Is SL somehow trying to become FB?

[MoiselleErin Teardrop]

I guess with things like web profiles, making a "basic" mode for new users who are too lazy to learn the very basics of what us oldbies learned, seeing "join SL on FB", and just a lot of other street talk about "SL trying to be FB".

 

I notice a lot of the fresher noobs actually filling out their RL part of the profile. As an SL'er, I don't really CARE about some stranger's real life. It is of no concern to me, as my RL is of no concern to SL strangers.

I guess we cannot blame the rest of the WWW for trying to associate or become FB since that company is the biggest game in town. Except, some of us really detest FB.

the last thing I want in RL is someone wanting to stick their nose in my avatar's butt and telling me how I should live my VIRTUAL life (I am sure I am commiting a few sins somewhere in my path)

Ever hear people complain about FB? Oh you know, that they are afraid to post anything cause their boss or granny is on their friends list so they have to tone it down? Or how employers might be checking your FB to see what you do online? Now with SL Friends, I might share bits and pieces of my RL, however, sharing my virtual life with real life people that I know is not something I do.

I can see a FB/SL clustermuck now - SL chats about "My husband got a promotion and the kid went potty all by himself" NO ONE CARES!

Or another nasty thing - OK in SL people can;t see your friends list. Meaning, unlike FB where people try to rack up 1,000's of friends, in SL you are a little more safe from getting random friend requests JUST BECAUSE you have some common fake friends. (OK so the n00bs have a habit of just throwing out friend requests but they soon learn) If someone is on my SL friend list, there is a good reason for it. I do not "collect friends"

 

We all have our reasons for playing SL. Maybe to do things we just cannot in real life, maybe to stave off boredom, maybe to build elaborate things that would cost $1,000's in real life, maybe to live some dream that is unrealistic in RL... however, they all have a thread in common - SL is an ESCAPE! SL is SL and RL is RL.

Web privacy was pushed for many years, FB aimed to take that away, and now people are wanting their privacy back. Second Life had the right idea - be who you want without real life constrains or personal RL issues. Let us hope this is the philosophy they still have in mind.

 

So is LL ultimately hoping to turn this into "Second Facebook" or is this just a scary thought for those of us that hate FB with every ounce of our being?

[Kolby Nissondorf]

Hey MoiselleErin,

You are totally right! But what I think is that LL is trying to modernize their services, or just give SL a whole new outlook to people who are new to it, you know what I mean? I prefer the old profiles over the new ones 100%

[Ciaran Laval]

FB is a poisoned chalice, people really should handle with care and that includes companies. However SL's weak point is social networking, so I can see why there's an appeal and Facebook does have a lot of eyes on the prize.

[Charolotte Caxton]

Hi, MoiselleErin. Concern of privacy is also a major concern of mine. The part where it allows you to share your Real Life information is completely optional and is not a requirement. Also, along the lines of being whoever or whatever you want to be in Second Life, chatting about their husbands promotion or their successful parenting is also an option for those who wish to. Facebook users have the option of setting their information to private. Those that allow the world to see their activities and misdeeds do so at their own peril. The thought that Second Life could ever be like Facebook is somewhat naive and fueled by conspiracy theorists. Many web based services provide areas for users to build profiles, Yahoo Mail comes to mind, you can even create an avatar! In fact, several email providers allow you to create avatars. The fear that everyone is going to get in your business and tell you how to run your Virtual Life? If it is a real fear then you have my sympathy, but be aware that there is no requirement for you to share your Real Life with anyone if you don't want to and if anyone wants to discuss their RL with you, just walk or TP away.

[Peewee Musytari]

Couldn`t agree more, I find FB and 90% of Twitter to pure drivel.

SL was great because it was different, in their attempts to "modernise" it LL is in danger of,  throwing out the baby with the bath water, as the saying goes.

