Five Facts About Second Life the BBC Doesn't Understand

The BBC's recent magazine article, "What Happened to Second Life?", written by Lauren Hansen and edited by Jonathan Duffy, is so incandescently bad, to read it is to feel the entire institution's credibility undermined. After all, if the BBC can get one relatively simple technology story so patently, thoroughly wrong, you have to wonder: What other news items are they bunging up as badly? Some 800 words long, it boasts at least five significant errors which erode its thesis almost wholly:

1. The BBC Misreported Second Life's User Numbers

"The number of people joining the site jumped from 450,000 to four million in 2007."

Hansen offers no citation for these figures, and they're contrary to all known data. By mid-2007, the number of reported Second Life registrations were well over 6 million. However, it's unclear what Hansen means by "joining the site", and I suspect she isn't clear on the concept either. In 2007, the number of SL registrants who actually became active, returning users was closer to 500,000. (This is considerable growth from 2006, when total returning users totaled about 200,000.)

2. The BBC Misinterpreted Media Coverage Trends of Second Life

"But just as quickly as it had flared, media interest ebbed away. References plummeted by 40% in 2008 and dropped further this year."

While it's true media coverage of Second Life has fallen from its nosebleed peaks of 2007, it does not follow that media interest has "ebbed away". Take a look at Google Trends, where interest in Second Life began spiking in mid-2006, shortly after the BusinessWeek cover story, universally recognized as the start of the SL hype wave:

While there's a definite drop, there's also a definite stabilizing of attention which is far above pre-hype levels. And in fact, Second Life still gets prominent media coverage. In the last 12 months, for example, the New York Times Magazine (arguably the world's most culturally influential publication) published two features on Second Life -- on its architecture, and on its arts scene. No other virtual world receives such prominent attention.

For comparison's sake, consider SL against YoVille, the Facebook-based virtual world from current Silicon Valley darling Zynga, which now counts nearly 20 million active users:

You're reading that right: A virtual world with about 750,000 uniques is garnering far more media mentions than one 20X its size.

3. The BBC Misreported Impact of RL Marketing Campaigns in Second Life

"'You could go and open these stores and no-one would turn up,' [says Wired UK editor-at-large Ben Hammersley]. 'They would have 20 to 30 people there when it opened, and after that no-one would bother going in there again. It just wasn't worth the spend.'"

The BBC offers no explanation why marketing campaigns are the main arbiter of success, and just as bad, offers no examples of in-world RL advertising efforts which did, in fact, show promising results. (Say, the Harry Potter IMAX campaign, which was directly credited with boosting ticket sales. Or the Gossip Girl site, which attracted 38,000 monthly uniques.)

4. The BBC misrepresented Second Life's relationship to smartphones

"As more people turn to smart phones, sites need a mobile presence to stay relevant. 'Mobile is the future of any activity online. This is something that Second Life will struggle to penetrate,' says Mr Clark."

This is wrong in at least two ways. Smartphones have not changed the market usage patterns for virtual worlds and MMOs -- they are still overwhelmingly played on the PC, by about 150 million people, and there's no significant movement to transition them to the cellphone. A year after launch, the iPhone App Store does not have a single true, synchronous virtual world/MMO app among its tens of thousands of game apps.

Actually, it does have at least one: There is, well, an iPhone app for interacting in Second Life.

5. The BBC misunderstands what Second Life is even used for

"And there is a fundamental question about whether Second Life is a game or a social networking site. 'It's not a really good social space,' Mr. Hammersley says. 'Not as good as Facebook or any general online forum.''"

Framing Second Life in this way only indicates the BBC and its putative expert Hammersley aren't aware of how SL functions as an online social medium (it's neither a game or a social networking site, though draws from elements of both) and are ignorant of how it is actually used by a diverse range of sub-communities. Is Facebook a better interaction medium for, say, creating and experiencing 3D art? Or anonymously recovering from wartime traumas? Or meeting a Holocaust survivor? Or dancing to live blues music played by a grandson of slaves? Or communicating in real time with fellow employees of a NASDAQ-listed company who are spread across the world? Or planning the design of a health clinic in Nepal?

There the BBC and Hammersley are silent -- or more likely, utterly oblivious.

In the end, all that's recoverable from this BBC story is the by-now trivial observation that Second Life has high barriers to entry; but then that's not exactly news. Considering everything noted above, what does seem to be news is this: Despite those barriers, and despite the end of the hype wave, Second Life continues growing, continues receiving a significant amount of media attention, and continues attracting real world organizations.

But then, if the BBC reported that, they wouldn't be two years behind the curve -- just trailing the Wall Street Journal by several months.

Comments

[Pavig Lok]

There's nothing glaringly bad about the BBC article that we wouldn't expect out of mainstream media in general.... apart from the fact that they've made the same mistakes the rest of the mainstream media made two years late. :)

[Wolfie Rankin]

BBC did have an island in secondlife, but as far as I know, was never opened to the public... they'd apparently "chickened out".

Wolfie! @Wolfie_Rankin

[Mythridian]

You should read all comments from that article... there's one that uhm... made me laugh SO LOUD!
"It was a real pain. You have to learn how to control things and read manuals on how to get to islands and get off. Half the time you're just wandering around talking to weirdos."
Who need to read manuals to TP? Really... duh duh duh!

[Wizard Gynoid]

I, for one, would like to have a no-nonsense explanation of how many SL users there actually are. I hear a lot of gobbledeegook from all sides. Obviously, registrations isn't a valuable number. Any idiot can look through the "People" tab of the Search function and find that the vast, overwhelming majority of profile names are empty, indicating that someone may have managed to log in one time, but never ventured back. M Linden recently used the number of 250,000 active users. That sounds pretty reasonable to me. Hamlet, can you do a blog devoted to that topic?

[Tinsel Silvera]

The only virtual world I have found for the iphone is Bobba. It shows potential for those craving their vw's when away from the pc. You can get it for free at the itunes store.

BTW, whatever happened to Vollee? I had that on an earlier phone. It was laggy but it worked. And another btw, if Vollee could compress the SL software to work on a phone, why can't/hasn't LL done so? I'm sure most residents would use it when away from their pc's.

Katherine's Ajax Life also works as well as the Sparkle on the iphone from what I've read. Haven't tried it yet though.

[Crap Mariner]

Fire up the Dusansignal!

-ls/cm

[Loki]

The BBC web news is always badly written, everything is to be read with a pinch of salt.

[epredator]

I guess it must have been a slow week for them? Or it was something designed to fire us up.
I think lots of us have had to deal with this sort of challenge to what we are all doing. I still yet to have had a good reason from anyone why any of the virtual worlds are not a worth while avenue to pursue for human communication.
They will not be everything to everyone every time for every occasion. Last time I checked nothing meets that :)
Nice facts and cross referencing BTW

[Digistar]

What I find remarkable is that the article lacks proper follow-up from their own earlier publications.

On June 11, 2007, they claim it has "some seven million users"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6739857.stm

Then, on August 2, 2007, they claim it has "over 25 million users worldwide"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/southerncounties/content/articles/2007/03/14/forty_eight_second_life_feature.shtml

8,5 million residents (August 14, 2007)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/eastmidlandstoday/content/articles/2007/08/13/_brady_in_second_life.shtml

How does this weigh up to

"The number of people joining the site jumped from 450,000 to four million in 2007."????

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8367957.stm

Sloppy homework.

[skribe]

BBC radio had an island in early 2007 IIRC and BBC News had one attached to Conference Island (In This World's base) during 2008. Both were open to the public at some point but subsequently restricted.

[Baldur]

Getting your Second Life facts from the BBC is as idiotic as... well, getting your Israel facts from the BBC.

[Crap Mariner]

Baldur -

I thought they stopped using that word in favor of their editors', audience's, and sponsors' choice of "Zionist enemy."

(ducks)

-ls/cm, am ysrael chai!

[Elrik Merlin]

Excellent analysis of the article. I must say that I am a big supporter of the BBC, and as a result I find it all the more upsetting when they get it so badly wrong.

And while one could argue that this piece is no worse than the usual sensationalist mainstream coverage, the BBC can, and should, do much better. They have access to a bunch of very talented technology journalists, including some with actual in-world accounts - Bill Thompson for example - who could have done a much better job.

Failing that, I'll happily cover SL for them.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

If the BBC doesn't "get" Second Life, it's easy, satisfying, and largely accurate to blame the BBC. But is it helpful? Or is it that maybe, just maybe, Linden Labs should be spending fewer resources on punative XStreet 'reforms' and behind-the-firewall elite projects and more resources on making sure that all people (including reporters) who log in for the first time have an easy-to-learn and engaging experience that seamlessly links them into active and dynamic communities of users with shared interests?

[Skate Foss]

Where was the cheating spouses having torrid cyber sex paragraph? The Beeb loves to throw that in whenever they discuss Second Life.

[Gary Hayes]

Yes Hamlet the second life bashing by trad media tends to come in cycles and particularly on slow news days. I covered almost exactly the same inaccuracies and downright misrepresentation in one press item just over a year ago - http://www.personalizemedia.com/a-few-lives-left-for-traditional-journalism/ - I would also say part of this is the fault of Linden PR who should really be doing a lot more to sing the praises of its changes or plans for the future and invest at least some of its profits in positive PR, even try some social media marketing itself?!

[Diego]

you can turn it any way you want but they did get one thing right, SL is dying.

[Deltango Vale]

Living in London and long familiar with the BBC website, I will suggest that 1) the quality of reporting and presentation has fallen significantly over the past few years and 2) the comments section seems 'dodgy', meaning that reader comments are rarely posted and those that are posted seem to be selected internally to reflect the mood of the editor. In my opinion, the BBC is now more like "The Sun" than "The Economist". For an American audience, think "National Enquirer" instead of "The Wall Street Journal".

[White Lebed]

Lauren Hansen, the author of the article in question, is a soon-to-be graduate of the Medill School of Journalism. She is just an intern at BBC. I don't think her opinion deserves that much commotion and public outcry. The fact that BBC considered publishing a pretty sizable material about Second Life contradicts many of Lauren's thoughts anyway...

[Kitty O'Toole]

It was a shoddy article in a lot of ways, and I think I made my feelings pretty clear in the comments that were published underneath. It struck me that the article just wasn't researched or thought through properly and felt rather rushed to completion, which makes me suspicious that it was a 'filler' article. It annoyed me because there is so much to celebrate about SL and the mainstream news organisations really don't have the capacity to deal with that thought at all...I despair, I really do. I get defensive about the virtual world that I call home, and my goodness it is FULL of faults, but at the very core of Second Life remains that intrinsic vision to create a metaverse where we can explore, create and ultimately enjoy ourselves in a virtual world. despite the BBC's claims to the contrary, that is indeed to be celebrated. (On a further note, I firmly believe that the Journalistic standards of the BBC have slipped dramatically in recent years)

Kitty =^..^=

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Excellent analysis, Hamlet! :) At least it's nice to see that you bothered to look up BBC's own factoids, publish them here, and explain why they are so wrongly interpreted by Lauren Hansen,

Sure, I believe she might just be an intern at BBC, but I'm amused by Digistar's comment :) So, don't BBC journalists read their own published media? :)

Anyway, I hope that at least BBC has the courage to publish M Linden's comment.

[Hamlet Au]

Thanks!

My sense is that Jonathan Duffy is the culprit behind the story, and pushed Hansen through the editorial process. He definitely takes the main responsibility for putting the BBC's brand in the hazard like this.

[Paisley Beebe]

They go for the headline first then try to write something to justify using it. And yes its sorely time for L.L to promote us the users and we are actually doing in here that is great and extraordinary. Enterprise ect...is all well and good for dry business columns but for excitement and inspiration you can't beat the talent in SL. There must be something in SL just as exiting as cheating partners and BDSM to write about? done that move on!
Paisley

[HVX Silverstar]

Thank you, Hamlet!

I wonder who is reading the BBC's Editorial Guidelines... most obviously not the reporter nor editor of this BBC "piece"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/edguide/

"We aim to achieve accuracy by:
- the accurate gathering of material using first hand sources wherever possible.
- checking and cross checking the facts.
- validating the authenticity of documentary evidence and digital material.
- corroborating claims and allegations made by contributors wherever possible."

They should be fined for every time they neglect to use the ® symbol.

[HVX Silverstar]

So wonderful that they give the phone numbers /textphone and email addresses for complaints.

"Your complaint is important to us..."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/homepage/

Quoting from their page:
"Make a complaint
Phone: 03700 100 222*
Textphone: 03700 100 212*
Email: Send your complaint
Cymru: Cwyno
Write: BBC Complaints,
PO Box 1922
Glasgow
G2 3WT
*UK-wide rate charged at no more than 01/02 geographic numbers; calls may be recorded for training."