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Jul 27, 2001, 10:05pm

It took them a week to do, but AWC has finally responded to our "To Whom It May
Concern" letter. One response is from Flagg, and the other is from Mr. Rick Noll
himself. Here they are, in their entirety. Feel free to respond as you wish. I still
need to ponder this a bit longer...

P.S. To those who missed all this, the original letter is in the post titled "To Whom
It May Concern... [long!]"

------------------------------------------
Flagg's response:

Hi Goober King,

Thank you for taking the time to voice your concerns regarding our Activeworlds
product. We value all our customers opinions and appreciate the time and effort many
of our users put in to help make Activeworlds the wonderful 3D environment it is
today.

I apologize that you feel yourself and other users have not been listened to, but I
have to disagree as I feel we our listening to our community and addressing what we
believe are there most important needs. At Activeworlds we get tons of
suggestions/recommendations every day and usually respond to all of them with
information regarding there ideas and what we can or can not do about them. I did a
small search trying to find unanswered suggestions you may have sent in, but
unfortunately I was unable to find to any. If you would like to take the time and
outline for me your ideas I will be more than happy to respond to each and every one
of them. We also have a suggestion box at
http://www.activeworlds.com/products/suggest.html and though we do not respond to
suggestions placed through this form most of the staff does read all the suggestions
every week.

As for the rumors that we only cater to corporate clients well that is just untrue.
We cater to both the community and corporate clients and I would say it is about a
50/50 split, neither really get's more attention. We have added many user requested
features and improvements over the years like whispers, telegrams, light sources,
Direct 3D and many more. In addition 3.2 has some user requested features like
skyboxes and software mode. (25% of Activeworlds users still use 2.2 because they do
not have a 3D graphics card). Of course our number one goal is always improving the
Activeworlds product and that is what we focus on. Sometimes a release may be more
corporate focused and other times it may be more community it is just the way it is.
Our users suggestions come in much faster than our new versions go out and it is
completely impossible for us implement every suggestion especially sense some of our
users suggestions generally conflict with each other.

Activeworlds has been around a long time now and it is enjoyed by a great many
people. Activeworlds is what it is and we will keep improving it over time. For
$19.95 a year, that's $1.66 a month I think we provide a very good product and I do
believe the majority of our paying customers would agree.

Attached to this e-mail is Enzo's response to some of your comments regarding the
early days of Activeworlds.

I look forward to hearing your suggestions and discussing them with you.


Sincerely

Tom Fournier
Customer Service / Sales Manager
Activeworlds.com Inc.
95 Parker St.
Newburyport, MA 01950

www.activeworlds.com

*(PLEASE INCLUDE ALL PREVIOUS DIALOG IN ALL REPLIES TO ENSURE A FAST AND ACCURATE
RESPONSE)*

------------------------------------
ENZO's response:

Dear Goober King and all the others who have signed his letter,


I thank you for your letter and for your obvious concern about both AW and it's
community of users. I think that I am at least one of many who share the privilege of
being "Whom It May Concern". Allow me to first introduce two sites that hold much of
the information relevant to why.

http://tnlc.com/mauz/awhistory.html

http://www.multimania.com/nmf/cof/events/meeting.html

This meeting of course is the one where I say, "* E N Z O: if we can get 1,000,000
citizens by Sept 97we will NEVER have to charge"

Please let me address this issue and some of the others you raise in your letter:

I am sorry to say but that did not happen. We were not able to get a critical mass
necessary to sustain ad revenue like many other sites did in 1997-2000. In the past
year you have seen the implosion of so many "free" services and dotcom's. It was a
reasonable and logical step to charge for citizenship while at the same time offering
a free tourist mode to any who wanted it.

As we moved forward from that day, it became clear that the idealized views we
shared were not the only things needed to keep AW up and running. First there was the
purchase of the assets from Worlds. Then there were licenses and legal bills. Then
the bandwidth and servers. Then came the salaries for employees.

Since beginning my work as consultant to Worlds Inc. COF was funded on credit cards
and overdrafts. COF made just enough money to allow us to operate out of my parent's
garage and keep our server up. Shamus worked for extremely minimal pay and his fianc
sold off savings bonds to finance his groceries. Ellen and I were never paid a dime.
I had several side jobs to support the little shop we had going and we worked around
the clock to make sure it stayed alive. Worlds was never able to pay us and instead
we rolled the money they owed into an initial purchase bid when they went under. With
the small amount we had in savings and credit cards we struggled to keep our end
alive. When the owner of the world Atlantis, JP, came on board, he also put in his
own money and never received payment. Several times we were running to the bank to
make another transfer from savings or checking into the company account so that the
checks we had sent out wouldn't bounce.

We didn't do this with the knowledge that the coming years would bring about the
dotcom revolution or that we would ever get any investment at all. We didn't do it to
be rich.

We did it because we loved AW and wanted to keep it alive.

And that brings us to the Transcend and the now infamous meeting where we made
promises and then supposedly broke them. Here they are as I recall:

· We do have a newsletter.

· We have worked to get rid of vandals

· We have opened new worlds with new models

· We have added models to the worlds already open

· We have partnered with the users for content, SDK coding, events

· We offer servers for a lot less than $495.00 some option at almost $100.00

· There is a T-shirt

And that brings us to the issue of charging. We were not able to bring the number of
people to AW we needed by the time our cash reserves ran out. The choice at that
point was close up shop, let the programmers go and let AW die. A paid citizenship
made a lot of sense then and still does. I am sure if you do the math or compare AW
to anything else, you will realize that it is well worth $19.95. I don't know about
you personally but most people spend that on a movie and popcorn, which only lasts 2
hours.

Now I would like to address your concerns about the way we do business. AWCI does
need to run as a business. There is no way around this fact. In order to stay alive
and keep AW up, people need to work here.

Somebody needs to answer support email, somebody runs the servers, somebody repairs
and upgrades them, somebody needs to do artwork, somebody needs to code, somebody
needs to make bots, somebody needs to make sure the lights stay on and the rent is
paid.

I will also tell you that although we began paying salaries to all the employees
starting soon after that meeting, neither JP, Ellen or myself ever got a cent until
January of 1999 when we got our first round of investment. Added together that is a
period of 10 years fulltime (if 60 hour weeks and no weekends count as fulltime). No
other employee, even the ones that love it just as much as we do was ever able to
work for no pay except for Shamus and Lucrezia for which we were and will be
grateful.

To make sure all these things happen we need to grow interest in AW from the outside
world. This means working with partners and projects that you probably don't care
about. You may feel that things here are done solely on the basis of marketing or PR.
That is your right, it is mine to disagree. Look at all the features AW has gotten
since 1997. Some are:
· whispering,
· file transfer,
· unique tourist names
· avatar "fade out" effect
· avatars in the main scene
· mousewheel support
· help files online only
· speak and bot rights
· built-in administration utilities
· encrypted protocol, an SDK, lighting
· fog
· move and rotate
· acceleration
· higher cell data limits

…and I name only a few of the most obvious. I have heard that 3.2 is ALL about
corporate users because it includes firewall support. Don't any of you think some
non-corporate users are behind firewalls? Don't some of us use NT and would like
hardware acceleration that Microsoft doesn't support? Won't a software rasterizer
help more than a few? And what about skyboxes and 200 meter vis? What corporate and
educational users benefit from that? But do not get me wrong, our corporate users are
just as important to us, and just as much part of the community as anyone else who
uses AW. We will continue to add features both the corporate users and the AW
community at large benefit from.

I am also unaware of the "world server prices skyrocketing". In fact as far as I can
tell if you buy the smallest world server we offer you renew it at $10.00 a year! And
that includes a FREE citizenship. How can you say the pricing is unreasonable? Ten
dollars doesn't send even any kids I know "scrambling".

