Marketing Second Life: We Can Do Better

[LaskyaClaren]

I'm not sure why I'm bothering to respond to this, Sy, as you tell me up front that you probably won't bother reading my response.

I'll just note, I guess, that this second post pretty much repeats the first: you again focus almost exclusively on my supposed "motivations," and my putative snobbishness and elitism. I've already responded to that by pointing out that I have not called for a marketing campaign built on "art" or "literature," but rather for one that does a better job of presenting the diversity of experience here.

As for the suggestion that I "started" the ad hominem, I can only assume that you are referencing the fact that I called you "Jerk"? If you look at that post (and also at the quote you used in your response), you'll note that it is followed by an smilie, namely :-P  Generally, in my experience, smilies are employed to indicate that the previous statement was intended humorously. In this case, it certainly was.

But whatever.

[Codex Alpha]

In my experience, its not the advertising portion of SL that is the problem, it is the retention.

Most new customers I know were referred by either myself or others, quite a few over the years actually.

However, 2nd Life hasn't been able to keep them and they leave... simple reasons such as;

 

1) What am I supposed to do?

2) What is there to do?

3) "This is boring, bye".

 

2nd Life mainly suffers from the idea that it is a 'game', with end goals, or roleplaying up levels like its World of Warcraft. So when they find out otherwise, and that SL is more about 'what you make of it" and considering it more as a hosted '3D Virtual Chat with avatars", they just simply leave, and never come back.

2nd Life needs an overhaul when it comes to introducing new visitors, as well as perhaps a UI makeover in the viewer, that clearly describes step-by-step how to get started, what there is to do, and where to go to do it.

On the other end, we need more creators that create actual 'content', events and things to do more so than just fancy looking storefronts.

I wish I could contribute more as a creator myself in that department, but it is very expensive to rent/own land in SL therefore I'm out of the game just for that simple reason (and other creators I know), so we're back to square one.

Usually the discussion of 2nd Life is people's perception that it 'is for people with no life'. Perhaps in some cases that is true, but I go on to educate them on how many RL skills I've used in SL and to consider it another media to play in as a creator or experiment, or to chat with friends.

Yep, its mainly a perception problem that only losers use 2nd Life, and if they sign up, they leave because they don't know what to do or where to start.

[Studio09]

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entity0x wrote:

In my experience, its not the advertising portion of SL that is the problem, it is the retention.

...

2nd Life needs an overhaul when it comes to introducing new visitors, as well as perhaps a UI makeover in the viewer, that clearly describes step-by-step how to get started, what there is to do, and where to go to do it.

On the other end, we need more creators that create actual 'content', events and things to do more so than just fancy looking storefronts.

...

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I agree with the comments above.  Many people try SL because it's free but there is no tutotial that comes with the viewer or easy place to start once you've created your avatar. 

I think that everything being user created is both a plus and a minus.  If SL provided more support for creativity with creative tools and tutorials in the viewer itself then there would be more creativity.  Here you almost have to invent or build everything from scratch. 

In Sims 3, for example, they provide decent mesh that conforms to a sim (equivalent to an avi) but here it took 10 years to get half-fast fitted mesh.  In Sims 3 they provide creative tools within the game - creat-a-sim, create-a-style (for changing the patterns and/or colors of clothing, furiniture and building objects), build/buy (for building, landscaping and furnishing lots), edit town.  They provide free separate programs for more creativity - create-a-pattern (patterns are similar to textures here) and create-a-world.  This kind of support, tutorials and tools is what SL needs for new users to start creating without a large investment in time and money that is now required.  There are people creating mesh for hair, clothes, bulding objects, furnishing, etc using external programs for sims 3 too just as here but SL is lacking the support and tools for creators at the beginning levels.

So changing SL's adverising to tout the creativity possible here would be false advertising, IMO, and would result in less retension of new users.  So until SL provides more support for creativity they should stick to advertising the social aspect and the diversity of areas to explore.  But in order to retain the new users SL needs to provide a more friendly and helpful first impression.