New World Notes

New World Newsfeed: Top University's Online Advisers Now Required To Maintain Office Hours on Second Life Campus

Penn State is ranked among the United State's very best public universities, and now the Chronicle of Higher Education reports it has another distinction: The school's online advisors are required to maintain office hours as avatars in Penn State's Second Life presence. Judging by the website calendar, that means 12 Penn State representatives being available in SL throughout the week. I wonder if the University's Second Life island gets enough foot traffic of students and would-be students to justify such an active schedule -- but then again, all it really requires is running a SL window in the background, and popping it open when you hear the clicky-clacky typing of a visitor. Direct SLurl to Penn State's Island at this link. Image: worldcampus.psu.edu.

In Defense Against Stroker Serpentine Content Theft Lawsuit, Linden Lawyers Cite "Unclean Hands" Defense Against Plaintiffs -- an Expert Analyzes Why

The Lindens' lawyers have filed a response to the content theft-related lawsuit filed by Stroker Serpentine and Munchflower Zaius -- the Alphaville Herald has a full copy here. Among the defenses is the legal doctrine of "unclean hands", in which a defendant argues that the plaintiff (Serpentine and/or Zaius in this case) are acting unethically or have acted in bad faith. To me this seemed a surprising defense to make, but since I'm not a lawyer, I contacted an actual one, for his opinion: Sean Kane of Kane & Associates, who's an expert in law related to virtual worlds and online games. Here's his take:

"Linden Lab's inclusion of Unclean Hands as an Affirmative Defense in their Answer to the Complaint may not mean much of anything. There are several Affirmative Defenses that are almost always included in an Answer because if they are not raised they may be deemed waived. Unclean Hands is one of them." (More after the break.)

Is Your Second Life Property Mentioned In Your Real Life Will?

The New York Times has an interesting story on a topic most of us would rather not discuss: What will happen to your virtual assets after you leave the material world? In the case of Leto Yoshiro, an avatar whose owner died last year, the Times reports that his SL partner Enchant Jacques was left having to maintain the tier fees for the island they shared, and ultimately had to sell it. The issue was recently brought up by Bettina Tizzy, who wants avatar-based artists to will their Second Life projects to trusted parties, so they'll still exist in-world after death. But metaverse artists aren't the only Residents who have good reason to will their Second Life content. There's all the SL entrepreneurs who earn a livelihood from their work in-world, and the landowners who've turned their property into a virtual community space that dozens rely on. (To name but two.) Add to that the fact that 20% of active SL users are over 47, and the question becomes even more pressing: Have you mentioned your SL content and property in your real life will?

New World Newsfeed: Silicon Alley Insider Ranks Linden Lab Among Top 25 Most Valuable Startup, With $800M Valuation

Silicon Alley Insider: The SAI 50+: World's Most Valuable Internet Startups

In a new list of top 50 Internet startups, the Silicon Alley Insider puts Linden Lab at 21, with an estimated valuation of $800 million based on annual revenue of $100 million. (That's significantly more bullish than a July analysis, which pegged Linden's value at $658-700 million.) By SAI's reckoning, that puts Linden above prominent startups like Hulu and Yelp, and notably, a couple dozen ranks above Gawker Media (49 of 50, valued at $190 million), the former publisher of avid (if not very accurate) Second Life detractor Valleywag -- which was, in a supreme irony, discontinued earlier this year. Hat tip: Catherine Linden.

New World Newsfeed: How To Misinterpret SL User Stats

Social media publicist Brian Solis has a widely-discussed post on Second Life user stats, which he dubs "The Second Life of Second Life". It mostly seems to be a re-hash of a Linden press release from last month, so little of it will surprise regular NWN readers. The analysis misses some important context, however, leading to serious misinterpretations of the user data Solis cites: Specifically, how many people regularly use Second Life? Fortunately, the Lindens have also published that data, along with user hours. Here's some recent data I wrote about last August, taken from a June 2009 sample:

This represents usage data of 742,000 unique returning users for June, along with their total user hours for the month. As you can see, 401K Residents logged into SL three hours or less, while on the opposite side of the spectrum, 133K Residents were responsible for almost 90% of total user hours.

That context in mind, you can see some of Solis' misinterpretations in sharp relief:

Avatar Fashion/Accessories Represent 40% of Second Life's Marketplace, But Only 20% of Its Economy

The New York Times style section has a fun piece on the pleasures of virtual fashion during harsh real world economic times, with an emphasis on Second Life and luminaries like Angie Mornington, whose fashionista talk show claims 15,000 weekly viewers. Most interesting to me was this factoid offered by Linden Chief Product Office Tom Hale (T. Linden in-world):

Clothing and accessories account for about 40 percent of the overall virtual marketplace in Second Life, Mr. Hale said, and roughly 20 percent of its economy, which also encompasses land, luxury homes, private jets and rents or services.

If I'm reading that right (and the Times is quoting correctly), that suggests there's twice as much fashion and avatar enhancements for sale in SL than what is actually bought. I wouldn't be surprised if real world fashion had a similar ratio, though I am surprised fashion is just one-fifth of the in-world economy. (I would have guessed one-third.) What major sectors comprise the remaining 80%, do you reckon? Image: nytimes.com.

New World Newsfeed: Philip Rosedale Ends Full-Time Linden Role To Start New SL-Centric Company (I Have 2 Theories)

Second Life Blog: Next Chapter!

