What Will Second Life's Next "Electing Obama" Moment Be?

Image credits: From Barack Obama's Flickr stream and "Immortal City" in SL from Liquer Felix's Koinup profile

After the controversy over Linden Lab's handling of Openspaces provoked Resident threats to abandon Second Life for another world, I suggested a real world analogy.  "'I’m moving to OpenSim!',"  I wrote at the end of October, "has already become the metaverse version of the 'I’m moving to Canada!' threat we hear every U.S. Presidential election."

Days later, the actual U.S. Presidential election occurred, but this time, no American was talking about quitting their country for Canada.  Even many McCain/Palin supporters hailed Barack Obama's election as a transformational, epoch-making moment.  Outside the US, the enthusiasm was almost as intense, if not more so. (A Canadian friend told me the election made her want to apply for US citizenship.)

So far as Second Life goes, at least, "moving to Canada" is an outdated analogy.  How about a more contemporary one, which helps better express where the world is now?  Try this: 

"Electing Obama": Epochal news about an organization or community which utterly remakes and revitalizes its image with outsiders, while restoring optimism and loyalty among its members.

You know you're in the middle of an "Electing Obama" moment when people say things like, "I never thought this was possible" and "This changes everything."  Second Life has had two such moments, but relative to its history, the last one was quite awhile ago.  Which in my view goes a long way to explain the intensity of anger over the Openspaces affair.

The first "Electing Obama" moment for Second Life was in late 2003, early 2004: that's when Linden Lab announced that Residents would retain the intellectual property rights to their SL content, own virtual land, and exchange Linden Dollars for cash.  Up until then, SL was largely seen by outsiders as an odd variation on The Sims Online or another virtual world.  The announcement immediately transformed that perception among the journalists and academics who followed it closely; now it provoked some of the most fascinating, cutting edge questions about the Internet.  At the same time, the news instilled an almost patriotic zeal and desire to innovate among Residents.

The second "Electing Obama" moment was Spring of 2006, with the cover story on BusinessWeek, and other prominent articles.  They created a broader awareness of SL as a concept, and the economic within it, which in turn inspired a growing (if over-hasty) sense that it represented the next generation of the Internet.

Two years have passed, and since then, the most prominent news has been largely negative, or at best ambivalent.  Real world advertisers grow dissatisfied with their SL marketing attempts, and largely give up.  Growth in active users plateaus for over a year (and counting.)  The founding CTO is fired.  Months later, the founding CEO who fired him leaves his own position.   A new CEO takes over and shows promise, but as yet, remains unproven.

Of course there's been many instances of good news throughout that period, but nothing that's lead to a general, sustained, mainstream re-evaluation of Second Life's fundamental promise.  Instead, the world remains a quirky outlier, something that most people have vaguely heard about, but aren't convinced is relevant to their lives.  Ironically, the Second Life community continues to innovate in amazing ways, but all that brilliance is largely unseen from the outside. 

This is the background leading up to the Openspace price hike announcement, and the intensely negative reaction was not simply over money.  Instead, it resembled what another US President called "malaise":

It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.

This I think is where we are now, more or less.  And my sense is that it will take another "Electing Obama" moment to push the community past it.

Question is, what would that be?  I can think of several possibilities:

- Second Life's monthly active user base grows past a million, and keeps growing at a sharp trajectory.

- Full and seamless interoperability with Second Life and OpenSim (including virtual assets and currency) is implemented.

- An SL-based "killer app" with real world utility is identified and popularized, inspiring tremendous activity and third party investment in it.

Perhaps there are others, but I'd say these are the most likely.  Trouble is, all three seem at least a year away, if not longer, if not ever.  (Some might argue that enterprise applications are a killer app, but I'm not yet convinced.)

Come to think of it, I can think of another "Electing Obama" moment that would change things: President Obama himself opens an official office in Second Life, and hires a member of his Administration to create an avatar to staff it.

Comments

[CyFishy Traveler]

Not so sure about the Business Week article being an Electing Obama moment. Maybe more of an Electing Reagan moment--ushering in a new era of blind greed that turned out to be unsustainable and that we're still recovering from.

[Harper Ganesvoort]

Not so sure about the Business Week article being an Electing Obama moment. Maybe more of an Electing Reagan moment--ushering in a new era of blind greed that turned out to be unsustainable and that we're still recovering from.

I agree to a certain extent; but isn't this more of a case of we simply ignore the marketroids? I don't see that kind of Eighties "Greed is good" mentality going on, except perhaps among the more unscrupulous land barons and similar. The big companies coming in and opening islands simply found out that they don't have a captive audience, unless they create active events that engage Residents and inspire us to jump to the venue and participate. They're starting to get the picture now on that; witness Coca-Cola's recent moves.

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As for the Obama Administration creating an Office of the Avatar and having someone "working" there, I have to giggle at the possibilities that might come down the pike for what that avatar might look like? Would they "hire" a purple dragon with pink wings? Ruth? Maybe Richard Nixon (grin)! It's not a bad idea, though, in that they could experiment with regular office hours a few times a week, and see who/what shows up and what interactions take place -- Q/A, looking for info on government programs, discussion of planned policy, whatever else takes your fancy?

[Jovin]

Uhm, what if we have a McCain moment instead?

What if Linden's current delusional obsession with Enterprise fails miserably (for me that's 'when' and not 'if') and they suddenly realise the people (they're currently ignoring) that were making SL profitable have left and ain't coming back?

I like your optimism but we have to consider that we, under the present leadership, may be the losing team and not the winning one.

[Doubledown Tandino]

When outside-of-sl grids develop an economy will be the next big "this changes everything" moment.

[Ananda Sandgrain]

I agree with CyFishy. Maybe the perspective is different for people who hadn't (and probably still don't) have experience in SL? Or does your "I didn't believe this was possible" apply to moments where cynicism, hype and greed triumph as well?

[Charles2 McCaw]

Whoaaa! It took the US over 230 years to reach the Obama moment, not counting the centuries before that when slavery was legal in the colonies. Now, even discounting for the fact that events seem to occur at a faster velocity in SL, we've still come a long way in a very short time. The good thing about a period of slower, steadier growth is that there is no bubble to burst.

That said, my personal "change agenda" is the "full and and seamless interoperability" of SL, OpenSim and other platforms! This is the only path to having VR emerge as Web 3.0

But in the meantime, while we're on the plateau, keep on keeping us informed WJA!