Opinion: Second Life’s Numbers Going Downhill

A recent article in “Massively” spelled out what many residents have kept saying would happen if the Lindens didn’t get their act together. More people are moving on from Second Life than moving in.

Second Life’s “User Concurrency” reached 88,000 in Spring 2009, and then began to slowly fall. Officially, the reason is Linden Labs new policies against bots used in camping and gaming. It’s also been thought that after several years, most computer users inclined to give Second Life a try already have. However, this decline comes after a number of questionable decisions by Linden Labs, the Openspace/Homestead controversy, “Age Verification” rules, the end of the Mentor Volunteer group, and others.

Of these decisions, the Openspace debacle may have been the most damaging to Second Life’s numbers. One former SL resident explained that with the new rules and prices, a number of his favorite places closed down, “if the really cool areas with your friends go, then you have little reason to go back.”

By all means, it’s not too late to turn back, but given the Lindens’ past history, people can be forgiven for looking to see what else is out there.

It’s interesting that Massively compared Second Life to Everquest, saying the Metaverse had just about reached the same number of users at the MORPG’s peak. Everquest had been the top game for a few years, then it declined. The arrival of a better game, World of Warcraft is recognized as the big reason, but one gamer pointed out another. The makers of Everquest kept making changes to the game that gradually robbed the game of it’s social aspect, the shrinking number of players finding it harder to meet up to trade or team up. A one-two punch that sent Everquest into a shadow of what it once was.

So far, there is no “Second Life killer” on the horizon that would do it what WoW did to Everquest. But already the actions of the Lindens are driving people to look for new pastures, even if it means abandoning open-ended virtual landscapes and going back to games.


Bixyl Shuftan

Source: Massively

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Opinion: A Few Thoughts on Mass-Marketing Second Life

Earlier this fall, another online newspaper wrote a few articles on the subject of mass-marketing Second Life, starting with “Only Mass Adoption of Second Life will Best Address All SL’s Major Challenges.” According to the writer, Second Life had around a quarter million unique users every month. Hardly a bad number, but compared to the millions across the planet visiting virtual words, pretty small.

Among my friends and family in real life who use computers, none of them use Second Life, although a few have given it a try. Among those I’ve met on the Internet, a few have come here and still come by. I myself came here because an online friend kept talking about it. But only a fraction of my ‘net friends I met elsewhere moved on to here. Talking to my friends in World of Warcraft for instance, only a couple ever heard of Second Life. So the writer of “Mass Adoption”s claim that most looking for virtual worlds were passing SL and going onto it’s competitors were quite believable.

So why isn’t Second Life a bigger presence online? My friends gave me a couple reasons. One described a very frustrating first impression, crashing right after first logging in. She decided it just wasn’t worth the trouble. One of SL’s drawbacks is that it needs a fairly new computer to go about, especially in popular places. If one’s on a budget, it may mean Second Life becomes a taxing experience full of lag and crashes, or perhaps out of reach altogether. Such people may turn to places such as Gaia or Runescape.

Another friend was more of an avid gamer, “Sorry, but I miss the chance to go and kill something.” Core gamers may not find much appeal outside the combat areas in SL. And indeed those accessing the ‘net from Internet cafes, which in some places in the world is how the majority of computer users go online, tend to be limited in how much time they can spend, and more inclined to a virtual world that reliably gives faster gratification, such as WoW.

There are other problems. Second Life is often difficult for newcomers to operate at first, having a “high learning curve.” People do not always know how to get money. People may feel out of place in areas full of avatars unlike their own. There are the bugs, that have a habit of coming up at the most inconvenient times. There is the tech support, which can be what one radio talk show called “technical no-support.” There are the Linden policies, which occasionally seem to be designed to shoot themselves in the foot.

And of course, the ever-present lag.

I’ve heard numerous suggestions on how to make Second Life more appealing to the masses. Get a less laggy platform. Allow the option of point-and-click movement. Connect SL to a social network such as Myspace or Facebook. And of course, better customer service and Linden Labs listening to it’s residents better before making a policy change, and numerous others.

