As you probably guessed, since returning from our Worst Vacation Ever, I've been swamped working on my new company and crazy hobby (along with my Real Job), which explains the posting famine. But I have now been flushed out by a flurry of controversy over our story on the failure of Second Life as an advertising vehicle, which is something I personally commissioned.
Why did I turn on Second Life, after not only paying to build a Wired HQ in-world, but also doing a book signing and interview (shown) there, and even being nominated for a National Magazine Award for our "travel guide" to SL?
Well, partly it was the whole "there's nobody there" problem, which is of course just anecdotal. Like everyone else, I had fun exploring the concept and marveling at all the creativity. Then I got bored, and I started marveling at something else: all the empty corporate edifices. By day I'd speak at marketing conferences that usually had someone pitching SL services, complete with staged demonstrations (the "inhabitants" invariably paid employees). By night I'd go back to the same places, which had reverted to ghost towns once the demonstration was over. I couldn't understand why companies kept throwing money at in-world presences. Were they seeing something I wasn't?
But like I said, that was just anecdotal. So I asked a real reporter, Frank Rose, to figure out what was really going on. He came back with this sobering piece, which we headlined "Lonely Planet"
Unsurprisingly, SL's most entertaining evangelist, Wagner James Au, took umbrage. Our side responded in his comments with devastating logic, etc, etc. Suffice to say we very much stand by the piece.
But now that clever Au has come back with a seductive Long Tail argument for why I should give SL a second chance. Sure, only about 30 people showed up for my book signing (a number capped by the server limits, not my popularity, I hasten to add), but the chat log from the event (perhaps the worst interview I've ever given, due to my crappy typing in real time) got 90k hits on Au's blog and the YouTube video was seen by a few thousand more. A fair reading of SL's impact, Au argues, would include "length of engagement in SL, versus other ad mediums; quality of engagement, in terms of brand immersion and recognition; quality of potential participant, considering Resident demographics as content creators, bloggers, early adopters, etc."
In other words, a SL presence has a "long tail of impact" that's measured in more than the number of avatars in any one place at any one point in time.
Maybe, but I can only manage what I can measure. And in terms of things that I value, such as links, smart comments, traffic to my blog, etc, the SL appearance might as well have never happened. It didn't leave a ripple in the world I live in (AKA Real Life).
As I asked Au in an email exchange:
1) Were those page views on your blog worth the many thousands of dollars and tens of hours we put into that event and our SL presence?
2) You were kind enough to feature the appearance on your high-profile blog and grace it with your own participation. What about everyone else who doesn't get your personal attention? Would they have fared as well?
Personally, as much as I enjoyed the experience and appreciated your support, as a business executive I think the answers are "no" and "no". I can defend our SL investment on educational grounds, but not on any other.
What do you think? Am I being too harsh?
-------
[UPDATE:] Wagner James Au responds with a very good point in the second paragraph. In virtual worlds, what you're seeing is "who's here now" rather than the "who's been here" tracks of comments in a blog and other online media. If you judged other media by the same momentary metric, they might also look barren; then again, they're not dependent on real-time interaction between visitors the way SL is.
My feeling is that if you're going to evoke real world conceits such as "places" that you "go to", then you've got to deal with real world expectations of those places. We don't like like empty buildings in RL; why should be more tolerant of them in SL just because there are traces of those who have been there before? After all, ghost towns have ghosts, too, but that doesn't make them any more attractive ;-)
[Au:] I'm not sure what Millions of Us charged you for it, so I couldn't calculate your exact virtual world CPM, so to speak. When adding up that ROI, however, the near 100,000 page views on my blog and the 2500+ views of the YouTube video should probably be counted along with the 30 actual visitors to the event. (Not to mention the page views of the 20 or so other SL-centric blogs which linked to the event transcript or its announcement, according to Technorati.)
[Chris here: we set up the Wired presence for more than just my book signing, and I fully admit that we didn't do all we could have in continuing to promote and tend it after that. But the reason we let it languish is the same as my own: we just weren't seeing results.]
Why should these be factored in? Because this is the nature of *all* 3D online worlds, even standard MMOs like World of Warcraft: they're dynamic and architecturally restrictive, and only a small percentage of users can be in a specific location during a specific period to witness a specific event. This is why MMO users depend on screenshots, machinima, chat transcripts, and other asynchronous mediums to document and share events they weren't able to attend; it's how they create their folklore, their history, and any sense of cohesive community.
> 2) You were kind enough to feature the appearance on your high-profile
> blog and grace it with your own participation. What about everyone
> else who doesn't get your personal attention? Would they have fared as well?
Probably, if you took the time to promote it with the wider SL blogosphere, because my Second Life blog is only one among several high-profile SL-centric blogs. Weblogs Inc.'s secondlifeinsider.com, 3pointd.com, and secondlifeherald.com are also in the Technorati Top 5000; Linden Lab's official SL blog is in the top 1500. (That's not even mentioning influential blogs like Boing Boing and Terra Nova which often blog about SL activity and content, or celeb bloggers like Larry Lessig and Joi Ito, who visit SL semi-regularly and write about it.) Then there's the vast ecosystem of SL blogs, 3rd party sites and bulletin boards, podcasts, social network groups, and machinima videos which number in the thousands. (YouTube alone has 5000+ videos tagged with "Second Life"; the top 20 have been viewed over 3 million times.) This is the network of activity you're promoting your appearance to, not just the 40,000 Residents who happen to be in-world at any given time.
