Comments on: Second Life is Dead

By: PMT

PMT — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:12:32 +0000

i wish they’d just make the sculpted stuff open to everyone. It’s just too much a learning curve with all the ridiculous tricks and apps and shit to keep up with. The old method was better because everyone i knew could do it. With sculpted prims, more than 75% of my friends left or stopped building. It’s sad. Really Qarl Linden should be shot for this shit.

By: Little Gray

Little Gray — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:32:43 +0000

I have to agree it is a little sensationalist to report that Second Life is dead. On the other hand, we deal with sensationalism in the press all the time .. its par for the course. I’m not sure there’s anyone in the industry who would say that SL is dead, though there may be some who would say that it might be arguably dead. To say SL is dead is different than report that the death of SL is controversial.

In any event, what I wanted to point out was this Wednesday’s press release put out by Linden Lab’s, “Second Life Transactions Reach One Billion” http://www.industrygamers.com/news/second-life-transactions-reach-1-billion/

“Now at nearly USD50 million each month in user-to-user transactions, the Second Life economy is on an annual run rate of more than a half billion US dollars, making Second Life the largest virtual economy in the industry,” the company stated. Linden Lab noted that Second Life’s in-world economy grew 94% year-over-year from Q2 2008 to Q2 2009.

Unless I am mistaken, SL’s biggest growth spurt occurred within the last year, starting about the time when everyone started saying SL was dead or dying. I think what the author intended was that SL is like the living dead or animated dead. If the title had been, “Second Life is Undead” those of us who commented wouldn’t have had a problem, but, then we would have missed the author’s subtle poetics.

By: Grim Bracken

Grim Bracken — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:37:41 +0000

Nobody is denying that SL has it’s flaws. We’re all painfully aware of them. I’m critical of the Lindens for their ham-handed approaches to solving issues and I take issue with their prioritization of those issues. However, I’m not smart enough to create something as unique and special as SL. I have to give them props where it’s due. IMHO there’s nothing better out there or on the horizon.

I think the Lindens should spend some of that time they would’ve spent on real life businesses and invest it on the virtual business owners and on the issues they find important. We are a big reason why SL is as interesting as it is. Content, content, content… without it SL isn’t much more than a chat room.

By: Jenzy

Jenzy — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:49:02 +0000

I love SL. I too have and had successful and non successful businesses in world. But really, who cares? The only fact I can garnish out of this is that it seemed to have riled some people up. Ultimately, you have your own opinion of Second Life, clearly so does this writer. I don’t think he ever implies that this was meant to be taken as an official Linden Lab report. It served its purpose beautifully, it got people thinking about what SL means to them. Well played, sir.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:15:18 +0000

The reason there are two articles is more a product of the fact that when combined, they make one very large article. It served its purpose better to split them and serve up both sides of the issues in their own contexts.

The article also states I had many active businesses between 2006 and 2008, not that I haven’t been an active resident since 2008. I currently still own land, have two active businesses, have an in-world resource center for my e-book on SL, and am very active on Xstreet SL. I’m not sure what my own agenda is or how I’ve slanted anything towards it, considering I fought for both sides through two different articles. Sort of hard to establish an agenda. People seem to forget that in order to have a good argument, you should be able to grasp both sides. Only those who have one outlook on something have an agenda. I find it odd that most of the problems with these articles are the titles. Perhaps “A Look at the Future of Second Life: The Positive Version” and “A Look at the Future of Second Life: The Negative Version” would have pleased people more.

I get the backlash – a few years ago I would have defended SL to the death as well. Notice how there’s a lot more comments on this post than SL is Alive. People don’t have anything to whine about if it’s alive, but how dare anyone point out its flaws.

I thanked Little Gray for their comments because they were able to understand what I meant by dead and alive instead of blowing it out of proportion as if it were literal. They’re clearly the only person who actually understood the article.

And yes, the headlines last year were that SL has driven out big business. That’s exactly what the article says – that last year that was the issue. Now they’re trying something new.

By: Grim Bracken

Grim Bracken — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:00:46 +0000

I’d like to quote the great Chuck D and say, “Don’t believe the hype!” See for yourself and make up your own mind folks. That is if anyone is reading this.

By: Hava Heart

Hava Heart — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:53:07 +0000

Correction for typo: Admittedly you were a resident from 10/2006 to 2008.