Of those mentioned, I’m not sure how feasible the first is (although I'd be singing haleuha if it happened), and the last seems wishful thinking given past history. The option of point-and-click I can see happening. Connecting to a social network I’m a little skeptical of. Some have policies against pages for “fake identities,” and rely a lot on teenagers for traffic whom are too young to use Second Life. One improvement they have made is their website, which has better allowed for residents to find things to do and places to see.

There is one factor I’ve heard mentioned very little. There is one thing being done by much of Second Life’s competition that it doesn’t do.

Advertising.

World of Warcraft advertises. I’ve seen their banners pop up on the Internet somewhere almost every day, even on Second Life’s Wiki. I’ve also seen their TV commercials. And it’s not just games that advertise. IMVU, a social networking place that gets some comparisons to Second Life, also advertises. But Second Life, to my knowledge, has never done any advertising.

In the business world, spending nothing on advertising is usually a sure way to keep your product virtually unknown. So why hasn’t Second Life done so? Possibly because when it was new, there was quite a bit of publicity about it. Science and gaming magazines wrote stories on it. The news did stories on it. It even made mentions on prime time television, notably the CSI “Venus” episode.

With all the free publicity, there was no need to advertise. So much like “Hershey” chocolate for years, Second Life hasn’t bothered with an advertising budget.

While Second Life still gets mentioned on the news, it’s not nearly as often as before. With Second Life no longer new, the mentions it gets in the media are smaller and less often. And it’s not always good publicity, such as the story of a couple whom met on there who broke up after the wife caught the husband with another girl on SL.

Ads needn’t be expensive to make. I’ve seen a mini-movie on SL’s website in the past that would be a good 60-second ad on the Internet, or possibly television, showing the things people can do to have fun in the Metaverse. Ad campaigns can also be done on a budget as well. Internet advertising would be an inexpensive way to get the word out to computer users.

On the other hand, being a longtime SL resident, the question comes to mind of “how badly can the Lindens goof this up?” Some ads can be rather annoying. WoW’s “Mohawk” ad makes me want to send a few Bloodelf arrows at Mr. T to shave it off. Some ads just make no sense, such as the “Hardees” ads with scantily-clad women eating burgers Then there are those that end up backfiring, such as the "Burger King" commercial with a cowboy and a midget, “Texas with a little Mexican,” that brought howls of protest that got the company taking down the ad and apologizing.

So when doing an ad campaign, the Lindens will have to use a little more sense than they’ve shown at times.

On the other hand, what if it works? Suppose a marketing campaign by the Lindens succeeds, and brings in thousands of visitors? We long-term residents will be having to deal with masses of newbie avs moving about. Hopefully Linden Labs will be able to direct them to places like Help Island and The Shelter, and encourage people to make a few more. Residents like myself will have to be prepared to take a little more time to help a newbie out.

But if that means that a few people I know in real life every day will know what I’m talking about when I mention Second Life because they go there too, it will be worth it.

Bixyl Shuftan


So readers, what are your thoughts about how to mass-market Second Life, or why it shouldn't be? Please comment below.

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SLOOP - “IN THE NAME OF HELL/ WHO ARE YOU /WHO ARE YOU?”

Avatars and Archetypes.

Part II

The first part of this column was posted a few days ago and I took the liberty of speculating with the idea of being able to cast an objective look on our avatar –and /or our alts- from a Jungian point of view. The fact that Second Life is so obviously projective made me think we could easily “make” archetypal versions of our personality.

And the first archetype I mentioned was the Shadow. And please, if you think this is worth reading, check the column I just mentioned. Lets just remember the Shadow is the personification of that part of human, psychic possibility, that we deny in ourselves and project onto others. The goal of personality integration is to integrate the rejected, the darker side of our life into our total experience. That side is not “bad” by default, it can also be our most creative and free side of our potential.

