Why's Slashdot Wondering "Whatever Happened to Second Life" When Interest in Slashdot Is Much Smaller Than SL?

Today, Slashdot asks the question, "Whatever Happened To Second Life?", citing a fairly wrong-headed article on a relatively obscure UK computer site. (More on that later.) The comment thread from the Slashdot user community is mostly full of predictably incoherent responses that remind me of my rule-of-thumb adage, "People who say things like, 'Second Life is for people without a first life' rarely seem to have very interesting first lives themselves." And in this particular case, the pachyderm in the antechamber is this: according to Google Trends, interest in Slashdot has been significantly smaller than Second Life since 2006, and continues a slow downward slide while SL is most recently trending upward:

Of course, some may call this an invidious, apples-to-oranges comparison, since after all, Second Life is a virtual world platform, while Slashdot is a web-based online community built around user-submitted news links. Fair enough. Here's another chart:

I'm a fan of Commander Taco and the rest of Slashdot's founders, and mean this as no slam on them. Notwithstanding this recent post, I've been sad to see their site steadily lose its centrality and influence over the years. But maybe if their user community spent more time wondering, "Whatever Happened to Slashdot?", they could regain some of their mojo back. Especially if they put that discussion on Digg.

Comments

[Mitch Wagner]

Hamlet, I'm looking forward to your analysis of the original article. My own $0.02: Harsh, but fair. We've all known about the first-hour problem in SL for more than a year, well, that article demonstrated exactly what it looks like.

[Cuppycake]

Another one that is interesting is Slashdot vs. TechCrunch. Clearly Slashdot aren't what they used to be.

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/slashdot.org+techcrunch.com/

[Joel Foner]

Interesting comparison (apples to oranges, yes.) Please don't fall into the trap of playing games with statistics to make your point, though.

The first chart is labeled search volume index, or how many searches are done to that domain? What does that have to do with usage? Am I remembering right that this ignores people who directly access the site without searching? If so, that could indicate stronger brand awareness for Slashdot, and that people find it without searching more often!

In addition "SL is most recently trending upward?" I'm having trouble drawing a trend line on that chart that shows anything but flat to slightly down over the last 18 months for SL, and the recent blip on the chart is below 2008 levels.

[Mike]

I agree that Slashdot was out in left field on this one. But on the other hand, I've actually returned to reading Slashdot and have dropped Digg. Mostly because the comments on Slashdot are *better quality* than those on Digg. Yikes! (I know!)

[Hamlet Au]

"Am I remembering right that this ignores people who directly access the site without searching? If so, that could indicate stronger brand awareness for Slashdot, and that people find it without searching more often!"

But then that would also apply to SL's active users who go directly to SecondLife.com without having to Google for it.

[Eloh]

Those aren't the charts you're looking for.

I don't see how "Search Volume" for URLs is a meaningful metric for determining "size" of Slashdot versus Second Life.

A better chart would be the "Search Volume" for the terms "slashdot" versus "second life" (instead of their URLs):

http://trends.google.com/trends?q=slashdot%2C+second+life&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Or, traffic in the form of "Daily Unique Visitors" to those URLs:

http://trends.google.com/websites?q=slashdot.org%2C+secondlife.com&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

(and looking at those two charts, you'll see more people searched for "second life" than "slashdot", however more people visited slashdot.org than secondlife.com)

[Hamlet Au]

I considered using that search criterion, Eloh, but then that would also include references to "second life" as in "At Honda Oxnard, Old CRXs Get a Second Life" and whatnot. Also, I say "interest in", because I'm not making a unique visitor comparison, Slashhdot's site may be larger on that score. (But then that wouldn't necessarily include uniques using the SL client.)

[Tateru Nino]

Nevertheless, by a coincidence, I *was* wondering what happened to Slashdot today. http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/2010/01/05/whatever-happened-to-slashdot/

[Metacam Oh]

Its like comparing AIM instant messenger to the traffic of a normal web site...

Can't go by secondlife.com traffic statistics, most hard core SLers avoid secondlife.com like the plague. I sure as hell don't go to it, but I do spend hours and hours in Second Life the platform.

[cube inada]

Just reading the british article... it ends with the authors "need" for "points" and "gold medals"....

he believes he has a proper "first life" and that is the real shame.

again all just more geeks eating geeks gamez.

boring echochambers.