In aggregate, their reach into the wider Web is enormous.
Take another case: I did a similar event in conjunction with Creative Commons which was budgeted considerably less than many thousands of dollars, to promote Judge Richard Posner's book, *Not a Suicide Pact*; his Honor appeared in SL to discuss it, virtual world law, and other topics, then sign copies of the virtual edition. According to Technorati, the chat transcript was linked by 41 blogs, including several influential law blogs, and even got cited in some legal journals like this one.
And now when you Google "Judge Richard Posner", his Second Life appearance currently comes up in the top ten. I can't emphasize the wonderful and powerful strangeness of that: Judge Posner is the world's most influential jurist, and according to Google's longtail of search, his appearance as an avatar beset by fireballs and a giant raccoon ranks among his very most relevant achievements. I'd call that impact. (Then again, Chris, when you search your name in Google Images, your avatar comes up in the top ten. *Twice*.)
Hi all,
Pete Klaus here...I'm with Fleishman-Hillard Digital in Washington, DC. I manage(d) the virtual communications program for a major brand (voted by Computer World to be one of the Top 8 Corporate Sites in Second Life) in SL and have contributed to a variety of additional virtual world communications plans. Mr. Anderson and Mr. Au both make valid points with respect to Second Life.
Measurement will always be an issue when money and business objectives are involved -- that's not going to change.
That said, I think it's important to look at the difference in the perceived value between advertising and public relations/strategic communications activities.
I think most would agree it's more difficult to quantify the value of PR as compared to advertising. But I also think one would be hard pressed to find a qualified marketer who didn't support the notion that PR/earned media -- or third party support of a program or message (word of mouth) -- is more powerful than advertising... messages that are paid for by the marketer.
Consumers don't want ads in their lives and they know which messages are paid for... they might be willing to put up with them and derive some value if they *happen* to intersect with a particular interest at a point in time... but that's a clumsy construct at best.
I believe SL can be an incredibly powerful communications (PR, just use that term to keep the comparison to advertising going) tool...and consumers are increasingly obtaining value from improved, genuine dialogue that provides them with the information and solutions they want. I want to be clear that I'm not saying advertising is worthless... but I believe strategic communications and the "new PR" (getting as close to 1:1 communication as possible) is taking the lead, with "as needed" support from paid advertising... which is more easily measured.
From my experience, an organization's 3D, virtual communications presence or brand offering must include three mandatory elements to be worthwhile and successful. They include:
1.) Delivery of real world value: For example, if I'm a busy mom with two kids and nine loads of laundry to do, I might find it convenient to log into a virtual office developed by my bank. I can speak to a representative and have my questions answered from the comfort of my couch...without the need to buckle up the kids, find parking, and leave my laundry incomplete. Sure, many 2D sites have "online support" already but 3D virtual experiences -- if executed properly -- provide a much stronger, life-like user experience and improve upon the overly scripted (in many cases) customer support mechanisms of 2D efforts. And that's because you are speaking to an actual individual (or should be) with the authority to help answer unique questions. Again, just one example but it underscores the important point: If you aren't providing real world value -- that can be tracked -- why do it?
2.) Marketing to existing customers as well as those based in SL: Following up on point number one, if the virtual world communications program is delivering real world value, everyone should know about it and be able to take advantage of the offering. Sure, many of Second Life's areas are barren... but that is to be expected. The only way to keep an area populated is to provide real world value (or entertainment value in some cases) and market that value proposition to the people who care about it. Naturally, that should include existing customers... not just SL residents. For that matter, the value offering should be marketed clearly on the company's 2D Web site and through other promotional means. The point is to deliver value to all current and potential customers...not to show people how beautifully 3D buildings can be constructed.
3.) Constant Maintenance: an SL effort or event is no different (or shouldn't be) than in the real world. Events take a lot of work to staff, populate, and execute. And if one wants his or her virtual world communications program to be successful, it takes a plan, an editorial calendar of activity, and constant engagement. I should note that points two and three rely heavily on the paramount point number one. If one is provide real world value, that offering needs tending, explaining, and continuity. And just as in the real world, you need staff. You need individuals responsible and present who can work with customers -- at all time or very regularly -- to provide the brand's value proposition. It won't build itself.
Lastly, and it goes without saying, there must be clear objectives. It shouldn't be difficult to articulate what the outcomes of the virtual effort are. Each organization must determine, up front, what success of its virtual presence looks like. It will be unique to each company, brand, product, or service.
