. That their mark is constantly associated with disparagement of their brand. That their hand-eye sits above some of the most obscene, crude, cruel, and grotesque copy on the Internet. The fansite thing totally backfired, Gwyn — look what happened.

Ultimately proof of my point is that your own fan site here never used those logos or materials lol. Honestly, Gwyn, you crack me up.

Prokofy Neva