Okay – so I have a confession to make.. or rather, not make. This was supposed to be my last blog entry before I shut down Metaversally Speaking and moved onto new projects for the new year.
Blogging has most definitely been fun, and I’ve received a lot of praise for doing it, which has helped me in real life as I’m dyslexic and tend to have issues with effectively communicating myself through written words.
But a few days ago, someone I hold very dear to me said she was immensely proud of me for my blog, and so I’ve decided to carry it on into 2009. Although I’ll try my best, I can’t promise daily updates. There’s only so many hours in a day!
So I’m going to do what everybody else is doing, and make Predictions for 2009!
1. SL concurrency is going to hit 150,000. I think SL will continue to rise at a stable rate, and any “social revolution” in virtual worlds is still some years off. The media hype around Second Life has died down, but I think 2009 will see more positive news stories about the metaverse, looking at the artistic, educational and cultural contributions.
2. Immersive Workspaces will be an epic fail. I really don’t think the majority of businesses have many uses for a virtual world of their own – they don’t care about avatars or pretty buildings. The focus of business will remain on conference calls, email and whiteboards. It’s far simpler and less can go wrong than within a private metaverse.
3. Macinima will make it to the mainstream. Television or a film festival will promote the machinima medium and give it the artistic coverage it deserves so the world will gain a appreciation for this new form of film.
4. Google makes a comeback. Lively may have failed, but Google will know the worth of a virtual world, and they’re not afraid to learn from their mistakes. They’ll either announce a co-operation with a present virtual world, or announce plans for a new, more mainstream, virtual world.
5. Second Life will remain a leader in the metaverses market. Although it won’t catch up with the likes of World of Warcraft, SL will still be the leader in user-content driven virtual worlds. New OpenSim grids will still struggle to catch up, although they will become more stable and have more of a following through 2009. The likes of Sony’s Home, as well as new metaverses like Blue Mars and VastPark will enjoy small successes, but won’t be challengers to Second Life. Legend City Online will close due to a lack of confidence in the platform.
6. Electric Sheep Company will downscale their operation within Second Life. After Linden Lab began working closely with RiversRunRed on their Immersive Workspaces platform, ESC has been oddly quiet within Second Life. I predict they’ll announce in 2009 that they’re concentrating their efforts on another metaverse platform, and Second Life will lose a huge vote of confidence. They will no longer keep Onrez active within SL.
7. Browser based shopping will become more popular. A competitor will emerge to X-Street SL/Onrez which offers storeowners the tools to set up online stores of their content which they can customise and integrate into their own websites, in a similar manner to ShopArmidi.
8. Linden Lab will continue to neglect Teen Second Life, and eventually close it down. TSL has been neglected for far too long, and their residents are rapidly becoming disillusioned with what direction their grid is taking. The prolonged issue that users outside the Americas can’t sign up to TSL is particularly worrying. Linden Lab will not lower tier fees on TSL, nor will they actively run community events – the population of TSL users will dwindle, until it reaches numbers that make the grid unsustainable, at which point it will be closed and a small section of the main grid will be sealed to teen users only.
9. A major infringement of IP rights will cause many SL brands to leave. Content creators are definitely getting fed up of the insecurity of their work in Second Life, and I predict a development in copybot or similar devices will outrage many SL retailers and lead to a small exodus of designers. Most will remain in Second Life, due to the value of their reputation and the invested time put into the grid, but will be preparing exit strategies.
10. Blogs will have more power on SL Marketing. Linden Lab will finally do away with the rather useless traffic system in Second Life, and as a result a new system will rely on other methods. Marketing and customers alike will turn to the blogosphere to find new designers and products, and online stores like Onrez/X-Street SL will become repositories for SL goods. LL will begin work on plans for an in world database which allows users to search by products and keywords, rather than by store.
Have a happy and prosperous 2009!
Nimil on December 31, 2008
well the ESC has already downscaled in sl from what i’ve heard from diva and malarwen… so that prediction has already come true… sad too… alot of people lost their jobs from that.
Eve Petlyakov on December 31, 2008
I’m glad you decided to keep on with your blog Prad. I just discovered it and would already miss Meatversally Speaking if you decided not to continue. It’s the ONLY blog I actually check.^_^
Ryker Beck on December 31, 2008
I have to say it’ll be quite sad if Teen SL shuts down, considering all the budding young talent that’s there. Some of those guys could blow our designers right off the grid.
