SL new user retention, expectation and usability

[Coffee Pancake]

3 hours ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

Frankly, thinking it is possible to improve the retention of new users who do not even spent 10 minutes before deciding that SL is not for them,

It's something that everyone does, but few realize their decision has been made at that point.

Like going to a franchise movie you've been really looking forward to, but the new director jumps the shark in the first 5 minutes. You're done, you aren't going to enjoy the rest, and while you might stay till the end, you wont be back for a second viewing and there is nothing the movie can do to redeem itself.

In SL terms this can be dumb stupid frustrations, like the user expects one control scheme and find out very quickly this isn't weird (eg .. did you know the default SL viewer ships with "touch screen pan and tap to move" enabled).

 

3 hours ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

SL is too complex to hope that computer-illiterate people, or people with a short attention span will become long term ”SL residents”. LL should not worry about them, but instead try and attract ”competent” and curious people (who are also usually among the productive and creative folks). And yes, giving them fun tools to play with is a good way to keep them coming back to SL !

Elitism is the fastest way to empty out SL. Most everyone I know here isn't a computer wizard etc.

[Rowan Amore]

13 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

My mind is reeling at the thought of how mind numbing that would be to do.

I call it task oriented.

[Gabriele Graves]

4 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I call it task oriented.

I think I would rather learn how to make a bot and have that do it...assuming I wanted to send that many "gifts".

You definitely get my vote for achievement though.

Hey that's an idea, "Send 575638 gifts in an hour" = Achievement Unlocked.
User retention would be assured and I managed to tie it back to the topic

Edited August 19, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[Ceka Cianci]

28 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

1 L$ is worth less than .4 of a penny. I can't believe anyone is selling in enough volume to justify that economically. low priced items are bait for higher priced items form the same store/creator, or "Just for fun/ Pro bono" things.

if a 1L$ item pushes more product into people's pockets than a 0L$ item, creators are incentivised to make it 1L$. Sure it's not that hard to share a link, but there's something warm and fuzzy about gift giving that feels nicer, and it can be a few fewer clicks if you're not already in IMs with someone in-world.

This is all rather off-topic though.

Ya, I don't see it as a profit thing like getting the 1L and cha'ching, yeah baby!! hehehe

I do see it as taking someone else's spot though.

I see it as abusing pole position in the market, where an actual freebie would sit.. It's just another rung in the ladder of abuse that  knocks someone out of the way that actually belongs there. That's screwing someone from having their store seen for labeling their items correctly.

There has to be a rule against doing that.. if there isn't they sure need to have one made..

 

[Ceka Cianci]

10 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I call it task oriented.

Gotta have all the alts on the MP and slammer them freebies to one place.. lol

[EliseAnne85]

3 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

I've been here almost 13 years coming in as basically computer-illiterate as you so kindly phrased it.  I've created many wooden cubes in my time here.  I don't build anything, I don't blog, I am productive in no way.  Yet here I am.  

I do agree that giving people the fun tools would be a boon for everyone but I disagree with your characterization of people who do not stay.  Some of us illiterates and non-productives will be here until the doors close.

Me too.  Computer dummie extraordinaire.   I think I knew how to copy and paste, and I can't remember what else as it was a long time ago.   I had to get the courage up to ask SL friends how to do things and many people back in the old days would friend noobs like me AND they did help with 'how to's' a lot. 

I built a little bit and I was already building when sculpties first came out and that was soooooo exciting getting things down to so many fewer prims or even 1 prim.   Learning mesh, well, it's like selling your soul to the devil it's so much work plus the main creator's here are millions of years ahead of me or went to school and I'm a hobbyist.  I could never be that good on a hobbyist's time.  

I wanted to add there are so many affordable things in this thread as was mentioned by others.  Use the keywords as they suggested - free, gift, dollarbie.  

The reason I quoted Rowan's post about us computer-illiterates who come to SL, I've often wondered if we are good self learners or not.  I think I am good at self-learning, whereas someone like my sister won't make an effort to learn anything electronic or digital in nature and always asks me to teach her how to use it.   

[EnCore Mayne]

y'all are fastidiously arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. the OP could be a serious exploration as to why we're all gonna die if we don't get the powers-that-be to do something about the attrition.

if any of the complacent fat cats in the Ivory Lab ever do read our drivel is it any wonder we're not taken seriously?

[Coffee Pancake]

32 minutes ago, EnCore Mayne said:

y'all are fastidiously arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. the OP could be a serious exploration as to why we're all gonna die if we don't get the powers-that-be to do something about the attrition.

if any of the complacent fat cats in the Ivory Lab ever do read our drivel is it any wonder we're not taken seriously?

The tipping point is a lot nearer than we might like .. As alluded to by our wolfsome overlord at the last SLB, a 20% drop at this point would be catastrophic. I would be betting he doesn't just think about SL 24/7, SL keeps him up at night. With the active user base we have, 20% is not a lot of people.

