But, is that a problem at all?

Why the mandate that Second Life have mass appeal at all? Where is this coming from? The world is full useful niche markets, and maybe Second Life is one of them. Maybe virtual worlds themselves are more of a niche than we care to think… check those keywords in Google Trends sometime.

More interestingly, what is Linden Labs business motivation for Second Life to have mainstream appeal? Right now, they are an elite hosting company. They charge ridiculous rates for virtual property to empower people who have intense creative motivations and vivid imaginations. The people paying the bills do not fit the mainstream demographic.

For mainstream appeal, the experience would need to be flattened. Individuals and small boutique content creators would become the minority, and high-end content creators able to create expensive experiences aimed at mainstream markets would dominate. By going in that direction, the lab would encourage greater and greater competition. Hosting fees would flatten and revenue would decrease significantly. In a truly competitive environment where property is available for $9.95 per month per sim, the lab’s whole approach would need to change.

Essentially, Second Life is like a dazzling resort hotel that can charge anything it wishes for one of the best experiences available. Are they really aiming to be the Holiday Inn? Is that what we want?

The crux of the problem was described so succinctly by Mitch Wagner last year on Metanomics when Robert asked him what he thought the lab considered its target market: “People on planet earth.”

There is a complete lack of target-market thinking at the lab, probably because they themselves don’t know what to do. Sure, let’s make money with corporates. But, let’s keep the adult market happy on their own continent…. and of course content creation is what Second Life is all about, so it’s OK for Philip to keep preaching that in-world creation is the unique differentiator. But yes of course providing mesh import would be useful, and corporate solutions behind the firewall, sure, and then the first-hour experience for novice consumers. Yes, novice consumers are important too. Plus music lovers. Remember, we can’t forget those, or at least we can’t say we’ve forgotten them.

The real milestone for the lab is when they start deciding what markets to say “no” to and stop saying “yes” to every single possible application under the sun.

Television, political campaigns, brand marketing — this all requires a lot of eyes, and it’s not going to come from something that has under a million total users, with a fraction of those actually exploring a product.

Seeing the appalling treatment of Jokay and her incredible evangelism certainly underscores Linden Lab’s apparent lack of being able to value their customers. Her “reach” into the global education community is priceless but it is clear that Linden’s focus is elsewhere.

However, as they move more towards the corporations, maybe, just maybe, advances in grid performance may benefit the rest of us. But trickle down strategies never seem to really work out that well for the average avatar!

“lab’s” dont exactly scream a mass market stable, sustainable products or services.;)

its not rocket science, the goals and plans are all printed on the front door.:)

“become a rat in a maze!!” join now- were waiting.

not exactly a “GO Daddy.com” commercial.. then again, what IS ( after 20 million spent on ads) Go Daddy.com??

see my point.:)

best
c3

Second, I can’t help but wonder if we want mass appeal… or to put it another way: “Be careful what you wish for — you might get it.”

Mass appeal is where the focus needs to be for the Lab to turn SL into the new new thing. All these tools for developers, the API’s, and DMCA issues are great candy for us techie types, but don’t draw in the millions of users. These developments actually push Joe Plumber further from SL as the techies and the technology make things even more complex.

Dusan, all your ideas are great, for SL to continue down the same path it is currently headed. This necessarily isn’t a bad thing for SL’s current user-base. Integration with the web and more tech-savvy tools aren’t inventing anything new however, it is just keeping up with demand from SL’s builder base. I fear that the real innovation is happening outside of SL and the Lab will be playing catch up for a long time.

I think SL is a phenomenal tool in itself. I also think you’re spot on with where some effort should be devoted to keep it intriguing. But if the Lab wants mass appeal, it really needs to be less complex. The masses don’t want to spend 2 weeks at the Ivory Tower or the College of Scripting. They want to play a game, they want eye candy, they want to passively observe something cool for 20 minutes to an hour, maybe buy a virtual item, and then sign off. Their worlds don’t revolve around SL.

Prime time hasn’t led to mass appeal for SL. This is the problem that needs to be fixed, but ironically, supporting the builders of SL with greater feature sets, I feel, is only going to pigeon-hole SL into an even greater esoteric state than it already is.

Daytime soap opera yes…

SL is “as the world turns” meets “general hospital”

… it came and went… we all blinked, and now it’s done… and now Yoko has moved on, and nothing was gained from it.
Another missed opportunity from Linden Lab.