This is the article that almost never got written. I just couldn't get a handle on it, but the events of the weekend, and Tateru's post have finally crystalised it for me.

Brief history:
In the beginning: I'm not sure - SL was tiny, people from Beta have things like Phillip Linden on IM.
A bit later: Forums allowed 2-way interaction, and we (mostly) used it well. You could, I did, chat to, for example, Robin about a new tool that had clear uses but risks of being in violation of the TOS to make sure she was happy with how it worked.
Some time later and still running: various specialist email lists, SLED, Scripters etc. Some are very busy, some usually quiet, many if not all have interested Lindens on the list and they contribute their thoughts to them.
A bit later still and still running: Focus groups "SL Views" came into operation
Currently: The blog, if we're lucky. As someone I know commented "...the 100 comments limit if F**king ridiculous..." - given we've had over 1,000,000 different avatars log in during the last 30 days, even if we pretend we all have 10 alts and they're all logged on, 100 comments is less than 0.01% of SL users (the meatspace users) that get to comment. (continues after the fold)
Some people, of course, believe us talking to them is a mark of FICness. If SL were simply game for everyone it might well be. But for those of us for whom it's a platform, a workspace and the like we, at least some of us, regard it as customer feedback. If you buy a new printer and it breaks down, do you just go "Oh well" or do you claim on the warranty, let the company know what's going on? If you're in the position where people ask your opinion about what you'd like to see in a new product, and it's a product line you use, do you give it?

Let's roughly divided communications into four parts - there probably should be different ways to communicate each of them after all:

1. Business decisions - raising the starting price of mainland sim auctions
2. Emergency content - OMG the grid is really poorly
3. Development issues - anything from the interface of the new communications system to the plans to totally rewrite the UI
4. Technical issues - why can't we have 100 groups?

So, my question to you, dear reader is this. Let's pretend you've just got Daniel's job (chief of communications), or you're suddenly his mentor and discussing a plan for his next year's targets. What system or systems would you keep? What would you change? What new ones, if any, would you introduce? I'm going to leave this running for a while before I put my answers in to the ring. Just Askin'