Second Life. Original name, but what does it mean?
Well I guess it’s a life second to your first. But, as Im sure many would agree, second life seems to be a replacement for many resident’s first life. This is an image that is being associated a lot with second life and its community at the moment. Anything that takes a lot of work and effort, requires some technical skill (most web users aren’t too technically minded) acquires a geeky image. It gives the impression that the people who use it have way to much time on their hands. It’s this image that is slowly killing Second Life’s growth.
The world that we all create and love appears to be dieing. Out of all the people who sign up, very few continuingly use it.
I remember going to school one morning and a few lads where reading the paper, looking at an article on second life and poking fun at it, with the stereotypical view of a MMORPG in mind. At one time, whenever I was caught online by anyone, they would tell me how ‘sad’ it was. This of course is just a negative stereotype of the group SL comes from. It seems that through reputations of similar online worlds, Second Life may have been born tagged with that outlet for escapists reputation so many online worlds have gained. It would appear to mean a certain death from what Linden Labs wanted to achieve by giving people a chance of a ‘second life’.
When voice was introduced, I was speaking to someone who said the main gridders didn’t like the new addition because it took out that role play element of second life, you became pretty naked, your avatar mask was taken off, the real-you was revealed. It’s often easy to forget that there are people behind those avatars, which in a way shows how we forget that an avatar is just a representation (how ever far off) of the real life user. But people are scared of this mask being lifted. Second Life was never meant to be a mask, but a big screen to flash your face up on.
The main idea that most people have of SL is it being mainly role-play, whether it’s owning a shop to having sex or being in an army; its all role play and people where scared of being revealed. I couldn’t understand why. This was when I first realised that the whole place was really just a playground where you could be someone you where not, live in a fantasy world. In some ways this is good, but it just enforces negative stereotypes, makes the place less desirable for people new to this virtual world idea.
The only way I can see Second Life becoming truly successful is for it to become a social networking application, not a pretend world, but a medium for communicating with friends and family. It would be like the instant-messagers that many use, except you could sit with all your friends together (instead of being in 100 window conversations) and build them things. Then off you could go to use some of the currently available positives of Second Life, the resource for interactive learning. MSN meets Skype Meets Wikipedia meets Facebook. Surely that would succeed?
The social fabric of the grids would change of course. The language would change, more txt language, less of the perfect Queen’s English we see so many use to get out of virtual puberty. The current “celebrities” we hold dear to our breast will be forgotten, as no one would really care about that previous social structure, the social structure we have at the moment, a fantasy one.
Of course if everyone gets a second life, then quality clothes makers and other well known avatar’s first lives could be enhanced. Would virtual popularity increase first life popularity?
But the grid would have to change. Second Life will have to become more accessible, easier to use, and have some social networking tools built in.
The current main barriers between your average-joe who is thinking about joining and using SL are having to have some sort of identification info on your account and having to download software. It’s at these two fences that most people will fall down. If it’s too much effort to learn and get used to, to download and to set-up an account. Why bother when there is MySpace and Facebook? And so with the hard work comes the ‘for geeks’ tag so many try to avoid.
If Linden labs don’t go down the social networking virtual world, I know that one company will, further down the line when virtual worlds such as this prove to be a bit more profitable.
At the end of the day, its all image; the Nazis and Max Clifford have shown us that.
What do you see as the future direction for SL?
Well as for me, Im off. Until the time comes, MSN and Facebook it’ll have to be.
