Okay….so onw of the guys came up to me and asked me if I’d heard of something called “Second Life”.
I sighed. Deeply and with the ennui of someone who reads a lot of blog feeds.
So what is it?
Well, it’s the SIMs with more sex. And advertising. I mean it’s like Las Vegas or something.
Second Life developers are now pulling in more than US$10 million in revenues a year and unsurprisingly it’s filling up with advertising.
Ian Betteridge talks about Second Life Spam:
“It’s been a while since I was on the mainland, and I’d forgotten how horrific that some areas of it are. Apart from the small package of land that was occupied by a tiny office for “CNO Partners†there were rotating ads for just all the usual suspects, and it looked like a nightmare vision of completely untalented, unregulated ad-splurge.“
Nicole Simon discussed the difference between Americanocentric media and European media when discussing Second Life.
“Most american articles rarely mention that there is something in Second Life which has to do with Sex whereas the German articles most correctly state that there is also a lot of sex involved. Cheap sex to be precise.”
On GigaOM, Wagner James Au talks about Virtual Sweatshops (which afflicts World of Warcraft as well as Second Life.
“In Second Life, a Hollywood production company is outsourcing its Second Life projects to its Vietnamese branch, where highly-skilled workers can create professional 3D environments for a fraction of the cost, were it done here. It’s easy to see how the Chinese farmers of Warcraft might evolve into the blue collar workers of the 3D Internet.”
Paints a pretty nasty picture eh? Ian Betteridge closes with “If Linden Labs thinks it has a problem with self-replicating objects now, wait until it starts getting the attention of the kinds of people who’ve had years of experience constructing spam-mailing botnets.”
My personal opinion. A waste of time.
But if you’re looking for that sort of thing, then go right ahead.
Crikey, this is just about the bleakest image I’ve ever seen painted of Second Life. I wonder how much of the world, ie. how many islands they’ve actually explored? Second Life is a platform for 3D spaces in the same way that the internet is a platform for the Web. Just as there is loads of rubbish on the web so too is there lots of rubbish in Second Life. But… just as there are also many gems on the web so too are there numerous gems in Second Life.
This is I think where much of the confusion lies in regard to SL. Newbies often think of it as a game and as such expect gaming characteristics… and a purpose. SL is *not* a game, it’s a platform. When you think about it how much the WIMP environment progressed in the last 20 years? How much of a progression is Vista really? From my point of view ZERO!
As for the web how much progress are we really making? Sure we’re seeing all these superficial AJAXy, Flashy, Widgety, GUI improvements but you can’t make silk purse out of a sow’s ear – we’re still constrained by the shackles of the 2D WIMP. We need to break free,… into the 3rd dimension.
40 universities have already established in Second Life, as they obviously consider it a useful platform for digital learning. IBM owns several islands and holds many meetings on and between them. Sun, Dell, Nissan, Reuters, Sony, Toyota… etc, etc,… have a presence. Are these all delusional? I’d seriously doubt it.
I’d be interested to know what regions of Second Life you’ve toured MJ as I know it can seem like a waste of time on first impressions. But, as you get to know your way around and become familiar with the controls, culture and space it becomes more and more rewarding. Let me know what your Second Life name is (via email if you like) and I’ll teleport you to some of the more useful spaces 🙂
It’s only a matter of time and Second Life has become “tainted” much quicker than, say, WoW. I think it’s about time people started talking about the negatives. I don’t see Second Life having the same restrictions and controls as MySpace and Bebo for safety.
It’s all about regulation I guess.
I don’t think I can be bothered with Second Life. How is it going to help me? My work is very much in the real world? Maybe to marketing people it’s going to have a big deal due to the “selling air” meme and I guess Second Life gets you an entire virtual world of air to sell again? And being first in this new world is going to be important.
Imagine if Christoper Columbus had brought a marketing team with him when he discovered America? Or if the first team to land on Mars has a marketing attaché?
PS. I don’t see any progression in Vista – it’s just like UI changes in XP. They’re added because “someone else is doing it” rather than “this provides real feedback to the user on placement, depth etc”.
“My work is very much in the real world?”
Right…. so then what the point of a website then? Is a website in the real world? No,… it lives in the digital world…. a ‘virtual’ world….. a 2D one but nevertheless a virtual one. The only difference with Second Life is that it adds an extra dimension…. one that actually makes it more tangible in many ways. Certainly one that makes it more accessible to newbies… I know people who are able navigate Second Life with ease and no training while totally incapable of doing anything productive via a web browser.