Anyhow, those are some thoughts from my perspective and experiences... hope they're useful to anyone else out there exploring 3D virtual worlds for organizations.
p.s. Per Chris Grayson's comment above regarding PR firms... I don't disagree on the whole. But I will tell you that in terms of our inagural SL project, the only goal was to get the brand to deliver real world value using the 3D, virtual platform. Any related PR resulting from the presence was viewed as secondary. And that paid off, as the brand's SL presence was, again, named one of the Top 8 Corporate Sites in Second Life by Computer World Magazine (not saying that's the "be all" but given the number of brand presences in SL, we were glad it was recognized...as I believe that is where the promise of 3D virtual worlds/tools lies... figuring out how these tools can be used to enhance the consumer experience and provide real value): http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9018238
Posted by: Pete Klaus | August 02, 2007 at 10:04 AM
The principle of a 3D VW is nothing new. A French version was developed at the end of the 90s under the name... "Le deuxième monde" It failed to attract attention at the time, but people were not used to VW yet. As of today, I would grant that SL is interesting because it's trying to propose a different process of interaction. VW are everywhere in the sense that Wikipedia is a 2D VW with islands (portals), communities, tchat rooms (irc channels and forums), limited presence, etc.
The main problem in understanding SL is that everybody is focusing on the 3D aspect when they should concentrate on the ability to build your own presence in innovative ways. You're not only building an HTML website, but trying to find new ideas for people to interact.
Posted by: Soufron | August 02, 2007 at 10:09 AM
Talk about the long tail of the Wired SL site - every addition to, and every reader of, these facinating comments adds to that tail. And then there is all the free consulting advice!
I am also reminded that, while I used to read and even subscribe to Wired in the past, my visits had grown far less frequent in recent years. But Wired online's coverage of SL has put them high on my iGoogle tab for Virtual Worlds.
Posted by: Blake Ives | August 02, 2007 at 01:10 PM
I couldn't take the time to read this in its entirety, sorry. But here's my gut reaction at reading the first few paragraphs and skimming the rest: whine, whine, whine. No cheese for you. SL is still new. Blogging is still new, though a bit farther along than SL, NO ONE knows where this will go. If you choose to give up on it now... fine. Leaves more space for those of us who are willing to look beyond the immediate and into tomorrow. Gad, you sound so much like the folks I meet who think blogging is just a waste of time. Like anything, it's a waste of time if you refuse to give it a chance.
Posted by: Yvonne | August 03, 2007 at 05:54 AM
While there's plenty of truth in the Wired article, I'm finding more logic in some of the comments above and over on Paul Hemp's HBR piece ( http://conversationstarter.hbsp.com/2007/07/the_demise_of_second_life.html ).
As one of those who repeatedly argued (for a couple of years now) that SL should currently be considered an R&D testbed for what the future might hold and not as a means to sell product, none of what's happened on the marketing & advertising front is the least bit surprising.
There are, however, other kinds of surprises. Surprises such as Wired, and you, Chris, apparently not grokking the situation and what I and others like me were saying (perhaps because you were only a tourist in SL to begin with and didn't have sufficient experience to fully understand it).
But once again you appear to be following the pendulum of public opinion and hype beyond the point of equilibrium. A shame.
That said, I'll admit that I personally believe Au has gone beyond the point of objectivity, but I don't believe he's gone beyond the point of understanding that some critical mistakes are being made by those who are treating SL like most every other media.
Virtual worlds aren't going away. And short of draconian censorship, I don't believe we'll see a dramatic return to what the marketing & advertising industry would doubtlessly love: a mass medium in which they can control the message and force it down a captive audience's optic nerves.
So we'll see you and the rest of the crowd later... when something else draws the pendulum back the other way.
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Posted by: wowgolder | August 04, 2007 at 07:40 PM
Fantastic, I love this kind of debate.
Although ultimately there is likely no right or wrong answer here.... just that one camp could stop trying to pull it down (and accept that this is a unique convergence of technologies trying to find its footing), and the other could acknowledge some of the flaws and their criticisms (present for exactly the same reason).
People will either like or not, depending upon what they look for. Personally speaking, once (if) Linden Lab iron out all the issues, and the interface is given that redesign - given that commercial touch; once the last of the vices have been outed and it's all squeaky clean / risk free; at that moment when 'popularity' strikes, I'm outta there....
Posted by: Robbie D | August 05, 2007 at 05:59 PM
The problem here is that search costs are too high. SL could have delivered everything the author got at a lower cost, but he could not find the providers...
Posted by: Lillie Yifu | August 06, 2007 at 12:44 PM
SL is a great platform for experimentation with a 3D, online space. But companies who think they can put up a pretty building or some branded items and then sit back while the hordes rush in, are being ridiculous. Do they put so little work into their RL or Internet presences and expect results? I ran a small experimental bookstore for six months in SL - it required near daily maintenance and updating, as well as continual outreach efforts, in order to keep and hold people's interest. I got many appreciative comments, but most important, I noticed that people expected me to be "there" - they wanted to talk about books & writing, not just look at representations of them. This is where most of the corporate builds fall down. They are empty, there is no interaction.
You can't manage to post business hours & rotate employees through to work "from" SL? Or hold any interesting events whatsoever? Or how about sponsoring an art gallery or a sports or charity event?
Is your SL presence defined by and tied to a specific objective, with a blog/podcast/website to support that? Rather than selling, have you considered that perhaps first-line recruiting or educational effots would be better rewarded? Or that you could simply use the space to try to define what "virtuality" will do for your company versus other forms of communication?
