Why Does Linden Lab Treat Second Life as a Sexy, Bikini-Clad Virtual Paradise? Likely Because a Lot of SLers Do, Too

Courtesy Louis Platini's Metaverse Business, here's last month's 50 most popular Second Life sims, listed according to their average visitor count at any given period, which clearly explain why Second Life is often advertised as a sexy, beach-themed virtual paradise:

As you can see, about a third of the most popular SL sites evoke a beach, water resort, and/or tropical location, usually with an emphasis on sexiness and/or nudity. Some have complained that Linden Lab advertises Second Life as a sexy, bikini-clad social hangout, but the data explains why: A lot of Second Life's existing users already use the world as a sexy, bikini-clad hangout. For Linden Lab to pretend otherwise would actually be deceptive to how much of its userbase actually behaves.

Top sims 31-50 tell a similar story, and a possibly NSFW one:

Sure, sure, many people do many different things in Second Life besides wear virtual bikikis or sex organs. But then again, 20 of these top 50 sims (40%) are Adult-rated, so it's also true that pornographic or extremely violent/explicit content is also popular and/or accepted in SL. It's also true there are other ways to advertise SL, but we should not fool ourselves about this point: SL's current advertising campaign is basically accurate to how a large portion of the existing user base actually use Second Life.

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Comments

[Pussycat Catnap]

This was basically my point about a week and a half ago:

http://catnapkitty.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/second-lifes-sexy-time-advertising-thinking-twice-about-the-opposition-to-it/

You've been posting up the data of what people do in SL for a while now.

People have been complaining for years that LLs needs to cater to its actual customers and not the customers it wants. Now it is doing exactly that: most of its customers treat this as an 'Avatar Dating Service'...
- And now that LLs is selling to its actual demographic, people who write blogs and comment online are complaining... that LLs is doing exactly what they demanded it do... :)

Like it or not, we who comment about SL are a tiny minority if SL's users. The vast majority are here for a BOrat-like sexy time experience complete with the funky mankini.

[Jessikajenvieve]

Where do these statistics come from? I have been in SL for 5 years, and with the exception of Crossroads, which is a blues club, I have never been to or even heard of these sims.

Never trust statistics!

[Adeon Writer]

I might be wrong but I think sorting sims by traffic just gives you which activity shoves the most people in a single region for the most amount of time, NOT what most people use SL for.

[TracyRedAngel]

Some sims do pad their traffic. Really, I hope they're padding it, because it's a little depressing to think THAT many people really want to hang out at some of those sims.
I'm being a judgmental.

[Adeon Writer]

Yes, but even without padding, it doesn't mean the top sims reflect main SL interest, and it doesn't mean it's popular compared to the entire SL userbase. In fact shopping is a HUGE thing in SL and I don't see a single mall on that list.

[Pussycat Catnap]

People who are desperate to believe SL is something grander than it is will try all manner of excuses... but the grid is the grid and one only has to look at the statistics of where people go, what is popular on marketplace, what shows as popular in interests and profiles, and what... frankly... has no traffic.

Some people want SL to be about their perceived grand important art. Their charity. Their particular roleplay community. Their live music. Or what have you...

- But just look at the data, and stop trying to pretend ALL of these popular places are faking their stats.

Lets not be Republicans here and claiming we're winning even as all the polls show otherwise... Ya'll sounding like Karl Rove on Fox news when you do that. Unskew your unskewing there, and look at the data - its been consistent for years.

I'd love SL to be about the kinds of things us bloggers post about. But it isn't. We're just not the popular kids on this playground.

[Iggy]

Bukkake Bliss endures. How the mighty have fallen, to #39.

If only all this shite were enough to pay the bills, then the clever creatives could build a utopia!

We need to figure out a better way to milk the pervs and little bunny foo-foos so we can have what we want. Ideas?

[Cicadetta Stillwater]

Iggy, virtual milking could probably be worked in to a valid business plan, assuming the market for that particular fetish hasn't already been saturated.

I do wonder…

Could LL vary its advertising? Yes, continue trying to attract new residents interested in virtual sexytimes makes sense. But has LL tried targeting the artsy crowd at all lately? Looked at DeviantArt and Pinterest? Do they run ads on Flickr?

[Ezra]

@Pussycat "Unskew your unskewing there, and look at the data - its been consistent for years."

Every individual region peaks out on average about 40 agents concurrently, so 17 of the red circled sims Hamlet has up there accounts for 680 concurrent users or so probably.

