Its Time to Rename Second Life

[Penny Patton]

I kinda feel LL will need to rebrand SL at some point to really make the most of their work improving the product, but before they do that they really need to bring SL up to some baseline standards of usability and presentation to which SL currently falls shamefully short of.

Rebranding SL at this point would be a waste of time and only serve to carry everything that currently tarnishes the "Second Life" name to whatever new name it was given. Nothing would be gained and LL would just lose even more credibility.

[Lord Derryth]

Here's an idea for ya.  We live in a first life right?  How about we call it "Second Life".  You know, like getting a second chance at life and doing all the things that we wanted in our first life that we can't so we use "SECOND LIFE"?  

 

 Really?

[Penny Patton]

To be fair, the name "Second Life" does conjur up some embarassing imagery. Tthe name itself, and that description you gave, makes it sound like SL is aimed at people who've completely failed at their offline life.

That is not an image you want to conjur when selling a product. "Our product is aimed at losers!" Yeah, that kinda makes people want to distance themselves as much as possible.

 Of course that's not intentional, but in marketing a product you have to work with perceptions.

 Speaking of perceptions, there's a lot over the years that has tarnished public perception of the Second Life brand name. From flying penii attacks to unicorn sex to just how poorly the build tools are implemented (many professional content creators just laugh derisively when SL is brought up, no self-respecting software company would release a product with the problems SL's content creation tools have).

 (Also, nobody but SL users calls their life outside of SL "first life". At least not without irony.)

 

 If LL can pull their act together, fix what needs to be fixed, address all the issues and concerns they've let pile up over the past decade or so, then, and only then, rebranding might be a good move for them.

[Ceka Cianci]

i've never looked at it as a second chance..more just like another life..

like you have your work life and family life..this one is just a different one of those..like relaxing life for me or drama life for some or creation life for others..an escape 1st life life..

 

[Nuhai Ling]

I have to agree with Zed Avedon who said, "The 'Second Life' brand is a disaster, but changing the brand without changing the product is pointless... Only when a professional, visionary company buys Second Life will it be possible to rebrand it."

In all probability either Second Life will continue to be an experiment that had potential but failed to be widely used or another company will develop a competitive product that forces Linden Lab into obscurity much like Google did to Yahoo!. Rebranding would not eliminate Second Life's history, current condition, or outlook, it would only drain money from its already shrinking line of revenue.

Revising the question a little bit, what might a Second Life competitor's grid be called? That is a good question because a brand name can make all the difference. For example, Blue Mars made their concept sound like it was only for sci-fi fans while OpenSim sounds like an offshoot of the Sims games. Second Life was a good choice because of its continuity to our first life, so it would be good to follow that logic. Something like Earth 2.0, Virtual Life, or Alternativerse might work. Whatever was chosen though would have to be descriptive, catchy, and marketable.

[Irene Muni]

"Originally, during the Alpha period, the grid was known as Lindenworld. As we were getting ready to launch the Beta, we decided we needed a name that would convey the expansiveness, involvement and complexity we hoped would characterize this world as it grew. We started by debating the merits of a 'place' name versus a 'descriptive' name. We believed a place name would give people a sense of destination, and possibly some added layer of meaning. And we thought a descriptive name would help people understand this new concept of a shared, 3D collaborative space. We had a lot of ideas for place names --- one of my favorites was Sansara, which was not only euphonic, but had an interesting meaning in the original Sanskrit, meaning roughly 'ever changing world'. Ultimately, though, we chose to go with a descriptive name, and looked at many derivatives of Terra, Viva, and life. We kept coming back to Life2, and then landed on Second Life as more interesting, more evocative and more what we hoped the world could become as it evolved and grew to be as big as life. And that's how it came about!" (Robin Linden)

Source: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/History_of_Second_Life