Second Life Entertainment Market is Saturated but Live Music Audience Still Underserved, Report Suggests

Top 20 favorite activities in Second Life according to Market Truths study

Market Truths, a research firm that does reports on the Second Life economy, recently published an illuminating survey of SL's entertainment market, based on activity from Q2 2010. Drawn from interviews of nearly 600 Residents, it quantifies their preference of in-world leisure activities. Above are the top 20 favorite entertainment options, with Shopping, Traveling, Dancing, DJ Listening and Conversing with friends the very most popular, done 11x or more over the last year by over 50% of respondents. Research director Dr. Mary Ellen Gordon (PhD) shared a copy of the full report (which you can buy here) a few months ago, and it's rife with useful information nuggets, especially if you're an SL landowner. Here's Dr. Gordon's three main takeaways:

The Second Life Entertainment Market Seems Saturated

"Half of the people we surveyed spend at least 90% of their SL time on entertainment and total time spent in SL has declined a little since 2008, while time spent on other forms of online entertainment has increased a little since 2008. It’s also interesting that those who have been in SL the longest are spending the least time in SL -– which also suggests a drift of early adopters toward other forms of online entertainment." [Emph. mine]

Two more takeaways after the break:

Residents Real and Second Life Entertainment Interests Tend to Align

"[I]n most cases were there no (financial, geographical, time, etc.) constraints, people would prefer to pursue their entertainment interests in RL rather than in SL. Content creation has been an exception throughout the time we’ve been doing this survey (going back to 2007) and also a form of entertainment people say they would like to participate in (in SL) but believe they lack the skills. In this year’s results, even the preference for doing content creation in SL (as opposed to RL) has weakened. It makes me wonder if not enough emphasis is being given to the content creation capabilities of SL and to the various forms of assistance available for learning content creation skills." [Emph. mine]

Live Music in Second Life Still an Underserved Market

"Listening to live music is an area that fits that overall pattern of people preferring to do it in real life, but RL exposure to live music has dipped since 2008 nonetheless. One of the main reasons given for not listening to live music in RL is the cost, so it appears that the drop in (RL) live music listening may be related to the less than great economy. That could create an opportunity for musicians in SL to build their audiences, but doing that seems to require better methods for finding people whose music you like performing at times that are convenient for you than are currently available." [Again, emphasis mine]

Get the full report here. Dr. Gordon also led research on a Market Truths report of Second Life fashion consumption that I blogged here.

Comments

[Guitarhero Dougall]

Wagner this brings up a few points about live music venues in SL. There are not enough of them willing to hire/have live music regularly. The problem also comes down to musicians being willing to play for tips only. They think they are special musicians and should be paid only in vast sums of lindens. While I do agree its nice to be paid for our services. I will play as much as I can and often for free. Yet I make a bunch of lindens in tips and often much more than I would make in payments by the venues owners. The problem is two-fold. Venues not booking enough shows, and musicians wanting too much from venue owners in terms of payment and audience attendance. In real life audience attendace is considered the sole responsibility of the performers where in Second Life the tables have been turned by the musicians into the responsibilities of the venue owners. I feel that Linden Labs should have multiple public venues where we can play and put out our tip jars so we can busk properly. I was partial owner of a venue that supported live music by allowing them to use our stage as a stage in the local park would be used ... come in and post events on your own and play on your own and collect your own tips. We had some venue tip jars out and were amongst the first to have these venue tip jars. We were also the first to have two stages to better accomodate the amount of musicians wanting to play. We quickly became the most popular music venue in SL (within 2 months) We ended up closing down our venue due to management disagreements but every venue since has stolen most of our business model except the most important one. Letting musicians come and go as they please. This was crucial to our success in that musicians could perform on their own terms at their convenience. They were responsible for their own audiences and also for their own promotions. It worked so well for us that at some points we would have live music for 72 hours straight without any intervention from us. Venue owners always want to micromanage everything because they are in charge of something. They cannot fathom letting musicians be in charge of themselves. One interesting point about our business model is that often times musicians would come to us demanding large sums of lindens to have them play there and sometimes before even introducing themselves. Our venue was not about that. If you as a musician were smart enough to join our group as a musician and figure out how to post an event and create a group notice then you could play. Musicians managers often approached us about getting a show at our place for their managerie of performers. We told them the same things. The SL music scene is being micromanaged to death by its various constituents and its a shame. Being one of the first performers in SL we broke a lot of ground and busted open a lot of doors for musicians and since I have left the scene a lot of those doors have been slammed closed again. These musicians that want 5 or 10k lindens for a performance are a large part of the problem. Venues that hire them at these rates often take a large hit monetarily though they prosper in traffic and search rankings. The state of affairs in the SL music industry is in a sad shape. We have DJs calling themselves live performers to draw a crowd and we have karoke singers galore trying to make a name for themselves diluting the market as well. I understand that there are legitimate singers out there with no other recourse than to sing karoke (because they cannot play an instrument) and they are getting lost in the huge crowd of true karoke singers. Occasionally I host an open mic event and I try my damnedest to obtain real musicians or singers of original material to support their markets but this is a feat in itself given the vast number of karoke singers out there.

