New World Notes

The Problem With Marketing Second Life. And the Solution Soon Before Us.

Originally published on my Patreon

“Second Life’s reach was [once] like the Beatles,” Philip Rosedale mentioned last week during a media/influencer call, referring to their comparative rankings on Google Trends. 

That seemed like an exaggeration when he said it, but if you look this up, you'll see that it’s quite the case -- see above.

In August 2007, Second Life (“Online game”) was indeed not too far away in ranking on Google Trends from the Beatles (“Rock band”). 

Yes: At its peak of media attention, our little virtual world inspired nearly as much interest as a legendary music group that’s known and generally liked by roughly every human adult across Europe, North America, and much of the wider world.  

“Guess how much we paid for that?” Philip asked the group of SLers on the Zoom call.

I covered this apex in Second Life’s peak of human interest in my book, and saw the answer first hand.

Very little was being spent by Linden Lab on marketing Second Life back then, actually. There were a few small ad campaigns on some game sites, the very indirect promotion of my embedded reporting blog posts as a part-time Linden contractor, and other modest marketing efforts.

Despite that scant spend, staff at Linden Lab were begging its own marketing/PR department to stop promoting the virtual world at all. Because by then, the sheer deluge of new user signs-ups by the millions was causing performance and scaling issues:  

Major press coverage of Second Life, often by tech reporters who were fans of Snow Crash themselves, began to take on gathering momentum into 2006, culminating in a feature story on the cover of BusinessWeek. Which only catapulted into even further coverage. Strikingly, most of this overwhelmingly positive media attention was organic, generated by reporters and media outlets themselves. 

"It was kind of terrifying,” Catherine Smith, head of Linden Lab communications back then, recalls now. “I remember [a Linden Lab engineer] saying to me one time, 'Can you just please make the PR stop? And I'm like, ‘Sorry, that train has left the station. I'm not pitching this anymore. They're all coming to us.’" 

As Philip explains now: “You couldn't buy that reach. There was collective human interest that drove that. We can't hit the replay button on that with marketing dollars because we didn't do that before... traditional marketing approaches are ineffective." In terms of equivalent eyeballs reached via magazine cover articles, news broadcast segments, TV appearances on The Office and much more, the earned media Second Life attracted back then would easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars now.

His point was in a response to an SLer question that often comes up within the Second Life user community: Where are the marketing campaigns to bring in new users? 

In response, Linden Lab head Brad Oberwager said there is a new marketing campaign starting slowly now:

Cajsa's Choices: Beautifully Composed, Story-Rich SL Imagery by Dopamine

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Dopamine is a lovely little chemical that makes us happy. You could call it a neuromotivator if that were a word. 

Dopamine is also a woman who tells the most wonderful stories with her photos and perhaps motivates others with her skill as a storytelling photographer. This is a familiar scene for those in snowy climes though my dad taught me to never push from right behind the wheel because the moment the wheel gets traction, that poor guy is going to get piles of snow in his face. 

For more of Dopamine’s stories, click here:

BREAKING: SL App Now Installed on Over 100,000 iOS/Android Devices!

Here's a mini-milestone for this month: Second Life's mobile app has likely been downloaded on well over 100,000 devices.

We know that because the Google Play download counter recently passed the 50K+ Downloads mark, for the Android version of the app, and it's safe to assume the iOS Apple version has been downloaded at least that much, but likely much more. (I'd estimate the iOS/Android ratio among Second Life users to be 60/40 or even 70/30.) Also, leading analytics service SimilarWeb counts total Second Life app downloads as over 155,000 downloads as of the end of November.

So that's something! To put this in perspective, Second Life currently gets about 200,000 Daily Active Users and 500,000 Monthly Active Users. So it's a good estimate that 1 in 3 SLers have installed the app at this point.

