Last week, Linden Lab announced that it was launching a “light” separate version of an SL experience for web and tablets, though it’s still not clear what that means. The news made me think about an NWN comment from Robert “Dizzy Banjo” Thomas back in July, which now seems prophetic, and consequentially, even more worth reading now. As the SL avatar Dizzy Banjo, Robert created a number of incredible metaverse music projects, like this one, and this one, and now as a lead developer with RJDJ, a major iOS developer, helped create last year’s hit Inception app, among others. What should Linden Lab do with its light version of SL? Perhaps Dizzy has the solution, read on: - Hamlet Au
The more I think about this discussion the more I think that there are two ways forward for Second Life and Linden Lab:
- EVOLUTION: Attempt to evolve Second Life into something more relevant to todays market, aiming to achieve mass market adoption that could sustain the current business model.
- PRESERVATION: Leave Second Life how it is and change the business model, possibilities within the world.
Let me explain what I mean:
EVOLUTION: I think that successfully doing this means:
- Perhaps not being a virtual world at all anymore, at least reinventing the idea of a virtual world from a very fundamental level.
- Completely rethinking the fundamental user experience offer to make it fit into todays mainstream's expectations.
- Total rebranding which creates an accurate description of this experience. To me this would result in almost a totally new project. I think, by necessity, it would significantly change SL as it exists today, perhaps beyond recognition.
PRESERVATION and A NEW PROJECT : The 2003 vision of Second Life is a wonderful and magical one. While I do believe it is no longer as relevant, fresh and left field as it once was, it is still special. The initial ideas of [original company founders] Philip, Cory, Ryan, Hunter and everyone back then, still have real magic. It is a super optimistic, innocent vision, a magical naivety. This video really sums it up for me:
Perhaps it's worth keeping that. Then finding a way to make that sustainable for the people that really love it. Maybe this involves a different payment model, a minimization of in-world services which are expensive for Linden to run. This would not change SL, or move it forward. It would preserve it as a magical place.
Perhaps the most exciting and best option might be to preserve Second Life, it its pure form, magical and wonderful for a niche. Then make a new project from scratch, without the baggage of SL at all. Form a new vision, as bold as that video was in 2003.
I've asked Dizzy to expand on his thoughts in a future guest post; meantime, please share your own thoughts in Comments below.
I disagree with the premise that the current business model is unsustainable. Sure SIMs close down all the time (that's happened to three I've owned property on), but new ones also start up. The innovators who can make their SIMs pay will stay. My gallery is on a mainland plot, and I'm not going to move that to OSGrid, or any similar virtual world - no traffic there compared to SL. People who live in SL because their community is here are not going to move because cyber real estate is cheaper somewhere else. Sure, SL has to grow the user base if it wants to grow, but they don't have to change the business model to accomplish that. In fact the steps Rod has been taking (changing the join up procedure, changing the viewer) seem to be in the right direction. Once SL is optimized, all it may take to grow the user base is a major advertising campaign.
Posted by: Flashing Merlin | Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 04:04 PM
Nah! I'm not buying into either of those two directions.
With Phillip's last round of direction setting and Rob's new ideas I think we may something interesting happen. It is unclear who solved the registration problem. But, it has definitely been improved.
We are in the middle of a Basic Mode viewer change to improve new user experience. Plus other changes.
We may find that Rob has a keener appreciation for what is here than we may suspect. We may see Rob develop more creative spaces with results from those coloring SL. By the end of the year we will know if Rob has it right or not.
Posted by: Nalates Urriah | Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 05:06 PM
@Nalates it would help if you could start off by spelling his name correctly.
Posted by: Nexii Malthus | Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 09:22 PM
@Flashing Merlin
Yeah, I'm not sure I'd say that SL is currently unsustainable. I'd suspect it would be possible to run it at a profit for some time. But as far as I understand its growth has reached a plateau.
I think this in itself is not necessarily a problem if Linden and indeed the community, aren't really bothered about SL growing, or even eventually becoming mainstream.
It also affects the speed at which Linden will be able to improve performance - as their profit will directly relate to the amount of staff they can employ to fix bugs / improve performance. ( Unless they get more funding - I understand its been a number of years since this happened last for LL. )
I've got a lot of respect for the approach Rod Humble and LL are taking now too, and indeed that of many ex Lindens. I think my comments were more about a path forward to either achieving stability / good user experience in SL with existing revenues, or working on a totally new project, or both.
I think there reasons why a major advertising campaign wouldn't necessarily work, but I'll go into this more in my other post.
Posted by: Dizzy Banjo | Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 09:40 AM
*I* certainly say the sim revenue model is unsustainable. If you follow Tyche Shephard's Twitter account, you'll see private sims consistently disappearing almost every week, usually by the dozens: https://twitter.com/#!/tycheshepherd
I've seen no evidence that these disappearing sims are being replaced. Why? Common sense, really: Not many people out there willing to pay thousands of dollars a year to own virtual land.
Posted by: Hamlet Au | Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 10:41 AM