All of us here want AW to be a better place. AW is not just about software, it is
about people. The reason we work here is to make it happen. We enjoy it and we enjoy
the community you all have created. We want you to enjoy AW as much as we do. We
would be happy to work with you in any reasonable way.

Sincerely,

Rick



Rick Noll
CEO Activeworlds Inc.
enzo at activeworlds.com
------------------------------------------

--
Goober King
This is not to be taken lightly....
rar1 at acsu.buffalo.edu

Jul 27, 2001, 10:26pm

hmmm... Mr Noll sounds just like Uncle Enzo did in Snow Crash, LOL (he's
picked his AW name well...) *Snow Crash fan*
regarding the price, I'm sorry to tell you Mr Noll, but you kinda forgot
that you have to pay 70 dollars the first year... and I'm not sure you
tought about us foreign users (outside the U.S. that is), the US Dollar is
high, so for me that am living in Norway a P20 world (with only 5 users)
will cost me exactly 1000NOK (Norske Kroner, our currency) the first year,
wich is quite a lot... about £100 that means... Also, your Lead Programmer,
Mr. Villet, has expressed that he doesn't think he gets all what the
community wants (and that he could do) trough the management, wich is a bad
sign.

*hopes Rick Noll will read this or get it forwarded*

KAH

Jul 30, 2001, 6:44am

Well there you have it. Finally we get some balance to this rather
one-sided debate.

I would say the apparent illusion that customer's concerns aren't being
listened to is because there isn't enough being developed in a speedy amount
of time. And I'd also say that's because there's relatively few cash
reserves compared to the large video game developement houses. The
company's only had since 1999 to make money, and in the eyes of you who want
AW to be more game-like (myself included), AWC would be considered an
independant game developer, lacking the millions of dollars that's required
to bring AW up to current game-like specifications.

On the more personal side of things, I think the facts that they've in a
sense created a limited massively-multiplayer online world (with an economy,
system of government, and population) and that they need to address
citizens' concerns publicly like the President of the US must make speeches
have finally started to sink in. Whew... that's a mouthful. :)

SW Chris

[View Quote]

Jul 30, 2001, 4:30pm

"> · There is a T-shirt"

Oh really? Does it come in 100% cotton? My skin is very irritable :)

Jul 31, 2001, 2:16am

To Tom and Rick:::

Thank you for replying to the "To Whom It May Concern" letter... Much of
this information has been stated in one place or another over the years but
never quite as comprehensively... I even learned a few things from ENZO's
post that I hadn't known before... :o)

I remember hearing several years ago that you guys were working without any
pay so I knew then that your people had a real "love affair" with this
software... I, like many, also fell in love with it the first time I
experienced it... :o) It was instantly "good-bye Worlds Chat,,, HELLO
ActiveWorlds"... I never looked back and I'm still "in love" with
ActiveWorlds!!! *S*

Thank you for saving it from the "dead software heap", Rick and JP and the
rest of you!!!

*hugs*
Daphne

[View Quote]

Jul 31, 2001, 9:31pm

Actually at todays rates $70 will equal 639.7 Kroner which will equal
£49.03 sterling even allowing for a double interbank transfer. Where you
get 1000Kroner from, or even convert that to £100 is purely a figment of
your imagination.

If you take $70 to pounds directly on todays rates you would get $49.35 but
with one transfer, so your better off.

if your gonna state facts bloated just to fit your case, why should we think
any of the other "facts" you state are relevant, rather than just
manipulated so you can have a go because you want people to think you know
something.

But of course, if you can do better than AWCOM, please do so.. the test
will be in how many users you still have after 7 years, in fact whether you
still even have a product or a company.

