The latest podcast of The Drax Files Radio Hour is live, and unsurprisingly, the focus is the recent meet-and-greet with Ebbe Altberg, which I’ve covered here.

Even if you listened to Ebbe through this blog, the show is definitely worth a listen to as well, as it includes questions as well as Ebbe’s comments and replies.

Since the meet-and-greet, Ebbe has also been active in the forums, commenting upon a range of topics, such as those related to communications. As pointed-out in the show, he’s additionally made reference to the Marketplace, to upcoming new starter avatars (which were likely a work-in-progress prior to Ebbe joining, just as the decision to axed Creatorverse, Versu and dio was something started prior to his arrival), and also on the matter of the August 2013 Terms of Service change.

Harvey Crabsticks makes a welcome return to the show to chat about Ebbe’s comments. Harvey is someone I’ve only known a short time in Second Life, and I have to confess to admiring his insight as well as his (and Canary Beck’s) creative skills, and it was good to hear him to express views he and I subsequently batted around during a conversation we had after the recording for this podcast had been made.

The subject of audience, demographics and marketing is touched upon, which in turn edges towards issues of help and assistance for users. Drax mentions the Ebbe said he was unclear as to what had been done by the Lab along these lines; this may be a part of his learning-curve as Rod Humble (and others) have in the past been pretty clear that the Lab does carry out investigations into demographics, what people do in SL, why the leave, etc., and as Harvey points out, the Lab must have a clearer idea as to what SL users do within the platform just for the wealth of data they can gather on our activities on and interactions with the platform. However, as Harvey – and indeed Ebbe, during the meet-and-greet – also states, it’s unclear as to how scientifically that data is mined and used.

Marketing-wise the question of high-profile campaigns is discussed, with Drax pointing to the very recognisable World of Warcraft TV / Internet spots (I was the one who, entirely tongue-in-cheek, mentioned William Shatner and WoW at the meeting with Ebbe). Harvey suggests that any really high-profile campaign would be better suited to a time when user retention is clearly on the upswing; something I’d tend to agree with, which is not to say all marketing should be held-off until that happens…

The “Ebbe meeting” and the interview with Harvey take up most the show, leaving everything else planned as a series of links on the blog page – which is no bad thing. As I’ve said before, things that fall off the end of the desk due to time constraints can be picked-up again in a subsequent podcast. Again, even if you’ve listened to Ebbe on these pages, I recommend you take the time to hear both questions and answers as recorded in the show, it’s more than worth the time. And don’t forget the links on the blog page!