Why use such a limited sample size as some grand generalization of the whole grid? It's not very good guessing and easily disprovable by branching out in Second Life. Observe what the other 49,500 or so concurrent users are doing at any given time. It's not all beaches and sex. I'm not sure what the motive is to even insinuate it is, and downplay charities, art projects, roleplay communities, live music venues and etc. All these things are very popular and very much define Second Life a lot more than sex beaches to a lot of people. Why belittle that? What's to gain?

What does YOUR Second Life usage consist of? Just sex beaches? If you manage to do more and have more, give the benefit of the doubt a majority of others manage to do more and have more.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

New York City is home to the nerve centers of global finance, countless museums, excellent colleges and universities, incredible fashion shopping and events, and the pillars of high society.

It also hosts some of the most delightfully kinky boutiques and clubs on the face of the planet, many of which cater to those exact same people in those prestigious and/or vital functions.

We might feel that sex is overrepresented in Second Life, and perhaps it is. But I don't see any particular advantage in expressing contempt towards other people's fantasies and fetishes. Most of us have them, apart from true asexuals.

I have met the "pervs", and they include financiers, architects, designers, entrepreneurs, artists, teachers, and a whole spectrum of humanity. Even if they came for the sex, the ones who stick around have made other significant contributions to the virtual world. They're just people.

[ZZBottomHL]

Kudos to Arcadia cause its my feelings as well.

[Pussycat Catnap]

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@Cicadetta: The 'milking' thing is quite a mini-scene in SL. There are all sorts of kits and HUDs and poses for it... :p

I suppose its harmless enough. But there is some weird stuff out there in SL.

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@Ezra: "Every individual region peaks out on average about 40 agents concurrently, so 17 of the red circled sims Hamlet has up there accounts for 680 concurrent users or so probably."

They comprise the top - but the trends follow. Ive been saying it since 2009: look at where the green dots are, back then they were all moving to Zindra. They've not really left A, though they have filtered around it.

Is that an attempted Ad Hominen with the 'What does YOUR Second Life usage consist of? Just sex beaches?'
I don't even go to these places. I used to in my first year, but now I might just pop in from time to time to see what the fuss is about (and I don't personally get it - some of the top sims have horribly ugly builds with stretched textures, mis-aligned prims, and outdated freebie animations/dances). I'm just not willing to pretend I'm more popular than them.

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@Arcadia: "I have met the "pervs", and they include financiers, architects, designers, entrepreneurs, artists, teachers, and a whole spectrum of humanity. Even if they came for the sex, the ones who stick around have made other significant contributions to the virtual world. They're just people."

I live on Zindra for a reason. The 'pervs' are often nice people - and I've discovered many of them like nice looking builds. Some of the best looking parts of mainland SL are on Zindra. Some of the worst looking parts are too. But some historic quirk has segmented these two to different parts of the continent.

The point above is not about dissing them (for me at least) - but there is a fear of them, and a strong desire among some to pretend SL is not largely focused on 'adult' or even the more mild 'mature / dating' scenes.

Bukkake Bliss isn't the only such place up there. All the sexy beaches, escort venues, and such. And then you have Franks and London: dating places. (and one of the London sims is a series of XXX-clubs).

[Ezra]

@Pussycat "Is that an attempted Ad Hominen with the 'What does YOUR Second Life usage consist of? Just sex beaches?'"

Nope. It was an invitation to be aware that just like you, most people find more to do in SL than sex beaches. You tend to not give props to all the interesting and worthwhile ways people use Second Life.

@Pussycat "I'm just not willing to pretend I'm more popular than them."

Understand what 'popular' means here. We aren't talking about the top 20 websites on Alexa. The millions of people disparity that can be found between say, Google's daily visitors and this blog's daily visitors can't be found between Second Life regions. We're talking about tens of people differences between the most popular sex beach and an absolutely empty sim. Why on earth use that as a metric for summing up what Second Life is when the most popular sims can only account for single digit percentage of concurrency?

Check out the destination guide: http://secondlife.com/destinations you'll find more places dedicated to music, fashion, RP and the like than romance and adult. You'll also find people in these places.

[Pussycat Catnap]

Those places have nothing compared to the traffic of the popular venues... or frankly they would BE the popular venues.

Ok, so you have x people regularly in 'My EMO Exhibit'. That's great. I'd love to have X people in my venue too. But 'studlies' and 'me escort u long time' are getting 100X. I'm not even relevant compared to them, and you're 'EMO' place is just a blip on the radar.

