Wise Buddha

A month or so ago I posted about how I felt that Second Life was being overly hyped and gushed over by so called social marketing consultants and the like. I felt that I had to defend myself somewhat from the charge of being a technophobe or just for having a differing opinion. This is my last thought on SL for a while.

My point of view is not to bash the technology which is impressive (ish) but that the numbers didn’t add up and the amount of hype and exposure SL was getting was out of whack with usage and membership rates. Therefore, from a Marketing perspective it currently was not a viable media choice. So after rocking the boat of a couple of people in Vancouver who felt it necessary to try and put me in my place and point out that we are all glimpsing the future of online collaboration and business interaction (I disagree) I felt the following seemed to provide some objective assessment of the SL hype.

Bottom line is that there aren’t enough active users according to an interesting piece in the LA Times to make it a viable marketing platform - Forrester reckons there are only 30-40000 active users at any one time. In addition, and perhaps to the discomfort of many of the ’social marketing experts’ who are boosting SL many of the real world companies are either deserted or closed down and many of the most popular destinations cater for all the real world vices - brothels, strip clubs and casinos.

No doubt certain people will keep promoting SL as an eco friendly way to do business, cut down on air travel etc. etc. and this may happen though one would hope not in its current form. Plus one would hope that Linden Labs can do something about managing their own carbon footprint. There are plenty of alternatives out there and it will be interesting to see whether SL is better off without real world companies and left to grow organically. As for the feeling that this is a glimpse as to how we can do business in the future I’ll stick to free video conferencing with Skype thanks!