The second most prevalent archetype is that of the SOUL. “Anima” is the male name of the soul, “Animus” is the female name. This is our inner opposite. Guys meet their Anima, gals meet their Animus. The Anima may appear in so many different ways, as an exotic dancing girl or as an old hag. The Animus may appear as an exotic and sensual young man or as an old grouch. A good example taken from the modern myth department is Lois Lane. Clark Kent is the inferior shadow side of Superman, but Lois Lane is not interested in Clark. She is infatuated with Superman, her Animus, the masculine completion of her personality. (We are not talking about gender issues here: if you are a gay man you will be looking for your Animus and if you are a gay woman, you will be looking for your Anima).

Just asking: anyone has made an alt of the opposite sex just for the fun of it? Well, you are welcome to watch it closely. It’s such a big chunk of yourself.

Jung’s main archetypes are not “types” in the way each person may be classified as one or the other. We each have all basic archetypes within us. And we have seen three of the four main forms or archetypes.

The fourth one is the SELF.

For Jung, the Self is the spirit that connects everything and is part of the Universe. It is the coherent whole that unifies both consciousness and unconsciousness. It may be found elsewhere in concepts as Nirvana, or other philosophical or religious theories that speak of harmony. Jung described the creation of the Self as a process of individuation, the work of a lifetime, the “becoming the person you were meant to be”, where after being able to identify all the archetypes you can, then be able to become you own original self, bringing together all the aspects of your personality as one, and being in charge of them, making you whole again, yet a lot more genuine and free.

So, bottom line: I found the idea of our avatar and alts being parts of our split selves, very interesting –to say the least-. And as those avatars have probably been “constructed” in a very unconscious and playful way… seems like a good idea to take a good look at them and see what we can learn from the virtual version of “who the hell we are”. Second Life may help us to –literally- pull ourselves together.

Covadonga Writer.

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SLOOP

I have been in SL for quite a while now, and ever since I got over the initial confusion of being a newbie and learning how to struggle – enough to survive, at least- with the technical issues… I mean, as soon as I could start paying attention to what was really going on here… it hit me clearly that SL was a major projecting test. A fun one, if the experience was pleasant, but undoubtedly a virtual place to massively splash ourselves against. The feedback comes mostly from our fellow SL residents, but in due time I came to realize the most important feed back can be obtained from our own selves.

I wrote a column long ago, about how we all shared the fantasy of being somewhat different, or a bit different, or totally different from who we really are in RL. (That, assuming we really know who we are in RL, which I doubt). And I said I thought no matter what shape or character did we choose to become in SL, deep down we were always going to remain ourselves, because the way we engage in relationships and activities will always respond to the basic pattern of who we are.

And then there was the issue of ALTS. At first I hated them, because I realized so many residents were two timing other people, used them to spy on their friends or partners, or to cheat, or to play malicious pranks. Then I realized they could have other uses, more simple and fun, with no hidden agendas. Like making your alt deal with the business you run here and letting you free to spend time with your friends without having to answer demanding IMs all the time.

But leaving aside those considerations – what you do and how you handle your alts is a matter of ethics and not the subject of this column-, the thing is I realized our alts, being yet another and another projection of ourselves… must have some rich info about who we are. And that could be valuable to ourselves, if we can look at those characters we made, because they are obviously parts of our personality.

My mind had to jump to Carl Jung, there was no way to avoid that.

Jung discovered that people have a preconscious psychic disposition that enables a person to react in a human manner. And this pre-existent disposition feeds itself on the totally unconscious “archetypal image”. These archetypes are potentials for significance and are not under conscious control. We, thus, tend to fear them. Modern man seems to need to believe that his life is totally rational and under control.

Jung linked the archetypes to mankind heredity and they are needed to structure our imagination and shape matter as well as psyche in the human world.

The archetypes belong to the Universal Unconscious, which we all share, as well as it’s potential. This cosmic, universal, unconscious knowledge is filled with myths of the human species.

This theory is way too important, too complicated and too rich to discuss here, but I hope this peeking into it was interesting enough to go a little bit further.

