It seems to me that second life needs a new idea to boost it back up toward the plateau of productivity. Luckily for us…just Wednesday afternoon PC world announced, “In a move obviously meant to attract more mainstream users to Second Life and salvage some of the realm's lost momentum, Linden Lab will soon be moving mature content to a secondary continent within the virtual world.” Thank goodness, now I have a reason to join!
Sike.
This isn’t really the boost I was thinking. Second Life needs a strategic direction that is appealing for both the individual and the corporation if it wants to survive in the long-term. I can see the potential of doing business on a rainy day in a beautiful sunny Second Life city. It could provide businesses with a large audience and users with compelling interactions and experiences, but as Scott Monty says it takes work everyday just to get corporations on board with blogs and basic social media. Perhaps this X-rated initiative will persuade some individuals back to the game, but I’m not sure adult content is going to help management make the leap.
Until Second Life gets its act together to create some meaningful content to bring users back, I’m not sure there is much incentive for mainstream organizations to invest precious resources, especially in a time like this. Personally, headed into the thick of the business world and having never found much more to Second Life than overly buff beefcakes and too many girls wearing bikinis with angel wings, I don’t think I’ll be recommending it to clients anytime soon.
The adult industry never ceases to amaze and or disgust. Seriously, a virtual red light continent? Second life won't be able to survice with niche usages. It needs to appeal to the masses on a continual basis. If anything, the Second Life corporate image is hurt by this as parents may be more inclined to take their kids offline....that is of course if parents are parenting anyway.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I think that the Gartner hype curve is a very pertinant way to look at the popularity and future of Second Life. Given the fact that SL really is in the trough and in need of a drastic improvement to pull them out of it, I agree with your assessment that this most recent X-rated initiative you mentioned is the way to go. I would think that the younger generations should be their key demographic at this point to try and engage them in the product. They are technically savvy. They are familiar with this type of environment through the use of video games. They may have more time to spend on something like this, etc. etc. But, as John mentioned this has tremendous potential to eliminate or at least hinder the connection with this group.
ReplyDeleteI also like the use of the hype curve to illustrate the possible cycle of Second Life.
ReplyDeleteLike I mentioned in Sarah's post, I really don't see any value added to the professional mindsets of individuals who use this as a way to interact for business purposes.
Until, a notable value added initiative is really integrated into the social networking site, I don't think I'll ever find myself using it!