Frankly though, it doesn't cause me to well up that corporations are abandoning SL. Their relentless advertising and presence has turned a good chunk of "real life" into a wasteland. A constant barrage everywhere you look: magazines, TV, radio, movie theaters, billboards, endless strip malls, and just about everywhere on the Internet. I go to Second Life to get away from all that. It's a relief to participate in an environment that for the most part focuses on individual creativity, even if of a somewhat limited nature.
Corporations tend to be relentless and voracious, quite uncaring if they displace individual efforts and destroy the hard work of many. So many have the same outlook: we're just eyeballs and wallets -- not people. SL however is about people first -- deciding what they want to see and do in the space. Don't expect them to spend their time enriching and lavishing interest on you without some type of meaningful return.
Posted by: Coelacanth Seurat | August 07, 2007 at 09:34 AM
Welcome to the land of New Media. I'm sorry you didn't get the proper introduction or explanation when you first landed in SL. But like myspace, facebook, etc. Second Life is merely a vehicle into the Metaverse. You and only you alone drive this vehicle - yes you may pick up friends and hitchhikers along the way but still it's you in the driver seat. If you posted a page on myspace what would you have done to get eyes? Network with users, groups interested in your topic/genre, post your page on different sites etc. Second Life acts in the same way. This "build it and they will come" mentality didn't work with web 1.0 and won't work now. Marketers, developers, and content creators in SL fail to realize it's about YOU, not your build and not your fancy cars. It's you the writer behind the avatar we want to know. Great you have a budget and can build something spectacular. After I've been there and seen it, why would I come back again? I find it ironic when the criticisms come only from failed attempts. Don't blame the car because you can't drive a stick shift.
Very similar to first life it's about networking, meeting the right people, sharing your experiences, and learning from others. Now yes you're thinking I can do that in real life. At what point did someone say second life is a replacement of real life? It's a way to compliment your marketing needs, not be the sole provider.
The best advertisement in web 2.0 right now is viral. If you network and meet the right people they will do the rest for you. Good luck.
Posted by: Carlie Flossberg | August 08, 2007 at 10:03 PM
Please check out
http://dwellonit.blogspot.com/2007/07/mixed-reality-headcount-week-ending_17.html
It documents the "foot traffic" in a select list of Second Life areas, and allows comparison between SL-only and mixed-reality sites.
You can get real traffic -- you need to strategize around it. Most folks just don't.
At the same time, this is what the web was like when I started my web consulting group in 1995. Remember when "hit counters" were hip? When search engine ranking was based on simple keywords, and no one really worried much about it?
SL today is not a comfortable medium, but virtual worlds will be an important thing to do, and *to have been doing*.
What were you doing with the web in '95? What would you have been doing if you could have seen 1998? 2000? 2005? today? There are risks, difficulties, benefits to getting in early to a new medium. It's up to you to fit that into your own idea of adventure or comfort, entrepreneurialism or conservatism.
These are the sorts of questions I ask my clients. We treat SL like creating an operating unit in a new country. It's got import/export, currency, culture -- all kinds of weirdness associated with it. If you want attendence, it's probably more important to know trustworthy people who will help you publicize it on the right blogs, groups, and friends lists -- and that means investing in relationships, not tech, not architecture, not toys or widgets -- it's community.
You can go native, or you can try to overcome inertia and make it into what you want it to be (and good luck to you!).
People should dig out Cluetrain, and re-read it, every time they are trying something new. It can be refreshing.
Posted by: Shava Nerad/Shava Suntzu in SL | August 08, 2007 at 10:13 PM
If you are looking to advertise in real life, then you must visit http://www.clickindia.com/
Quite a cool website, I have been using the site for sometime now and I am quite happy with responses I am getting for my products.
Posted by: pradeep | August 16, 2007 at 06:34 AM
The rules of media eco-system doesnt change. We have only one pair of eyes on this head, and we cannot get a second pair of eyes. Neither can we get a second head.
People has yet to see past SL like its another latest fad. It is.
Posted by: red1 | August 17, 2007 at 04:38 AM
Hi Chris,
I am new to SL and, unfortunately, homeless and virtually pennyless. If you aren't going to use your SL office anymore, do you mind if I sleep there?
Cool place, by the way. I took the fifty cent tour but, unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone to give my fifty cents to. : )
JBE
Posted by: JeanBaptiste Eilde | August 18, 2007 at 08:47 AM
Chris, thoughtful piece and agree with the sentiments. I think it will prove to be a dead end niche technology like WAP did.
As an independent girl I use SL to make money and it works for me now; but, thats not to say it will ever scale or become pervasive. So be it. I will stay ahead of the curve and move onto the next thing.
I do get annoyed with the semi-corporate posturings (always presented as I work for IBM but dont quote me as that would be above my pay grade!) of the so-called 'IBM metaverse evangalists'. They spout meaningless twaddle (usually misspelt) while massaging their own ego's. I suspect they are middle rank, mediocre performers that have been put into that job to keep them out of harms way!