The most basic potential is the Shadow archetype. As we move deeper into the dark side of our personality, personal identity begins to dissolve into latent dispositions common to all humankind. The Shadow is the easiest of the archetypes for most persons to experience. We tend to see it in others, outside of us. We project our dark side into others and make them our enemies… or make them exotic characters that fascinate us. The dark side is not just the “bad”, evil side -in this case the Devil would be the great Shadow image -. The Shadow is also the mystery, the possibility of being creative, of having no limits, of being heroic, of being bold and adventurous.

Now : look around. Take a look at your alts.

Who is that Goth looking chick with piercings all over her body, sexy tattoos, black nails, showing her boobs and working the pole, while you… the one on the keyboard… is wearing an apron, keeping an eye on the timer so the pot-roast wont burn and shouting “Billy stop fighting with your sister!!!!!” ?

Who is that guy with the muscles and the shades, looking like a commando, blowing away anyone who trespasses with a weapon that would be too much for the Terminator, while you… the one typing… just came back from helping your neighbor rescue his cat from the highest tree in his garden… and now types “brb”, because the wife needs help with the dishes???

And who is that whimsical, moody, spoiled –yet harmless- young vampiress that keeps snarling and showing her fangs for no reason, being a nuisance to all her friends?? Oh.. er.. that’s me. J)

Well… you know what I mean. If those aren’t our shadows… who are they? The other question is: If the alter ego you first made when joining SL looks like it might be your Shadow… (or as much of your Shadow you can bear to project), the good news is you are quite in touch with it, and that helps exorcise the bad and bring out the creative –if there is some of that in us-.

If the predominant avi you made for yourself is a version (probably enhanced, but very much a version of the original You, then you might have to give yourself the chance to dig in and discover more about yourself, because you are probably too over adapted. (Which it’s OK, but you might be missing a lot).

And then… there’s other archetypes.

Covadonga Writer

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Do have a story to tell?

Most of our readers don't know that we love to hear from them!

Of course you can always comment under articles that appear, but what if you have a story you think should be told?

How about news we haven't got to hear about that could affect other readers?

Do you have a strong opinion about something happening in Secondlife? Or another side to a recent article?

Maybe you have discovered a better way of doing things or a wonderful new gadget that could help hundreds of players if only they knew about it?

We are always willing to listen, send me a letter and we could publish it in an appropriate section.

Try to keep it short and to the point and include an image in jpeg format.

You never know you could be reading your story here next week!