 Of course "installs" are not the same as usage, and Linden Lab head Brad Oberwager recently explained the company is actually tracking other metrics more closely:

 

Meet Melba: Earth-Sized, Uncharted AI-Generated Virtual World from PLAYERUNKNOWN You Can Explore Right Now

Brendan "PLAYERUNKNOWN" Greene wasn't satisfied with lead developing PUBG where you fight other players in a small landscape, so he put together a team to create an entire virtual world engine dubbed "Melba" you can check out right now:

Preface: Undiscovered World is an immersive tech demo showcasing Melba, PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions' groundbreaking technology generating Earth-scale world. In this project still in development, see the power of machine learning creating a planet in real-time, generated directly on your GPU.

More info and download link here. The ultimate goal with Melba, as you may have guessed, is an entire earth-sized open world MMO experience:

Cajsa's Choices: Utterly Stunning Second Life Screenshots by Heloise

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Heloise’s “Earth to Sebastian” is a beautifully romantic picture. I love how the light gently traces their features, leaving most of the scene in shadow. She took extraordinary care with the pose. Look at her left hand grasping his tie. Her hand is shadowed, so she could have just let us assume the pose was perfect, but instead she made sure the pose was perfect. Even more striking, look at his cheek, the way the muscles in his face are flexed for the kiss. She pays attention to the smallest details and her skill with lighting is a hallmark of her work. 

For more examples of Heloise’s painterly lighting, click here:

Second Life Mobile App Roadmap: Upcoming Features & Marketing Strategy Revealed

Originally published on my Patreon

Last Friday, Linden Lab's mobile development team led by CTO Philip Rosedale and company head Brad Oberwager shared upcoming features to Second Life's mobile app -- and the long-term strategy which drives it. Pluto Linden, lead UI/UX designer on the mobile project, unveiled the top line updates.

Coming this month (December 2024):

Create new accounts in the mobile app using the existing the web flow. "We're trying to break down barriers of people coming in-world," explains Pluto.

Push notifications for select groups. Linden Lab believes this will be "vital" for engaging SLers around in-world activity from their phones.

Persistent chat conversations and IMs on your device (see above). "If you come in [on mobile] today and come back tomorrow," Pluto explains, "that conversation will still be there... [This should] induce people to stay and remind them of the vibrancy of the experience."

Planned for first quarter of 2025:

• Address bar to enable sharing SLurls and creating landmarks.

• maps.secondlife.com will work on the mobile browser.

• Shipping a first version of a communications lobby (above). While the world loads, users will have the option of starting in a lobby where their various messages are waiting for them. ("We'll put the communication aspect front and center.") This is also intended to make the Second Life mobile app relevant for people who have mid-tier/lower-end smartphones who can't fully display the virtual world view.

Coming early Q2 2025 (see image below):

• Quicker and better access to chat.

• Item-level avatar editing.

• Tap-based object interaction. 

"We're a small dedicated team just plugging away on this," Pluto notes, saying that the app's foundation was laid out in 2024. "The real exciting stuff is coming 2025."

And yes, they know many rigged mesh-based avatars aren't fully displaying on mobile. Fixes, said product head Grumpity Linden, are "coming soon".

Linden Lab's Mobile Marketing Strategy

If you're wondering why you haven't seen ads for the mobile app, it's because Linden Lab isn't targeting general consumers yet.

"The mobile app was not designed for new users where I spend a million dollars to bring [them in]," as Oberwager put it. "We built the mobile app for current residents... we're not putting marketing dollars to bring in new people."

Under their strategy, they even expect mobile users may create an alt account for mobile, yet continue using the desktop client:

 

VRChat & Second Life Players Compare & Contrast Platforms on Bluesky

I'm very perplexed as to why Second Life is still a fairly actively plated game, like why stay there and not jump on VRChat?

— Bree (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️ (@barnkatbree.bsky.social) December 9, 2024 at 10:46 AM

In another sign of virtual world communities shifting toward Bluesky, here's an informative and refreshingly non-dickish conversation between VRChat and Second Life players, comparing and contrasting these platforms.