Moria


[View Quote]

Jul 31, 2001, 9:54pm

too bad you can't get a point... I said that a P20 world with 5 users (wich
is little) would cost me 1000NOK the first year. Just to make you happy I
checked now with the transfer rates as they were at noon my time and
109.95USD (wich is the exact price) will mean *EXACTLY* 1001.1827NOK. so
it's a bit more than I said, even. And a hundred Pounds was a rough value,
because the conversion rate usually layes higher than 10... Who thinks he
knows something know, heh? Did I say I could do better? No. But I know E N Z
O could. Unless they suddently have lost a lot of money (like they did the
last few years, only this year that there was any news about profit...) and
can't afford to do better. But you can't know that either, can you?

KAH

[View Quote]

Aug 1, 2001, 2:47pm

Bleh the whole thing about the world pricing is wrong, the cheapest goes to
10nsew and has 5 people, get an extra 5 people in there for only....$50
extra a year! Thats only $10 a person folks, what a STEAL!
[View Quote]

Aug 2, 2001, 2:58am

Why do all the companys I e-mail reply with a message like this? One that
doesn't really answer any of your questions and has that calm, I don't want
to offend you look to it. I say that everything goober has written is true.
Most of the worlds that used to be full and exciting are now empty and
lonely. Last time I checked most of the building in the world abc is from
1998. And while AWCom DOES listen to our suggestions about the software,
they ignore what the community of AW wants and needs to prosper. Lower
prices, more interesting, interactive, and up-to-date worlds, and more
organizations to bind the community together. The AW community is falling
apart and it's time to see if AWCom gives a damn about the people that use
their software.

Alex Rawlings
DarkDude
Cit. # 315386



"goober king" <rar1 at acsu.buffalo.edu> wrote in
news:3B620151.8BF4CCBB at acsu.buffalo.edu:

