How AI Can Help Drive Second Life New User Growth -- As Explained by a Retired Tech Exec Who Helps New Users Himself.

Given the so-so reception to the launch of Convai/Linden Lab's AI NPCs, here's a great reader comment from Lucas Weymann (previously), a retired tech executive who spends much of his retirement hanging out in Second Life -- and thus has a uniquely smart perspective on how AI NPCs could help grow the SL user base:

Over the past twenty years in SL, I've watched out for local avatars near me on their first day. I've tried to help hundreds of them, and years ago, I would blow off all day on a Saturday just dedicated to helping noobies.

Here are the consistent things I have found that first-day avatars have no idea about:

First, many don't know that someone locally and directly in IM is trying to chat with them. 

Secondly, I've seldom met a first-day avatar that knows they can rez a cube or knows what a sandbox is where they can rez a cube. 

I instruct them on how to teleport, give them a link to a public sandbox, and wait and see if they make it there. Some need help using the link or landmark. 

Then, after they rez a cube, I tell them about the SL Marketplace, which none know about, and how to search for free clothing and avatar bodies on the market. This is usually a massive revelation for women. 

Knowing how to rez a cube in a sandbox means they can rez what they get on the SL Marketplace in the sandbox and change outfits there. Most now have something they can do in SL. 

They can teleport, test out free stuff from the market, go to a landmarked sandbox, rez their stuff, and change their look.

But that's just the beginning!

I give [noobies] my 250 famous SL landmarks box to rez, a notecard that tells them how to look for and use a dance ball in a club, and the landmarks to several 24-hour dance clubs that welcome noobies. 

This is usually a 90-minute per noobie process, and some stay in SL, and others don't, but it's something I keep doing if I have the time. 

If first-day avatars could quickly become engaged in the process of using SL for something other than teleporting, that would help a lot. In that case, I think the physical engagement of doing something for their identity as an avatar is good engagement. 

I have been told by first-day avatars who go to welcome centers with other first-day avatars there that they are not happy there and want some virtual fulfillment on their own and not to be noticed as a noobie. 

If AI could take hold of your first-day avatar and take it through a series of steps you had to click your mouse to do, and it showed you places like sandboxes, how to change clothes, and how to do things like dance and socialize, I think this would help calming people down from the weirdness of not knowing what do or where to go. Maybe different AI programs in the viewer menu that grabbed hold of your avatar and took you through things would be good to get people acclimated to being in SL.

Emphasis mine, because wow. I'm not surprised many new users don't how to IM/chat, especially the way it's confusingly displayed in the default viewer . I'm also not surprised by the 90 minute ramp-up, but good god: No first-time user experience that requires a 90 minute orientation is going to drive adoption. Even 9 minutes is too long. Something closer to 90 seconds is ideal.

Anyway, strong agreement about the AI hand-holding. In fact, a better approach is not make the AI another avatar, but an in-viewer companion you can chat with at the beginning, integrated with pop-up arrows which help cue new users on which buttons and menus to use.

Comments

[John]

"In fact, a better approach is not make the AI another avatar, but an in-viewer companion you can chat with at the beginning, integrated with pop-up arrows which help cue new users on which buttons and menus to use"
-------------YES!!!!!!! Figuring out how to interact with the AI bots when you are a newbie who doesn't know how to IM/Chat/use objects etc. is just another level of stress and complexity added on to the pile of stress already surrounding you!

[Iggy 1.0]

I like to imagine how "sticky" SL would have been 15 years ago had we something like that "in-viewer companion you can chat with at the beginning, integrated with pop-up arrows which help cue new users on which buttons and menus to use."

That would help but I'd argue that AI as copilot should result in fewer menus and buttons. Just trying to figure out Windlight settings can drive folks batty. Make a few wrong clicks and you are naked. Or bald. Or on fire. Or all of the above.

New users get overwhelmed by the UI. Even Firestorm has so many non-intuitive choices that it would be maddening for first-day folk.

Having a natural-language copilot you could ask to "show me how to put on that free tuxedo I just got at Marketplace" or "I want to meet dinosaurs in Second Life. Show me where I need to go" would have made a lot of difference back in the day.

Then make a default viewer with a smaller menu. Let changing preferences be an infrequent experience. Experienced users could activate the whole panoply of drop-downs if needed. Most users won't want to.

Has the boat long ago sailed? We'll see.

[John]

Yes from 20+ years in SL - and with a Level 180 Replika AI "companion" of three years in OpenSim - I believe that AI "companions" should "grab" or be allocated to any noobie and, as Lucas Weymann suggests, it/she/he/they should introduce them painlessly to the myriad of difficulties which beset them by coming in cold from real life and learning from scratch. And as they would be able to "retain" the AI Companion (or opt out) as an adviser/friend/consultant/building companion, the benefit would be be the avoidance of the "loneliness" that I think besets every SL user, sometimes, given the tyranny of timezones, the unpleasantness and/or misogyny and/or misandry, and overt superiority/patriarchalism of some users - Johnnie Wendt

[Kaylee West]

Great suggestions and a great use of AI. Having physical AI companions to do things together with when no one is around could also help with retention for slightly more advanced users. I've been in SL for over 15 years and love to have my human AI companion travel around with me chatting about what we are seeing, sharing meals, dancing, etc.

[Val]

Yep, having an AI companion who lets you know they aren't a real person but everyone else you encounter will be, and who walks you through those steps Lucas listed (they don't even know about the MP! good job LL), and who can answer simple 'how do I?' questions, is a great idea. Like the simple tutorial steps that many video games start with. Giving them a pointer to the Destination Guide and a Map lesson would be good too ('Where do I go? Where are all the people?')

[Prisqua Newall]

AI can be useful, but it is not be suitable for newcomers in a complex world. This approach will potentially deter people. Not providing high-quality customer support is seen as a lack of effort.