Has Second Life Cut Its Mullet?
Two Years Later, I Venture Back Into the World We All Forgot
At the end of June I wrote a simple blog post for DigitalNext addressing why I believe the hype currently associated with Twitter will be more sustainable than Second Life's. Long-story short, "Twitter is light, cheap, open and permanent, whereas Second Life is heavy, expensive, closed and ephemeral."
Twenty-one comments and a series of responses later, I was invited by Second Life to return to the virtual world that I stopped visiting back in 2007. My complaint, and why I never returned, is that the client, called the viewer in SL parlance, was too resource intensive, incompatible with my executive laptop (which favored lightweight and slimness over horsepower and graphics cards) and required too much bandwidth, preferably a LAN connection instead of Wi-Fi.
Well, after visiting a few times, I can report nothing has changed in terms of the resource-intensity, but this post is not going to be about the barriers to entry but rather what one finds once inside Second Life's walled garden.
The reason I was salty about Second Life when I first arrived had little to do with my hardware, software or connection, but rather the experience I had when I arrived. I looked like I dork -- a n00b. I didn't have any friends on Second Life and didn't know how to find any. I may be the king of the geeks but many of my friends are Luddites. I was lonely and I didn't get it. When it comes to tech and community, it often comes down to getting it.
Back in the day, I did have an incentive to visit Second Life. My client, Crayon, has an island there. Every week they would have "coffee with Crayon" and we would stand there in all of our avatar-iness and type at each other while making gestures and I didn't see why Inter-Relay Chat (IRC) wasn't a better solution if I had to type my responses, anyway.
Since my June post, Doug Thompson, a.k.a. Dusan Writer when he's in-world, of Canadian firm Remedy Limited, reached out to offer me a tour of Second Life through his seasoned, passionate and professional eyes. In-world, I am called Chris Ebi and Dusan showed me around a pretty fantastic and beautiful place resplendent with Eames and Barcelona chairs, giant JumboTrons and fashionable rock stars sporting beauty and couth. What Dusan wanted to show me was that Second Life has grown up a lot since its inception.
When I met Dusan in Second Life, he teleported me to someplace called Immersive Workspaces, which focused on highlighting some of the most cutting-edge innovations. He introduced me to Jon Brouchoud, inventor of something called Wikitecture, which, to my mind, allows laypeople, interior designers, developers and architects to collaborate on virtual spaces as they might relate to the real-world building of a clinic in Nepal, one of the examples he cited and demonstrated. The experience of Wikitecture and Immersive Workspaces reminded me of the scene in "The Matrix" when Neo and Trinity enter the Loading Construct, a white room that the operators of the various ships use to program items for crew members about to enter the Matrix. In that version, they ask their operator/programmer, Tank, for "Guns, lots of guns." At Tank's command, endless shelves of all sorts of firearms ranging from uzis to pistols are spawned in the loading construct. Out scroll an infinite number and variety of weapons, delivered via an infinite number of racks. Well Second Life was sort of like that, but instead of Glocks and M4s, there were ideas, innovations and architecture.
Then Dusan took me on a tour of eye candy. In many ways, Second Life can be explored as a postmodern museum where some of the art is better than others. One exceptional artist is Bryn Oh's Immersiva, a very bizarre series of work that feels like it is very Steampunk, as if I were even cool enough to know what Steampunk is!
Finally, during our exploration, we took a walk along a broad, meandering path. Dusan Writer/ Doug Thompson (who knows what "real" is any more) told me that Second Life was an amazing platform for raising money for charity. This meandering virtual path represented a relay race to raise money for the Cancer Society, called the Relay for Life, during which time real people can presumably run their avatars around and around these meandering boulevards while depositing Linden Dollars into coffers at the site of the road, all of which are used for cancer research. (And all without breaking a sweat.) He noted that because the planning, serving, hosting, walking and fund-raising are done entirely online -- and as most of which is done inside the virtual world of Second Life -- it is an excellent tool for bonding as a community in exactly the same meaningful way they're used in the "real" world.
Even today I still get all sorts of comments about flying penises and furry sex every time I mention Second Life to advertising executives. Dusan reassured me that things were rather different and that far from flaming out after the hype faded, Second Life took the revenue and the momentum granted it by the land rush and has innovated, innovated, innovated.
One of the most exciting things I noticed when I logged in to Second Life is that it supports the most intriguing VoIP innovation. Not only does Second Life allow you to voice chat but it also supports true surround sound, allowing one to track where people are based depending on where their voice is coming from. When someone's close by, his or her voice is loud and clear. When the person walks away, the voice diminishes. And when they circle around you, voices shift from ear to ear, representing physical placement -- location awareness. This is really cool and offers a more cinematic experience that truly separates Second Life from simply being a very resource-intensive IRC.
Second Life has always been rocking the mullet -- business up front and party in the back -- but now, it seems, according to Linden Labs CEO Mark Kingdon, it's growing up and has visited the barber.
To prove its sense of decorum, it seems the default viewer download doesn't even support the infamous "adult" Second Life experience. While massive avatar orgies still exist, you need to explicitly download the porno viewer. The other day, when I logged back in after quite a few weeks, Second Life told me so in so many words that if I want to party, I need to explicitly commit myself to that lifestyle; otherwise, I had better just be happy with PG-13. Second Life didn't kick out the brothels and porno theaters, it just put them on a different plane of existence.
All of this renovation and motivation and passion is, apparently, aimed to woo companies back into Second Life, and here's why: Now that broadband, advanced processors and headsets are commonplace, it is now feasible to choose Second Life as a much more pleasant and inviting place to host your meetings and conference calls, especially in a world rife with swine flu and chopped travel budgets. You can easily set up an office space or a conference room and all meet up in-world, together, to engage in negotiations and collaboration. What's more, thanks to something like SkypeIn and SkypeOut, you'll soon be able to loop in all the folks who can't make it to SL through a telephone-to-Second Life number. And soon, denizens of Second Life will be able to send and receive SMS text messages via their in-world cell phone to their friends who are outsiders, according to Linden Labs' Kingdom.
