Looking back on the meteoric rise of Second Life and its almost total failure to meet expectations, I think we can point to four areas of weakness on the part of Linden Labs: 1) a lack of strategic focus; 2) a failure to understand their core customers; 3) a failure to understand basic business principles; and 4)a failure to understand products and marketing. Each will be expanded, in turn, in this post, and further in subsequent posts.
Lack of Strategic Focus - What is Linden Labs trying to do with Second Life? Are they creating a big chat room? Is it a vehicle for self expression? Is it a harbinger of the 3D web? Is it a social interaction technology? Is it the latest thing in distance learning technology? Is is a workflow, meeting, or conferencing technolog? Is it destined to be an open source technology? Nobody seens to know the answer to any of these questions. While it may have the potential to be any of these things, it cannot be all things to all people all at once.
A Failure to Understand Their Core Customers - Who are the customers of Second Life? Is it the large companies like IBM, or CSI NY who buy up large chunks of virtual real estate? Is it the thousands of individual sim owners who own one or more islands? Is it the business people who rent or buy land in order to create a business in Second Life? Is it the premium account holders who pay $6-$9 per month for their Second Life accounts? Is it the basic account holders who pay nothing but populate the world and hopefully spend a little money in support of Second Life businesses?
A Failure to Understand Basic Business Principles - In order to run a sucessful business you have to have a product or service that people want to buy. You have to understand your customers and what they want. You have to know what factors are critical to your succcess. You have to know where you are trying to go over the long term. That is to say, you have to have a business model. Linden Labs fails in this area at two levels. The business model for Second Life is entirely unclear. And they attempt to attract businesses into Second Life who are equally as unclear regarding their business models.
A Failure to Understand Products and Marketing - Linden Labs created a huge amount of hype in the Fall of 2006 with the explosive growth in basic accounts and the news stories about virtual world millionaires. Many very hopeful and now bitter people came to the virtual world attempting to make money and lost money instead. One of the biggest fiascos was speculating in virtual real estate. People who bought land for $L5000 per plot and sold it at the peak for $L10,000 per plot did OK. But people who bought land for $L10,000 were left hold the bag. In order for this scheme to continue working, it would require that there is always a bigger sucker further down the line. And this comes dangerously close to a Ponzi scheme. You have to have a product with inherent value. Selling a product whose value relies on finding a bigger sucker is not a viable marketing strategy.
Over the next few posts, I will elaborate further on these ideas.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Creating Your Second Life - Part 2
In the last post, I discussed the capabilities that Second Life provides for creating objects in the 3D world through a processes called building. This is by far the most impressive feature of Second Life. You can create interesting things for others to see and you can see the interesting things that they have created. It is a public and synergistic sharing of creative imagination; sort of like a global 3D art show.
However, not far behind that is the ability to create your own persona in Second Life. Instead of being all that you can be, in Second Life you can be MORE than you can be. You can be better looking and more interesting. You can dress better and be more adept at business and technology that you ever could be in real life.
If you are short and fat in real life, then you can be tall and slim in Second Life. If you are unpopular and socially inept in real life, then you can have a long friends list and belong to lots of groups in Second Life. If nobody takes you seriously in real life, you can teach a class or start a philosophy discussion group in Second Life. If you can't hang on to a job in real life, you can start your own business in Second Life.
This ability to create you own persona has many significant implications. It builds confidence. It helps you explore the possibilities in your own personality. It can help you over come a variety of social anxieties. It can allow you to see the world from the perspective who are not like you in real life. Whereas the building capability in Second Life allows you to imagine and then create a new world, the various means of altering your persona in Second Life allow you to imagine and then create a new self. Once you have created a new world in Second Life, you can live in it. Once you have created a new self in Second Life you can experience that new world through that new self. It is no wonder that people get so addicted.
So, to sum up what Linden Labs got right with Second Life, it is the ability it provides for its users to create possible worlds and then experience those possible worlds. This is stimulating to the imagination and satisfying to the emotions. The question is - how can this amazing capability be put to best use? And that is where Linden Labs starts dropping the ball. In the next post we will begin to look at what Linden Labs did not get right.
However, not far behind that is the ability to create your own persona in Second Life. Instead of being all that you can be, in Second Life you can be MORE than you can be. You can be better looking and more interesting. You can dress better and be more adept at business and technology that you ever could be in real life.
If you are short and fat in real life, then you can be tall and slim in Second Life. If you are unpopular and socially inept in real life, then you can have a long friends list and belong to lots of groups in Second Life. If nobody takes you seriously in real life, you can teach a class or start a philosophy discussion group in Second Life. If you can't hang on to a job in real life, you can start your own business in Second Life.
