Second Life Revisited [7.10.09]

From the Fall of 2006 to mid 2007, I was obsessed with Second Life - and so it seemed was everyone else and the news media...

At the time, Second Life was the epitome of Web 2.0 technology.  Companies were developing "virtual world strategies" in a manner reminiscent of the euphoria surrounding the web in 1997 and the momentum enjoyed by Twitter right now.

And then, in a flash, it seemed that Second Life became back-page news.  What happened?

As it may have been a while since you last thought about Second Life, let me refresh your memory about it.

• Second Life is a virtual world where users create avatars and then are free to roam (walk and fly) around the "grid" - a virtual archipelago of islands, mainlands, oceans, and sky dwellings.

• One's avatar can be a virtual resemblance of one's real life physique or something totally different.  Users can decide their first names but pick from a long list of last names.  I was Jonathan Sellers and no matter how much I tried to look like me, I always bore a striking resemblance to Harry Potter.

• Spending time in Second Life is free and there are lots of free virtual items to find.  However, unless one is particularly talented at using the world's building / scripting engines, you need money to buy fancy clothes for your avatar, buy virtual land, and buy virtual furniture and art to furnish your virtual home.

• Fortunately, Second Life has its own currency, Linden Dollars, which trades on an open exchange.  Around 2006 / 2007, $1 US bought roughly $1 Linden. 

• And since you can buy things, you can also sell them.  Within Second Life, avatars hawk their wares and services which range from the expected (house builder, fashion designer) to the bizarre (surrogate mom for a virtual baby).  Stories abound about people who have side businesses in Second Life which earn them well into the 5 and 6 figures.

• Second Life exists because Linden Lab, a private company, runs it.  Linden Lab makes its money by collecting land use fees (ie: taxes) from those who own virtual property.  For a year and a half, Square One had a virtual island and we paid $295/month in land use fees.  It's not cheap.  Linden Lab also gets revenue from user placed ads for services, real estate, and products.

• Linden Lab functions as the government of Second Life and the users create the free market within it.  Users own the virtual and real world rights to their content (ex: design of a blouse) and can do almost anything on their land (yes, that means a lot of illicit virtual behavior).

As a one-time avid user, I think there are several reasons for Second Life's meteoric rise into oblivion:

• Using the virtual world to its fullest required a powerful computer with a dedicated graphics card.  Second Life became popular right around the time that laptops supplanted desktops.  At that time, laptops usually had integrated graphics cards.  While Second Life can run on such machines, graphics render much slower and the experience is sub-par.

• The learning curve is steep - very steep.  Even the most technologically sophisticated person needs time to understand how to use and master the building tools and virtual world protocols.

• The Second Life "grid" (the technical term for the server-driven digital rendering of the world) had difficulty accommodating the rapid population growth of late 2007 and 2008.  The grid was often down, users could not login, or the in-world experience was painfully slow and "laggy."

• Perhaps most telling, many venues lacked critical mass of attendance due to the nature of virtual worlds themselves.  For example, Starwood Hotels built an amazing virtual rendition of its new aloft property.  However, whenever one went there, it was empty.  Social networking relies upon a critical mass of people to post, view, and participate.  However, sites like Facebook do not need to have everyone participate simultaneously - as long as users see a steady stream of activity over the course of time, their interest level is steady.  With Second Life however, seeing the activity as it happens is critical.  A party is not much fun if most of the guests are not there at the same time.

I am not giving up on virtual worlds.  Many others exist now (http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/) and to focus only on Second Life would be akin to having placed all of one's Internet-related bets on Prodigy or CompuServe back in the early 90s.

I also believe that all consumers will come to have virtual representations of themselves which will be useful and valuable to marketers.  Interested in seeing how those pants at Gap.com fit?  Try them on your virtual self for a realistic look.   Or see how furniture will look in your down-to-the coffee-table-book-exact-replica of your real home.   Where these virtual beings co-exist is still to be determined.

From a research perspective we learned a great deal while on Second Life including:

• How to recruit people into projects.  We had a panel of more than 3,000 avatars.

• How to conduct a virtual world focus group.  For a transcript see the attached document.

We also realized that comments about people not being themselves are a bit overblown.  Sure, some people are great actors.  It was common to see a female avatar and then learn that it was under the command of its male user.  However, we have this problem in any type of online research.  For the most part, people are themselves (even if they look a bit more buff as an avatar) and are not creative enough to be anything different.

My Second Life kick was fun while it lasted but virtual worlds have just begun.