[Ann Otoole InSL]

That was Q2 2010. Right when LL dumped the defective GSA on SL and then did not repair it for 2-3 months. Would be interesting to see what the same data collection turns up now. Q2 was also when LL began heavily interfering with resident choice and interest in SL began to wane since nobody wants LL making their decisions for them. So yes a fresh survey would be very interesting.

Good article.

[Little Lost Linden]

I'm still holding out for when Michael Jackson performs live at the steakhouse on Planet Michael. That should be some event. I can hardly wait.

[Mary Ellen Gordon]

Ann, I agree that the problems with search made it even more difficult than usual to find live music events. In an ideal world, it would be great if it was easy to use the regular SL search to put audiences and musicians together.

In the real world, I think there might still be a long wait before that's particularly effective. In the meantime, speaking personally as someone who likes to listen to live music in SL, I think it would be great if the community got together to create a Web site and / or HUD that makes it easy to find live performances based on time, genre, name, etc. It would be even better if there were a way to sign up for notifications of when particular performers are playing without having to use a group slot for each one.

One place musicians or venue owners could look for inspiration might be the art galleries. They have a good HUD for touring around the different galleries in SL (though obviously they don't have the time issue to deal with).

[filmview]

Thanks for the information, we will add this story to our blog, as we have a audience in this sector that loves reading like this” corporate video production .

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

Hamlet, how did filmview get through your spam-filter?

Nice set of stats, though. Ann's correct; it would be really interesting to see these data over time.

The "driving" numbers are particularly interesting. At last attempt, driving the Linden roads was an exercise in futility. Maybe that's why "walking/hiking" score higher?

[Maeve Byron]

Wow! I thought I was the only person not having sex in SL.

[Mary Ellen Gordon]

Just picking up on Ignatius' and Ann's points about the data over time. We do have data for previous years and the report discusses what has changed. As far as music goes, the frequency of listening to live music in SL has not decreased. What has decreased is the frequency of listening to live music in RL.

Even though (on average) people prefer to listen to live music in RL, cost is a barrier to doing that, which, combined with the current economic climate, probably explains the decrease in RL participation. That being the case, there seems to be an opportunity to grow the market for live music in SL since it offers those who like listening to live music with a low cost alternative for doing so (and is also convenient, since another RL barrier is lack of opportunity).

[Machine]

It's interesting the artificial dichotomy that people create between RL and SL.

SL is a form of Real World entertainment, and consumers will choose to participate in it based on cost, accessibility and individual preferences, among other factors that impact on consumer choices in any market.

SL is a Real World tool, like any other, with its software and hardware components, that people can use for a variety of purposes based on skill level and imagination to enhance one's life experiences.

The use of Live Music and DJs in SL is a good example of how the platform can be used in a very creative way to connect people with similar interests around the world and to expose people to music that they would not otherwise hear.

[Komuso Tokugawa]

I can't wait to see Duran Duran! I hear they are coming to SL to PERFORM LIVE IN PERSON!

wow!