New World Notes

Google+ Still Feels Like a Ghost Town to Me Traffic-Wise

Google may insist that its social network is not a ghost town, but from the perspective of my blog traffic, at least, it sure does. Above is the traffic from two recent posts, "Philip Rosedale's New Project" and "Ana Somnia: Amazing Immersive Interactive Web Experience", and while I have nearly 1500 people in my Google+ circles, clickthrough percentage is quite small as compared to Facebook, and especially compared to Plurk, where I have less than 800 people in my network. (That smaller social media site continues to punch way above its weight.) There does seem to be strong niche user activity on Google+, but from a blogger's practical perspective, I'm not sure if it's cost effective to promote my content there. Ironically, this lack of clickthrough from Google+ also hurts Google, since this blog is running Google AdSense.

Why All Social Media Sites Should Have Embedded Journalists

"Why Social Sites Need Embedded Journalists" is my new essay for Internet Evolution, inspired by news that Tumblr recently hired some embedded journalists to cover their site. As the Atlantic Monthly notes, Linden Lab pioneered a similar project with me in Second Life (inspired by Robin Harper following the advice of Howard Rheingold), so I make some observations from that experience, to argue that all social media platforms should have such a reporter. Hope you give it a read, and participate in the conversation thread (free account required.)

Minecraft's Made as Much Money as Second Life Makes in a Year - When's Linden Going After That Market?

From October 2010 to the end of 2011, a 3D, open-ended sandbox game with last-generation graphics, no set rules, and a high degree of user-generated content (including collaborative multiplayer content) made $80 million in revenue. No, I'm not talking about Second Life, though I could just as well be, because SL earns about $75 million in revenue a year. I'm talking about Minecraft:

Developer Mojang recently quantified its success, noting that the game brought in pre-tax revenues of $80 million (540 million Swedish krona) in the 15 months following Mojang's official debut in October 2010, reports Swedish tech site NyTeknik.

So an indie game which was basically created by one guy at launch grossed as much revenue as a virtual world/game platform with around 200 employees. Also instructive: Most of Second Life's revenue comes from private landowners, meaning about 5,500 people provide most of this money, while almost all of Minecraft's revenue comes from individual players who paid to register their copy. (In the first 15 months, about 5 million folks, give or take.)

While this point might seem like a slam on Second Life, I'm actually making it to say there's good news for SL:

SL Fashion Bloggers: Is Pinterest Plumping Your Pageviews?

My Pinterest account now has about 50 followers, even though I barely use it (because frankly, I still don't quite get how to use it), but despite Pinterest being the new Internet hotness, supposedly generating more traffic than Twitter, and there's an official Second Life Pinterest account, here's something I'm also not getting: Pinterest pageviews. Maybe a handful a day, dwarfed in comparison with, for example, clickthroughs from Plurk. But maybe that's my fault. Pinterest is much more visually-oriented than other social media sites, which may mean, outside Iris' great virtual fashion posts, New World Notes is just less Pinterest-able. So let me put the question the thousands of SL fashion bloggers -- how important is Pinterest to your pageviews?

Auditorium Music Game Needs $15K for Multiplayer Sequel

Auditorium is a beautiful, immersive, open-ended music game for multiple platforms-- click here to play the demo on the web.

The developers are now trying to raise enough funds through Kickstarter to develop a sequel, which will be multiplayer, and allow you to share music experiences with others. Challenge is, they need $60,000 in 4 days before the Kickstarter ends, and have raised just $44,286. Click here to help kick this kickstarter into the goal.

Top 10 Posts from Last Week

In SL

• Why SL for Enterprise Failed: Linden Lab's Heart Wasn't In It
• Will SL's Welcome Area Ever Actually Be Welcoming?
• Second Life Ad & Homepage Visuals Finally Improve... Mostly
• Guess Which 4 Were NOT Internal Linden Lab Project Names
• SLurls on NWN Get Way Less Clickthrough Than URLs
• How SL Can Gain New Users But Not Gain User Concurrency

Beyond SL

• Grace Revealed: Watch Turner VP Rhonda Lowry's TEDx Talk on Networked Society & Being a Famed SL Performer
• Raglan Shire's SL-to-RL Crowdfunder Raises Its $8.5K Goal!
• How Kingdoms of Amalur Made Me Reconsider My Feelings About Sexy (and Sexist) Armor in Games
• Ana Somnia: Amazing Immersive Interactive Web Experience

Grace Revealed: Watch Turner VP Rhonda Lowry's TEDx Talk on Networked Society & Being a Famed SL Performer

From Bettina Tizzy comes this inspiring TEDx talk by Rhonda Lowry, VP of Emerging Social Web Technologies at Turner -- or as she's far better known by New World Notes readers, Grace McDunnough, famed SL musician:

In it, Rhonda talks about the revolutionary new ways a networked society works, which include her experiences in Second Life, both as a VP for Turner (she was responsible for getting CNN to create an SL-based meeting site), and as Grace McDunnough, the avatar whose live music performances in SL regularly draw capacity crowds.

Beyond all the great points she makes in it, this is a significant video for several other reasons:

Weekend Listening: Bitcoin Podcast With Virtual World Philosopher Ren Reynolds & Economist Jon Matonis

Click here to hear a 15 minute conservation between Ren Reynolds of Virtual Policy and economist and virtual currency expert Jon Matonis talking about Bitcoin. Good introduction to the currency, how it's "mined", how it resembles physical cash, and some of the other fascinating issues around it. Read some of my coverage of Bitcoin here.

Why SL for Enterprise Failed: Linden Lab's Heart Wasn't In It

HyperGrid Business has a good guest post from Chris Ravenscroft about why Second Life Enterprise failed. Ravenscroft was a client of Enterprise, a now-defunct project from the Mark Kingdon era of Linden Lab. Short version: It wasn't ready for primetime as a true business application, it was too expensive (between $50,000 and $100,000 for the first year!), it was offered as a behind-the-firewall solution, "which meant keeping customers’ employees off the grid". But above all (and I think this is really the crux): "It is now obvious that Linden Lab’s proverbial heart was never really in the whole endeavor."

Like I wrote when the Kingdon era ended, the push for Enterprise was driven by The Dwight Schrute Echo Chamber: "Adamant denial (despite all evidence to the contary) that SL is a primarily a game and entertainment platform, and a reflexive insistence (despite little evidence to the affirmative) that Second Life is best used for real world work." Enterprise was an attempt to force what is basically an entertainment/play space to wear an uncomfortable business suit -- no wonder the Linden corporate culture couldn't feel the love. Anyway, read Ravenscroft's take here.

Second Life Wilderness: Not So Premium Experience?

Chestnut Rau explored Wilderness, the new Linden Lab-created experience meant to boost Premium subscriptions, and found the experience not so premium:

At this point I started to think about how such a thing would look to someone who had spent about 175 hours playing Skyrim recently... I found some more pathetic looking animals who were completely static and I started to get sad. It began to be clear to me where the court of public opinion was going to come out on the Wilderness.

Much more here. Looking at her screenshots, I have to say Wilderness does seem wanting. However, others have come away from Wilderness impressed. While not a fan of the static creatures either, for example, NWN reader Ehrman Digfoot's take was this: