On GigaOM: 3 Lessons from SL's First 10 years -- and 3 Ways it Can Still Change the Future

I have a post on GigaOM reflecting on Second Life's first 10 years, and the next years to come. It's difficult to compress so much that's happened over such a long time into 1000 words, but hopefully I've managed to capture where the world is now. Thanks to Iris Ophelia for taking the accompanying pic, which I like so much, I'm including the embiggable version bellow, with an excerpt from the post, perhaps the paragraph most important to me:

SL enthusiasts have tried promoting it as a platform for any number of real-world applications, such as remote conferencing and architecture visualization, but only one consistently shows substantial and unique value: a real-time, immersive social space for people with physical or mental disabilities that impair their first lives, who often find comfort and security interacting through anonymous avatars. (Indeed, some academics believe using Second Life might even help improve motor ability for people with Parkinson’s.) This capability alone almost justifies SL’s entire existence. As the developed world experiences a spike in senior citizens, SL very well could find a new audience.

Read the rest here.

Please share this post with people you like:

Tweet

Comments

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I've met well over a hundred Second-Life residents from around the globe in real life, and I can think of two that fit the description of "people with physical or mental disabilities that impair their first lives". The rest have been, at least to my eye, a pretty normal group of normal people.

I will grant you, that's from a group of musicians and fans who self-select to attend real life events, so it's anecdotal evidence. But I suspect, apart from a surprising level of skill and talent, they're fairly representative of the user base as a whole. More weathered folksy than pop-princess polished, but aren't we all?

[Metacam Oh]

The concept of SL was just simply too young for it's time. In the evolutionary sense of virtual worlds you could see a Minecraft that would come before SL evolutionary, but even SL like you said in your article was way before Facebook and Youtube. That and the ugly stigma the platform got from some bad publicity in the hype years, and the outrageous price tag to own virtual land, contributed to the lack of catching on in main stream. I just am not as optimistic as you Hamlet, I don't think they will ever rebound since even today they still don't get fundamentally what they have with the platform and refuse to make the bold appropriate changes that would propel them through another growth phase.

[Iggy]

I suspect Linden Lab could pull off a "reboot" of SL with the Rift if:

1) They change the name. It still sounds creepy and has little legacy value, not recalled by gamers and IT folk I know except to say "oh, that's still around?," and no students at all.

2) The rollout of server-side rendering works to reduce lag as planned.

3) They begin to market the rebooted SL, I mean "Final Frontier." I mean "New World." I mean "MetaEarth" in some mainstream media outlets and feature cool YouTube and TV spots with the Rift, and the best setting and graphics in-world (see #2).

4) Work with content providers for RP settings and come up with a really nice Rift-enhanced system for RP combat, damage, and weaponry. It might make existing systems obsolete, but it would provide a new standard. Use it in marketing (see #3).

Okay, I'll take my check now.