SL doesn't financially scale down to the last person or last region, and we are under far greater pressure than at any point in our history. Even if we ignore the considerable (and unknown) recouping of costs associated with LL's sale, keeping the lights on is a lot more expensive that it used to be thanks to AWS and the CDN.

Attrition is a huge deal. We don't just need a steady state, we need growth, constant month on month growth. The baby bump we got at the start of the pandemic is not that.

The more desperate the need to get that growth, the less sacrosanct the expectations of the user base (oldbies especially) may become. Reigning in the forums is the thin end of a very large wedge.

If LL sell us off, all bets are off and all our core assumptions about what defines SL will be on the table.

 

There is the very real possibility that we are doing something fundamentally wrong and can't see it because that just how it's always been done.

The point of this thread is to challenge the most basic presumptions that face a new user as they walk in the door. If we don't hit initial expectations, holding that user becomes very difficult. 

[Akane Nacht]

1 hour ago, EnCore Mayne said:

y'all are fastidiously arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Probably. But there's also been plenty shared here about the unique selling points of SL, which really is a one of a kind platform and service. If those nuggets of wisdom are ignored it wouldn't be the first time a company has disregarded what customers actually want for what they think they want. All we can hope is someone sees there's still money to be made and has a bright idea how to tap into that. Maybe with an entirely new platform, who knows.

[EnCore Mayne]

who cares?

in other words, in whose interest, amongst the movers and shakers within the black hole of the organizational heirarchy of the current iteration of Linden Lab, does a thriving, dynamic, and vibrant collective of involved users serve?

and, to those hapless servants keeping up with the countless day to day problems the current numbers bring, does more seem as if it would serve them well?

i was encouraged hearing Philip speak. i'm happy for what SL has given him. unfortunately, when SL drops off the edge it won't take anything away from his life. so..., who's it gonna hurt the most? who's loss of everything they've invested in time and money will be affected the most? how do you measure what SL has meant to all the various souls cracking the door for a look inside?

i'm an SL lifer and i wish i had more of a say in how our world survives.

[Henri Beauchamp]

6 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Even if we ignore the considerable (and unknown) recouping of costs associated with LL's sale, keeping the lights on is a lot more expensive that it used to be thanks to AWS and the CDN.

This is indeed one thing I have been wondering about ever since LL decided to use CDN and then do the ”uplift” (”up”, really ?) to AWS.

I won't be surprised if the net result was a significant increase in costs for LL, not to mention the loss of their independence towards such big companies (*), and the loss of the ”know how” in maintaining their own farm of servers...

(*) And not just financial independence, but also independence in regard to the technical choices, such as, for example, enabling the HTTP servers with HTTP/2 or other upcoming protocols, and when.

Quote

The point of this thread is to challenge the most basic presumptions that face a new user as they walk in the door. If we don't hit initial expectations, holding that user becomes very difficult.

I agree, but we must first think about what kind of users we want for, and can actually hope attracting to SL. But as you say, it is of the uttermost importance to hit the initial expectations for the targeted users.

Quote

Elitism is the fastest way to empty out SL. Most everyone I know here isn't a computer wizard etc.

I do not promote elitism for SL, just natural selection. Do not try and retain (or even attract) people who won't stay and enjoy SL in the end, but on the contrary target people who can enjoy it...

But it does not mean either that SL should not try and adapt itself as well to a wider audience (e.g. mobile devices users). It simply means that until this SL-side of the adaptation is done, you cannot hope attracting that audience.

It is by far better not to fail retaining a user, by not attempting to attract them in the first place if they are not ready to enjoy the virtual world, or the said world is not ready for them; a disappointed user will almost never come back and do a second try.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Henri Beauchamp

[Ardy Lay]

This play has no actors.  There is no one here whose job it is to entertain the audience.  Second Life works for some people that have the ability and desire to entertain themselves.

People I have known in Second Life that are gone now have left for several reasons, in no particular order:

• Death or disablement of mind
• Reduction in free time
• Something new and entertaining has drawn their attention
• Lost interest in the people they associated with
• People they associated with lost interest in them
• No longer have sufficiently affordable access to The Internet in a capacity that enables Second Life use
• Lost use of the computer they were using and perhaps cannot or decided not to replace it to continue in Second Life

From my perspective, a new user to Second Life that is going to stay has to overcome all of the above for them to continue in Second Life, once they have tried it.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Ardy Lay said:

From my perspective, a new user to Second Life that is going to stay has to overcome all of the above for them to continue in Second Life, once they have tried it.

I certainly hope, that as a NEW user to Second Life, they do not have to overcome these (during their "new user phase"):

1 hour ago, Ardy Lay said:

• Death or disablement of mind
• Reduction in free time
• Something new and entertaining has drawn their attention
• Lost interest in the people they associated with
• People they associated with lost interest in them
• No longer have sufficiently affordable access to The Internet in a capacity that enables Second Life use
• Lost use of the computer they were using and perhaps cannot or decided not to replace it to continue in Second Life

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Love Zhaoying

[Sid Nagy]

I know we should not discuss politics here, but this could harm SL and LL more than it can handle, so I think this is sadly very much SL related:

If inflation keeps up with this pace in the Western world, a lot of people will have to cut back on things to stay financially afloat . And that makes that we might be arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic indeed. 
A huge world wide recession is just around the corner IMHO.
Food and heating will not be on the top of the "where to save money"-list.
Entertainment money certainly is right there at the top for a lot of people.
SL can easily get into stormy weather with the inflation iceberg very near.