[Dresden Ceriano]

LL buying out Avatars United (kind of like a Facebook for AVs), unceremoniously closing it down while stating they would be incorporating some features into SL (or something to that effect), then launching web based profiles, leads me to believe there's some truth to where you're saying the direction of SL is headed. With the caveat that it is still up to individual residents to decide for themselves how much RL information they want to provide.

There have always been people in SL that are more RL oriented that most are comfortable with. Perhaps in the future there will be more. But it's still the SL community as a whole that will dictate what's socially exceptable in SL and what's not. In which case, I'm not worried about it.

When voice was first introduced, some people were very concerned about RL encroaching on their SL. This may have happened to an extent, but not to the extent that they were envisioning. I believe this to be the case with this situation. At least I'm hopeful it is. *crosses his fingers*

...Dres

[Cali Souther]

Interestingly,  I just watched Social Network last night.

I do not know what LL is trying to do ...  make money, I'm sure ... but....

Imho,  most people do not want to put their second life on display  right up along side their first life.  I escape into SL, and I pick and choose who I share real life information with,  carefully.  [eta: aside from the basic info I include in my profile for the sake of covering the most common questions asked by people you just met.]  I would not be even slightly interested in linking my SL to my RL FB page.

In any case,  Facebook was cool,  but has become very spammy!!!!!   I use it rarely to keep in touch with a few of my old friends, since it is still quite convenient for that purpose.

and that's all I have to say about that.....   =]

[MoiselleErin Teardrop]

Well, the people that I have heard a lot about this from are some people that are, in fact, conspiracy theorists.

I don't think this all could truely happen, I guess it is just a very discomforting thought

[Shockwave Yareach]

When people began noticing 1 pixel images all over the place and that web advertisers were using them to track wherever you went on the internet, folks claimed we were just conspiracy theorists. 

When Facebook demanded more and more of your RL data and repeated "made mistakes" that they then blamed users for not setting their (changed by FB) settings right, folks claimed we were just conspiracy theorists.

When SL began trying to cram RL into the VW and many of us flatly refused, folks claimed we were just conspiracy theorists.

 

But now Google logs almost every place you go on the web via the image and adware.  Facebook knows everything you type in, and employers have fired people for what they wrote on THEIR facebook pages.  Forget the advertizers, the people you work for want to stick their noses into your personal private lives.  It's routine now and they even admit to doing it.  And now, here we are, in this mad world where anything you say or think can and will be used against you at work, home, church or court, and SL wants to let allll these people know what I do in SL for fun.  They want to allow these intrusive pests to be able to press a key in their office and get a list of all the things you are involved in in SL.

We weren't conspiracy theorists; we were trying to warn you all.  Just like we are trying to warn you all now.  If you don't care if your boss knows you bang Shiney Clinginus in your parcel every night, good for you.  But don't force the rest of us to have to expose everything that WE are doing in the privacy of our own virtual and real lives just because you can't be bothered to think more than 5 minutes ahead about who will get that data and how many DECADES they are going to hold onto it and use whenever it suits them.

[Ciaran Laval]

 

---

Shockwave Yareach wrote: Forget the advertizers, the people you work for want to stick their noses into your personal private lives.  It's routine now and they even admit to doing it.  And now, here we are, in this mad world where anything you say or think can and will be used against you at work, home, church or court, and SL wants to let allll these people know what I do in SL for fun.  They want to allow these intrusive pests to be able to press a key in their office and get a list of all the things you are involved in in SL.

---

Yes and no, my workplace has a social networking policy that basically amounts to don't bring shame on the workplace and you're fine. Now if I had to link myself to Facebook it would greatly restrict what I could do in Second Life.

 

[Jenni Darkwatch]

As long as it's optional... who gives a damn? As with everything on the Intertubes, ultimately you decide what you reveal and to whom you reveal it.

Workplace? Simple. Don't be an ass and post your whole life online. For employers, it's an easy way to weed out the bottom feeders. On the other hand, for wiley jobseekers it's a way to manipulate their marketability as a loan slave.

[Ossian1488303077]

What bothers me most about this topic is that LL is so silent on the subject.

