It sometimes feels to me like there are two types of users in Second Life: the single dots, and the multi-dots.
I remember the early days of Second Life – the map was a friend and a mystery. As I wandered the Grid, I’d use the map not because the geography that it showed seemed particularly relevant – I mean, most sims on the map look like a random collection of squares and squiggles and don’t tell you much about what’s there before you arrive. But the presence of green dots became a sort of pulse-taker of activity on the Grid.
The presence of single dots confused me – why would someone just sit there in SL and not move? What were they doing? In retrospect, it seems like an odd question, but I honestly didn’t realize at first how many people sit in their favorite spot and just chat with each other across virtual distance. And I didn’t understand how powerful the experience of building was until I first rezzed a prim.
So you have your single dots – people who are established in their own communities and use private and group chat to talk to others. And the users who come into SL to create, and like to do it on their own, and find some quiet corner to rez prims.
But Second Life is primarily a social platform – a multi-dot world, not unlike Facebook, say, with its myriad groups (Facebook groups are, in my opinion, even more borked than SL – there’s something about how they’re constructed that seems to make group conversations and sharing tiresome, but then I hate FB in general).
Recently, we’ve been working on client projects and have been starting to use the RegAPI a bit more – setting up pages through which new users can register, and then directing them to a build in-world. Chris Collins, formerly on the Enterprise team, and now on his own with a company called Tipodean, has been a great help with this and has some spiffy code that was really helpful.
But I can’t help thinking that in the focus on bringing in new users, Linden Lab could derive significant value if they would work on providing some tools and code focused on bringing in new groups of users, rather than worrying about those single users who knock on the front door out of sheer curiosity (and of whom 95% or whatever give up).
I mean, here’s what I’d like: the ability to invite a group of friends to join me in Second Life. The ability for this invitation to include a time and location, enrollment in a group, and auto-add to my friends list. And some sort of option for creating a connection between the avatar names they choose and their actual names.
We’ve used the RegAPI to basically do just that – but this kind of code shouldn’t require users to have their own Web sites or whatever.
Now, some of this is possible by simply sending out an e-mail with a SLURL. The SLURL directs them to a sign-up page and once they’ve registered and chosen an avatar, they’ll be logged in at the SLURL location.
But I’d like to see this as a service of some kind on the Second Life Web site – log into my profile and invite a bunch of friends, choose a SLURL, choose a group to enroll them in, and maybe even set up times with reminders or something.
This service could then extend somehow to social media – a BuddyPress widget, say, plug-ins for Joomla or Drupal or whatever.
Much of the focus on retaining new users is to help them find events and people – but I can’t help thinking that the focus should be on finding events and people external to Second Life and give them a virtual home. If I could easily say to a group of people who I interact with elsewhere – an e-mail listserv, say, or a little group sign-up link under a youTube video….I’m not asking people to find new groups and interests in SL, I’m asking people who already have a shared interest together to spend time in a “place” together.
I’m not interested in linking out to social media – but I am interested in having easier ways to bring small groups of people into SL in a way that effectively translates strong social connections that already exist.
Or maybe I’m missing something? Maybe there’s some sort of concern about “SL spam” or something? What do you think? How do you facilitate bringing in external groups (of friends or colleagues, say) into SL? And beyond SL users bringing in groups, what would it look like to offer a “group sign up” feature in addition to one for individual users?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dusan Writer, Doubledown Tandino and Cisop Sixpence, Beverly G. McCarter. Beverly G. McCarter said: Posted Second Life Growth: New Groups versus New Users:… two types of users…?.. http://bit.ly/cYUZzz #fcvw #gov20 [...]
[...] networking. I suspect that is a very déclassé admission. I loved Dusan Writer’s post about the dots on the grid. Unless I am at a music event or a friend has dropped in (or I am on a Midnight Mania board run), I [...]
I agree with all of this, and would even take it a step further, they need to create guest accounts, they should be able to have a choice to sign up (on your webpage /regapi) or go straight in as a guest, maybe the guest is a gray ghost or something but anything to allow people to go in and explore before giving out their info and embarking on a Second Life. Land owners etc could have an option whether they want to allow these anonymous guest avatars in, but I would assume venue owners, musical performances etc would be open to this type of thing.
The unformed avatars is an interesting idea as that would circumvent the decisions etc that some would find annoying. Rather they could stroll right in to open events.
Obviously there could be problems, but if they are listed as friends of premium members, some accountability could be provided.
All in all tho, I continue to believe that if SL progressed forward in a way that has been seriously lacking these last few years, people would be queueing to get in…
Continued angst about numbers, groups or otherwise, is a secondary symptom rather than a primary issue.
both SL and open sims hosts have been a disaster of quick “interest” usage from the so called 500 million faces…:)
web based browser or not, the difficulty of “just wanting to look” at “something” has held back this platform’s “solutions” for years.
My open sims efforts have honestly been pretty much only pr fluff within the 50 sl blogger network. The task for most anyone beyond a “builder hobbiest” or frankly a “teacher hobbiest” to ever ‘reach” a sim, is almost herculian in nature.
for 15 plus years ive tried to convey the message that virtuality had best be used as “just a business” tool/medium.
all i see is cyclic “metahype” from those who refuse to even study the past of a 5 year cycle.
futurism indeed. run amok.like a cult.
c3 has it right, I think the culture of SL dooms it. It’s all immersive, all hide behind the avatar, and it not only inhibits ease of entry, it’s also tiresome for people who don’t want alts renting adjacent properties and pretending not to be each other, etc. When the majority of SLers get over being upset that they are adults and start understanding that it’s a good thing, I think SL will make some progress.
Truthfully, I don’t see this ever happening though.
“When the majority of SLers get over being upset that they are adults and start understanding that it’s a good thing, I think SL will make some progress.”
if ONLY this was a SL problem…
Scott Pilgrim vs the World.. a autistic comic book geek and his comic book geek world..now the most talked about “film” in the states this week…
50 is the new 30 and 30 the new 10… the fanatasies of the “digital” generation and the “media “generation before them.
mental and physical- aided by tech and pharmaceutal drug pushers.:)
peter pan and despots win.
I entirely agree wish this essay. I would not be in SL if I had not come in with a group. Those who were already in SL helped and mentored those who were coming in new. Many of us are still there and we still have a strong group identity. We were part of the diaspora from a discontinued online game, so we were already accustomed to the idea of “being” avatars; that may have made a difference.
And this would be enormously useful for classes. It’s a laborious process, getting all the students registered, finding out their avatar names and adding them as contacts, then creating a group and getting them all together in one place. A way to do this all through a single email would save a huge amount of time.