Email me at dana.vanmoer(at)gmail.com

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Letter to 'M' Linden

Foreword:
On Tuesday M(ark) Linden posted about his first week in SL and I was tempted to answer it, but reading through the comments, I came across one which so expressed what I felt about it that I contacted the writer and asked him if he would like to put it here. This is his letter unedited:
Dear M,
On May 27, I wrote a response to your "My First Week" piece in the blog. Since then, I've heard about the piece from several residents, but not from any Lindens. I'll take this opportunity to offer you the opportunity to respond directly to the concerns a lot of us seem to share.
As I review what I wrote, it seems dripping with vitriol, which I guess is some measure of both the passion of your core users and the immense frustration we feel at the issues that have plagued Second Life for so long, and what many of us feel is the inattention to what really matters to us.
In the blog you mentioned you've been in-world for a year. Good for you.
What have you built? Ever found yourself hunched over your laptop in an airport trying to finish up that last little piece of whatever your build was only to have the sim crash and eat the whole thing? Your citizens have.
Have you scripted? Ever stared at a screen trying different combinations of commands only to have that contrary witch you call a script editor stare you down with "ERROR : Syntax error"? And how did you learn scripting? Did you join some scripters groups? Find some freebie scripts and tear them apart to try to figure out how they worked? Go to some classes?
Ask yourself this: Why do we need those classes, anyway? Why does the LL documentation and implementation of your own scripting product continue to be so user-hostile that there is a continuing hubbub of events, offline editors (LSLEditor and more) and at least one separate website (lslwiki.net) to teach what should be easily available from the company that put the system together? Despite your best efforts, as the error screen says, the citizens of Second Life continue to create amazing scripted objects and teach other the craft.
Have you ever tried to learn something from that strange combination of Rube Goldberg contraption and Fibber McGee's closet that is the Knowledge Base? The citizens have, and we managed to learn despite it.
Have you ever spent hours learning Photoshop/PaintShopPro just so you could create that one texture that you needed, or learning GoldWave/Audition/ProTools to tweak the bird sounds for your inworld garden? The citizens have.
How's your group life? Have you honestly had the experience of having your group chat requests for (or offers of) help show up 45 minutes after you send them into the dark hole that is group chat lag? This persistent problem rips the spontaneity and creativity out of community after community --- yet, the groups soldier on, mostly good humoredly. Those are the citizens of Second Life.
Have you tried to build something in a public sandbox and experienced this boob Nightmare Dench’s griefing as an average citizen without any hope of getting a timely response from the LL support desk? The citizens have.
Have you ever despaired for your (usually empty) in-world boutique because of the weekly random reminders from your company to stop all transactions while your techs fix some other part of your network and viewer? The citizens have.
Have you sunk some money -- some sum that is significant to you -- into some land and actually paid the tier out of what you make from your business as you watch the land value plummet? What are we up now? 20,000 sims? And about 55,000 concurrency? That's less than three real citizens, camper alts, griefers and bots per sim. Take out the camper alts, the griefers and the bots, because let's face it, they're not the greatest customers, and is it any surprise that land value and retail businesses are depressed? "Robust economy"? Are you kidding? Have you concatenated the SL economy with the LL economy?
The user-friendliness of this infrastructure is not a side issue, not even the most important issue for the future of this world. It is the only issue. I include the following:
- Reliability of the asset servers for all functions 100% of the time.
- Reliability of the viewer.
- Ease of use of each component of the system, including the website, the knowledge base, support, the building editor, etc.
- Ease of moving from "How do I download this Second Life thing?" to being a contributing, participating citizen.
I ask myself, how on earth can it be that I have been here since 2006 and the same issues continue to plague this system, despite endless assurances that it has all been [RESOLVED]. (Want to get a hearty round of LOL's in any group chat? Just answer any complex question with, [RESOLVED].) Clearly there is something astonishingly inept about the Linden Lab system of handling these things. I state this categorically not only because company after company handles far more complex data handling tasks, but because it seems so apparent that LL loses focus more easily than a squirrel with ADD.
I said in my blog entry and I'll say it again here: The best imaginable news for the core residents (the ones who have actually created this world despite your company’s platform) at this point would be if your real job is mergers and acquisitions and your bonus rides on how big a sales price you get. It seems the Linden “management system” is all about vision, not execution. Maybe if the next guys pay enough, they’ll pay attention to what really matters here; and it isn’t Windlight or Dazzle. And it sure as hell isn’t the “feature” of displaying Avatar Rendering Costs, LL’s astonishing, cheap, and blithering ill-timed attempt to blame the most creative residents for the miserable performance of your network.
Make no mistake. I am a huge fan of Second Life, and I have probably spent more time, emotion and money here than I really should have. I’ve spent weeks learning so I could pass along some useful knowledge to new people, and maybe create something of value. Most of all, I’ve met amazing people from all over the world. I think I’m a pretty good citizen, and most people I meet are, too. They persist in their commitment to this world despite LL’s best efforts to discourage them. Those are the citizens of Second Life. While I have my cynical moments, I don't spend hours and hours composing my complaints about things here. Mostly I shrug it off and move on. But the grinding mediocrity of LL's performance, the consistent failure to solve the fundamental issues .... well, it does get frustrating.
Your company has treated the citizens poorly. I think you have treated them like fools, but they are not fools and the evidence is everywhere every time you log on. You would do well to engage in an adult to adult relationship with the citizens, and I've seen little evidence of that.
So here we are. A new moment in Second Life. Your grand entrance. Competition looms on the horizon. It is only a matter of time before we will have the option to port our inventory and skills to some other world. How about some answers? Enough of the "we have a lot to do" -- hell, we knew that long before you did. What are you going to do? What is going to be different? What concrete steps will Linden Labs take to repair this creaking wreck of a platform and by when? Is there a future in Second Life, and if so, why? I know it is none of my damn business, but given what I've invested in this world, I'm impertinent enough to think that it IS my business, and I'd like some answers before I fritter away too much more time or money investing in a virtual future that seems more and more to be the "proof of concept", not the real deal.