> It took them a week to do, but AWC has finally responded to our "To
> Whom It May Concern" letter. One response is from Flagg, and the other
> is from Mr. Rick Noll himself. Here they are, in their entirety. Feel
> free to respond as you wish. I still need to ponder this a bit
> longer...
>
> P.S. To those who missed all this, the original letter is in the post
> titled "To Whom It May Concern... [long!]"
>
> ------------------------------------------
> Flagg's response:
>
> Hi Goober King,
>
> Thank you for taking the time to voice your concerns regarding our
> Activeworlds product. We value all our customers opinions and
> appreciate the time and effort many of our users put in to help make
> Activeworlds the wonderful 3D environment it is today.
>
> I apologize that you feel yourself and other users have not been
> listened to, but I have to disagree as I feel we our listening to our
> community and addressing what we believe are there most important
> needs. At Activeworlds we get tons of suggestions/recommendations
> every day and usually respond to all of them with information regarding
> there ideas and what we can or can not do about them. I did a small
> search trying to find unanswered suggestions you may have sent in, but
> unfortunately I was unable to find to any. If you would like to take
> the time and outline for me your ideas I will be more than happy to
> respond to each and every one of them. We also have a suggestion box
> at http://www.activeworlds.com/products/suggest.html and though we do
> not respond to suggestions placed through this form most of the staff
> does read all the suggestions every week.
>
> As for the rumors that we only cater to corporate clients well that is
> just untrue. We cater to both the community and corporate clients and I
> would say it is about a 50/50 split, neither really get's more
> attention. We have added many user requested features and improvements
> over the years like whispers, telegrams, light sources, Direct 3D and
> many more. In addition 3.2 has some user requested features like
> skyboxes and software mode. (25% of Activeworlds users still use 2.2
> because they do not have a 3D graphics card). Of course our number one
> goal is always improving the Activeworlds product and that is what we
> focus on. Sometimes a release may be more corporate focused and other
> times it may be more community it is just the way it is. Our users
> suggestions come in much faster than our new versions go out and it is
> completely impossible for us implement every suggestion especially
> sense some of our users suggestions generally conflict with each other.
>
> Activeworlds has been around a long time now and it is enjoyed by a
> great many people. Activeworlds is what it is and we will keep
> improving it over time. For $19.95 a year, that's $1.66 a month I
> think we provide a very good product and I do believe the majority of
> our paying customers would agree.
>
> Attached to this e-mail is Enzo's response to some of your comments
> regarding the early days of Activeworlds.
>
> I look forward to hearing your suggestions and discussing them with
> you.
>
>
> Sincerely
>
> Tom Fournier
> Customer Service / Sales Manager
> Activeworlds.com Inc.
> 95 Parker St.
> Newburyport, MA 01950
>
> www.activeworlds.com
>
> *(PLEASE INCLUDE ALL PREVIOUS DIALOG IN ALL REPLIES TO ENSURE A FAST
> AND ACCURATE RESPONSE)*
>
> ------------------------------------
> ENZO's response:
>
> Dear Goober King and all the others who have signed his letter,
>
>
> I thank you for your letter and for your obvious concern about both AW
> and it's community of users. I think that I am at least one of many who
> share the privilege of being "Whom It May Concern". Allow me to first
> introduce two sites that hold much of the information relevant to why.
>
> http://tnlc.com/mauz/awhistory.html
>
> http://www.multimania.com/nmf/cof/events/meeting.html
>
> This meeting of course is the one where I say, "* E N Z O: if we can
> get 1,000,000 citizens by Sept 97we will NEVER have to charge"
>
> Please let me address this issue and some of the others you raise in
> your letter:
>
> I am sorry to say but that did not happen. We were not able to get a
> critical mass
> necessary to sustain ad revenue like many other sites did in 1997-2000.
> In the past year you have seen the implosion of so many "free" services
> and dotcom's. It was a reasonable and logical step to charge for
> citizenship while at the same time offering a free tourist mode to any
> who wanted it.
>
> As we moved forward from that day, it became clear that the idealized
> views we
> shared were not the only things needed to keep AW up and running. First
> there was the purchase of the assets from Worlds. Then there were
> licenses and legal bills. Then the bandwidth and servers. Then came the
> salaries for employees.
>
> Since beginning my work as consultant to Worlds Inc. COF was funded on
> credit cards
> and overdrafts. COF made just enough money to allow us to operate out
> of my parent's garage and keep our server up. Shamus worked for
> extremely minimal pay and his fiancé sold off savings bonds to finance
> his groceries. Ellen and I were never paid a dime. I had several side
> jobs to support the little shop we had going and we worked around the
> clock to make sure it stayed alive. Worlds was never able to pay us and
> instead we rolled the money they owed into an initial purchase bid when
> they went under. With the small amount we had in savings and credit
> cards we struggled to keep our end alive. When the owner of the world
> Atlantis, JP, came on board, he also put in his own money and never
> received payment. Several times we were running to the bank to make
> another transfer from savings or checking into the company account so
> that the checks we had sent out wouldn't bounce.
>
> We didn't do this with the knowledge that the coming years would bring
> about the
> dotcom revolution or that we would ever get any investment at all. We
