Slashdot Mirror
Are Marketers Abandoning Second Life?
Vary writes "The LA Times is running a story today saying that marketers are pulling out of Second Life, primarily because — surprise, surprise — the 'more than 8 million residents' figure on the game's Web site is grossly inflated. Also, as it turns out, the virtual world's regular visitors — at most 40,000 of them online at any time — are not only disinterested in in-world marketing, but actively hostile to it, staging attacks on corporate presences such as the Reebok and American Apparel stores. The companies aren't giving up on virtual worlds altogether, though, but moving on to games like There, Gaia Online and Entropia Universe. The article also contains some commentary from a marketing executive who conducted an informal survey of the game and discovered that 'One of the most frequently purchased items in Second Life is genitalia.' What company wouldn't want to be in on that action?"
No, they started there. Now, an interesting question is this: users of second life were hostile to marketing and the marketers pulled out. What if we tried the same thing in first life?
Second Life is a place where you can do things that, for whatever reason, you cannot or are unwilling to do, in Real Life.
For me it is sculpture. A friend of mine used to race sailboats. He was bed ridden with a neurological disorder, but in Second Life few knew this. He is dead now, from the disease, but for his last few years he was able bodied as you and I.
PleaseWakeMeUp Idler in Second Life
In Second Life: skins, hair, clothes, animations, weapons, sensors, shields, jewelry, gestures, flight enhancers, teleporters, wings, tails, complete avatar makeovers (including species and gender changes), ... and, I guess, genitals.
In First Life: clothes, food, shelter, cosmetics, drugs, jewelry, weapons, transportation, and entertainment (including stories and movies about people who can change their skins, hair, clothes, gender, species, etc...)
In Star Trek: clothes, food, shelter, cosmetics, drugs, jewelry, weapons, sensors, shields, teleporters, and holodeck privileges (where they can pretend to change their skins, hair, clothes, gender, species, etc...)
Also being underage recently, and not afraid of committing fraud, I borrowed my fathers credit card to join Second Life's main grid. (yes, I have had a brief experience with the teen grid *shudder*)
The first thing I did in world was stutter around at aprx. 4FPS. Even though the world was lagging like crazy, and everyone I saw was wearing the uniform purple/blue shirt, I was intrigued by the possibilities. I finished the tutorial and started messing around with LSL.
After a few minutes, I had a hello world program up and working. A few hours later, I made 10 bucks by writing a blackjack program for my first in-world friend, the owner of a small casino. I hung out with him for awhile, and invented a few new gambling devices, and then I decided to become a premium member.
At this point I was earning enough money to pay for the subscription cost, and I also purchased my first plot of land.. a 512. I built a small house on my land and started modding it... for instance I could change the alpha value of the windows, lock doors and such.
I became a scripting teacher at TUI, a school for the basics/advanced parts of Second Life.
I still have many friends in Second Life that I would never have met otherwise, and came out of Second Life much better at writing finished scripts and the confidence of having run a small scripting business.
Once you get past the sometimes ugly graphics of Second Life (not as ugly once your upgrade your graphics card), you can understand why 40,000 people spend hours and hours a day in their Second Lives. It is a welcome escape from the monotonous first life. Where else can you decide to be a bunny one moment, and a 10 foot robot the next?