Mark Kingdon, the CEO of Linden Lab and known as M Linden in Second Life, left an interesting statement on the SL Blogs regarding the recent acquisition of Avatars United:
“When we talk to the users who sign up but then decide not to stay, they say they left, in part, because they had a hard time finding people to hang out with. Either their friends weren’t there, or they have a hard time meeting new ones inworld, or sometimes both”
If that was the driving factor behind buying out Enemy Unknown, the makers of Avatars United, then I think he just dropped the ball and has failed to understand social networking.
If a new avatar to Second Life wants to find someone to hang out with, they’re not going to trawl Avatars United to find them. Most people will not start randomly adding people to their friends on Facebook if they have not previously had some sort of prior contact. Similarly, people will not use Avatars United to meet new people – they’ll use it to keep in touch with the people they have already met.
M Linden is half way there, in that the new social networking site could help avatars keep in contact with one another, although the current interface still needs some work.
If Linden Lab are looking to improve the inworld experience, then they’re very much looking in the wrong areas. My understanding is that they have changed the Orientation Islands to be more geared towards personal interests of new registrants.
But newbie areas can only last so long – from that point on, Second Life becomes a large conglomerate of commercialism and sex. What was greatly appealing to the thousands of people who registered and stuck around in late 2006 and early 2007 was not the huge number of sims, but the content they offered.
People came to Second Life in their droves to make money, and other than through land rentals and niche clothing markets, relatively few have worked out how to make that money. As a result, loss-making ventures such social venues, live music and art installations have lost out.
When Mark Kingdon states that live music would be Second Life’s “Killer App”, it was kinda expected that Linden Lab would follow up by.. you know.. actually supporting Live Musicians. We’re *still* waiting for that to happen.
Live Music is definitely a key factor to the social aspect of Second Life. True, that there are some people who are not keen, but it drives together a sub-community around venues which then offer a homely place for SL residents to converge. Roleplay offers another such avenue of the meeting of people, but again, roleplay sims in Second Life find it difficult to survive.
And digital art installations have always been one of the highlights of Second Life – some of the greatest sims in SL have now disappeared and are only preserved by the pools of images on Flickr and Koinup.
And the reason why? Because the dream just never came through, and the Second Life economy was unable to sustain these types of sims as they are not commerce-orientated.
What I’d like to see is a discounted version of a sim, in which the sale of objects is disabled. Residents are more comfortable in a venue where they are not having products forced down their throats to purchase – if you want to go shopping, you go to a store. If you want to hang out with friends and meet new people, you go to a social venue – the two don’t mix well.
Whilst a discounted non-commercial sim would still use the same amount of resources as a commercial sim (maybe more if the venue is popular), the payback would offer residents a homely place to congregate, and recreate the community spirit which has died over the past year as SL has continued to milk the populace for every dime.
Until Second Life gets back its community spirit, M Linden will never solve his social issue.
SecondLie Scribe on February 1, 2010
I, for one, would like to see a sim on an iPad.
You could then upload a few avatars to that sim, and they’d bang on the screen like that scene with General Zod in Superman 2. You know, the one with the pane of glass flying through space?
“NO! NO! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT OF HERE!”
That would be awesome.
Love,
SecondLie
Eliza Shilling on February 1, 2010
Even better would be if LL donated a certain number of sims for artistic development. It would be a better use of space than making crowded sims of cookie-cutter houses.
Kim Food on February 1, 2010
I totally agree with the idea. In my first hour experience, 3 years ago, I was upset that one could not simply walk a path through the SL universe. You know, like all MMORPGs, where you follow old sandy trails or paved city street, alive with people and you actually get somewhere. It’s even worse today, I just do like everybody else does: I stay alone in my private land and try to figure out if there’s some social activity going on. I have a few LMs I visit in the hope of stumbling through a fun crowd.
Sadly most of these places are over-commercialized, and it really kills the experience. Isnt it annoying to be pushed by club hosts to give them tips? Wouldn’t it be nice if RP territories were not limited in SIMs numbers because of their financial situation? I’d LOVE to see an RP land spanning over hundreds of sims, where it takes you days to visit everything without getting spammed by “please donate if you want to keep this place alive”
Adric Antfarm on February 2, 2010
Second Lie has a very valid point there.
Ted40110 on February 4, 2010
Sadly most of these places are over-commercialized, and it really kills the experience. Isnt it annoying to be pushed by club hosts to give them tips?
Tweets that mention M Linden’s Social Issue « Metaversally Speaking.. -- Topsy.com on February 5, 2010
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mal Burns, Pierluigi Casolari and Daniel Voyager, Net Antwerp. Net Antwerp said: Mark Kingdon (Linden Research CEO)'s Social Issue. http://bit.ly/cqKhrO #SL #Metaverse ( via @danielvoyager ) [...]
SL Viewer 2.0 and Other News « Metaversally Speaking.. on February 23, 2010
[...] more positive news, it seems someone at Linden Lab read my blog entry on Second Life’s social issue, and they’re making an effort to support the arts. This makes me all shades of happy, as [...]