Is Linden Lab wasting its time on the existing Second Life population?

Reader Comments (3)

Tateru, you are right-on about the name--"Second Life" is about the worst name you'd want for a virtual world, only beaten out by "Loser in Basement" (trust an academic Rhetorician on this).

If you want retention rates for 18-22 year olds who encounter SL in a class, my personal experience shows that 2% of them stay for another semester or more as social users.

I'm more artsy-fartsy than statistical, but I've taught approximately 100 kids in their first or second years of college, these past 2.5 years. Two have remained in SL, irregularly.

Reasons that they give for leaving SL:

--They have a community at Facebook and IRL, and they don't feel the need to drive avatars
--They all have laptops, and for many SL runs poorly there
--The UI and inventory system, even changing clothing and appearance, remain non-intuitive
--They find SL "creepy" or lonely--though some who travel about with friends report having more fun
--SL's risque aesthetic (see "creepy" above) spooks them. They are young, beautiful, and sexually aware IRL. The notion of "cybersex" or even "cybersexy" equals "losers in basement" to them
--LL's promotions of SL on "The Office" and "CSI: New York" reinforced the negative perceptions of SL for the few who knew about it
--They consider SL something for 30-somethings (ie--old people). I am, of course, the ancient and crazy uncle with this bizarre hobby

Unstated reasons? SL was for a class.

Maybe LL can get more 30+ SLers, but I'm not confident they'll ever reach the Millennial market.

Reply

Maybe there's still hope for the Hundredth Monkey Effect?

If I was still in the 18-22 range, I'd probably be running around barefoot, staying out till all hours, and drinking vodka-cranberry in private bars with folk musicians -- at pretty much every available opportunity.

Age and advancing infirmity however keeps me in a chair more often than not these days, and being able to use a virtual environment to nearly instantly collaborate with interesting people from all over the world? That has a lot more appeal nowadays.

Reply

iggyono, very nicely and succinctly put. i have had over 200 students do a series of classes in SL, and as far as I am aware, basically none of them have staid in SL beyond the classes. From an educational perspective, this is not a problem for me in that my students enjoy and look forward to (mostly) the lessons we design for them, but once the lessons are over, they most definitely do not look to SL for their social networking.

Tetaru, as a parent with a 21 year old I fully concur that kids between 18-mid-20s (or even later these days) on the whole want to be 'out there' experiencing real life (parties and all), and then talking about it with their peers on sites where they can post text and pictorial records of the 'real' them (although we all know that what gets posted on social networking sites like Facebook is indeed also often a carefully crafted 'identity'). People in this age group haven't seen enough of RL to want to spend much time in a virtual world like SL. I have traveled extensively over my 5 decades of existence and lived overseas for many years. I still love to travel and see new people and places, but I also immensely enjoy experiencing new (and familiar) things/places/people in SL. I think it is because of my rich life experience that I enjoy SL so much.

Reply