And by the way, welcome. :-)
llListen(0, "M", NULL_KEY, "");
Best regards,
Mishka Butuzova

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Opinions: by Dana

Today LaurapLinden posted 'More on trademarks' this I must say is an improvement on previous posts, but she reiterates to write to them with direct questions, this I must say I have personally done and the answer? Go back and look at the FAQs, so obviously not a good idea. Basically unless you can afford a trademark attorney wait for the cease and desist.
I won't go into what is said clarified or otherwise you can just as easily read it here, the one thing that struck me though is the level of unhappiness of most of the SL™ residents not only with the trademark/branding issues but overall.
Grid stability according to Linden Lab® is better with the roll out of Havok4, this is not the impression that most of us get.
Content theft is another major concern and the lack of action by Linden Lab on this issue is galling to say the least when they are working so hard to protect their own interests, but, leaving content creators out in the cold to fight their own battles.
According to their own metrics the economy is growing with more Lindens being spent, a 33% increase since the gambling ban. I would love to know where? Most business owners are distraught with the grid problems preventing businesses from running to a profit - stale transactions, items not delivered, payments not received etc........
Events are on a downslide as clubs and venues reign in, keeping the bare minimum to keep going. Most events are problematic, even the remembrance day was marred by grid downtime and login failures.
Again according to the metrics there are more residents than ever, are they true figures? We can all fly around to most places that look busy and find the BOTS sitting up on a platform or buried in a hole under the ground. These bots are the bain of many residents bumping places up in search falsely and causing lag for anyone in the region, but it makes the total resident number look good for the Lindens so of course they will not stop them and all calls for something to be done about them will fall on deaf ears - Why would they stop something that makes their figures look good?
I hear more and more about other options, residents looking for open source alternatives - why?
Have Linden Lab lost all the confidence of the residents to that extent?
We all know now that Linden Lab is a business and SecondLife is a business, that it was created by the residents for them, that the content creators and people made it what it is does not matter, more and more people feel left out in the cold by a corporate business.
Once upon a time the Lindens worked with the residents to created a wonderful world, now Linden Lab appears to be grabbing at anything it can to keep afloat amongst all the bad RL press and PR decisions.
Today will also see the opening of I-World island. What is I-World?
"Part of our support structure here at Linden Lab is a dedicated customer team called I-World. This team answers support tickets and live chats from residents who are experiencing some difficulties or looking for guidance with in-world issues. Some of you may be aware of us from your contact via the Support page but most of you will probably never have heard about us.
We help to ensure that your in-world experience goes as smoothly as possible by providing answers where we can and getting our technical colleagues to perform their magic where we can’t. We know there are things that sometimes don’t work so well in SL…things that get you down. We’re sorry that they happen, they get us down too and we want to get them resolved as quickly as you do."
I think they will be kept very busy with mobs of angry residents, is it any wonder the Lindens keep away? Every blog post is accompanied by complaints and anger from residents who just want stability, to play and love and learn in an environment that works the way it was intended.
'RESOLVED' - How many times do we see that only to try to purchase something and have it fail? How many times have we been logged out and spent an hour trying to log back in to that important meeting only to find a blog post an hour later saying 'logins are closed'?
How much more does it take for Linden Lab to realise they have lost the confidence and trust of most of the residents? Linden was once seen as a company that cared, that wanted to help residents to create something unique and wonderful a SECONDLIFE, now it seems that goal has been achieved with the help of all the fantastic content creators, scipters and residents, so does that mean Linden Lab can now just act like GODS and do what they like with it?
Seems that way to many.........................
Dana

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