Why aren't many SLers jumping into VRChat? The consensus gist: Because VRChat is teeming with kids and many SLers don't want / can't afford / aren't interested in wearing a VR headset. (When I interviewed the founders for my book, I was surprised to learn 70% of active VRChat users use HMDS!)

Of course it doesn't have to be an either/or scenario: Each platform has its strengths and shortcomings, and hopefully we see more cross-pollination between both communities, at least on Bluesky.

Cajsa's Choices: Tori Slayer's Haunting Second Life Imagery Excites Me

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Tori Slayer is an exciting discovery whom I found following people’s Flickr favorites and she’s wonderful. I just love her art. This is such a haunting picture. There is this couple embracing. It is deceptively simple, but her bodysuit of lace changes as you go upward and covers her face completely. Is it metaphorical? Perhaps even more powerful is the light to their right. It looks almost ghostlike with arms and a shadow going down the back. It’s curved like someone in mourning and it’s a shadow alone. A ghost shadow? I don’t know. I just know it matters. 

A picture that makes me stop and try to decipher its meaning is a picture that I fall in love with. I know I could be totally off base, but we all see what we see. Of course, whether the intention of the artist or the interpretation of the viewer is the most important is a long-running philosophical debate. 

For more compelling images, click here:

Sannyのおすすめバーチャルワールドニュース : 2024年11月 Sanny Reports For Virtual Japan

Sanny Yoshikawa が、New World Notesのなかから、毎月おすすめのバーチャルワールドニュースを日本語で紹介します

Sanny Yoshikawa covers the monthly virtual world highlights from New World Notes for virtual Japan.

 

 

SL's First-Time Experience Needs Both Bots and the Human Touch.

The reader conversation around creating an AI-driven experience that improves Second Life new user retention continues. Just please, writes, Zane Zimer, no SL bot like Clippy, the intrusive, unhelpful "assistant":

Microsoft's Clippy is still a point of jest, all these years later. A 'character' is not the answer. Simple, intuitive, perhaps even guided, viewer help is a good idea. I would argue simplification of some of the innate SL complexity would go a long way to that first experience though. Heads/bodies (and other parts) are a disjointed mess. AOs, vehicles, needing to learn to 'build' to basically change your look. At the end of the day though, if there isn't anything to keep them in SL...it doesn't matter how good that first experience is.

Najeda makes the very good point that we definitely don't want to eliminate the human factor in the first-time experience, noting "I was helped when I joined and, in turn, I gladly helped other people who joined later."

Then goes on:

Top 6 Posts Featuring SL Mobile Updates, VRChat's Rising Growth, and the Coming Clash Between Metaverse Platforms vs. Apple/Google

• Second Life Mobile Updates Coming Soon (on my Patreon)
• VRChat's Solution to the Social Problem of Poorly Optimized Avatars
• Cajsa's Choices: Six Favorite Scenes of Celebrating Winter in Second Life
• Roblox Joins Epic in Fight Against the App Stores. Will Other Metaverse Platforms Join Them?
• VRChat Peak Usage Trending Toward New Record (150K+) This New Year
• Here's How AI Bots Could Help Improve Second Life's New User Experience

Second Life Mobile Updates: New Account Creation, Group Push Notification & Persistent Chat/IMs Coming This Month; Address Bar, Landmarks/SLurls, Communication Lobby Expected Q1 2025

New on my Patreon: Get a sneak peek of upcoming features to Second Life's mobile app -- and the long-term marketing strategy which drives it. For instance:

"The mobile app was not designed for new users where I spend a million dollars to bring [them in]," as [Linden head Brad] Oberwager put it. "We built the mobile app for current residents... we're not putting marketing dollars to bring in new people." Under their strategy, they even expect mobile users may create an alt account for mobile, yet continue using the desktop client.

Join for free to read it all here.

