Since Few Want a Second Life, Stop Calling Second Life Second Life: My New Post on Rebranding SL on The CMO Site

"When the Brand Becomes a Liability" is my new post for the CMO Site edited by my pal Mitch Wagner, and as the title and the Don Draper macro suggests, it's advice on how re-brand Second Life to make it relevant again to the Internet users of today (as opposed to 2003, when it was first launched, which is like 56 years ago in Net time.) Sample:

Stop calling it Second Life. Seriously, just stop. Linden Lab first dubbed its world "Second Life" in 2003 on an assumption that seemed reasonable at the time. Active Internet users already enjoyed having alternate online identities, including forum usernames, and IM nicknames, etc. Linden Lab predicted these users would embrace an entire world devoted to them. But as Second Life’s waning growth strongly suggests, few people want a "second life." That’s even true of Second Life’s current hardcore user base; only a fraction of active users maintain an alternate identity totally removed and distinct from their real-life selves.

I'll discuss this topic in more detail soon, but meantime, click here to read the rest of my suggestions for re-branding Second Life.

Comments

[Robustus Hax]

I agree completely needs to be renamed, I think SL3D doesn't go far enough. People will still ask, well what does the SL stand for and you are back at square one.

[Senban Babii]

Apart from anything, knowing those boys and girls on the interweb, it would become known as "sled", don't you think?

[Seymore Steamweaver]

I agree on the renaming thing as well. I diddled around in SL for about 3 months before I told my wife about it (she knows I'm into gaming and just figured I was doing that, which actually at first I thought I was just gaming as well) and when I finally told her about it her reaction was "why do you think you need a second life, what's wrong with your first?" Not a great first reaction.

The Grid
MetaWorld
LagVille

[Emperor Norton]

Mitch Wanger sounds mighty concern trollish there; that is just plain willfully ignorant to claim people want their identities transparent when they play these MORG games after the fiasco Blizzard went threw.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

If this is the plan, kill Second Life. Pull the plug. Throw the baby out with the bathwater, wipe the slate clean, start with a fresh metaphor.

Those of us who value our virtual individuality can migrate to worlds that value us as individuals, and allow the socially-networked hive mind to be free of our disruptive influence.

Isn't that really what we're talking about? Get rid of the freaks like us and make the world a clean and wholesome place for the masses?

Then do it. Wipe the world that we freaks helped build and let the sheep make their own.

Here's a brand for the new project: Blandyland.

[bongo]

The full article is pretty good. But LL has never been Madison Ave- even old Madison Ave savvy. A CMO has never been a top hire, as well as a CCO. Either youre rich or a programmer to be heard at LL or most tech companies like it.

The real problem know isnt capable of a Marketing only fix, the product experience is a mess. Viewer 2 is still, even after the "fixes" a sad product interface and only hampers users to use the product.

You can "change the conversation" but LL needs to "change the language" of how it relates and makes products/services... Humble is maybe a "new gamer" talker... but the meat and potatoes of LL is service platform, not entertainment company.

Thats too late a "language change".

[Zauber Paracelsus]

I don't think its the name that's hurting Second Life, I think its the reputation.

[Ann Otoole InSL]

I propose it be branded as Singularity. The big 3 column boring layout blandies FB and Google are afraid of our combined superhuman intelligence so they threw us out.

[Lord]

Second Life needs to change to a whole new, much more scalable, infrastructure, with a new web-based viewer that moves very quickly, at the same time that it rebrands itself. It will need to break any reference to SL or Second Life but carry its current accounts over to the new infrastructure(cloud?.

New Name Suggestion ? 'Two' as in www.Two.com, which is about as close to 'Second' as I would get.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

The very name "Second Life" is toxic. My students laugh long and hard when I mention it, and except for those who saw The Office episode (great plug for SL, that) they don't even know the brand. But perhaps LL can forge ahead without too many users under 30.

I think not.

Rod Humble, push to change the name and market it well, as SL was never marketed. Bring back "Your World, Your Imagination."

Hamlet has some good suggestions in his post. Time to listen up, Linden Lab.

[pixels sideways]

I agree -- SL content is made by users/residents and therefore, they do create their worlds with their imaginations. So the DIY aspect of "Your World, Your Imagination" should be back front and center. Without the imaginations of the users/residents who create content, or those who use SL for RP or whatever, SL would not exist.

SL3D seems too sterile and boring and looks like something I'd write when my dyslexia kicks in when I intended to write SLED. Second Life is branded -- for better or worse.

Then you have to consider the cost to change the Second Life name/brand.... a lot more than they spent on the Darth Vader 2.0 viewer. And you know how well that went over with everyone.

But if people are intent on putting Second Life under the knife, maybe SLIFE or SLife. As someone pointed out, the "S" could sand for many implied things: Super, Smart, Silly, Squandered, Sex, Simple, Superfluous, Sensational, Spirited, Sleazy, Spunky, Space, Spy, Sastified, Sideways..

[Danielle]

"YourWorld" would be a fine name.

[Insert name here]

Growth...this unfortunate dogma of the 20st century. Only when you grow you survive, the greed of the 80s. Now we have new words, dogma shifts, sustainability. And immediately the old dogma is thrown over it: one can only be sustainable through growth. No, the opposite. The small local construction company, doing shop interiors, do they have to grow to be 'sustainable'? Or do they have to stabilize their business otherwise so it makes a good living for their owners and employees? Maybe quality keeps them in business, not growth, maybe reliability, maybe consistency, maybe...sustainability?
We can see SL still in the context of the last century with the internet bubble, bursting at one point, with growing fast, selling out big time, moving on to the next venture, re-branding, growing faster...if we want to.
Change is good. But change is a neutral word, open to be filled with content. You can change and still be essentially the same, or change into something you don't want to be, or change into something that proved to be dead-end, just because its still the dogma of our times. Or change into something sustainable, that can grow in meaning, not in size, with people who love it, a few people who love it.
I don't know. I love "myWorld" which they called "SL" some years ago. But i forgot why they re-branded it.

[Emily Lang]

Second Life is a great name, with great philosophical undermeanings. Besides, SL is for non-English speakers too. In that sense, it does not matter what you call it as long as the name is easy to pronounce around the world. SL's problems are not its name. It's all the porn merchants and seekers.

[DF]

The name is not the problem. If you rename al quaida people wont suddenly look at it differently either.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

I'm a little uncomfortable at the "too many freaks are using Second Life, we need to make it safe and bland!" undertones.

The name Second Life became a joke because of the state of SL; it is not inherently a horrible name. A rebranding at this point should be to make a break from that, not because the Facebook crowd can't handle people playing around.

[Emily Lang]

"Porn" is not the same as "freaks" or "interesting." "No porn" is not the same as "bland." "Too many" people of one kind IS a problem since it results in a ghetto that drives other kinds of people away.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I've proposed in the past that Linden Lab just create a new world, rather than try to fundamentally change the essential nature of the one we've got (a course that smells like an epic disaster in the making).

There's no reason this couldn't run in parallel with Second Life. It could be a newbie/introductory virtual world experience, much as World of Warcraft is an introductory MMO that seasoned players eventually leave for better titles with more depth.

WoW is huge, but that hugeness is comprised largely of clueless newbies who haven't the foggiest notion of how to behave in a virtual community. As such, WoW provides a great service to the industry by taking them in, providing them some rudimentary eduction, and preparing some select number of them for a real MMO.

There's no reason LL couldn't have something similar. It might grow much bigger than SL, it could be under the impression that it was the big cheese, but we'd have the quiet satisfaction of knowing that it's just the spawning pond for the real (virtual) community.

[Kim]

WORD.

Most "real" people feel they barely have time for their first life, let alone a "Second Life." This alone is probably one of the greatest contributors to SL's stagnance.

[Adeon Writer]

It is absolutely true that on the internet, "SL3D" would be pronounced "SLED", due to it's apparent leet-speak name (Look at the recent game called F3AR, pronounced Fear 3) That, along with the fact that abbreviations with "3D" are almost as saturated as using "HD", means I really don't agree on that name.

[Hitomi Tiponi]

There is quite a bit of discussion on this over at http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/62149-wagner-james-au-second-life.html.

[shockwave yareach]

Like I said when the whole Zindra mess occurred -- create a PG continent and require all new accounts to start there. The current mainland would then be solid M or solid A -- no more camming across a border to see things you shouldn't.

Newcomers only see a clean Disneyfied homeland, free of all sex and violence. If they CHOOSE to tP somewhere M, they are cautioned the first time that day that what users create ON THEIR OWN LAND is not LL's responsibility and the person is choosing to see potentially rough things.

And keep the d*#@ kids on this PG continent, too.

You can change the name of a Yugo, and the bad reputation will follow it. The mess which is SL today was caused by 3 years of idiots trying to Disneyfy things and deprive us of the property we owned, bought and paid for with receipts. Today, only an idiot would invest in buying a private island, knowing that they won't actually own it -- not for 2K and $300 a month at least. LL caused this bad reputation by employing bait and switch tactics and other practices that would land me in Jail in RL were I to sink to such standards. As such, LL has dug itself a very deep hole -- not the users who have stuck by the platform through thick and thin, LL itself.

LL can recover by a) lowering the tier costs and b) returning our ownership to us and c) having a Welcome Home program where everyone who abandoned land can get the same size back for no more cost than picking up the tier once more. Stop thinking expensive; start thinking volume. Once the ship has stopped sinking, other problems can be addressed. But you have to get people to start coming in instead of quitting. And you have to fix the core of the problem to do that.

Here's a hint; the core of the problem is not all the naked furries and pole dancers who have an average time inworld of more than 4 years...

[Aliasi Stonebender]

And 'freaks' doesn't equal 'porn' either, Emily.

Of course, neither does 'sexuality'. Or, since we're putting quote-marks around random words, 'ducks'.

[foneco zuzu]

Shockwave hit the nail:)
And to add, sex, being on Sl or Rl, is as important as breathing.
Kill it and will just kill your business.

[sirhc desantis]

I loved this little snippet - "All this festering grassroots weirdness wouldn’t be that bad...". Classic (rooty weirdy pole dancing neko waves hi). Double checked the market you were pitching to...Marketing haha (confession - i was married to one of those for 20 years). We have lots of unofficial internal 'rebrand' names already, most of which are not suitable for prime time TV - and thats a good thing:)
And - "moribund footnote at best". Well well. Funny how its still generating some nice little earners, especially in the production of rent-a-paradigm commentators.
You always cheer me up - kram

[Metacam Oh]

No one is saying kill sex, but Second Life is a derogative term, its like joining facebook if it was called Loserville

[Minty]

You should perhaps log in SL a bit more Hamlet.
I have been in SL since 2007 and I have never met anybody who wants to link his / her avatar to his / her real life. Most of the people I know are strongly against any link between SL and RL.

[Moni Duettmann]

I disagree with the statement, that "only a fraction of active users maintain an alternate identity totally removed and distinct from their real-life selves". How did you find that out? I think this is what Second Life is really about. A fantasy is a fantasy, not some puppet theater with the puppeteer walking around on the stage. The name however is a mixed blessing: when Linden came out with it, it served the purpose of viral provocation. It was a slash in the face of a reality many seeked to escape from - and here was a company that offered an alternative, like a god. Today on the other hand it is misleading, as if virtual worlds do not belong to "the life", the one life we all have. So I propose it should be called "Metaverse".