And I am so sad that my suggested topic didn’t make the cut. *pouts*
<3
Landsend Korobase on January 1, 2009
Even if you only posted an entry once a week, you’d still be the best blog on Second Life matters as far as I’m concerned. In my wanderings, no one else has the humour, insights, and finger on the pulse that you do. I’d understand if you’d reached the decision that you simply didn’t have the time for blogging anymore (god knows you do a lot to enhance the Second Life experience for so many people, in so many ways), but I would have had to smack you round a bit if you’d dropped this project.
Raul Crimson on January 1, 2009
I’m really happy you decide to continue blogging even not in a daily base. This blog has become something i enjoy to check.
About the predictions, i think most are quite possible, even i think Google will finally buy SL someday. Possibly the two predictions i find the biggest reasons to worry in 8 and 9. Teen grid is full of creative people but the way LL is ruling it is well, confusing at least. Creators are someway the “soul” of SL, are the ones who make this look good, and they are not protected enough, i just hope someone creates a script that makes Copybot users have a big nose or something.
Vint on January 1, 2009
10. > You’re dreaming out loud, are you?
I believe the blogs for 10% of the residents are already a huge ‘guide’. The others… well, they’ll never care and just feed what LL gives them? (eg. You should see the difference a pick in ‘showcase’ by LL makes for Greenies traffic.)
Zippora Zabelin on January 1, 2009
Pfew… no daily updates anymore
I could nearly keep track of your blog since I’ve found it about a month ago. I think keeping up the quality is more important than keeping up the quantity of posts and therefore I’m happy with your decision to continue (at least until December 2009 to write a review of your predictions, don’t you think?)
Tesa Jewell on January 1, 2009
Once again Landsend has said my words perfectly. I just recently found your blog as well, and I enjoy reading it so much. I love your views, the way you express them, your sarcasm and humor. You say what we want to say, as I have said before, so I am very glad this person has changed your mind about blogging. Also, yes take it to a once a week thing, give yourself some time to do the other stuff you want to do, we can handle that
M Linden on January 4, 2009
Prad, keep blogging! You cover great topics – with insight, an edge and a sense of humor. I like your predictions — especially 1, 5 and aspects of 10. Happy New Year!
Maryna Wind on January 5, 2009
I have a prediction: Prad Prathivi’s Blog will be the most popular on the blogsphere, well… it is not really a prediction though…it is a fact! I love your style of writing! Contradictions, jokes, thoughts, and especially all those lists, your posts are like guides, Commandments of Second Life *smiles
Prokofy on January 5, 2009
LL already has an inworld database that allows you to search not by store, but by key words and product names. It’s called “search places” and “search all”.
Traffic is enormously useful in then sorting the results of those searches.
Try it, Prad, with an open mind, unbiased by all the hysteria around camping, the first few spots that are always camped or botted, etc. Just try search for 20 words of interest to you, and I guarantee you that you will find:
o that some categories have no camped spots at all, or that if they do, they are the obvious first one and you can skip down and see the merited results
o that when you do see merited results, it will be notable, i.e. a furniture store with a non-camped 5000 or 2000 traffic, versus one with 0 or 200, that may turn out to either in fact be closed or moved or in fact not worth visiting.
Again, try this, rather than spouting, and see what I mean. Try all kinds of terms, whether “jacuzzi” or “little black dress” or “men’s hair” or “sword” or “prefab”.
Search all turns up much more superfluous junk than search/places. Search/places with traffic is responsible for most inworld sales. If/when the Lindens monkey with traffic and take it out of these returns, they will be shocked at how much damage it does, and may even put it back. Nothing else makes up for it. Taking out “popular places” has helped fix the problem; requiring bot accounts to be paid accounts, or making them eligible for abuse reports based on resource drains especially on the mainland will start to clean up that problem.
I don’t allow bots or traffic gimmicks on any of my rentals. But I know that I and my customers and everyone else in SL in business who isn’t in a tiny boutique niche relying soley on word of mouth or hugely expensive classifieds gets their sales from search/places plus traffic.
Ashleigh Dickins on January 13, 2009
#3 is semi already true. RL TV Show Gossip Girl used their Second Life sims and Avatars this past summer to film machinima webisodes revolving around the secondary characters on the show. Not much of a jump from there to seeing them on the TV.
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