This ability to create you own persona has many significant implications. It builds confidence. It helps you explore the possibilities in your own personality. It can help you over come a variety of social anxieties. It can allow you to see the world from the perspective who are not like you in real life. Whereas the building capability in Second Life allows you to imagine and then create a new world, the various means of altering your persona in Second Life allow you to imagine and then create a new self. Once you have created a new world in Second Life, you can live in it. Once you have created a new self in Second Life you can experience that new world through that new self. It is no wonder that people get so addicted.
So, to sum up what Linden Labs got right with Second Life, it is the ability it provides for its users to create possible worlds and then experience those possible worlds. This is stimulating to the imagination and satisfying to the emotions. The question is - how can this amazing capability be put to best use? And that is where Linden Labs starts dropping the ball. In the next post we will begin to look at what Linden Labs did not get right.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Creating Your Second Life - Part I
The single most impressive feature of Second Life is the capabilities that it provides the user to create their own content within the virtual world. Philosophers of technology claim that technology can always be viewed, in some way, as an extension of the person. In the case of Second Life technology, it can be viewed as a technological extension of the imagination. This is no small claim and the thing that Linden Labs did get right was the power that they put in the hands of their users to create their own worlds in Second Life.
This power to create is referred to as 'building' in Second Life. The user begins by creating a primitive object, called a 'prim' and then by modifying the shape, location of the prim and the images displayed on that prim, all of the content that you see in Second Life is created. There are some minor exceptions to this rather sweeping statement. For example, land is modified through a different editor in a process known as terraforming. And avatar looks are modified in an 'Appearance Editor' which will be discussed in the next post. But, for the most part, the vast majority of what you see in Second Life was created through building.
Building in Second Life is far from perfect. Its major drawback is that it is difficult to learn. All of the in-world tutorials are basically the same. The few available books are basically color glossy repeats of the in-world tutorials. And the in-world classes focus on how to achieve a specific result rather than on understanding building so that you can figure out how to achieve that result on your own. However, my experience with out-of-world graphics editors isn't a great deal better. So, I will give them a pass on that. If you want to learn how to build; you can. It may not be as easy as it could or should be. But any person of moderate intelligence and persistence can learn. And once you learn, what you can do is astonishing. So let's focus on that instead.
People with active imaginations are always picturing things in their minds. In fact, the definition of imagination is to be able to picture something in your mind that was not directly derived from experience. You can picture a unicorn in your mind, for example, even though you have never actually seen a unicorn. The beauty of building in Second Life is that if you can imagine it, you can probably build it. So instead of relying on those fuzzy pictures in your head, you can actually see what your ideas look like when represented in a virtual world. The net result of this is that your imagination and creativity come alive. In the classic movie - The Wizard of Oz - the film switches from black and white to technicolor when Dorothy leaves Kansas and enters the Land of Oz. The analogy is apt. Entering Second Life is like entering the magical World of Oz. It is a realm of the imagination, a place where all things are possible. If you can see it in your head, you can see it on the screen. And, if this were all that building in Second Life allowed you to do, it would be impressive enough. But it is not all.
When you create something in Second Life it is out there for everyone to see. So instead of those pictures being in your head, they are out there in a shared virtual world. You can display the products of your imagination and see the products of other people's imaginations. It reminds me of an old Bob Dylan song called Talkin' World War III Blues in which he says "I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours." This is the essence of Second Life - "I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours." The ability of users to get the content of their imaginations into the virtual world for others to see and the ability to see the content of the imaginations of others is truly the strength and most impressive accomplishment of Second Life. And the importance of this capability cannot be overstated.
That bears repeating. The importance of this capability cannot be overstated. And if I say anymore, I will only diminish it. So, I will end with that remark.
This power to create is referred to as 'building' in Second Life. The user begins by creating a primitive object, called a 'prim' and then by modifying the shape, location of the prim and the images displayed on that prim, all of the content that you see in Second Life is created. There are some minor exceptions to this rather sweeping statement. For example, land is modified through a different editor in a process known as terraforming. And avatar looks are modified in an 'Appearance Editor' which will be discussed in the next post. But, for the most part, the vast majority of what you see in Second Life was created through building.
Building in Second Life is far from perfect. Its major drawback is that it is difficult to learn. All of the in-world tutorials are basically the same. The few available books are basically color glossy repeats of the in-world tutorials. And the in-world classes focus on how to achieve a specific result rather than on understanding building so that you can figure out how to achieve that result on your own. However, my experience with out-of-world graphics editors isn't a great deal better. So, I will give them a pass on that. If you want to learn how to build; you can. It may not be as easy as it could or should be. But any person of moderate intelligence and persistence can learn. And once you learn, what you can do is astonishing. So let's focus on that instead.