Posted by: Tina Bell | August 21, 2007 at 06:26 AM
Hi, you were totally right when you said " Well, partly it was the whole "there's nobody there" problem ". The numbers Second Life seem to forget is how may people are currently online. There are so many regions and Islands in Second Life that it is becoming a ghost town. There are around ( from the best numbers i could find ) roughly one sim online for every two people currently online, many people are telling me they are bored or lonely that so many places they visit there are no people there or very few ( if you exclude places that pay Lindens for camping chairs or dance pads that pay you for staying on them ) Too much land has been added. When I first came to Second Life it was great, people everywhere, I made many friends. I hope Second Life can get enough new people to make it the great place I first came to. I worry about businesses there , that they dont get enough visitors to support their land costs.I still love Second Life, I just dont want to see it take a downward turn. Thank you so much for allowing me to reply. Ellen Spark :))
Posted by: Ellen Spark | August 22, 2007 at 09:33 AM
Chris, honestly I have to wonder if you are just 'flame baiting' to increase hits and posts to your blog, which would not surprise me. This is ridiculous.
I honestly cannot believe I am going to say it, because I rarely ever do to folks in-world, but it jumps in my head so strongly I must:
What a NOOB!
Like so many others before, after, and now you are making the same, sad, newbie mistakes, and these are the doozies that go way beyond learning how to sit or fly properly:
1) You failed to get that SL is first and foremost about fun, not business, not marketing, not education. All of those stem from fun.
Business newbies constantly make this mistake looking immediately for dollar value, not finding it, and turning away disappointed. Most in SL would say, “good riddance” rather than coax you back. Wagner James Au seems to make this point in a different way. If you are not having fun in SL, look to yourself.
2) You seem to have failed to make any true connection with anyone.
The first best draw to SL is friendship (not to be mistaken with drama or sex, see below). Just last weekend I attended another party for a real life couple tying the knot after meeting and courting for months on Second Life, and no they are not freaks.
You complain about the small numbers in the group setting yet this is precisely the intimacy which keeps people there. Once you have connected with people you are never in a “ghost town.” Most long-time SLers will tell you they have more trouble dealing with too many connections, not too few.
Besides, having a quality experience with fewer participants is always better than having a generic experience with hundreds of nameless faces. Let me ask you. Did you once click on any of the profiles of the avatars during your book signing? Or were you too busy wiping the virtual saliva from your avatar’s mouth drooling over book dollars and total number of visitors.
3) You seem to have failed to find your own personal creative connection with SL.
The second sustaining draw to SL is creativity and sense of ownership. Why do people in real life spend their Labor Day’s working on their homes and gardens? Creativity and pride of ownership. SL was created with collaborative creativity and ownership first in mind; this was their stroke of genius.
The friends I have who have been on since 2004 have found ways to express their creativity—much of it actually directly linked to RL creativity. Not all creativity in SL is expressed commercially, in fact, only a small percentage in my experience.
Chris, what was your first build? Did you even create anything at all? Did you customize your own avatar or was it something else you purchased outright? Did you attend the SL Ballet? SL Broadway? U2inSL? Van Gogh museum? Crescent Moon museum of SL sculpture? If you got such accolades for your ‘SL Travel Guide’ surely you must have. Wait you were only nominated for that award. That’s right. That explains it. Maybe you should spend some time reading Intellagirl Tully’s blog, someone who has studied the sociology of SL for longer than your flippant fascination has lasted.
4) You appear to love drama.
If there is one thing that SLers universally hate—along with griefers, the dead copybot, lag, lost inventory, and maintenance Wednesdays—it is drama. Close to this are people who take SL waaaaay to seriously. Like the friend I jokingly and naively rotated over a simulated lava pit in my early days only to have her jump up and exclaim, “What you do to my avatar you do to me!” (But that is a story for another day.) All this hype and anti-hype you and others are spewing falls directly and completely into the drama category. How do most SLers deal with drama? Defriend and mute (as I learned).
5) You dumped a ton of money into a big if-you-build-it-they-will-come build without gradually building a community presence, a sense of place, and a name for yourself.
This is the whopper of mistakes. Companies specializing in bringing companies in-world largely are still not getting this, which is really sad. But it is also not their fault when the company they are bringing in has no interest in leaving their shiny new island to really connect with the SL community. Why? Because the company could not give a damn about the people in SL, only what they can get out of them. The flurry of upstart businesses in SL specializing in bringing companies in-world certainly is not helping. They advertise expertise bringing people in-world when they themselves have been in-world, what, two months?
SL reputation, like the real world, is not a turn-key product. It takes time, which is why those who totally leave are just hurting themselves in the long run. You do not have to be a 10-hour-per-week fanatic to maintain a connection with the SL community. The best way is to encourage a high percentage of your workers to simply have fun in SL and enable them to do that. Philip Linden’s one request to companies when asked during the Meta/Gartner group keynote interview was “open your firewalls.” That certainly is disconcerting for many of us IT paranoiacs—particularly with the sometimes unstable quality of the SL product—but the idea of encouraging your people to connect, even have fun and find their interests in SL is sound since it translates into personal networks of *gag* potential customers.
I have enjoyed reviewing this lesson learned, which I have learned myself through some hard-knocks. I am sure I have many lessons yet to learn still. But readdressing this topic reminds me the SL connection is about heart, nothing too touchy, feely or sexy, pure and simple old-fashioned caring about others including your customers, no paying for advertising to convince people of it, but really caring. Businesses will continue to come, waste money, and leave until they come to truly understand this.
In the 90s, one noted author predicted the removal of anything with ‘middle’ in the title. We have seen this realized everywhere, but no place like in virtual worlds where seller and buyer are reconnected in a way unknown since the days of Andy Griffith. I am happy to see socioeconomic pressure to bring humanity back to the buyer and seller transaction and hope it continues. Companies that do not understand this will continue to litter any virtual world as empty, well-deserved “ghost towns.”
Corporations and individuals can no longer hide their naked greed. You must care or die. Something of a revolution has started with SL and I for one see a promising albeit gradual future for it.
[/me nostalgically remembers that day in the 90s when a representative for a multinational seriously asked him, “Why do I need an internet connection, that is all just military and educators?”]
Posted by: Rob Muhlestein | August 23, 2007 at 07:55 AM
Was it worth it? Well - I'm Here Now reading your content and being exposed to your ads and links because of an event that occurred weeks ago that i didn't even know took place until now thanks to the ripple via Virtual World News, and had the event Not occurred there wouldn't have been the controversy and VWN wouldn't have reported it and I wouldn't be here.
A similar delayed chain of info led me to the knowledge of The Long Tail just a few weeks ago, so i think yes, the event and SL and all this stuff is 'worth it' even if it can't be precisely measured using conventional old-think methods and metrics.
Maybe something like Fuzzy Profit and Nebulous Net Worth are what income and value will be about in a Work 2.0 world. Maybe it's more important to just have fun rather than spend too much time pondering whether something was worthwhile or not. Unless it's fun for you to ponder such stuff. Then it's OK. :D
Posted by: Rob El | August 27, 2007 at 09:27 PM
Congratulations on all commenters on this article. It was delightful reading, very interesting, and a whole education by itself. In fact, I think that Chris should simply copy all your comments and publish a new book: "Marketing on Second Life: Lessons Learned For Guaranteeing Success".
Almost all issues were pretty accurately described in detail, so I don't have much to add. In fact, I found a very strong empathy with everybody who explained, accurately and in minutious detail, why projects in SL fail — this is something dear to me, as my few RL presentations are usually not about success stories in SL (since there are literally thousands of them), but "how to prevent your project from failing". Thanks to all lovely commenters, I've certainly learned quite a bit today!
The issue about "measuring success" is a double-edged sword. Simply put, there are not yet a set of metrics that can automatically validate that a launch/presence in Second Life was a success. It's too early to have those metrics! Marketeers are still struggling with the Web, nevermind SL; on the impact of the recent Nielsen//NetRatings decision of dropping the silly old "page views" and "visitor counts" and adopting a different model, and how this decision will suddenly make us look at Second Life in a very different light, see (shameless plug!) my article about metrics.
(Spoiler: Active Second Life users spend way more time on SL than on YouTube; and even counting with inactive users, on the average, SL attracts people to spend more time in-world than YouTube attracts people watching videos!)
This naturally means that managing a project in Second Life is mostly managing expectations. There is not really "guaranteed success", there is just a way to do things correctly, and a way to them wrongly. Many of you will still remember the hippy new "web designers" in 1995 who promptly pasted a PowerPoint presentation on a page and called it "a web site" — and then got attacked by their customers because they never got enough page hits. You have hired one of the best (if not the best) Metaverse Development Companies providing full service on SL consulting, design and building — well, why didn't you follow their recommendations? The old attitude of "I was grown in the Internet, I know all about it" simply doesn't apply. Second Life is different. It requires a different mindset. Past experience with the Web is fine, but it's not the key to success in SL.
Well, as a last comment, I should just humbly protest about the lack of ethics of commissioning an otherwise rather good journalist to do a large article speaking against SL, allegedly for the only reason that you're sour about your failed experiment in SL. Quoting Hiro Pendragon, "at least [Clay] Shirky isn't fermenting his bad reviews out of sour grapes".
Posted by: Gwyneth Llewelyn | August 28, 2007 at 01:26 PM
I went to the Wired HQ in Second Life once. There was no one there. No customer service rep or anyone at all to interact with on behalf of the magazine. Just a build. It was a cool build, but there are a LOT of cool builds.
The key is interaction. I can absolutely promise that if I visited Wired's real life HQ (granted then it would have to be during business hours) there would be someone there to great me and answer questions or at the very least look up from their computer to acknowledge my precence.
If I walked into Wired's real life HQ and found it void of Wired staff, I might wonder around a little looking at stuff, but chances are I'd leave feeling a bit negative about the whole experience.
Just one person there to represent Wired magazine who would have smiled at me and said "Hello Earth Primbee" welcome to Wired Magazine's SL HQ. Is there anything I can help you with?"
It might have gone like this...
me
"Yes, I'm interested in the latest issue of Wired. There was an article about such and such, and I have such and such to say about it"
csr
"Oh yes that article was by so and so and they also wrote this and that"
me
"Wonderful I was hoping to know more about so and so"
csr
"anything else I can do for you?"
me
"Yes I was wondering if Wired accepted freelance articles"
csr
"well let me tell you about that" (tells me about it)
me
"ahh thank you for your help!"
I would have walked away feeling like I just connected with Wired Magazine in exactly the cool way SL provides.