> didn't do it to be rich.
>
> We did it because we loved AW and wanted to keep it alive.
>
> And that brings us to the Transcend and the now infamous meeting where
> we made
> promises and then supposedly broke them. Here they are as I recall:
>
> · We do have a newsletter.
>
> · We have worked to get rid of vandals
>
> · We have opened new worlds with new models
>
> · We have added models to the worlds already open
>
> · We have partnered with the users for content, SDK coding, events
>
> · We offer servers for a lot less than $495.00 some option at
> almost $100.00
>
> · There is a T-shirt
>
> And that brings us to the issue of charging. We were not able to bring
> the number of
> people to AW we needed by the time our cash reserves ran out. The
> choice at that point was close up shop, let the programmers go and let
> AW die. A paid citizenship made a lot of sense then and still does. I
> am sure if you do the math or compare AW to anything else, you will
> realize that it is well worth $19.95. I don't know about you personally
> but most people spend that on a movie and popcorn, which only lasts 2
> hours.
>
> Now I would like to address your concerns about the way we do
> business. AWCI does
> need to run as a business. There is no way around this fact. In order
> to stay alive and keep AW up, people need to work here.
>
> Somebody needs to answer support email, somebody runs the servers,
> somebody repairs
> and upgrades them, somebody needs to do artwork, somebody needs to
> code, somebody needs to make bots, somebody needs to make sure the
> lights stay on and the rent is paid.
>
> I will also tell you that although we began paying salaries to all the
> employees
> starting soon after that meeting, neither JP, Ellen or myself ever got
> a cent until January of 1999 when we got our first round of investment.
> Added together that is a period of 10 years fulltime (if 60 hour weeks
> and no weekends count as fulltime). No other employee, even the ones
> that love it just as much as we do was ever able to work for no pay
> except for Shamus and Lucrezia for which we were and will be grateful.
>
> To make sure all these things happen we need to grow interest in AW
> from the outside
> world. This means working with partners and projects that you probably
> don't care about. You may feel that things here are done solely on the
> basis of marketing or PR. That is your right, it is mine to disagree.
> Look at all the features AW has gotten since 1997. Some are:
> · whispering,
> · file transfer,
> · unique tourist names
> · avatar "fade out" effect
> · avatars in the main scene
> · mousewheel support
> · help files online only
> · speak and bot rights
> · built-in administration utilities
> · encrypted protocol, an SDK, lighting
> · fog
> · move and rotate
> · acceleration
> · higher cell data limits
>
> …and I name only a few of the most obvious. I have heard that 3.2 is
> ALL about corporate users because it includes firewall support. Don't
> any of you think some non-corporate users are behind firewalls? Don't
> some of us use NT and would like hardware acceleration that Microsoft
> doesn't support? Won't a software rasterizer help more than a few? And
> what about skyboxes and 200 meter vis? What corporate and educational
> users benefit from that? But do not get me wrong, our corporate users
> are just as important to us, and just as much part of the community as
> anyone else who uses AW. We will continue to add features both the
> corporate users and the AW community at large benefit from.
>
> I am also unaware of the "world server prices skyrocketing". In fact
> as far as I can
> tell if you buy the smallest world server we offer you renew it at
> $10.00 a year! And that includes a FREE citizenship. How can you say
> the pricing is unreasonable? Ten dollars doesn't send even any kids I
> know "scrambling".
>
> All of us here want AW to be a better place. AW is not just about
> software, it is
> about people. The reason we work here is to make it happen. We enjoy it
> and we enjoy the community you all have created. We want you to enjoy
> AW as much as we do. We would be happy to work with you in any
> reasonable way.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Rick
>
>
>
> Rick Noll
> CEO Activeworlds Inc.
> enzo at activeworlds.com
> ------------------------------------------
>

Aug 3, 2001, 12:54am

Whoa, slow down. You're logic is missing something. Any CEO in his right
mind would want his company to get as many customers as possible. In Active
Worlds' situation, to get those customers, one of the things they would do
to gain a larger customer base would be to implement the suggestions of
existing customers. Now anyone knows they can't implement every feature the
customers suggest, but if you've already taken that into account and think
they aren't doing enough, think about this: There's something that's
stopping them from implementing more features that has obviously been
miscontrued as not carring about the community a.k.a. customer base. My
guess is that it's capital. Money. Moolah. Cash.

One another note, they're not going to come right out and say they don't
have enough money, because, well, AWCom would lose customers. :) So that's
why you get a letter "that doesn't really answer any of your questions and
has that calm, I don't want to offend you look to it." While this might
assauge the feelings of the customer base for a short while, think about
this: Offending someone would make you lose customers. Losing customers
makes you lose money. Losing money means you have even less capital to use
to make the Software better. That in turn makes the community think the CEO
doesn't care about the community. The cycle begins again. So you see,
writing a straight-out letter does nothing to solve things in the long run,
even if the events above are not as extreme as perceived by me.

I'm simply trying to see things from all angles.

SW Chris


[View Quote]

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