Will you be making it to BarCampSouthEast in Waterford MJ? I’m hoping to get a round table going on this very discussion and it should make for a suitably heated debate 🙂
“Maybe to marketing people it’s going to have a big deal due to the “selling air†meme and I guess Second Life gets you an entire virtual world of air to sell again?”
Well what’s the difference between that and a old fashioned Operating System platform? Strip all the accessories and bundled software out of Windows and what have you got? Only a platform… one that’s useless without the software built on top of it.
Again, SL is merely a platform… one that enables an exciting new paradigm that actually offers some progression beyond a 20 year old model of computing.
The difference being that it’s like buying adverts. This is a Second Internet not a Second Life. It’s just that this is built upon a pay-for platform on top of an open platform.
I do not see the similarity to modern 2D UI paradigms. There’s a much lower signal:noise ratio on our current 2D for a start. here are 3D surfaces rather than 2D surfaces to search. Then here’s the people. My experience with Second Life today? Some bloke called Tommy complaining that he’s turned into a woman and some woman with a big bust who looks like a hooker who’s the landlord of the bar and who is probably a 55 year old, 19 stone male…
That’s a platform I want to promote myself on, fer sure.
The advantage to Second Life is the interactivity which means having a person there all the time. That’s the advantage and yet for most small companies who sell real-world services, it’s not an economic use of your time.
This is an example of hype selling hype. This smacks of the million-dollar web page in a comprehensive 3D environment.
“The difference being that it’s like buying adverts.”
Not really, it’s more like buying hosting, like you do to build a web page.
“It’s just that this is built upon a pay-for platform on top of an open platform.”
Nope, I haven’t paid a bean for my use of Second Life thus far. Now if I wanted to buy property I would… but that would be the equivalent of buying a hosting plan on the web. Same idea.
“There’s a much lower signal:noise ratio on our current 2D for a start. ”
Are you serious?!?! No way! There’s a way *higher* signal to noise ratio on the web, with splogs, reblogs, and other rubbish. How much time have you spent in Second Life to come away with such an impression? Where have you visited?
“My experience with Second Life today? Some bloke called Tommy complaining that he’s turned into a woman and some woman with a big bust who looks like a hooker who’s the landlord of the bar and who is probably a 55 year old, 19 stone male”
Jeez, you’re going to all the wrong places! Mind you my email was full of spam today so it’s not like the ‘traditional’ internet is any cleaner!
“The advantage to Second Life is the interactivity which means having a person there all the time.”
No way again! Amazon have been experimenting with virtual checkout tills in SL. There are loads of products you can buy without having to meet the seller….. you need to explore more!
“This is an example of hype selling hype.”
You need to get beyond the hype MJ….. there’s much more to it than you’ve discovered.
I’m sorry James. While I see this as a possibly interesting experiement in the use of a 3D environment, it’s not the same as it being a GUI interface to your computer because, in my opinion, it’s arse about face.
We should be marrying the interface to the real world. This is becoming finally possible with ubiquitous GPS, motion sensors and “presence”-style technology. The innovation will come from integration of the real world with the online world, not trying to create a virtual world which will supplant the web. The very fact that they’re offering a 3D world does not make things easier to understand – in anything it quadruples (or more) the numbers of surfaces which have to be negotiated/viewed in order to get the full picture – never mind the difficulties in actually moving around.
Second Life, to me, is the marriage of The Sims to a MUSH (Multi-User Shared Hallucination). There’s opportunities in there all right but not where you think they are. I think there could be a great mashup with presence applications and something like Second Life – if it mapped the real world a little more closely.
On the ratio thing: Think about it 🙂
I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree MJ although I think we might reach some middle ground in regard to Mirror Worlds (eg. Google Earth) which before I came across the term I was labeling First.5 because of what I saw as the perfect convergence between reality and virtual worlds (like Second Life). I just think there’s going to be room for both Mirror Worlds (reflections of reality) and Virtual Worlds (fantasy spaces).
I came here via James’ blog and thought I’d chime in…
I agree with pretty much everything James says here (except for the stuff about 3D being inherently superior to 2D), but reach the same conclusion as mj.
To me, Second Life /is/ a platform, in that it’s not a game, but rather a conduit for action and interaction — spot on, James. However, as a platform it is pretty useless because Linden can’t seem to keep up with the phenomenal demand being placed on their servers, and that’s slowly dragging the entire thing to it’s knees and rendering it virtually unusable; SL is slow as molasses. An unusable platform means I won’t waste my time trying to using it.