I know my comment is about a blog written months ago, but I had to throw in my two cents.
best wishes,
Earth Primbee
Posted by: Earth Primbee | August 30, 2007 at 11:51 AM
FAO: Chris Anderson
I am interested in producing version 2 of the Long Tail and using the Blogs as input trading on Amazon and ebay and self-publishing through Lulu.com and promotion through GogleBooks, Amazon and ebay etc
Posted by: Eric Sutherland | September 27, 2007 at 11:45 AM
In regards to Second Life there is one point that I believe most people miss - the learning curve to simply be an avitar. As a former technology manager I was very familiar with computer hardware/technology, in fact I have no problem with being called a 1st generation nerd. When my company nosedived in 2002 I stopped living on the bleeding edge.
Then six months ago I ran into Second Life. Maybe because I wasn't on the cutting edge of the tech world anymore and hadn't gamed in years (more Necromancer Generation than Snow Crash generation)I wasn't prepared for what I found. Over the past six months I've spend quite a lot of real world cash learning how to navigate this metaverse, which brings me to my point.
The education process for bringing business into Second Life is lacking. It's wonderful to hear authors and artists talking or to go to conferences - However it takes a steep learning curve to separate the scammers from the real meat of the metaverse (pun fully intended).
Yes, I bought a sim, built a house and attended some great classes, but it took months of stumbling to do that because the help island experience and published books that deal with simply being an avitar are next to useless. It's not just learning, it's learning what is important to learn. Until Linden Labs learns the lesson that their game needs an education process they are dooming it to failure. You can buy the sims, buy the marketing, but you can't build in the experiences that will keep anyone but kids and campers from coming back.
Or maybe I'm just getting old.
Posted by: Mike Cataldo | October 07, 2007 at 01:42 PM
i just don't see the reason for this avatar thing. one reason people socialize on the net is because of the anonymity, the lack of appearance and the judgment. adding appearance to personal interaction online just doesn't work if its just about socialization because frankly everyone knows most peoples avatars are basically lies making it worse than the real world. in games atleast there is a justification for having an avatar, you are a character. in second life its just over complication of i'ming really. social interaction is readily avaliable in more convenient form in chatrooms forums and blogs. people visit these places because in forums and blogs conversations are preserved, and any wisdom if it appears can be accessed days or years later through a simple search. it is resource and entertainment. second life has none of this, it doesn't even have voice chat really which is kind of pathetic considering any xbox live game and pc online games for many years now have had that feature. anyways, second life is a bit like email or im's that dissapear if you aren't there when they arrive. sure they are going for more real world type interaction i guess, but the impression of the average second lifer trying to make money off the world and such stuff leads one to believe most second lifers are just wankers. do i really want to "know" someone who goes online to buy virtual clothing for his avatar? the whole concept is a bit disgusting if you ask me. so the pool of people to socialize with is probably not attractive for many people.
and the graphics, they are pretty horrible by any standard.
as noted, there just isn't any additional utility to second life for most things.
second life is like the video phone. today its very easily technologically viable, yet most of us don't want or have one. theres just no reason for it. the negatives simply outweigh any positive.
Posted by: fred tam | November 06, 2007 at 02:45 AM
and its amazing how many people are just blaming the companies.
really what would you have them do? man the headquarters with staff? how many at what cost and doing what exactly? they need to do more? do more what? jump up and down like a monkey and scream look at me? its just starting to seem the effort it takes to reach a set of sl eyeballs isnt worth the effort. people are mentioning there should be constantly new content? at what cost? imagine if nbc allowed streaming video of their shows on second life. but then again why? it would be simpler to do on a simple webpage. the comparison with wireds new daily content doesn't mention what this equivalent content would be. i'd rather read a webpage content on a webpage then fly over to the headquarters and try to bring up the text somehow. people are blaming the companies when they themselves don't know what would actually really be viable.. it is a virtual world that is fundamentally boring. sure you have a few deviants here and there with their sex thing which would be a draw, but how does that apply to mainstream companies? vague terms like value keep getting tossed around. what value? be specific with examples. the only thing that would get me to go to some corporate virtual world is a real world discount. thats the ugly truth.
when it comes down to it, i don't care what pontiac is doing in second life. unless they are handing me money, why would i bother going to their virtual showroom. second life pushers aren't being realistic about peoples motivations online.
as for the superiority of the 3d interface. where is this superiority? its not evident. flying to a destination is unnecessary in a world of bytes. it is artificial encumbrance. its why we prefer search engines to looking through indexes for webpages.
Posted by: fred tam | November 06, 2007 at 04:29 AM
Well, then, Fred, SL - or at least Pontiac's Motorati Island - is not for you.
It's already been said a couple of times in the comments here that SL is first about people and fun. Some *people* find Motorati *fun* - and some don't, which I'm sure is just as OK with Pontiac as it is with the rest of us. It's more than just a virtual showroom; as their representative (quoted above) said, they do community-centered activities. They've got bumper cars, customizable cars that you can drive or even race, and a coffee shop, among other things. While you don't care "what Pontiac is doing," they are doing things that some folks find attractive. It takes all kinds, as they say.
Besides, if you're going to complain about those who "blame the companies," as you say, isn't it worthwhile to take a look at a company that considers its SL presence a success?
