Has the pendulum swung too far in the direction of enterprise clients at Linden Lab? Or are they prepping Second Life for a marketing push that will bump up the numbers of casual users? You know, the folks like you and me who arrived in the virtual world looking to waste some time maybe and suddenly found ourselves rezzing prims and dreaming that we could actually bring some of that sense of exploration to the office…someday, maybe, if we could be sure we didn’t sound like we were nuts.
My last post about Mark Kingdon’s recent trip to Europe spurred Kwame Oh to comment:
“Much as I applaud the work being done with regard enterprise,and all the new ways to give us tools, without marketing of the platform for use by the general public which so far has been done by users of the platform, traction will not be gained in the wishes of Linden Lab to maintain its place at the moment as the leading platform provider.
As the pendulum swings into the next decade, and content producers look for new spaces to market their wares Linden Lab should take the lead and market itself as this space, or face the possibility that dedicated spaces will rise from this lack of marketing/leadership.”
And I couldn’t agree more. And I agree partly because I have this horror of virtual worlds being populated by a bunch of dull corporations with conference tables and endless meetings over PowerPoint slides – I mean, really, someone needs to start designing new animations: the “I’m so bored my brain is melting” Animation Override, or maybe a “My eyes are bleeding from looking at yet another mission statement” attachment.
One of the success factors for the use of Second Life by enterprise isn’t the technology or how well the MediaAPI’s work: it’s the people. It’s the Residents, who support and motivate content creators, who push the envelopes of what’s possible. Other platforms have desktop sharing and mesh imports and slick UIs. What other platforms DON’T have is an army of creative and talented people who can remain motivated with the right combination of governance, policy, technology and economy. And the economy rests on new users.
So is Second Life ready for its ad on the Superbowl? Maybe not the Superbowl, but some kind of mass market initiative. Something with, you know, banners and an ad here and there, and maybe a box at Best Buy that includes a user guide, the viewer on a DVD, a little Showcase guide and a decent headset.
Is There a Plan?
Now, I have this idea that M and his crew are actually fairly systematic in how they do things. Don’t get me wrong: their ability to do that is also in tension with a culture of innovation and the ‘hey kids, let’s build a world’ spirit that Philip brought in building Second Life. And against THOSE competing tension – of strategic planning and steps and road maps combined with JIRAs and what-do-you-want-to-do-today love machine driven development, there are evolving facts on the ground, so to speak: a lawsuit here, a competitive announcement there. So…no, they don’t always get it right, and they’re often taken by surprise (can anyone say educator trademark notice?) when their best-laid plans go awry (or maybe they’re NOT taken by surprise, in which case they’re either way smarter than I thought or way, well, not).
So in my possibly delusional fantasy of how the Lab thinks about these things, I have this idea, based on what M said at SLCC and during his trip to Paris, the keynote by Tom Hale and his presentation at the Virtual Goods Expo, and what the tarot cards told me, that things are unfolding in a way that suggests the Lab isn’t far off from kick-starting some proper marketing, with the goal being to build a faster growth curve of new users. So here’s my guess of their inner logic:
Content Streams and Features for New Users
- Build the infrastructure for more “Web-side” experiences. This begins with the site overhaul and will continue with social media links.
- Embed this in the larger goal of increasing retention of new users. They have frequently stated that there are two major barriers to keeping people in Second Life – they can’t find anything, and they don’t meet people. So the thinking goes that you need the Web-side content as a ‘holding place’ for community channels, showcase, and commerce because it’s a more familiar experience for a new user.
- But for this to work in-world, you need to refine the orientation experience. This is best accomplished through community partners….because the key is linking people to people.
- And for this to ALSO work in-world, you need a new viewer. Because the current viewer doesn’t integrate well with all that Web content, and it’s intimidating to new users.
- Package land better, because if you can get someone to buy land, you have a convert. So turn land into a ‘product’. Package up builds with land, make it easier to buy.
So, we start with some broad goals: improve orientation, get the Web site ready to integrate with a new viewer, create pathways to communities and content, make commerce easier and more accessible. In other words, get the Grid ready for new people.
Roll-Out a Developer Path
- Have you ever noticed that little button at the bottom of the new Second Life Home Page that says “Second Life Develop”? Who do you think that’s for? Just as there’s a ‘channel’ now for work, the Lab clearly has plans to launch a channel for developers. Stay tuned.
- Keep content developer’s appetites whetted – mention mesh imports, launch the MediaAPI.
- Create a sellers’ registry on XStreet – this isn’t just a content protection idea, this has implications for the other stuff that M announced like a marketplace for Nebraska. (”Inside Nebraska, there will be a market place (iTunes like) where users can buy existing content.”) If you’re going to transfer content from the main grid to private servers, you’re going to need to deal with licensing issues – the seller’s registry will open a new market to content creators who don’t mind earning REAL money for selling virtual goods to corporate-type clients over on the stand-alone solution.
- Struggle, wrestle, fail, try again, police, fail, try again – referring of course to the Lab’s content protection road map.
The goal here is happy content creators. Without them, the rest of it doesn’t work. Period.
Open the Doors to Enterprise
- Launch Nebraska. Enjoy some positive press buzz. Maybe even snag some revenue.
- But what’s REALLY at stake here is creating an ecosystem of application development that will carry Second Life past being a world in which there are lots of virtual GOODS, into being a world which starts to play well with others – with the Web, with social media, with other types of content.
- In other words, it turns Second Life into a platform like the iPhone is a platform where there’s a marketplace of applications like there’s an iPhone app store. The incentive to CREATE all these applications is partly facilitated by enterprise who needs all that Sametime/Sharepoint integration stuff. So, we’re talking a way to monetize all that Web work you’ve done, or that Twitter thing you built on a Web site that integrates into SL.
- With an application market, Linden Lab can start creating the hooks out to social media that they’re so keen to do. Give people tools like Twitter has for creating apps that are embeddable elsewhere (I mean, these tools exist, people DO this stuff, but marketing it as product is difficult).
Finally, Start Promoting
Superbowl here we come. And since I’m so delusional, I probably shouldn’t peer too much into the future. There’s the stuff about a new browser-based viewer, there’s the “cash out” option with the economy that M mentioned in Paris, which makes me wonder what their plans might be for the Linden itself (a PayPal for the virtual goods market?), and, I dunno – there’s embedding Google Wave or something.
Now – that seems like a plan with a lot of moving parts but with a couple of big directional points. Whether they can keep all the balls in the air I’m not sure, but they’re sure continuing their hiring binge these days so maybe they can staff up enough to pull it off.
And while it’s nice to hear M sketch some of these things out, what would be REALLY nice is if he’d hit the blog once in a while and keep us a little more informed – I mean, when WAS his last post anyways? Because while the above road map may be wishful thinking, I’d love to just know whether it’s even vaguely in line with how they think about these things, or whether I’m just as delusional when I first arrived in Second Life, when I came to believe that the future would unfold as it should, but not quite as I expected.
I don’t think Linden Lab can market their product until their “product” WORKS.
Take the SL on CSI incident. Millions gathered around to watch Gary Senise solve a crime using Second Life…. and thousands of SLers watched. All the Lindens were waiting for the millions of mainstreamers to enter SL…. and what happened? about 12000 new signups… and SL’s main log in page crashed.
Just one incident in the history of SL not working when it needed to.
… so, if SL is ever going to market to the mainstream, they better make sure they actually have a working product first.
Dusan Writer for Mayor
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DD – True. I was going to get into the stability stuff and make some kind of smart comment about the new texture pipeline or moving assets closer to the sims or whatever, but as you know, I’m technically an idiot really.
Can’t help wondering also whether there’s any implication for lag from, say, the MediaAPI or what that might mean.
But surely SL is better than it was when CSI launched?
Is SL better than when CSI launched? I’m not even sure the answer to that is a yes.
Second Life may be ready for prime-time… but Linden Lab is not.
… at the time, I thought that the CSI episode would be the tipping point. I also thought Keiko Takamura appearing on MTV would be a tipping point. I also thought SL appearing in “The Office” would be a tipping point….
…. and Linden Lab did the OPPOSITE of capitalize on it.
…. so… I say… Second Life has always been ready for prime time (disregarding the technical flaws).. but Linden Lab as a company is NOT thinking big. Their egos are making them think they are thinking big, but, they’re not.
Another example: Yoko Ono celebrates John Lennon’s birthday in SL….
… 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.
Prime time… no….
Daytime soap opera yes…
SL is “as the world turns” meets “general hospital”
All these RL examples of SL in the main stream aren’t missed opportunities for the Lab. It points to something else, lack of mass appeal. When your product is in TV shows, the news, and other pop culture outlets, and you experience the “blink and it’s gone” phenomenon, you have to start looking into the mirror.
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.
Linden Labs is incapable of change. I am probably representative of the typical user. Joined SL in Oct. 2006, bought land, started several businesses, big SL promoter, bought several hundred dollars in inventory items every year, paid thousands for land and land tier. Started to see negative changes in 2007-2008 and began to unload land. The adult changes were the final straw for me. Since March 2009 I have logged in a handful of times and spent absolutely no RL money inworld. If Linden Labs had even the slightest clue about customer service they would be asking folks like myself why we turned from big SL supporters to not caring if SL or Linden Labs exists anymore. It’s all about customer service and they are clueless in that regard. I asked a Linden in 2007 why they didn’t do advertising, marketing, selling SL branded merchandise lke t-shirts, etc. All I got was the usual arrogant, I’m better than you, Linden attitude. Linden Labs as a company and their employees are “dumb as stumps”.
_~~~
First, I can’t avoid the pun: “Is Linden Lab Ready for Prim Time?”
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.”
The name of the company is still “LINDEN LAB”…
“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
There certainly seems an emphasis as you indicate. Including their “partnering” with large communities. A tiny fish in the pond such as our 12 sim estate is trivial to Linden Lab will never gain this type of boost or recognition.
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!
Linden Lab needs some serious marketing first and foremost. With 600,000 users, major companies actually looking to draw eyes aren’t going to be interested.
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.
I agree completely with Coyle: The problem is that Second Life doesn’t have mass appeal.
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.