The Top Seven Second Life Places By Facebook Likes

The goth-cyberpunk roleplaying sim The City of Lost Angels is far and away Second Life's most popular place as determined by Facebook "Likes" for its page on the official Destination Guide, which includes a "Like" button for Facebook users who want to tell friends in their social network graph about SL content. It currently has 13,038 "Likes" including mine -- since after all, we've featured City of Lost Angels on NWN many times. The high number of Likes again reflects a point I made last week -- Facebook is a popular means for SL Residents to share Second Life content.

Even more interesting to me, a high number of Facebook "Likes" on the Destination guide seems to increase visitor traffic to the actual location in SL. At least that's the experience of Loraan Fierrens, who belongs to another top Second Life site in the guide, Kannonji Zen Retreat, which has a heavy Facebook presence: "[I've] noticed a lot of new users showing up at Kannonji during its hosted events," he reported on my blog. "[Some] have actually told us that it was the Facebook group that they originally found and that brought them in." I interpret that as a general suggestion which may seem paradoxical: Want more visitors to your Second Life place? Try promoting it on Facebook.

Courtesy of the Lindens, here's the full top seven most Liked places in the Second Life destination guide as of last week:

Kannonji Zen Retreat

Meditate in a peaceful mountain setting at Kannonji Zen Retreat, a group owned and operated Buddhist practice center in Second Life. Don't miss the weekly Buddhist discussion groups.

Visit in Second Life

• City of Lost Angels
• Kannonji Zen Retreat (Pictured above)
• Paradise Pets - We Love Pets
• Texture Barn & Tack Shed
• Dark Dharma Haunted Manor
• Ummah of Noor
• Ozimals

I also love the Destination Guide widget, which is much more resource rich than a SLurl -- in fact, I plan to use it a lot more here.

Comments

[Brookston Holiday]

At first I thought this was about the top seven sims dedicated to the movie "Se7en." And I thought, wow, more than one sim just about "Se7en." But now I think it's just a typo.

[Hamlet Au]

Ack, thanks!

[Fogwoman Gray]

"The high number of Likes again reflects a point I made last week -- Facebook is a popular means for SL Residents to share Second Life content."
I missed the actual data on this one.
There are several anecdotal statements of cause and effect here, but no real data to support any of this.
Facebook is irrelevant to most of the people I know in SL, and NONE of us use Facebook to share SL content. Amazingly, we use Second Life to share SL content. Things like Landmarks, that actually take you to the destination.
I can see FB as a tool for something like the breedable pet groups to network, but clicking a "like" button is a nanosecond act that does not in any way equal engagement. Unless you can make that "like" button into a teleport or a landmark I suspect that you will see little correlation between "likes" and actual visits.
Googling for blogs and websites is a much more effective way to use the internet outside of SL to find specific content in my experience. And sadly, immensely more effective than the inworld search.

[ColeMarie Soleil]

I would heavily disagree with you fogwoman. Many writers inside and outside of SL on virtual media use facebook to distribute and share information. In fact this way is more effective because it weeds out a lot of information and you can choose what you like and share easily. I know many SL and videogame creators sharing on facebook. I guess it's a matter of ones crowd.

[ColeMarie Soleil]

I would heavily disagree with you fogwoman. Many writers inside and outside of SL on virtual media use facebook to distribute and share information. In fact this way is more effective because it weeds out a lot of information and you can choose what you like and share easily. I know many SL and videogame creators sharing on facebook. I guess it's a matter of ones crowd.

[Fogwoman Gray]

I can certainly see how a posting to your fans on a FB page could drive traffic to a concert, Miss ColeMarie.
I am just having trouble with the idea that a platform that has a policy of deleting avatar accounts would be a good measure for the popularity in SL of SL destinations.
Your pool is pretty small to generalize to the SL population.
"the full top seven most Liked places in the Second Life destination guide" includes a site dedicated to horse specific textures and tack. While this is right in line with LL's current love affair with all things breedable, I have some serious doubts that this site is in the top ten for traffic in SL.
I am just saying that getting a whole bunch of people to poke a "like" button on facebook does not necessarily correlate to eqivalent increase in TRAFFIC within SL to those destinations.
I would be fascinated to see some numbers on follow through from Blogs, Facebook, Twitter into actual SL traffic to the sites in question.

[Hamlet Au]

Fogwoman, Facebook doesn't have a policy of deleting avatar accounts. It has a policy of deleting fake accounts reported by other users, and filtering obviously fake accounts. Very big distinction. That to one side, there are over 100K people sharing SL content this way. And as Loraan Fierrens suggests, it does seem to bring in some new users. A SLurl in itself is rarely going to do that.

[Ciaran Laval]

Oh come on Hamlet, you reported avatar accounts being deleted yourself:

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/05/facebook-ban.html

Pseudonyms are a problem, unless you're really famous or your issues comes to the attention of Robert Scoble, who has in the past argued in favour of someone using a pseudonym which ended with Facebook backing down.

Facebook does not welcome Second Life users, using their Second Life names, whether it requires someone to report them or not, doesn't avoid that issue.

[Ananda]

Factcheck again, Hamlet: 100K "Likes" does not equal sharing something in SL, nor does it equal belonging to a group. There are actual groups in SL with nearly 80K members. Nor is there any way to check if all these people belong to SL. This is not likely, since avatar accounts on Facebook risk deletion if they are discovered and reported.

[Allison]

Why are you continuing to try to push us onto Facebook?

As others above have pointed out, Facebook deletes accounts if they are reported as belonging to a Second Life avatar. In fact there is a website dedicated to outing SL avatar accounts on Facebook.

I won't post the URL (you can google it to find it on page 1 of Google search results) but as the site states:

"They even have groups in Facebook to petition to let them keep their fake profiles. Facebook is not Second Life and this needs to stop. Do we want our family members friended by these people who are hiding behind fake names? You have no idea what their intentions are and if harm is done it will make it even harder for authorities to identify who they are."

So once again, why are you trying to push us onto Facebook?

[Uccello]

@Allison: Why is anyone pushing us into Facebook?

I actively dislike Facebook. There are serious privacy issues, I rapidly grew tired of all the "XXXX has a carrot from their farm to share with you" messages and the like when I tried it, plus I found very little actual utility to it. What is equally annoying is that Linden Lab is turning lemming by trying to make Facebook a part of their service experience.

Attention Corporate Overlords: There is no need for me to use Facebook to enter your contests, apply for your coupons or product rebates, or to show my loyalty in any way other than continuing to give you my money for your product or service. If you want to give me information, it can be provided via e-mail, your Websites, or other forums that do not require me to risk identity theft, expose me to personal attacks by people with more time on their hands than they have morals in their being, or require me to remember one more password. Please do not continue to marginalize Facebook non-users. Treat us with respect and we really will "like" you.

[ColeMarie Soleil]

I wasnt talking about concerts so please re-read my post again before you address my comment.