Interesting headline...
"LewisPR killed Second Life"
Let's hope so, eh..?
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16 comments:
Well done Lewis PR!
Excellent work by Lewis - I'm sure that was their intention all along...
but where will all the Furry freaks go now?
Oh god, let it be true!
BTW: I've still got a copy of the piss-poor full-page ad Lewis took out in Virgin Atlantic's in-flight mag promoting its Second Life expertise. Just how much dosh was spent running an ad that looked like it was designed by a 9-year-old we will never know, but it certainly made Second life look as business relevant as a Fisher Price digital camera.
>"BTW: I've still got a copy of the piss-poor full-page ad Lewis took out in Virgin Atlantic's in-flight mag promoting its Second Life expertise."<
Chris - I think a scan of that ad is called for.....?
I know, I'm sure Aedhmar Hynes, CEO of Text 100 will have an update on their Second Life presence on her blog. http://mondaymorning.typepad.com/ . Oh dear. No update since May 3rd...
Second Life has had its day in the sun. Ask ITV about keeping Internet brands afloat that have lost their mainstream attraction.
There is nothing that the average Internet user or casual gamer can do in Second Life that doesn't have a better option, either in the physical or online worlds.
I have no stats to back this up but I suspect Second Life is doing a Friends Reunited.
When ITV bought the site in 2005 it was according to the BBC the UK's eighth most popular website. Currently it's No.88 according to Alexa.com
I have no stats to back this up but I suspect this is because casual users that make up the majority of most website punters realised they'd exhausted all the fun of looking up old flames. I suspect Second Life is suffering the same fate.
Not sure an audience of hard-core SE Asian tech heads, North American emo teens, Scandinavian hackers and fat blokes with encyclopedic knowledge of Sabrina The Teenage Witch and Buffy The Vampire Slayer represents a viable long terms business model?
probably too busy maintaining their huge facebook group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2359645786
Yes, quite frankly Second Life's churn rate is cr*p. Just imagine what we'd say if a TV channel was found to lose 75%+ of its viewers after just one day's viewing.
But before you write it off, something worth considering is the number of colleges and Universities building distance learning islands on SL. I'm not sure whether Lewis can claim actually credit for this, but the educational sector could well end up saving SL.
Ignore the furries and the "fat blokes with an encyclopedic knowledge of Sabrina the teenage witch." Especially with the introduction of voice, SL is made for distance learning.
A stack of Unis around the world (such as Edinburgh here in the UK) are currently sinking money into it. They'll each bring thousands of new users with them.
Those users will actually have a good reason to be there, and may hang around to explore what's on offer once their classes have finished.
Crucially, the Uni islands that I'm aware of also have their own orientation areas.
That means students by-pass the slow and poor orientation zones maintained by Lewis client Linden Labs, which do such a good job of putting people off - last time I was there, there were a bunch of avatars standing around shouting "where is the sex?!"
Can't be arsed to opine in detail, but I would just like to say...
They fucked Spin Bunny* and now Second Life. Why does Lewis always have to spoil it for everyone?!
*Allegedly
Can Second Life ever be called a success? I don't think it had a day to have its day (if you get what i mean). The excitement billed around Second Life was based purely on a few big brands deciding to set up shop within a virtual world as an alternative marketing idea. The fact that this generated a little media coverage should not warrant Second Life to be billed as a success. I set up an avatar in Second Life and have never used it (mainly because I don't have the time) which i suspect is the same for most of the 8 million users out there.
> Not sure an audience of hard-core SE Asian tech heads, North American emo teens, Scandinavian hackers and fat blokes with encyclopedic knowledge of Sabrina The Teenage Witch and Buffy The Vampire Slayer represents a viable long terms business model?<
Depends on what you're selling. One would assume some of the fast food brands could be keen to access that audience...
Interesting stuff Dirk about the learning islands but can't for the life of me understand why Universities would use Second Life as the platform for such a service long term. For sticking a toe in the water perhaps, but I would be suprised if Second Life built itself up into a strong education vertical. Dare say there will be a stand at BETT in Jan, I'll have to have a gander.
Mind you, "thousands of users" won't be enough to keep the wolves from the door, especially if they are thousands of students...not known for their spending power.
Some great thoughts on here. I must declare an interest by saying that I have always thought Second Life to be deeply, deeply sad.
I remember when I learned just how amazingly expensive it was to do something proper in there I hated it more - though when I saw a load of furry and rubber/SM fetish 'journalists' at a virtual 'press conference' I saw the funny side.
The other week I noticed the Gruaniad/Intel 'Secondfest' 'Music Festival' promo in The Guide and winced as I realised that all that cash would have been better spent with the dodgiest direct marketing agency in Dunstable...
The sooner this thing retreats to the one handed web surfing shadows where it belongs, the better.
Well Second Life's planet is so much defined by its branding, I can already picture News Corp buying it for advertising purposes. What the heck, Myspace didn't die, why would SL?
Worth reading is James Wagner Au's 5 business myths about SL:
http://gigaom.com/2007/07/12/debunking-5-business-myths-about-second-life/
His stat that 18% of SL content is "mature" is interesting.
When talking about virtual worlds. I often remind people that back in 1997, around 16% of net searches were porn related and the Internet wasn't really seen as a normal pastime.
Today under 5% of searches are porn, and the most active group of net users are not blokes with a personality disorder sitting in their basement, but young women
Similarly, virtual worlds do currently attract their fair share of oddballs. But assuming they are here to stay (and I believe they are), the proportion will similarly shift over time.
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