VRChat's Solution to the Social Problem of Poorly Optimized Avatars

Recently saw a Reddit rant about a VRChat avatar with a hilariously ridiculous number of triangles (above), and had to laugh in recognition at the title: "Friends joining with these half a million polygon avies are literally ruining the experience (not only for me)! This is outrageously stupid and unnecessary!"

Maybe unnecessary, but also inevitable, on metaverse platforms: When you give novice grassroots creators UGC tools for enhancing their avatars, many will add so many enhancements, they often end up making avies with quite a lot of polygon junk in their trunk. 

This also has been a challenge in Second Life for many years. Many of the top-selling mesh bodies in SL are extremely resource heavy, and tend to degrade performance of everyone around them, including the users wearing these bodies. (They're so resource heavy, a former Linden Lab engineer once compared them to a local DDOS attack!) Some SL shopping events have even taken to setting up a "viewing sim" near the actual kiosks, so shoppers can view the wares at a safe, less laggy distance. 

As for VRChat, there's some guidance in place which makes this less of a social problem:

Cajsa's Choices: Six Favorite Scenes of Celebrating Winter in Second Life

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

With this unseasonably warm winter, back in my hometown they are measuring how thick the ice is trying to determine if it’s safe to put their ice houses out on the lake. (See photo at the end of this post!) That made me think how lucky we are in Second Life where the ice is always thick enough, even in July.

Angelus van Engelen captures some of the delight of an ice-covered canal where folks gather just as in a city park, to enjoy the frost in the air and under their feet. There were generally 300 or more houses on our lake, though since there were multiple islands and coves you only saw about a quarter of them at a time. If you want to go to the canal and skate, here is a ticket. [Teleport link here: Canal City]

For more icy adventures, click here:

Virtual Worlds Museum Updates: Award Nomination, Spatial Video Tour, and Upcoming Crowdfunder Details!

It's been a few months since we checked in on the Virtual Worlds Museum™, the largest online info/community resource for virtual worlds, past and present -- so I just had a chat with founder/CEO Julian Reyes, to get the latest updates. Turns out, there's quite a lot! For one, it's now officially trademarked (a milestone in itself), and the project just earned its first contest recognition:

The Museum is a finalist for the prestigious AUREA Award, hosted by Germany's Europa-Park, one of the biggest theme parks in Europe. (Replete with a roller coaster ride integrated with VR headsets.)

"I'm thrilled to be nominated along with some other innovative projects alongside XR community friends," Julian tells me. "I'm looking forward to presenting our project January 22nd at Europa Park in Germany. A big shout-out to our team for helping us create our first exhibit which is one of six." (The one that's nominated is hosted in Arrival.Space, with the next exhibit expected to launch in Meta's Horizon Worlds next month.) Fellow AUREA finalists, by the way, include GroKit Core by 3lbXR, pioneering ways to build in VR, and Blockade Labs, innovating AI prompt-based VR experiences.

The Museum also expanded its Spotlight Videos tour page, with the latest video (above) featuring In Kenzo and AI archivist SEHU teleporting into Spatial, a new-ish web based virtual world:

Cajsa's Choices: Dramatic SL Landscapes to Visit as Photographed by Tamarind Silverfall

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Tamarind Silverfall sure knows how to focus our eyes. There is a path leading our eyes into the fairy cave and if that were not enough, the bright frost-covered roses and the bright butterfly frame the cave and keep our focus on it. It’s a beautifully composed picture. 

For more of Tamarind’s lovely pictures, click here:

Roblox Joins Epic in Fight Against the App Stores. Will Other Metaverse Platforms Join Them?

In case you missed it over the Thanksgiving holiday rush last week, Roblox is now actively promoting sales of its virtual currency Robux via its website as opposed to making the same purchase on mobile or console.

This is highly significant, because up until recently, companies like Apple and Google would delist Roblox for doing something like this, since it deprives their app stores of the usual 30% in-app purchase cut. But with a court ruling against Google in favor of Epic last October, Roblox is joining Epic in what's effectively a game of chicken against the major platform publishers. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney is ebullient at this, of course, praising Roblox for "finally fighting the Apple tax".

