Second Life was developed to be driven by the imagination of its users – a creative commons, if you will, where individuals could create, share, and build on the work of peers. The quintissential example of Wikinomics. Linden took the bold step of allowing users to own their content, and changed the economy to be “real estate” based rather than object based. Lifting the tax on prims, and instead relying on the idea of renting server space (or land), ripped open the potential of Second Life.
Control the Factor in Loss of Corporate Support
But a bunch of flying genitalia and failed brand experiments within Second Life has consistently reinforced the notion that the freewheeling SL style is not for the corporate faint-of-heart. Corporate control over brand messages and environments has become the watchword for virtual world development – a short-sighted view, in my opinion, and something I’ll post about in far greater detail soon.
The CSI New York initiative which launched 400 sims in what was to be an explosion of new users and perhaps a tipping point for SL was a failure. Why it was a failure is debatable – even the OnRez viewer which has been lauded as a simplification and “AOL-ification” of the SL client has some frustrating features. The difficulty, it seems to me, is that CSI New York was grafted onto a creative commons. It was meant to provide an immersive game-like experience, but then why not just create a game? It held little appeal to residents of Second Life, and did little to move new users into the broader world beyond the CSI sims.
SL Islands as a “Safe” Platform
All of this, however, speaks to the motivation by the Lindens to appease the different interest and stakeholder groups, recognizing that the freewheeling ‘mainland’ world of Second Life may be where the raw, gritty, user-driven action is, but that it’s the walled off islands (resident or corporate owned) that will fill the SL coffers and offer solutions to business who are concerned about security, privacy, identity verification, and return on investment.
Again, I have my own opinions on whether control is a viable strategy in the long-run, but some controls are needed if, for example, you’d like to hold educational events for selected invitees who may be new to Second Life or “3D deprived”.
A recent interview with Chris Collings (“technical assistant to the CEO – hmmm….Philip needs technical assistance, how intriguing, maybe Chris can explain the meaning of lag?) over at ZDNet Australia further reinforces the approach that Linden’s taking in spinning islands as separate, walled off slices far away from the strip clubs and rotating banners of the mainland:
Collins says: “It comes down to education really. If you are a corporation that’s wanting to do meetings and have a private area, the best way to go about it is actually to own your own island.
What you can do with that is use a series of estate tools to give you full control over that island and who can access it. You can deny specific people or groups, or just make it completely private. Sun and IBM both have public and private presences. There’s quite a number of companies that do have a private presence and don’t have a public presence at all.
Collins further highlights the benefits of registration APIs allowing corporations to register users and direct them to specific sections of SL, this controlling not only the island content and access but also the process of, um, SL indoctrination. Actually – on this point, I fully support ANYTHING that opens up different approaches to new user orientation. In spite Philip’s recent comments that this was an area of intense study at LL, private orientation efforts far exceed Help Island (although the new Korean orientation sims are noteworthy).
Walled Gardens and the Collective Commons
Businesses look for simple solutions with simple metrics that fit their notions of message control, engagement, and content dissemination. Second Life, with a growing emphasis on the concept of walled gardens, is offering business a platform that emphasizes the aspects of control, access to an object pool in the billions, and a platform that still outperforms other syndicated worlds and can only be matched by the largest commercial MMORPGs.
The element missing from this pitch to business is the collaborative opportunities of virtual worlds and the ability to use these worlds as 3D Wikis – cascading content, brand mash-ups, open source product and content, experimentation and art. This counter-trend might find its home elsewhere (Croquet, OpenSim, HiPiHi) or, it might be the source of opportunity for the current residents used to the chaos and engagement of projects that rise and fall to continue to create grassroots collectives that put any work by the ESCs of the world to shame.
