M is for Myg

Second Life is a strange new world, isn’t it? Sexy enough that big corporations have tried jumping in to dominate its culture, strange enough that even some of the most powerful marketing teams on earth haven’t been able to crack its code.

The media controversy over Second Life’s value to the mainstream has always pissed me off. I was thinking about it after reading Phil Linden’s blog post the other day. He said:

There has been lots of speculation and skepticism in the media regarding the success that businesses are having in-world. I’d like to point out that most of the most visible media coverage has focused narrowly on attempts to use SL for brand marketing.

It’s true, a lot of mainstream writing about Second Life has criticized it from the perspective of big business without understanding it, sorta like criticizing an exotic country after spending an afternoon there. I mean jeez, if you spent some actual time in Second Life, I’d think its limitations as a mass-marketing platform for big corporations would be damned obvious.

Useful criticism of Second Life, I think, targets the things that inhibit growth. For example, most people I know don’t own computers that can run SL well enough to make their time in world not suck. This is especially true for teenagers, who are the natural inheritors of this world. The teens I know salivate when I describe the social and creative possibilities of Second Life - but they can’t get in because their machines won’t run it. Sure, there are some kids who own amazing gaming computers, but the vast majority of young AIM/Myspace junkies are running entry to mid-level machines.

I’m speculating that people who do own high end gaming computers want to spend time in high end games. Since Second Life isn’t a game in any traditional sense there’s probably a huge gulf between Second Life’s tech requirements for users and its natural audience, who I’m guessing are not hard core gamers as much as hard core artistic/creative types and web 2.0 users who are motivated by the social aspects.

Then there’s that whole noob experience. Once you’re in the world, it takes a long time to figure out and a lot of us won’t be bothered to stick around for it. (See rant on ugliness as a barrier here.) And of course, stability issues, which certainly piss everyone off, but will drive away those who aren’t addicted.

My hope for Second Life is that the gap starts to close between the natural audience and the computer power required for a decent time in-world. And that Linden figures out how to make the new user experience not suck so bad (I think the portals are a decent idea, but when I created my Morrisey alt, I was NOT impressed with the portal I chose…).

All that said, you know I love Second Life. And there are of course great things to talk about here. That’s why so many of us blog, flickr, and twitter it. I’m going to start featuring the good stuff here, especially for the uninitiated to get a sense of why they should bother to suffer the learning curve. I’m talking about things like music, small business, socializing, making stuff, gratuitous violence, sex and the like. So if you’ve got some ideas of what’s good about Second Life, drop me a comment or an IM (Mygdala March) and I’ll add it to my list.

Out.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 12:08 am and is filed under Real Life, Second Life, business.