I know that M Linden used to gush about FB constantly, and it was obvious he wanted to marry it,
but he never said what he really wanted to do regarding Facebook.

LL really has to get over its culture of secrecy. They need to let us in on things.

I'm tired of speculating about all the stuff they don't tell us.

[MoiselleErin Teardrop]

If SL did try to become FB, well, knowing LL, that could take about a year.

Was a year between the initial "gird merge" talks and the actual event.

This talke more-less started recently, maybe when 2011 hit is the first I started hearing of it...

So, it looks like us oldbies might have about til Jan 2012 to enjoy SL as we know it.

Me personally, hopefully I am completely burned out on SL by the time something stupid would happen.

 

There IS good news in the RL and web life though -

At LEAST people are catching onto the fact that s*** like FB is just bad news.Bad for their marriage, jobs, church life, etc. Especially with jobs - since jobs can no longer legally discriminate based on - race, color, gender, sexuality, religion, etc... they are looking for other ways to play out their prejudice and what easier than - "Oh this person posted something on the web!" Once someone gets into RL trouble over something they wrote on FB, they pretty quickly withdraw from FB. I have seen this happen before.

 

From an antisocial/introvert perspective -

The SL'er is big enough to admit they don't want to talk about real life to much extent. The FB zombie, on the other hand, they want friends and to be popular in the real world but don't want to make any more effort than sitting on a website.

WTG FB for comepletely devaluing the definition of "friendship"

[Darrius Gothly]

You might be just a tiny bit off in your schedule calculation .. assuming LL really is intending to turn SL into Facebook.

I blogged on this topic back in June of 2010. If you're interested, that post can be found here:

The Facebooking of Second Life

[Penny Patton]

If LL were serious ab out imitating Facebook they would have taken groups, profiles and land back to the drawing board and made a serious attempt to boost SL's uses as a social platform.

They'd probably add in an "area chat" system which allows people to communicate so long as they were in the same zone (sim/parcel) improved group chat as well as tying it into to a "group panel" that acted itself like a social hub. At the very least they'd address SL's long standing scale issues, considering avatars tend to be about 1 and 1/3 the size of a regular human and envrionments are built to double scale, that 20m radius for chat winds up amounting to a 5m radius for all intents and purposes. This makes it all the more difficult to socialize in SL.

Groups, profiles and land would all be far more useful for socializing, profiles themselves allowing for status updates, listing one's friends in a Facebook style manner, and probably listing their most visited locations in-world (default to off, opt-in for this feature).

 Instead, we get only the most superficial mimicry of Facebook.

 Keep in mind, there are some very good ways inb which LL could be inspired by Facebook. They don't need to be a Facebook clone, they need to take the best FB has to offer and see how well it applies to something like SL where the emphasis is away from the real and more focused on entertainment,

[jarlah]

Just to make it clear. I am not a n00b nor am I a veteran. But, seeing your forum thread makes me a bit thoughtful. It seems that you have a totally different view on how SL is working. I have played many games. Most of them are incredibly boring due the lack of human response. World of Warcraft is for 10 year old childs that needs a dwarf to kill orcs. The graphics cannot resemble anything related to real life.

In SL there is a more RL like reality to play with, that can possibly make it easier to transfer personal development to and from real life. If you are afraid of talking to strangers, SL hides your real identity and makes it easier to just run and hide (just click the red cross in the upper right corner or use ALT-F4).  By using it as a tool, can the personal explorations and development improve the real life?

I do agree that real life info are a bit out of place. But bear in mind that there is two play styles, casual and role play. Casual players might meet up in real life. Role players select their words and actions based on how they want to be in SL

[Astringofcharacters]

"... that 20m radius for chat winds up amounting to a 5m radius for all intents and purposes. This makes it all the more difficult to socialize in SL."

I hope you're not really advocating an increased chat range. I have always preferred local chat to IMs, and never found a problem. On the other hand, another grid I frequent has a 70 meter local chat range, and it's disconcerting to hear people talking when there's no one in sight. Some people love it, of course. People who love FB, probably.