[Fogwoman Gray]

Slashdot commenters have been sneering at Second Life (hey look! people geekier than us) for the three years I have been inworld.
Slashdot commentary and articles consist of:
Linux Rules!!
IT Managers suck!!
Regulation sucks!!
Smoking Gun rules!!
Second Life sucks!!
Now you don't have to read it.

[Austin Welles]

No doubt a ridiculous article, and he obviously didn't get the appeal of Second Life 3 years ago and still doesn't. But it does seem to hit on something. Second Life doesn't seem the same, something has changed and i can't put a finger on it. I am one of the social players. I enjoy the fashions and others creations. I am always redoing my houses and re-terraforming my land. I spend money here, not a creator, but not as much as I used to. So without even looking at statistics I have sensed a shift on the virtual landscape.

Have the new residents become more serious? There seems to be a lack of playfulness. Have I become jaded or has there been a change? I am not sure what it is. I know I don't spend as much time in-world as i did a year ago. Was this shift really caused by moving all sex related activity to its own segregated area? Gambling ban didn't seem to effect play that much. And why is land still so expensive?

Just a few thoughts.

[Net Antwerp]

This rebuttal from Hamlet is more ridiculous and childish than Slashdot conjuring up an interesting article on Second Life. Perhaps an indication of the Quality of Second Life customers?

Not to mention Hamlet silently deleting my earlier comment about the issue... For shame.

[paypabak]

Trolling to get readers is a way to remedy the trends Slashdot seems to be heading ... "Let's say something negative and get a bunch of SLers to read us!" Didn't work with this reader!

[Adric Antfarm]

A hell of a lot more users have been trolled via knee jerk defenses of Second Life than mindless attacks on it (by far).

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Attack trolls baiting the fanbois is a stock feature of game/VW boards. That certain trolls are trying to pass themselves off as qualified commentators should come as no surprise in a world that contains Rupert Murdoch.

[Hamlet Au]

Net Antwerp, the reason I deleted your previous comment had nothing to do with your opinion, and everything to do with your lack of civility. (Unlike Slashdot, I have to apply karma manually.) Check the Comment guidelines in the About page. Failing that, the whole wide Internet is available for your opinion.

[Doubledown Tandinota]

Wow, some journalists are just complete utter morons.

What are they expecting? You log into a vast giant universe, and there's nothing but crowds and crowds of people EVERYWHERE to the point that there's nothing but a see of avatar heads?

75,000 users.... In a realm bigger than some small countries.

It's people! It's life! If they want to see people and that's the purpose, just go to a lame popular picks spot in search, and bam, there's that crowd they're looking for... but that's not quality. that's quantity. that noooob quantity.

Ok, I just took a peek out my real life window. I live in a city with 40,000 residents, and over 300,000 tourists. I don't see anyone outside on my block.... that doesn't lead me to conclude no one exists.

Anyhoo... once again, an outsider tries to take on a topic they cannot grasp, meanwhile, qualified journalists actually IN WORLD like Hamlet are here to relay CORRECT information.

It becomes annoying that media techies and journalists that aren't involved in Second Life try to write a story by popping in, and after an hour they think they have a quality story.
Whatever happened to the days of interviews and asking reputable sources to get accurate info?
Nowadays as journalists see their "tech guru media" status dwindling, they're grasping to write anything they can to get a story out of it.

It's a shame though, because when someone outside of SL writes a grossly false article about Second Life, there's 75,000 people there to comment the hell out of their BS.

[Crap Mariner]

Pffft. Slashdot is what you'd get if you cloned Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons and...

Ugh. Now I think I'm going to be sick.

-ls/cm

[Rodion Resistance]

A bit OT but I remember how Valleywag used to bash SL like it was its own crazy coffee-break punching bag, with similar "Whatever Happened to Second Life?" type of stories, and worse. Now it feels kinda good to state "Whatever happened to Valleywag?" tee hee

-RODION

[R]

There's a selection bias there - the slashdot demographic is far more likely to have the site bookmarked or have memorised the site's URL than most others, so the google trends data is misleading. The fact that the slashdot effect still exists should tell you that the site is still going strong.

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