October 16, 2008 by Ciaran Laval
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Is the game almost over for Second Life? asks News.Com.AU in a typical article of little substance, it's all doom and gloom the corporates are leaving balderdash.
The corporates have to actually be here to leave, and by be here I mean more than just having an island and hoping people will come. They need to make their presence felt and I see very few bothering to do that. Build it and they will come doesn't work here.
They do mention that education and meetings inworld are a good use of Second Life. If that is the only plus point of Second Life then we should all be worried.
Fortunately that's absolute balderdash. There are some harsh home truths in that article regarding the development of social networking and Second Life's apparent lack of but there are many ways to skin a cat ....although raising the bloody group limits with some outside the box thinking would be a marvellous step in the right direction.
Meanwhile Diabetes UK has taken its Silent Assasin campaign into Second Life. The campaign aims to raise awareness of diabetes via a virtual poster campaign that teleports people to the Diabetes UK inworld headquarters. This exemplifies two things, one that advertising can have noble purposes and two that Second Life is seen as a damn useful resource.
This is further exemplified by the University of Cincinatti's recreation of the Galapagos islands, as reported here by January 2009 we should all be able to retrace Darwin's steps.
Ah I hear you say, where's the wow factor? Well that's what I'm saying, despite these interesting projects everything feels a little flat right now. Even the official blog has tanked to levels of boredom that mean people aren't taking much notice of it. Is this deliberate policy? What sort of change in communication policy is this supposed to be?
I'm awaiting something to make me sit up and take note. Everything seems to be so much same old same old. Where are the dynamic new developments to inject some life into Second Life? We seem to be in a period of hibernation. That's not to say nothing is happening of course, this wonderful platform allows new ideas and ventures to be developed on a daily basis but there's a distinct lack of oomph around at the moment. There's an almost clinical approach to the fun factor, which results in taking the fun out of everything.
There are other worlds developing, there are other avenues opening and being the best dressed kid on the block is no guarantee of longevity. Some life needs to be breathed into this platform and some enthusiasm needs to return to official communications (*cough* Torley back on the blog *cough*).
Everything official is too quiet for my liking, almost as if they have their eyes elsewhere, the ring will be thrown into the cracks of doom if they're not careful.
One leap forwards, two leaps back, will Open Sim give Second Life the sack? Waiting for the great leap forwards.
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The expectation bubble burst.
Unlike blogs and other Web 2.0 stuff, Second Life is simply not something where you can build a presence, provide content and let it sit unattended. You just can't. And that's what corporations thought that they could get away with, mainly because of the false pundits worshiping the silicon idols. Corporations don't want to pay someone to have their avatar stand around in a sim and answer questions, with good reason. There isn't enough traffic to make it worthwhile, there isn't even a good way to measure the traffic.
Generally speaking, Second Life is way too interactive for the corporate world to make sense of it. And no one really wants to log in and chat with a Bot. No one in their right mind, anyway.
Further, the global economic situation has drawn people's attention in other directions - hopefully not new directions. In a global sense, the markets are largely saying that 'playtime is over'. Businesses are less likely to take risks. And people have less disposable income, and will continue to have less.
Is it the end of Second Life? I don't think so. But how much can the Linden Lab business model really handle? I've heard Mitch Kapor and others croon about the future of virtual worlds, but I haven't bought into that vision.
Right now, the real world isn't making a lot of sense to people. So how could a virtual world?
Second Life Consultant
Indeed
The amateur nature of Second Life doesn't lend itself to business as someone pointed out on another entry. By that I mean avatar names, corporations won't do business with Nobody Fugazi, they'll do business with your real name of course but many people would baulk at the idea of doing everything official. The corporations see it as a marketing opportunity but don't do the research into how that works.
However the global economic fiasco does in some ways lend itself to ventures like Second Life, relatively little costs but it's learning how to maximise your presence. I still think product placement is the way to go, but heck what do I know, I don't run a multi billion dollar corportation :)
...ask not...
...ask not what your Second Life can do for you - ask what you can do for your Second Life...
I'm not pointing any fingers here, but am I the only one getting sick of people who do actually do very little, if anything, in Second Life complaining that nothing is happening in Second Life? I'm especially sick of the SL bloggers who 'don't really spend much time inworld these days" - then why not blog about something else?
The death of SL is a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever I heard one.
We need to make stuff happen ourselves - it's not Linden's job, it's ours...
Not quite so fast
I disagree somewhat with this line of thinking. The big danger to Second Life is and remains, people not thinking systemically.
I agree that there's only so much Linden Lab can do, but others are constrained by their decisions. However on the point of contributions, pretty much everyone contributes. The social user who never really builds anything contributes by buying items. The noob who doesn't come back contributes by creating a pattern of why people don't come back, it's all important, we're all stakeholders. Dismissing parts of the whole will lead to a broken machine.
As for the bloggers who don't spend much time inworld, whilst they're blogging about it they're still contributing, when they start blogging about something else we've lost them.
As I pointed out there is plenty happening inworld, but there are also times when something needs to happen to make people outside Second Life take note and that is largely going to come from Linden Lab.
Valid point.
I, myself, spend very little time inworld because I have become disillusioned about Second Life as a way to spend time. This is a personal choice, not a judgement. I see virtual worlds as a nice place to visit but not a great place to live, which is kind of odd given how immersed I was over the last few years.
There is stuff that could be done in Second Life. And while it's easy to write, "Go out there and do something!" - well, shucks, what would you have people do? What are you doing?
Second Life Consultant