The Destination Guide is handy for trying to get people already here to expand their interests.

But the traffic and the MP sales are showing that people are coming here for the studlies, escorts, and avatarCupid venues.

LLs would be stupid not to pay attention to that. They are paying attention to it - but in mild form. The 'Barbie and Ken on the beach' adverts - those appeal to the 137% of sims that are beach house rentals... the jam packed 'beach dating' venues, the 'you too can be Aryan white' fantasy, and all the other things that dominate SL - but they're still not going to the heart of SL: the A-rated venues that are even more popular than the beach/dance spots.

They're appealing to the side of the 'date' scene that is 'publicly safe' - taking the viable advertising ground, and making it easy for people to figure out the other angle is there.

And then they give the rest of us the events and destination guides because frankly - the customers they are advertising to now are NOT the ones they want. We know that from what they've said over the years... but they've finally figured out they just can't get the customers they want... and have to hope a small but big enough number of the ones they get will in time become the ones they want by seeing what else is around after being lured in.

[Cicadetta Stillwater]

@Pussycat: I was being a little tongue-in-cheek. The milking scene is certainly one of the more harmless kinks out there, far as I can tell.

Anyway, SL is a very strange, very diverse place. The ads don't seem to reflect that, in spite of it being one of the most compelling reasons to explore it and love it.

"Second Life: Find Your Niche." There's some ad copy, LL. All yours.

[Ms. CC Creeggan (CronoCloud Creeggan)]

Iggy wrote:Bukkake Bliss endures. How the mighty have fallen, to #39.

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I know, right?

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Iggy wrote: If only all this shite were enough to pay the bills, then the clever creatives could build a utopia!
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Which shite do you mean? Because it IS paying the bills, directly, or indirectly.

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Iggy wrote: We need to figure out a better way to milk the pervs
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Why should you milk them? Wouldn't it be better to convince them to support you? As I've mentioned before, universities bring students in for those classes and whatnot...but don't actually "do" much for SL residents. If you want pervs (or fashionistas) to support education in SL...give them a reason.
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Iggy wrote: and little bunny foo-foos so we can have what we want. Ideas?
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Little bunny foo-foos?

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Pussycat wrote:The Destination Guide is handy for trying to get people already here to expand their interests.

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Oh indeed. And most likely some of those "pervs" DO have other interests. After all, I'm one of those Fashoin-types and as I say: "In this world, I go and and do what I will, and I'm a Fashionista, we have a lot of will, it's what keeps us shopping."

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Pussycat wrote: They're appealing to the side of the 'date' scene that is 'publicly safe' - taking the viable advertising ground, and making it easy for people to figure out the other angle is there.
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Yep. Easier to advertise model-y hottie besties on a beach than "u-love-me-long-time-200L$?

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Pussycat wrote: but they've finally figured out they just can't get the customers they want... and have to hope a small but big enough number of the ones they get will in time become the ones they want by seeing what else is around after being lured in.
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Yep. And as I said, you don't know if that famous land baron or bloggy fashionista has an alt that spends time on Bukkake Bliss Island. Or if that newcomer to the art scene didn't come into SL for the sexytime and then discovered the art.

Me? I'm all about the shooooes. (which is a lie, its only all about the shooes some of the time, considering how often I'm not buying shoes in SL)

[Pussycat Catnap]

"Yep. And as I said, you don't know if that famous land baron or bloggy fashionista has an alt that spends time on Bukkake Bliss Island."
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Yeah um... well... ok those screenshots implicate me as well so we'll just leave that buried on the thumb drive kept in the old drawer. :)

First time I came to SL was because of the Poser 7 launch even and I had no clue what was for and for from what and why that guy was on 3rd and not first and such.

But yeah when I came back it was a day I was bored and I knew there was weird stuff to mess around with. If the advertising they're on right now were a little more 'diverse', it would have worked on the me back when I joined. Instead like imagery on a random blog somewhere served the same purpose.

I've expanded and moved on. So I know the strat has some merit. We don't always keep the same interests - so if the platform can show people:

'hey I know you're getting bored with what you were up to, but you still log in because something about this is getting you - well here's some other stuff you might like moving on to, so you can keep enjoying this platform even if now for a very different purpose.'

If I were playing an MMO, and got tired of killing elves or something... I'd be done with it. Nothing else to do.

But here, there's more options. A two stage advertising system is a good idea. One to get the fish to bite, another to keep the fish showing up at the cafe after they'd started wearing Hipster hats.