What I wish they’d do is kill that Flickr postcard image thing that you get at Secondlife.com if you aren’t logged in – it’s a messy exercise in branding to say the least.

I actually think we’re in a sort of holding pattern – parts of the new Web look and feel have been rolled out, part haven’t, and it’s looking like a fractured mess, but I think it’s because they’ve done it in stages. But maybe I’m wrong.

Having said that, a coherent set of Web sites does not a “brand aspiration” make. What we’ve seen so far is serviceable, effective, and seems to be driven by a lot of benefit statements and ‘use case pathways’ – but I don’t get a ‘wow’ feel like I do when I see an Apple ad or whatever.

Which comes to advertising. And there isn’t any. And maybe there never will be.

As far as brand managers presenting at SLCC – maybe we can get M and Pip to comment….they’re about as manager-y as you can get haha.

“Humanize our experience with technology” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue Dusan. But I’d argue that if it were more linguistically aesthetic it is precisely what Apple does and currently SL does not.

Apple’s products are so intuitive and resilient that they each are a gateway drug – to more Apple products. And when you’ve become a junkie, you ignore the fact that they are violating the very core values that so many of their fan boys embrace. That’s a strong brand – one that even when it crosses the line you are still waving the flag, marching into the valley of death.

I agree with Tateru, I don’t believe “Second Life” will ever be a strong brand and if I were at LL I would be working like hell to build a brand under which the service Second Life would live, in part to diminish what is now a painfully confusing and fractured set of products, or services, or those things that define the “resource offering tools and support for 3D content creation in these areas”.

The Lab itself is creating this fractured image. Ask any Apple fanatic the difference between an iphone and an ipod touch. Now ask any ardent SLer the difference between what’s here:
http://secondlife.com
and what’s here:
http://secondlifegrid.net/
or what’s here:
http://work.secondlife.com/

Who is the brand manager at the Lab? They would make a good SLCC panelist on this topic.

good to hear we humans factored in there somewhere.;)

much of what has happened in 30 years has been the “computerizing of humans”. Proven as i need to run out and fill a meter every 2 hrs and with a printed card, cant rely on any goodness of heart for a left over 5 minutes, or dime refill from a street walker of good intent.

cube3

As I was reading between the lines of your looking at SF and trying to make sense of it, you had a frame of reference, a collection of expectations, and you were holding that up to the immersive reality of now and trying to see what did and didn’t fit.

You are also playing with another kind of frame of reference, looking at histories of other technologies and companies that try to package and sell them, and compare that to the unfolding of virtual world technology under the LL/SL brand. You’re like a surfer who’s been studying the waves and how they come in, and trying to extrapolate that knowledge while sitting on your board in the bay, hoping to read them as they come in and start to form, so you can be in the right spot at the right time to catch a big one and have a bitchin ride.

You’re obviously in a mellow, grooved mood to not rip on Malcom Gladwell as you talk about tipping points

As I think about the inculturation of virtual worlds into our mainstream of interaction, I was pondering a conversation I had last night with one of my in-world friends. He’s lost most all of his interest in SL, saying for him, “the game is played out” (The metaphorical irony i saw in that was that it isn’t a game, per se…).

So as I looked at your blog about the financial report, and you and the comments were wanting to tease out some real meaning in the rather vague metrics, I have another kind to add… it seems to me, the accounts that are oldest and active are those who have developed a vested interest, mostly of a business kind, that keeps them active. It would be interesting to be able to measure and understand the excitement and interest levels of people over time. I saw one of the anthropologists talking about trying to get a handle on the dynamics of social groups, for instance, how they form, attract members, and what the life cycle of that is like in a virtual world compared to in other venues of our lives.

What I suspect is “your world; your imagination” only works as long as one is inspired to imagine, build, sell, or own. Unless SL fills some particular need for us that nothing else delivers, why stay? What is the types of life cycles of user interest, and what does that tell us about the potential horizons for this technology?

Great post Dusan. Obviously a lot of thought behind it.

Malaby found it…it was found in whats NOT said, not what is:)

Your diary in SF sounds much like my “report” back to NYC when i came out here to look- to move west in 1995 at the birth of the 3dweb and online web1.0 bubbles…..:)

good luck finding a taxi.