[Kascha Matova]

 

---

Jenni Darkwatch wrote:

As long as it's optional... who gives a damn? As with everything on the Intertubes,

ultimately you decide what you reveal and to whom you reveal it.

Workplace? Simple. Don't be an ass and post your whole life online. For employers, it's an easy way to weed out the bottom feeders. On the other hand, for wiley jobseekers it's a way to manipulate their marketability as a loan slave.

---

 

Ya. Keep telling yourself this, and someday, it may be true.

Of course, identity theft costs a fortune in losses every year and ruins lives completely against the wills and without the knowledge of the victims, and several governments are now hopping from foot to foot trying to contain the damage from information leakage that they couldn't prevent and chose not to reveal, but that's neither here nor there.

You can refuse to post your entire life online and keep your company out of your business, until you lose containment on the big mouths of one or more of your friends, or their friends, or someone else who interacts with you or someone you know, and a simple Google or photo search for your name or tagged images relating to you leads right back to your activities whether you like it or not.

At this point, you can either realize that unless you control the actions and choices of everyone you know who can relate to you personally, and anyone they know whose affiliation can be used to "breadcrumb" back to you, you are not in control of the information out there about you...or you can spend your life as a clueless mark, looking the wrong way when you get hit.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

~shrug~ The fact remains, people are morons if they post _any_ personal information about themselves online. It's your responsibility to whom and what you reveal, and that includes friends.

[MoiselleErin Teardrop]

Kascha has a good point

I was at my two best friends' house the other day and the husband was saying, "God anything I do it is like my wife has to put it on facebook!"

Yeah stuff is out there I guess the best thing to do is not make it easier.

 

In real life I am kind of a loner and I don't hang with the facebook crowd (have cliques come to THIS?)

 

I know a few months back, I had a big change in my life, and had showed a friend a document relfecting this, and she wanted to break out her camera-phone...

I took that document back in my pocket REAL quick cause when she was digging for her camera I just instantly imagined it being on FB, and that is NOT where I need it to end up.

[Jaylin Wytchwood]

Well FB is one of the most successful for "Social Media", nbo wonder LL hope to get a piece of the pie.

 

But i cannot understand why people wont see, FB is just a datamine, i dont have an account, and never will.

[Marybeth Cooperstone]

"I notice a lot of the fresher noobs actually filling out their RL part of the profile. As an SL'er, I don't really CARE about some stranger's real life. It is of no concern to me, as my RL is of no concern to SL strangers."

I am one of those with RL information on my SL profile. I know that many people keep there virtual life separate and quite different from their RL life. I am not that way. There is true information about me -- not my name or the name of the firm where I work but other information about my RL. To me, SL is an extension of RL, I go to a church in SL that is the same denomination as the one in RL I am a member of, and I enjoy chatting about my RL profession with others in the same profession or related professions.

However, I know and have no problem with people whose SL lives are quite different from their RL lives. One great thing about SL is people can have avatars that look much different from their real looks and do things in SL that they would not ever even think about doing in RL. I hope it stays that was.

This is quite different from Facebook and many other on-line sites and forums. In general, l like to participate in them too. However, I detest Facebook. I do not care what your new kitty looks like or which resturant or bar you just went to. While there are some substantive political, professional, or other discussions on Facebook, it is mostly taken up with useless drivel. When my first kid was young, I did have some on-line discussions with other Moms about toilet training. but that is not something to broadcast to the world on Facebook.

There are some people who use SL for both types of activities. For example, I know a state appeals judge, female well over 60, who roleplays as a young male 18th century soldier. She and I have had substative discussions about court procedures (relating to electronic filings) on SL, even though at the time she was dressed as the male soldier. She enjoys both uses of SL.

There is a place for forums where people discuss real things, use there real names, etc. but there is also a place for roleplaying, make believe, etc. I hope Second Life stays the same.