So now Epic's Fortnite and Roblox, the world's most popular metaverse platforms, are openly challenging the major app publishers. How will the largest, Apple, react?

"I think Apple has been browbeaten into this position by regulators," a veteran virtual world exec tells me. "There's a lot of attention on Apple at the moment looking at whether they're anticompetitive or not. A few years ago, this would be a fast track to having your app updates denied -- or worse, be removed from the store. Today, Apple is allowing it; but I would surmise they're not happy about it."

One way of making this move a fait accompli is if the other metaverse platforms in the app stores follow suit -- specifically, Rec Room, ZEPETTO, VRChat, IMVU... and, of course, Second Life. Should they join forces with Roblox and Fortnite?

VRChat Peak Usage Trending Toward New Record (150K+) This New Year

Via the VRChat metrics site and a highly helpful VRC source, here's the latest concurrency trends for our favorite next gen metaverse platform. If you click to embiggenate, you'll see that peak concurrency has been trending toward 120,000 in recent weeks, hitting just shy of that over the Thanksgiving weekend holiday.

That's decent growth from last New Year's Eve -- that holiday is typically the platform's biggest day, usage wise -- when it reached the 100,000 CCU milestone. (105,991, to be exact.) This concurrency has been steadily, slowly creeping up every weekend, with most of the usage from Quest users.

Given these trends, I think there's a pretty decent chance VRChat reaches another milestone soon: 150,000 CCU for this New Year's Eve.

Because historically there's been a spike of user growth every holiday season:

 

Cajsa's Choices: Isla Nebula Creates & Photographs Magnificently Composed SL Landscapes

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Isla Nebula is a marvelous landscape photographer who has been sharing her art on Flickr for four years and I failed to discover her before today. I am remiss! 

Speaking of which, here’s a tip on how I find new SL artists on Flickr to cover: By searching for a word and “secondlife.” Today the word was “winter” and look what came up (above)! This is a magnificently retro scene with the wood-panelled station wagon carrying a tree from the Christmas Tree farm. That looks like an old-fashioned VW bug as well. I love how she used the trees and bushes to foreground the picture and the story it tells. If Currier & Ives were alive today, they would be taking pictures like this in Second Life. 

For more of Isla’s landscapes , click here:

Here's How AI Bots Could Help Improve Second Life's New User Experience (Comment of the Week)

In our latest post about improving Second Life's first-time user experience, longtime reader/retired tech exec Luther Weymann details how AI might help with that:

AI bots are assigned to each new user. Read the IP address; if the new user is using it for the first time, they cannot disconnect the AI bot until it finishes. If the IP is a repeat user, allow disconnect.

The AI bot takes the new user through most processes, including how to rez, change clothes in a sandbox, tour important SL sites, and click a dance ball and dance. How to Add or Wear, how voice and text work, just a great list of things to know.

It takes 30 minutes, maybe longer if it's fun, entertaining, and you're getting a great intro to SL.

He contrast that with the current first-time user experience, which involves reading many in-world signs:

Reading signs on a walkway has never worked. I've tried for 16 years to help Day 1 people. Almost none of them know how to rez, that free clothes are on the SL Market, what a rez zone or sandbox is, how to change clothes, or what a dance ball is where you can join a group dancing.

You guys at SL have to overcome this. Lead them by the hand and see if concurrency increases.

This all sounds right. I think the key thing is differentiating the AI bot from a human-controlled avatar. I would actually recommend making the bot part of the viewer, a disembodied voice which can also enable relevant controls in the user experience to light up, when giving tutorials.

I've even recommend making the bot a character in a Second Life world narrative.

