Is Interest in Second Life Waning?

If the meeting of the Social Media Club Boston, which held an event called “Get a (Second Life) with Text 100 – Marketing and Communications in Virtual Worlds is any indication; the answer is emphatically NO!

I was able to gain knowledge of the happenings at the event through Text 100’s Blog, gpc (Greg Peverill-Conti) blog “Over the River“, Topaz Partners Podcast
(by Adam Zand and Doug Haslam) #16 – (section 2/15), and a video of the event at the amphitheater on Text 100 Island in Second Life.

According to the podcast there were over a hundred people at the event in Boston. When you consider that is just the interest in one city…. Well, that emphatic no grows in stature as the world is taken into consideration.

Hosted by Ken Peters, a VP from Text 100’s Boston office, the panel included Aaron Uhrmacher (aka Smiddy Smails in Second Life), Text 100, as well as Mike Askew, Senior Vice President of Technology at Fidelity Investments, John Lester (aka Pathfinder Linden) head of the Boston office of Linden Lab, Drew Stein, CEO of Infinite Vision Media and John Rodzvilla, professor at Emerson College.

The panelists talked about the need for companies to ask themselves “why” they want to launch a presence in Second Life before jumping into the metaverse….And the panel agreed that companies need to do more than just recreate a virtual world version of their real world presence if they expect to capture the imagination and attention of the Second Life community.

Pathfinder Linden commented about Second Life being like the early years of the web, and how every communication medium has been difficult to understand and learn to use. He pointed out early films were basically filmed plays, the telephone was treated like the telegraph at first, and how it took time for people to understand and begin to put technology to work: so it is with Second Life.

The Fidelity Investments representative, Mike Askew, discussed how Fidelity has established a briefing center, similar to the one they have in Boston, to explore business to business collaboration in Second Life. Yet they are avoiding business to consumer relationships in Second Life due to identity and security concerns, but isn’t that the case with all social media?

Askew called attention to one of Fidelity Investment’s goals, which is the social aspect of meetings in Second Life. “Conversations take place and trust is built in meetings … whether in person or in Second Life… that just isn’t possible with conference calls. In Second Life meetings people start to talk in small groups and socialize much more, providing a higher quality of interaction.”

Pathfinder then stated:

That is because of the sense of place in Second Life. On the phone everyone is just a voice, and multiple voices quickly become confusing. Linden Lab is working on spacialized audio which will allow voice interaction adjusted for peoples location and proximity. This will add to the realism without the problems of muddled conference call audio.

Infinite Vision Media’s, Drew Stein (who views Second Life as an entertainment company), discussed how businesses should change their expectations before entering Second Life… not to enter Second Life and leave their entry static, but rather figure out how Second Life can fit into an overall interacting strategy. He later talked about how one of The Weather Channel’s sims has a community supporting it because it was designed to show surf, and soon the surfer’s inside Second life were drawn to the best waves; which showed to me more about what he meant about fitting into the overall interacting strategy. “Customers may not be fully on board yet, but that they will be. Stein feels that older people don’t get social media, but that 15 year-olds do, so businesses need to starting thinking of how things like Second Life will fit into their communication mix for the future. Second Life is the next generation of the web.”

Aaron Uhrmacher, of Text 100, pointed out Second Life shouldn’t be exclusively about entertainment, but also the opportunity for people to develop new and different relationships with brands. Which seems to me what The Weather Channel lucked into with their “surf” sim. Uhrmacher also tells of his earlier experiences with businesses in Second Life where people would go and watch, get cards, etc.; but with little to no interaction. “Now more companies are staffing in Second Life and engaging with people. There is also an organic evolution of groups and communities with some of the interactions moving beyond Second Life”.

Pathfinder points out that the power of Second Life is that is has the ability to create a sense of community, and I think that power is extremely important because it is a fact that most individuals will fight for the community when they would not fight for themselves. Tapping into that community spirit is probably the most important factor a business can strive to achieve when entering Second Life. Pathfinder stated that more people are beginning to understand the interactive nature of the Second Life community and are beginning to capitalize on it.

A couple of the things which bothered me was where Pathfinder tried to claim that Second Life’s limit on the number of people in a space was actually a nice benefit because it keeps events on a human scale and allows interaction. Which leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I think that maybe that is the Linden’s official attitude, not only about sim limitations, but also about many of the other problems which plague Second Life. Another troubling Pathfinder statement was when the issue of identity and authenticity came up again. Pathfinder explained that they are working on ways for people to prove who they are – the first step (emphasis mine) will be age verification – but that this is a challenge in all online environments. What will the second step be? Is it the plan of Linden Lab to cater to business and corporations rather than the individuals, who have made Second Life what it is today, and our privacy concerns?

Eventually the conversation turned to whether Second life has the ability to actually engage the user, and Pathfinder “explained that his background is neuroscience and that one of the things that our brains do really well is filling in cognitive holes; in Second Life, because you are interacting with real people in three dimensional space, your brain begins to function as though everything in the space is real. This is one of the reasons people get so immersed in Second Life.” This is the reason I never call Second Life a game.

On the blog Viral Voice today, Denise Shiffman’s posts “Little Return in Virtual Reality” states “the return on investment just isn’t there yet… But with so many companies getting involved, you have to ask why?”

That question is the one question I think the Boston event shed a lot of light on.

If a real world business is going to attempt a presence in Second Life they should learn to bring something of interest to the Second Life community, become involved and interactive with the community. That is how a business’s dollars will bring them Second Life “Branding” and community support.