Constantly-updated content *is* a valid issue, I think. In our world of saturated media, a company kind of does need to "jump up and down and scream look at me," at least metaphorically, to get those coveted eyeballs. Look at the RL Apple Stores: they generally get low traffic (mostly people attracted to the cool factor) until they have an event or a product rollout (outside of Christmas season). That's no different from what goes on with the corps in SL, really.
But the point is that it's not all about added value or increased functionality. If it were, then there wouldn't be as many active residents as there are. SL-as-search-engine would indeed be a waste. Flying may not be necessary. And not everyone in SL chooses to fly. I was told when I was a noob (not so long ago) that the novelty of flying would wear of. It hasn't, for me, and I don't suspect it will. I find it fun.
"Imagine if nbc allowed streaming video of their shows on second life." OK, let's see. That would give me the opportunity to watch _Heroes_ in the same (virtual) room as other people, perhaps from around the world. And talk about it with them. Kind of like going to the local sports bar to watch the game. But it's something other than "local." And the beer's less expensive.
This has nothing to do with searches and information gathering. Or communication; I use Facebook and the phone for that. It has everything to do with spending my leisure time in a leisure activity I enjoy.
If that doesn't turn you on, then it doesn't turn you on. Again, it takes all kinds. You may be the type of hard-nosed realist who feels that "face time" should be spent literally face-to-face. I can dig that. And it does have its problems - my poor iBook can barely handle SL. But just because you don't dig it doesn't make it worthless.
Posted by: BCKing | December 12, 2007 at 03:34 AM
The Wired HQ in SL ought to be a hub of activity and innovation.
Why is it that a maker of vacuum cleaners understands that but you do not?
http://secondlife.electrolux.com/archive/2007/10/04.aspx
Come back to SL and do it right, Chris.
Posted by: ahoving | December 12, 2007 at 04:33 AM
Well, some people go to the circus and only see the elephant dung, or the wrinkles in the clowns faces. Others see the smiling kids faces and the red button nose.
Always depends on the person. I love sl, have a zillion friends there just like rl. It does reflect real life in many ways
Posted by: Awaken Yoshikwa | December 12, 2007 at 11:43 AM
the person. I love sl, have a zillion friends there just like rl. It
Posted by: maplestory mesos | January 06, 2008 at 02:25 AM
I side with you by and large on your rate of return. Au may have given a lot of good metrics but that doesn't boil down into a solid business return like you said. I think LL's best strategy would be to add a second currency with incentives for RL business transactions.
Posted by: Lionel | March 06, 2008 at 10:14 AM
Well, some people go to the circus and only see the elephant dung, or the wrinkles in the clowns faces. Others see the smiling kids faces and the red button nose.
Always depends on the person. I love sl, have a zillion friends there just like rl. It does reflect real life in many ways
Posted by: werd | April 18, 2008 at 02:26 AM
I am crazy about watching movies in a good quality, so solve the search problem when I ve found in google this sites http://fileshunt.com and http://filesfinds.com - search engines for megaupload and rapidshare. I hope that would help you too.
Posted by: tatianahunt download | April 30, 2008 at 07:05 AM
it is cool
Posted by: guild wars | June 02, 2008 at 07:53 PM
lol
Posted by: maple story | June 02, 2008 at 07:55 PM
wow,it is good.
Posted by: maple story mesos | June 02, 2008 at 07:57 PM
Does one book signing event in Peoria, Illinois, affect your book sales to any significant extent?
Probably not. You have to do tons of book signings, all over the country. And eventually, via the laws of Mediocristan, they add up.
Well, Second Life is sort of, that book signing visit to Peoria, Illinois. Was even more so in 2006. Maybe then it was like visiting some mall in South Dakota.
And I agree with you. Second Life is not a solution for most business. But thinking about it two years on, I see Second Life, or rather - virtual worlds in general - have a very different use than traditional webpages, and I don't think the traditional website is going to get overrun by 3d virtual worlds anytime soon.
I am a volunteer estate manager nowadays for a very vibrant community of Second Life, that numbers around 800 people. Maybe that's not a lot of people in the grand scheme of things, but we are united in a desire to experience a community with a Neo-Victorian flavour, in a little community called Caledon, with others who wish to do the same thing. We could never do this in Real Life. It is hard, in Real Life, to live in Victorian costumes and meet others similar in a shared community. But in Second Life, you can.
And this has spun off an economic tail, where people buy Victorian costumes for 3d avatars, 3d modelled furniture, land (aka server space) in Victorian themed communities, you name it. It's niche, sure. But it's entertainment to some people. And it matters to them.
And there's the crux of Second Life. It's not a business solution. It's an entertainment platform. Maybe not the best one, maybe not the last one, but it's one. And its one that the Users can direct and control in a shared entertainment experience, rather than simply viewing the television or watching a film.
(for the record, my avatar, the spotted catgirl, was there at both yours and Posner's event, even a picture of you and me there on Hamlet's blog, as well as my pictured with Judge Posner, probably ranking right up high with you on those image searches. I get a kick out of that.)
Posted by: Hypatia Callisto | January 07, 2009 at 02:42 PM
I'm surprised people are still playing second life... There are so many other MMOs out there today, most of them free.
Posted by: Omer | February 14, 2009 at 11:07 AM
thanks...
Kabin
Konteyner
Posted by: kabin | June 13, 2009 at 10:28 AM