For an idea of what I mean, check out this first-time experience from Scavengers,  a recent multiplayer game with a lead designer who once worked at Linden Lab: 

Top 4 Posts Including a New Coffee Table Book on Second Life & Other Virtual World Gift Ideas

• Now Available: Second Life's First Illustrated Coffee Table Book!
• Can AI Review Second Life Images Better Than Cajsa? To Find Out, We Got Claude to Describe the Images She Selected Here!
• Give the Gift of New World Notes! Send Someone Special a Patreon Membership or an Autograph Plate
• Give New SL Users Their Own Private Second Life Instance or Noob Continent

Now Available: Second Life's First Illustrated Coffee Table Book!

SECOND LIFE: The First, Best Metaverse in Words and Pictures is a new book from metaverse media partner Hari Sutherland, a professional author IRL with several published books, both fiction and nonfiction. His new book, as the title suggests, is devoted to Second Life, and I’m thrilled to recommend it, both for longtime SL veterans and the uninitiated wondering why this unique and quirky virtual world has thrived for so long.

It's also the very first paper and ink coffee table book fully focused on Second Life -- that I can recall, at least! -- and it’s sumptuously illustrated and narrated by Hari. A beautiful tribute to the virtual world, both the platform and the global community who've come together to build it, it also features moving stories of the many people who've transform themselves for the better through their avatars.

"As is often the case, a number of things — thoughts, ideas — collided," Hari tells me, explaining the source of its inspiration. "Serendipity, really, or perhaps an honest-to-goodness zeitgeist. A lot of exciting things seem to be happening around Second Life right now."

More below, including a look at the hardcopy:

Join My Patreon for Special Holiday Offer from Aardvark: Get 55% Off All SL Mainstore Items Until December 3!

Join my Patreon for free for some fun holiday shopping specials! Starting with a Patreon-only special from Aardvark, home of hilariously charming SL items like his legendary rideable unicorn balloon and mini-pig unicorn (pictured, adorably).

55% off all items in the Aardvark mainstore until December 3.

Sign up and go here for the details, and stay tuned for other shopping Patreon specials.

And don't forget you can also gift people subscription to my Patreon: Go here to do that (please)!

Can AI Review Second Life Images Better Than Cajsa? To Find Out, We Got Claude to Describe the Images She Selected Here!

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Pan Aeon is a wonderful storyteller with his pictures. I interviewed him back in 2018 and, oddly enough, that article began with a motorcycle, too. I thought revisiting his work might be a fun chance to try out AI writing. 

So as an experiment, I gave Claude the text of that 2018 interview and described Pan’s pictures to Claude. (The LLM does not access links or pictures, so it relies on my description.)

Let’s see what Claude has to say about this picture:

In Pan's evocative photograph "Badlands", we witness a profound meditation on movement, solitude, and the liminal spaces between reality and imagination. The image captures a moment of existential freedom - a lone rider against a sepia-toned landscape, where the motorcycle becomes both a vehicle of physical transportation and metaphorical transformation.

The duotone palette speaks to a deliberate artistic choice, stripping away chromatic distractions to focus on texture, light, and emotional resonance. The sun's harsh glare over the rider's shoulder creates a stark contrast, symbolizing both illumination and potential blinding - a visual metaphor for the complex journey of self-discovery through digital landscapes.

This photograph emerges as another example of Pan's philosophy of allowing images to "evolve unto themselves" - a spontaneous capture that transcends mere documentation to become a nuanced exploration of identity and transition. The cityscape in the background suggests the tension between structured urban existence and the wild, uncharted territories of personal exploration.

Wow, profound. For more from Pan (and Claude), click here:

Give the Gift of New World Notes! Send Someone Special a Patreon Membership or My Book Autographed

You can now send someone a membership to my Patreon as a gift here. If you enjoy reading New World Worlds, I hope you consider sharing and supporting it over the holidays -- plus get quality early/exclusive content via the Patreon app, plus other benefits!

I'm also giving away my autograph plate to anyone who buys a copy of Making of Second Life or Making a Metaverse That Matters. I'll even write a special (short!) dedication message to you or a special someone.

Here's how: