SL's Official Facebook Page Still Strongly Growing (Despite Reports of Avatar-Based Profile Bans)

Chart from AppData.com, which tracks FB app and developer leaderboards

Here's an interesting factoid from that other social network which is not Google Plus (I think it's called Facebook): Second Life's official Facebook page is still gaining Fans, which means FB users who by default get in their timeline news, announcements, and content updates which Linden Lab adds to the page. It now has nearly 165K fans, and is gaining new fans at a rate of some 10,000 a month. This even after reports in May that Facebook profiles named after SL avatars were being suspended, which strongly suggests such bannings are not very widespread, or that many Facebook users with real names are still affiliating themselves with the Second Life Facebook page. (If users Unlike a Facebook page, that'd be reflected on this page as a decline in total fans.)

Of course, the arrival of Google+, which is expected to have business pages soon, will probably change Linden Lab's social media marketing efforts greatly. But for now, thanks to its continued growth, integrated social graph, and large aggregate of followers, the SL Facebook page probably remains, as the Lindens once called it, "[T]he best place to find out about cool things going on in Second Life, share ideas, and get the inside scoop on inworld events."

Comments

[Ann Otoole InSL]

So? There is room for everyone in SL. Facebook, Google+, or otherwise.

Welcome aboard!

[Ciaran Laval]

"[T]he best place to find out about cool things going on in Second Life, share ideas, and get the inside scoop on inworld events."

Stop it! It wasn't true at the time and it's still not true now.

Plurk and Twitter trump Facebook but the best place is still the Second Life website and wiki.

[nexus burbclave]

Last I heard, the Linden responsible for that quote about their FB page has left the building. I wonder if their numbers are inflated or hurt by having their content behind a "like wall" and if so by how much. I actually haven't connected my FB account at least in part due to my dislike for "like wall"ed content. There are situations where it makes since, but this honestly doesn't seem like one of them.

[Hamlet Au]

"Plurk and Twitter trump Facebook"

Cieran, do you know how many Plurk users are affiliated with Second Life and how many Twitter users follow Second Life's official Twitter accounts?

[Ciaran Laval]

Hamlet let's not get into lies, damned lies and statistics territory, I was talking to the CEO of Linden Lab the other day about William Shatner on Twitter, more to the point his best songs! That ain't happening on the Second Life Facebook page.

I have a couple of Facebook pages, I'm not saying Facebook doesn't have a place, but the Second Life facebook page simply isn't as informative as Twitter, I know I can link my new beta profile to post on Twitter, because I saw it mentioned on an official Second Life twitter post.

However if you really want to find out what's happening, the mesh forum, the server forum, the wiki pages and minutes of meetings give far more information than Twitter, Facebook or Plurk, there's loads of info about what's going on there, unfortunately Linden Lab don't promote it well enough.

[Hamlet Au]

Have you seen the SL Facebook page lately, Cieran? There's actually a lot of interaction with Linden staff on it, and they're starting to do a good job promoting non-Linden blogs, Flickr pics, machinima, locations, etc. More to the point, it has 163K fans, while Twitter has less than 25K, and Plurk only has "several thousand" users associated with Second Life, a Plurk developer recently told me. Plurk has had a passionate niche of SL users for several years, but that userbase hasn't grown much since then. So apparently its value as a place to find SL content and news per se is not generally evident. I like Plurk a lot, but it really seems to mainly be a light chat and general sharing (i.e. lots of non-SL content) forum.

Far as the mesh forum and server forum etc., my guess is the actual user base for those is in the low five figures, if that. Probably much lower. The problem there is likely *excess* of information that is immediately useful only to a small subset of SL users. But I agree with you FB isn't the *only* good place to find stuff, and definitely needs supplements like you're talking about.

[Ciaran Laval]

Hamlet you're getting into statistics! The level of richness on Twitter is better than on Facebook and the level of richness on the forums and wiki is far higher than on Twitter, Plurk or Facebook.

There is more info on the forums and wiki than on social networks. Facebook has the potential for fantastic reach, if it wasn't for their pseudonym policy it would probably have potetntial for better richness too but the best place for richness really is the Second Life website and wiki, there is loads of information there that none of the social networking sites match in terms of Second Life.

[Hamlet Au]

Wait, "level of richness" and "more info" are very different standards than "[T]he best place to find out about cool things going on in Second Life". In fact, they are in many ways mutually exclusive. There's so much detail and info on the forums and the wiki that it's difficult and too time-consuming for most people to wade through. It's also difficult for people to share that info, whereas with Facebook, it requires a single button click. You might be able to make a case that Twitter could compete with Facebook on that level, but it has a much smaller active user base. The forums and wiki, consequentially, smaller still.

[Ciaran Laval]

We're in danger of going around in circles here. When the best place to find cool things about Second Life was first made, there wasn't a cat in hell's chance that was true.

When looking at the page now, it still doesn't look true.

Facebook has the potential for fantastic reach, but the page really isn't that informative, as I don't have a Facebook profile I can't say how much Second Life discussion goes on there as a whole compared to Twitter, but I see a hell of a lot of information on Twitter relating to Second Life because Twitter allows me to social network as a Second Life avatar.

On a side point the lithium software they use for the forum has add ons for both Twitter and Facebook that could mean using the forum or blogs to share information on both platforms.

[Hamlet Au]

"as I don't have a Facebook profile I can't say"

Dude. You might want to actually try it out before making any firm opinions about it. Do you like it when journalists slam SL based on some random stuff they read about it 2nd or 3rd hand, without giving it a fair shot as a user?

That said, I do agree with you that Twitter is probably better than Facebook for SL content in some ways, at least for more diversity.