There’s something academically interesting happening here, no doubt, but I can’t see Linden Lab taking it any further than they already have. I’d love to see the metaverse realised too, but as long as 3D is slow, messy and looks like VRML, we’re going to be waiting.
I know less about the commerce side of things, but my feeling is that the press release that Dell et al got to put out after dropping a couple of hundered dollars on an island in SL probably payed for itself, but that’s just uninformed conjecture.
I’ve not seen performance issues wit it to be honest but then I’m running it on a respectably equipped machine (It’s a low end Mac really – 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo iMac with 1.5 GB of RAM and a ATI X1600 Graphics card with 128 MB of vRAM). My connection is also a 2 Mbps symmetrical link (2 Mbps up, 2 Mbps down) and I would see that there’s going to be problems sending info down the congested DSL lines of current broadband networks.
The fact you NEED a half decent machine AND a half decent broadband line in order to participate is a terrible barrier to entry. And while machines may increase in specification, Linden will be under pressure to increase the graphical quality, the audio quality and the streaming.
Second Life is a prototype for a replacement of MySpace….Date.com….maybe even Amazon Marketplace….but as a replacement for your operating system?
People will point at you and snigger in the playground if you keep that up, James….
Don’t worry, that’d be nothing new! 😉
Again though lads, as I’ve said elsewhere, when I speak of Second Life I use it as a shorthand for the metaverse in general which may easily come to be dominated by an open source virtual world (there are a few projects in the works).
Sure SL has loads of problems and shortcomings but try to project forward….. let’s say 5 years down the line…. then us metaversarians will be the ones sniggering at the old fogies still crawling their way around that old thing they call the web. 😉
Well, it’s the applications really.
I don’t mind if Second Life is like the Virtual World where people from all over the globe can interact but it’s never going to be a level playing field. If you’re not sure what I mean – talk to some hardened tournament gamers and see how they tweak their settings for the best possible experience.
BTW, I think you’re right Emmet and my bet is that your own employer will be the one to bail them out. Yes, I’m nailing my colours to the mast now and making my first prediction for 2007 – Google will buy Second Life.
LOL, you heard it here first, folks.
I think we’re yet to see the master plan from the Mountain View infinite money vault – Sketchup, Earth, ….
I reckon we’ll see virtual advertising. Second Life will become an analogue of the real world and we’ll see bidding for real estate in the virtual world too…so you can have adverts in both locations….
There’s already bidding for land in SL, if you want it in a particular spot.
Second Life has as much spam as the Internet. But like the Internet, there are interesting things to see and do. I do agree that SL is a waste of time, but it’s a waste of time in the same way that Doom is a waste of time – enjoyable past times.
For me, it combines some the nice aspects of MUDs/MUSHes with 3d graphics. That’s all. No great paradigm shifts to see here.
I think it is hyped beyond any good reason. I don’t think Google will buy it, because I foresee the whole thing dying before the end of next year – I think the security issues with copybots etc. will just kill the servers too many times.
I will say that I find it incredibly relaxing to have my character to be sitting on a bench with an attractive vista drinking a coffee and hanging out with people I know in real life. But that’s really just a wrapper around a chat client (and a bad one at that).
Apologies for mostly incoherent ramble. Methinks MJ had condemned SL before he tried it, and therefore is destined to see only the bad. Good thing he didn’t do that with the Mac or the Internet 😉
Well you gotta stick your neck out every now and again. Besides, I called the SketchUp purchase 9 months in advance so it’s not a bad track record 🙂
Re: advertising, yes, Microsoft have already demonstrated virtual billboards in the new version of Virtual Earth and Google will surely follow suit with Google Earth. Once they’ve cornered the market in Mirror World advertising there’s only one other place to go – Virtual Worlds!
Methinks MJ had condemned SL before he tried it, and therefore is destined to see only the bad.
Who said I hadn’t tried it?
> when I speak of Second Life I use it as a shorthand for the metaverse in general which may easily come to be dominated by an open source virtual world … Sure SL has loads of problems and shortcomings but try to project forward….. let’s say 5 years down the line…. then us metaversarians will be the ones sniggering at the old fogies still crawling their way around that old thing they call the web.
Are you trying to put steve gilmor out of work ?
I just think that SL is just too contrived. It’s just too hard. High barrier to entry and still way too much noise (or maybe with all the bare surfaces it’s just the signal is just tiny).
And they’d better get the spam and ad filters in NOW rather than later…