Why Media Coverage of Second Life Can't Grow SL Usage

Second Life's appearance on the Dr. Phil show attracted a "a modest bump in new registrations on the day it aired", as Linden Lab told me, and Canary Beck has the hard numbers behind that bump: Just over 1000 more registrations than average. For comparison, SL already gets about 300,000-400,000 new registrations a month, so the "Phil bump" was modest indeed. Also, there's an important distinction to be making here:

A new Second Life registration is not at all the same as a new Second Life user. The latter is what happens when someone creates an account on the Second Life website, which leaves several more steps to actually "using" Second Life -- i.e. downloading the client, installing the client, logging in, going through the orientation process. And the trouble is, many or most people who register for an account don't even complete the download process. Based on past usage, something like 5% of registered Second Life accounts actually become regular users. So it wasn't surprising that there was little or no "Dr. Phil bump" relative to concurrent users.

Which takes me to the title of this post, and a recurring theme I've somewhat obsessed over for, well, the last 7 years. Countless instances of positive, mass market media coverage of Second Life in 2006-2008 did not lead to mass market usage, and any media coverage of SL now is even less likely to grow usage. Linden Lab needs to invest far more resources (both in marketing and in the product itself) to really see anything that resembles substantial growth. 

Here's why:

• Unfortunately, Second Life still works optimally only on a desktop with dedicated broadband. (And desktop users are much more likely to download and install a heavy client, than laptop owners.)
• In 2006-2008, desktop usage was far more pervasive than now.
• In fact, more people consume digital content on mobile devices than PCs/laptops. (See this awesome Mary Meeker Internet trends report.)
• In 2006-2008, media coverage of Second Life was pervasive, not one or two reports a month but several a day. (Seriously.) This fueled the "Gotta see the what the fuss is all about" which drove mass registrations then.

... but as I said at the start, mass registrations is not the same as mass usage, and Linden Lab needs to invest far more resources (both in marketing and in the product itself) to really see anything that resembles substantial growth. Seeing as Sansar probably won't be mass market ready until perhaps 2017, I kind of wish they'd put a million bucks into an effort like that. 

Please share this post:

Tweet

 

Comments

[Giuseppe Macario]

Second Life and/or its successor desperately need an official app for iOS and Android. We are not in 2003 anymore…

[Wolkenreiter]

Their intention has never been to attract new user for SL. LL has long given up the idea that anything they could possibly do would attract a significant new audience.
Instead, they want to get themselves back into mainstream media's attention (Second Life? Does that even still exist?) and improve their negative public reception in order to raise curiosity for their new product, Sansar...

[Ezra]

Probably between the 10 FPS or less viewer performance and $1000 setup $295 a month sticker shock of owning a sim, not many of those hundred of thousands of sign-ups have ever been likely to stick around.

The masses have quality and pricing expectations. Even Oz pointed out at his interview during the recent birthday celebration that the viewer's crash rate is unlike any other software, as he crashed a good half a dozen times in a sim of 90 other people alternating crashes 3 FPS at a time.

If Sansar runs as smooth as other 3D graphical applications that the masses are used to, and Linden Lab's pricing page for land looks a lot more like the pricing page of other forms of entertainment and creation tools on the internet, Sansar will fair a lot better in retaining hundreds of thousands of sign-ups a month.

How Second Life is marketed isn't a problem, that's obvious by the sign-up rates. Whether or not Second Life is on mobile or not isn't a problem, as it's highly unlikely the 400k sign-ups a month realize only after registering they aren't on the Apple or Google Play store. The problems start after log-in.

[Victoria Lenoirre]

Wasn't there some development of a SL game in a browser at one time? That would be easier than having to use SL on a laptop or desktop. We're more mobile than ever so it makes sense that desktop usage would fall. Nowadays, most desktop usage is probably at work or in the classrooms. But that is hardly the place to play interactive/online games. Maybe even laptop usage is lower since there's so much we can do with tablets. When I worked at Sears, some departments could ring up your purchases with an Ipad. It was quick and easy.

I have lumiya for my android tablet, but it's very limited. It makes my tablet very hot much sooner than running youtube on it. I would love a viewer that is graphic lite.

Is higher graphics always better for a user experience? For this, I would have to say no. We can't all afford to keep updating to the equipment with better graphics cards and gaming engines especially when the price of living keeps going up and the rate of worker pay does not increase accordingly. If anything, pay goes down. Businesses want to maximize their profits and keep operating costs low.

Plus, higher rendering can mean that equipment burns out faster and that means a higher crash rate, right?

LL needs to get with the times. Less really is more.

[Fred]

Valid Points indeed.

Time and time again LL has made the wrong call it's a wonder this Enterprise is still generating a profit, but that is thanks to the many wonderful and creative residents in this World.

Offer browser, tablet and a full client software for gaming pc's - and we can all pick what we want. And for the love of Everything holy I really hope someone is working on tying to bundle SL with occolus rift whenever that launches, it would make a lot of sense.

[Amanda Dallin]

@ Victoria & Fred
Most of what you're saying is the plan LL has for Sansar. Currently, tablets are just not capable of running SL except as something scaled down to the level of Lumiya. SLGO had a lot of promise but doesn't seem to be cost effective.

[Binkie Ratatouille]

When you log into Second Life you crash so you need to relog and clear cache. How many normal people will do that day in day out for their pleasure?

After more than 10 years everybody in the USA knows about Second Life and the virtual world and either has an avatar or it does not appeal to them and they rather play a video game.

Also the prospect of becoming game addicted and sitting in a bedroom without a job blowing drugs is not a reason to go and check this virtual world thing is it not?

I wonder if Altberg is still so sure about the millions that will purchase VR goggles to come and check out his new virtual world where they can play dress up.

Not to mention the prospect of creating 3D models at 1.5 US$ per hour looking at a computer screen till your eyes are all red for 12 hours per day. Workers in India earn more.

The shame is that other platforms who exist 10 years did not fuck up like Linden has and do still have a good viable product and run stable or even have growth. Even more important those platforms do not have an extremely angry userbase that is completely disgusted with the management.

While Altberg was there he should have asked Dr. Phil why his customers despise him and his company so much.