People with active imaginations are always picturing things in their minds. In fact, the definition of imagination is to be able to picture something in your mind that was not directly derived from experience. You can picture a unicorn in your mind, for example, even though you have never actually seen a unicorn. The beauty of building in Second Life is that if you can imagine it, you can probably build it. So instead of relying on those fuzzy pictures in your head, you can actually see what your ideas look like when represented in a virtual world. The net result of this is that your imagination and creativity come alive. In the classic movie - The Wizard of Oz - the film switches from black and white to technicolor when Dorothy leaves Kansas and enters the Land of Oz. The analogy is apt. Entering Second Life is like entering the magical World of Oz. It is a realm of the imagination, a place where all things are possible. If you can see it in your head, you can see it on the screen. And, if this were all that building in Second Life allowed you to do, it would be impressive enough. But it is not all.
When you create something in Second Life it is out there for everyone to see. So instead of those pictures being in your head, they are out there in a shared virtual world. You can display the products of your imagination and see the products of other people's imaginations. It reminds me of an old Bob Dylan song called Talkin' World War III Blues in which he says "I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours." This is the essence of Second Life - "I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours." The ability of users to get the content of their imaginations into the virtual world for others to see and the ability to see the content of the imaginations of others is truly the strength and most impressive accomplishment of Second Life. And the importance of this capability cannot be overstated.
That bears repeating. The importance of this capability cannot be overstated. And if I say anymore, I will only diminish it. So, I will end with that remark.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Animating Your Second Life
In the last post, I mentioned that what Second Life does give you is the ability to modify the virtual world as opposed to playing in a virtual world that some else (usually a game designer) created. This is not an entirely new idea. Perhaps one of the most notable earlier examples would be the various versions and varieties of Sims. Nonetheless, one of the ways in which Second Life allows you to modify the virtual world is through the use of scripts. Scripts are little programs written in a C-like language called Linden Scripting Language. And here we see a great example of a good idea poorly executed.
Linden Scripting Language, for those who are unfamiliar with it, allows you to animate objects in Second Life. This includes simple examples such as doors that open, visitor counters, and teleporters. It also includes more complex objects such as guns, vehicles, and security systems. Most 'activity' in Second Life other than that cause by keyboard directed avatars is driven, in some way, by Linden Scripting Language.
Thinking of LSL purely as a program language, it is about as bad of an example as one can find. If there is a theoretical model behind the language design it has been successfully disguised. The functions are named in such a way that nobody would ever guess what a function they need might be called. And, if you wish to learn the language, your only option is to learn it one tedious function at a time and hope you remember it for next time.
Thinking of LSL as a development tool, it is, once again, about as bad of an example as one can find. Their is virtually no support for developers. You write the LSL script in a notepad like editor and compile it by hitting the "Save" button. Who would ever guess that? If there is an error, it will tell you the line on which the error occurred and give you message that no normal person could possibly understand.
Unlike Visual Basic that provides extensive help to the non programmer, LSL leaves you to your own resources to sweat through script development. And unlike Java or C# that reward your effort by teaching you how a properly constructed language might look, LSL rewards you with nothing but frustration.
This language is not targeted at the casual user. It is not targeted at the advanced programmer. It is not really targeted at anyone. It is a horrible hodgepodge of scripting functions developed in what appears to be a laundry list fashion and all it shares with other languages is that it seem to incorporate almost every bad idea found in any other language.
The problem here, and this will become a repeating theme with LL, is that LL does not seem to know what they are trying to do. If LSL were developed for the casual programmer it should have been done entirely differently. If it were done for the advanced programmer, it should have been done entirely differently. Once cannot say that LSL fails to meet its design goals because there do not appear to be any design goals. And thus the user is left with a very difficult to learn and very difficult use programming language that deters nearly everyone who is not in SL on a mission.
It was a terrific idea gone horribly wrong due to a total lack of vision and direction. And that statement may well sum up Second Life as well.
Linden Scripting Language, for those who are unfamiliar with it, allows you to animate objects in Second Life. This includes simple examples such as doors that open, visitor counters, and teleporters. It also includes more complex objects such as guns, vehicles, and security systems. Most 'activity' in Second Life other than that cause by keyboard directed avatars is driven, in some way, by Linden Scripting Language.