By: Hava Heart

Hava Heart — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:45:31 +0000

I’ve read this article and have been following the comments. I also own a business in Second Life going on 2 years now. I don’t believe this to be a semantics issue. Your title is not “catchy”, it’s misleading and incorrect. And to follow it up with an article called “Second Life is Alive” makes no sense and ends up being pointless. You’re already told your audience that it is dead. I find it interesting that you seem to think that Little Gray’s comments are some sort of validation for your views. When in reality they show where your ideas have gone astray.
Much of your information is true to a point, but slanted toward your own agenda. Second Life is ever evolving. Admittedly you were a resident form 10/2009 thru 2008. Since we are now closing in on the 4th quarter of 2009 your dated and skewed info is mute. You listed just enough semi-facts to seem viable. Please don’t insult your readers by trying to play this off as an expert. You’re misleading and incorrect information has done enough damage.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:12:53 +0000

Wow, it’s a semantics argument. Imagine a blogger going for a catchy headline… what’s the world coming to?

By: Grim Bracken

Grim Bracken — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:59:09 +0000

The sensationalist title of this story is obviously trying to get peoples attention. The argument that SL is dead is meaningless. Something is either dead or alive. Since we’re discussing it, it’s obviously alive. So this whole thing comes off as a weak attempt at getting attention. And the lack of true understanding of what SL is about is disturbing.

How about this headline? “Second Life is Dead to Real Life Businesses” Oh wait, those were the headlines last year…

btw It was stated that SL was dead at that time and here we are still talking about it.

By: Kristofer

Kristofer — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:13:32 +0000

Hi Grim… I have to jump in here and interrupt, maybe clarify.. what do you mean by: “This article is hype for your blog Jeff. With a headline like that it’s obvious. I see that you have monetized it.” What blog are you talking about? This one here is not Jeff’s site, he writes for us, but he doesn’t own it. Jeff has quite a bit of experience with Second Life, so I asked him to write me up a couple articles about it. If you paid attention, there’s a second part to this article that was posted early this morning, called ‘Second Life is Alive’, maybe you should check that one out…

By: Grim Bracken

Grim Bracken — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:24:04 +0000

This article is hype for your blog Jeff. With a headline like that it’s obvious. I see that you have monetized it. How much money are you making from this article?

P.S. You have no idea what you are talking about.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:00:20 +0000

Little Gray – thank you for your constructive input, and for actually reading the article before commenting. You’re spot-on.

By: Reviews from Across the Web – 03/09

Reviews from Across the Web – 03/09 — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:55:37 +0000

[...] Second Life is Dead @ [...]

By: Little Gray

Little Gray — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:46:15 +0000

I have a small business in SL and the only reason why it’s almost breaking even is that I’m a v e r y s l o w developer. Even with very little marketing, my sales have been increasing.

When I started in 2007, the average number of people online was under 20k at peak times. Now, when I log in, the average number of people online at any given time is over 60k. SL has come a long way since when the client was so shoddy you had to update the browser every couple of weeks (which is a real pain when you only want to login to sl for a few minutes every couple months. SL continues to improve.

I think what the author is talking about when he refers to ‘dead’ is a recent phenomenon affecting those seeking to use SL according to a commercial RL business paradigm. From mid 2007 to late 2008, SL attracted serious interest from Big Business. The presence of big business in SL raised a lot of expectations. But, as big business soon came to realize, SL is not a cost effective venue for retail sales of rl consumer goods. In any event, lets say for multiple reasons, as a generalization, the amount of interest from big businesses in directly operating in world presence in SL declined — compared to the levels of interest in 2007-2008.

Big business is still interested in SL on a less-direct, and more supportive level. People on the boards of multiple fortune 500 companies, see e.g. http://www.theyrule.net/, view the second life model as a way to reduce carbon emmissions. At a top business level in the U.S., SL is viewed as a model for a future carbonless economy.

Interest in SL continues to steadily grow in the educational and training areas. SL provides an unparralled training aid where geospatial positioning of people in reference to a physical environment or object is important, i.e. building evacuation planning, museum docent training, cargo handling, event planning, architectural design input, interaction and visualization of unique equipment or facilities, and where it is difficult or impracticable to bring people together in RL for training.

I’d say, SL isn’t dead … it’s more accurate to say that the prevailing use paradigm of SL has shifted from commercial retail sales and marketing to education and training.