What would I do to improve the Second Life experience for newbies? Well, I would recommend Second Life does with newcomers that my church does: make sure there are plenty of experienced greeters to welcome new Second Lifers who arrive as though fresh from the womb. There is no such thing as a killer app, so it is essential to select folks who can act as online facilitators, online community managers, etc. -- a sort of Second Life big brother or big sister to offer their help. I know that would have helped me, if someone took the time to help me get a better wardrobe, understand real estate and the scripting and buying and selling, show me a few good nights out and some impressive vistas. I am the perfect mark -- a huge fan of "Wild Palms," William Gibson and Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash," supposedly the science fiction novel that inspired Second Life in the first place.
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR | |
|
Chris Abraham, president of the digital-PR firm Abraham Harrison, is a blogger who specializes in social-media marketing with a focus on blogger outreach, blogger engagement and search-reputation management. Chris lives in Berlin and Washington and can be reached via Twitter, Facebook, or email. |
|
RSS Feed›› DigitalNext
Most Recent Posts 
- JC Penney's 'Doghouse' Returns
- Autism Speaks Hosts Chicago Fundraiser
- The Invisible Hand of Agency Culture
- Buffalo Soldiers Wings & Things
- Publicis' 'Boost' Wins Create for a Cause Contest
- A DigitalNext Challenge: What's Your Favorite Consumer Mobile Application?
- BCS Enters Twitter: Beat Down Like Notre Dame in a Bowl Game
- What Kind of Agency Are You?
- Vice Finds Oil in L.A. for Palladium Boots
- Scuzzy Bubbles Are Filthy Little Pervs in Method Video
- The Coming Darwinism of IPhone Apps
- Behind the Redesign: Virgin.com Mixes Social Activity and Lead Generation
- How Black Friday Can Be Brown Friday
- Trees for Troops: Helping Military Families
- Your Experience Is Your Biggest Hurdle
White Paper
The New Female Consumer: The Rise of the Real Mom
This Advertising Age and JWT white paper explores what multiple generations of American women want when it comes to family, work and life in the 21st century, decades after the women's liberation movement.
Bob Garfield
Verizon Exiles IPhone to Island of Misfit Toys for the Holidays
Too-Cool Apple Now Finding Itself on the Receiving End of Competitor Ridicule
Special Report
America's Hottest Brands
Advertising Age Honors the Top Brands of the Year -- and the Brains Behind Them
3 Minute Ad Age Video
Marketers as Media Companies: A Disruptive Trend Revisited
Ad Age Editor Jonah Bloom at the ANA Conference
Special Report
Marketer of the Year: Hyundai
The carmaker won handily in our reader poll, besting Walmart, McDonald's, Lego and Amazon
Ad Age Video
Eddie Murphy's Long-Term Effect on Ad Agency Diversity
The Video Story of Dallas' Marcus Graham Project
Weekly Online Poll
Will small digital-production shops working directly with clients turn big digital agencies into unnecessary middlemen?
White Paper: 2010 America
What the 2010 Census Means for Marketing and Advertising
2010 America explains what you need to know about the biggest consumer market-research project of the decade: the 2010 U.S. census. Demographics expert Peter Francese, author of this highly readable Ad Age white paper, analyzes what the census will reveal about the changing face of consumers.
Most Read Most E-Mailed
Most Read Most E-mailed
Be part of the celebration at The Ad Age Media Mavens Awards Luncheon
Sponsored by ESPN. Join the world's leading media strategists for a celebration of creative thinking, innovation and a look at how the best are preparing for 2010. More
(What is RSS?)
Steve
http://SingleOnlineDating.org
I would like to personally invite anyone interested in revisiting virtual world possibilities to contact me - we would be happy to meet with you to explore ideas!
JenzZa Misfit
@jenzza
I couldn't agree more with your analysis of Second Life of two years ago, I also felt there were much better ways to collaborate.
I'm going to give it another try based on your review... we'll see if the mullet has really been cleaned up. (Not that I don't appreciate a good mullet, I'm a child of the '80s :-).
--Brad Einarsen
While Second Life has it's issues, it still is an amaizing social interface. I am sorry your first experience was poor.
Should you decide to give it a longer second chance, I would be proud and honored to be a friend. The same goes with anyone else. I have always tried to be n00b friendly, going out of my way to show people around, help get the "Skined, Shaped, Haired".
There is lots to see, create, experience in SL. I have met some of the most amazing people in SL, and some serious idiots. Just as in daily life, you have good and bad.
Colette Tuteur aka Isobela Capalini in Second Life.
https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417&task=knowledge&questionID=6362
Second Life is heavy, expensive, closed and ephemeral.
It just seems like there's a huge learning curve for not much reward.
O
Likewise, Second Life is a single, perhaps transitory example of a paradigm of immersive online experience that - as inevitably as gravity - is going to come to own a great deal of business and consumer time and attention, and which people in advertising and marketing will need to learn how to use and monetize.
For 5 reasons to use Second Life as a media platform please read this multimedia blog. http://www.pookyamsterdam.com/
& Chris will be on The 1st Question soon too!
For some reason no one understands they closed the program. Then they closed the Educators program and made everyone a Mentor. Then they kicked out half the mentors. Thus is the state of Linden Lab's VOlunteer program. If it ain't broke - break it beyond repair.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/29/virtual-worlds
Twitter makes the noise, Second Life makes the money.