Thinking of LSL purely as a program language, it is about as bad of an example as one can find. If there is a theoretical model behind the language design it has been successfully disguised. The functions are named in such a way that nobody would ever guess what a function they need might be called. And, if you wish to learn the language, your only option is to learn it one tedious function at a time and hope you remember it for next time.
Thinking of LSL as a development tool, it is, once again, about as bad of an example as one can find. Their is virtually no support for developers. You write the LSL script in a notepad like editor and compile it by hitting the "Save" button. Who would ever guess that? If there is an error, it will tell you the line on which the error occurred and give you message that no normal person could possibly understand.
Unlike Visual Basic that provides extensive help to the non programmer, LSL leaves you to your own resources to sweat through script development. And unlike Java or C# that reward your effort by teaching you how a properly constructed language might look, LSL rewards you with nothing but frustration.
This language is not targeted at the casual user. It is not targeted at the advanced programmer. It is not really targeted at anyone. It is a horrible hodgepodge of scripting functions developed in what appears to be a laundry list fashion and all it shares with other languages is that it seem to incorporate almost every bad idea found in any other language.
The problem here, and this will become a repeating theme with LL, is that LL does not seem to know what they are trying to do. If LSL were developed for the casual programmer it should have been done entirely differently. If it were done for the advanced programmer, it should have been done entirely differently. Once cannot say that LSL fails to meet its design goals because there do not appear to be any design goals. And thus the user is left with a very difficult to learn and very difficult use programming language that deters nearly everyone who is not in SL on a mission.
It was a terrific idea gone horribly wrong due to a total lack of vision and direction. And that statement may well sum up Second Life as well.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Customizing Your Second Life
There are basically three things you can do in Second Life. You can socialize. You can modify your avatar or the environment. And you can see how others have modified their avatars or their environments. If it were nothing more than socializing then Second Life would be little more than a 3D chat room. But there is a complex interplay between these three capabilities that produces an impressive synergistic result.
If it weren't for the social aspects of Second Life there would be no one to appreciate what you have done modifying your avatar and your environment. It would be like the old catch phrase "all dressed up and no place to go". But, there is something about having others appreciate your work that can be incredibly motivating. At the same time, seeing what others have done can be creatively stimulating. So, although I am going to focus on these mod capabilities, I don't want to downplay the importance of the socializing for giving significance to these mod capabilities. And, for the sake of brevity, I am not going to distinguish between modifications to your avatar and modifications to the environment. I will just refer to these generically as mod capabilities.
There are two kinds of mod capabilities in Second Life, those created outside of SL and ported in, and those achieved in-world. Mods created outside of SL and ported in include some avatar shapes and skins, clothing, animations, gestures, music, and textures (images). If this were all that Second Life had to offer, it would not be distinguished from other virtual worlds that allow mods created outside of the world to be ported in. It is the in-world mods that really distinguish it.
Mods created in world include 3D building and Linden Scripting Language (LSL) scripting. While these in-world mod capabilities are not completely unique to Second Life; they are what give Second Life its unique flavor, unique capabilities and unique possibilities. Between these two, it is the 3D building capability that Linden Labs got mostly right. Not completely right. But certainly in the right direction. LSL has promise but falls short of building in its potential. Since I have taken this long to get down to these two mod capabilities, I will save further discussion for the next post.
If it weren't for the social aspects of Second Life there would be no one to appreciate what you have done modifying your avatar and your environment. It would be like the old catch phrase "all dressed up and no place to go". But, there is something about having others appreciate your work that can be incredibly motivating. At the same time, seeing what others have done can be creatively stimulating. So, although I am going to focus on these mod capabilities, I don't want to downplay the importance of the socializing for giving significance to these mod capabilities. And, for the sake of brevity, I am not going to distinguish between modifications to your avatar and modifications to the environment. I will just refer to these generically as mod capabilities.
There are two kinds of mod capabilities in Second Life, those created outside of SL and ported in, and those achieved in-world. Mods created outside of SL and ported in include some avatar shapes and skins, clothing, animations, gestures, music, and textures (images). If this were all that Second Life had to offer, it would not be distinguished from other virtual worlds that allow mods created outside of the world to be ported in. It is the in-world mods that really distinguish it.
Mods created in world include 3D building and Linden Scripting Language (LSL) scripting. While these in-world mod capabilities are not completely unique to Second Life; they are what give Second Life its unique flavor, unique capabilities and unique possibilities. Between these two, it is the 3D building capability that Linden Labs got mostly right. Not completely right. But certainly in the right direction. LSL has promise but falls short of building in its potential. Since I have taken this long to get down to these two mod capabilities, I will save further discussion for the next post.
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