A year after ceding the CEO position to Mark Kingdon, Linden Lab founder Philip Rosedale just announced that he will no longer work at Linden Lab full-time, suggesting that work in his capacity as Linden's chairman will be restricted to "outbound and media type things as before - talking about Second Life". For the most part, however, his main efforts will be devoted to starting a new company, the details of which he won't divulge as yet, except to say it "actually depends on Second Life existing to get started, and that I have been thinking about almost as long as I've been thinking about Second Life."

Regarding Kingdon, he praises the team he has hired, while acknowledging he does not always agree with the company's new direction, and frames that with an interesting analogy: "It's like when your teenagers leave home - of course you still worry and wish they would listen to you more! But at some point you believe that they are safe enough to live on their own."

For now, then, the main question is what Philip Linden's new company will be. From the hints he offers, I'd speculate two directions:

Second Life Bloggers PSA: Don't Forget To Disclose Free Virtual Gifts (a New FTC Rule Suggests)!

Do you blog about Second Life content that's for sale, say virtual fashion and houseware items, or even SL islands with a commercial purpose? Do entrepreneurs give you free product samples in the hopes you'll write about them, as is often the case? Best consider this recent news from the New York Times:

The F.T.C. said that beginning on Dec. 1, bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers, as occurs frequently. [emph. mine]

Full wording from the Federal Trade Commission here. A fellow SL blogger recently sent along the link, wondering aloud, "At what point will the FTC begin to get involved with virtual world bloggers?" Probably sooner rather than later. Virtual items and currency are already a business worth several billion dollars, consumed by an estimated 12% of Americans, with $1 billion transacted in Second Life alone. At the same time, SL probably has the largest blogosphere among all virtual worlds, with most of those blogs covering virtual fashion, a big business by virtual world standards. (At a recent conference, Chief Product Officer T. Linden reported that one Resident is making $1 million a year selling virtual skirts and other clothing in Second Life.)

So yes, while I'm not a lawyer, if an SL designer sends you a free item in the hopes that you'll review it, you probably want to disclose that fact up front. Especially in the often drama-filled world of Second Life fashion, where legal threats are not uncommon.

This New World Notes public service announcement was brought to you in part by Rezzable, Styles of Edo, Google AdSense affiliates, Amazon and -- checking my current Federated Media queue -- Netseer, Net Com, Energizer, American Express, and the lovely people of Dow Chemical. Also, one time M. Linden bought me a glass of ice tea.

New World Newsfeed: 3D Virtual Worlds for Enterprise Use Forecast To Become $8-10 Billion Business By 2014

GigaOM: Enterprise Virtual Worlds to See Real-World Growth

3-D virtual world applications for enterprise use will grow into an industry earning $8 billion to $10 billion in annual revenue by 2014, according to Kris Tuttle and Steve Waite, analysts for Research 2.0, in a paper for GigaOM Pro (sub. req.). They argue this will happen after a critical mass in 12-24 months, after which, the revenue will double year over year. In the full report, the authors list a number of 3D enterprise applications, and handicap their prospects at becoming a leading player in the industry. Second Life is described as a market leader, but Tuttle and Waite report "a good deal of discontent and frustration among enterprise users of Second Life, particularly concerning security and intellectual-property issues, in addition to complaints about ease of use." OpenSimulator gets respectful coverage, and high praise for its open source approach, but, the authors argue, "OpenSimulator is still considered alpha software, which means it is not quite ready for prime-time use in the enterprise today."

Read the rest of my summary here. I agree with the authors' main thesis, though I'm a bit skeptical revenue will reach into the billions of dollars in so short a time. If you're in the enterprise side of virtual worlds, what's your sense?

New World Newsfeed: Will Real World Ads Return To Second Life Soon? (If So, Do It Right This Time, Fellas)

The positive re-appraisal of Second Life by Web 2.0 marketing exec Chris Abraham I mentioned last week is now being run on the website of Advertising Age, the ad biz's leading publication. Combine that with the recent Industry Standard's report that Second Life is superior across several metrics to top social networks and more importantly, the apparent end of the real world economic recession, and it's likely we'll start to see some real world advertising campaigns return to SL soon. (For those just tuning in, Second Life experienced a mini-dot com boom of RL advertising sites for most of 2006-07, but reached its nadir in 2008, not simply because most campaigns failed to generate decent ROI, but also because as recession approached, experimental advertising was usually the first thing cut from marketing budgets.)

It's doubtful Second Life will ever see as huge a marketing push again, unless or until it becomes a truly mass market platform, not with hundreds of thousands of regular users, but millions. However, it's likely we'll see some small baby step campaigns, especially by the high-tech companies already using SL as an enterprise/conferencing system. If that happens, I hope advertisers return with humility and the wisdom of lessons learned. Among the many points of advice I'd give, would be this one:

Market to the Web 2.0 Ecology Around The Virtual World: Because virtual worlds are by their very nature dynamic and synchronous, a tremendous amount of activity related to them actually takes place elsewhere, in the Web 2.0 content-sharing ecology — screenshots sent to Flickr, machinima uploaded to YouTube, blogs and conferencing systems where users discuss their latest experiences.

This is true of all virtual worlds, and especially true for Second Life, where 133K users account for 90% of all monthly in-world activity, but where external Web 2.0 channels provide the full breadth of SL culture. (17 million pageviews from Japanese SL blogs alone.)

If you're also a veteran of the metaverse advertising boom/bust cycle, what would you advise, if and when the ad dollars return?