All in all retention rates are not the white elephants in the room at the moment.

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[Luna Bliss]

18 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Entertainment money certainly is right there at the top for a lot of people.
SL can easily get into stormy weather with the inflation iceberg very near.

All in all retention rates are not the white elephants in the room at the moment.

So true. Even broadband could become a luxury for some.

 

[EliseAnne85]

25 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

A huge world wide recession is just around the corner IMHO.

Yeah, it is.  But, I also read just a few days ago that Russia is growing very weary of continuing because it's been badly financially hit.

Also, SL would have been going during the time of The Great Recession and still made it and was kinda very successful during those years.  But, many, at that time, got jobs in SL.  I know I had to get a job in SL to afford it during The Great Recession.  And, my SO and I in those days rented movies.  We did have to cut back on entertainment but there are ways around that in SL and RL involving jobs.  At least jobs were plentiful way back then in SL.  

Edited August 19, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, Luna Bliss said:

So true. Even broadband could become a luxury for some.

These days governments and other interested parties are more concerned that you have an IP address then a home address, being that to access their services and receive monies from them is increasingly having to be done through the net.

[Luna Bliss]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

7 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

So true. Even broadband could become a luxury for some.

These days governments and other interested parties are more concerned that you have an IP address then a home address, being that to access their services and receive monies from them is increasingly having to be done through the net.

Very true. I know people can get a subsidy for broadband now that partially covers the cost.  I do wonder though if things got really bad how severe cuts to social service programs could be.

[Lindal Kidd]

14 hours ago, Quistess Alpha said:

If you take a bit and learn how to use the marketplace tools (a bit of an ask for a new resident perhaps) it's not hard to find all 47967 freebies:

Quistess, would you mind posting the exact way you set up this search? It's Absolutely Fabulous.

[Sid Nagy]

 

18 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Very true. I know people can get a subsidy for broadband now that partially covers the cost.  I do wonder though if things got really bad how severe cuts to social service programs could be.

The fact that you still can log in because of great broadband deals doesn't help LL to stay afloat IMHO.
Only if you pay for land, have one of the premium accounts or exchange money, the cash registers of LL are ringing.
And the 100,00$ question is, can enough people still afford that luxury in a few months?
Interesting but fearful times ahead.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[Istelathis]

If SL ever shuts down, which I don't think will happen any time soon; there will always be opensim for many of us to continue to enjoy a very similar virtual environment.  I hope it doesn't happen, I hope LL is able to bring aboard new people here, but if it does shut down there will be enough people interested in opensim to maintain a diverse and creative audience for years to come.  

I hope there are some changes made that will help keep users here past the ten minute mark, whatever they may be.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Istelathis

[Sid Nagy]

SL has potential enough to stay relevant for at least one more decade under normal circumstances IMHO.
But the short term future of the world is really frightening to me. Not only for SL.
Anyhow, let's make it as less political here as possible.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[EliseAnne85]

52 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

But the short term future of the world is really frightening to me. Not only for SL.
Anyhow, let's make it as less political here as possible.

It is frightening to me too but it's because snow and cold are only a few months away.  And, that's a huge humanitarian concern facing us.  I don't want to talk politics either at all.  However, not talking about what is going on right now with inflation and other issues doesn't make those real scary issues go away.  

And, thanks for answering my question re why the Titanic.  Much of the world is in that boat.  It's tough times.

Edited August 19, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[kali Wylder]

17 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I spent the first 6 or 7 years in S/L without buying Lindens and really didn't see myself as suffering for a lack of during that time. There was plenty of modifiable clothing to be had for free, furniture I made myself and there are now still free or very cheap (200L$) complete mesh avatars with outfits that i had more compliments on and offers for trysts then my 15000L$ mesh body and head with fashionista outfit. I currently rent a place that charges 1L$ per day for a furnished skybox with adult furniture and that is aside from a slew of invites to share someone's home for free....no strings attached....so they said  There are good deals to be had out there and the fun was had in the searching them out, not in the finally getting them.

I came in in 2009 and didn't spend money either.  There were plenty of good quality freebies and there were blogs about how to get them. In 2009, there were no mesh bodies or heads.  A noob in 2009 could look as well done as most others around them without spending any money.   That's not true today.  There are fewer freebies sources now.

[Quistess Alpha]

1 hour ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Quistess, would you mind posting the exact way you set up this search? It's Absolutely Fabulous.

You can actually read the URL to guess at the settings but more or less:

1. "NOT demo": The marketplace has a cryptic "boolean operator" system which you can read about here : a lot of Items that should be marked as demos sadly are not, but telling the MP you'd like to not see things with the search term demo filters out most of them (things that use underscores instead of spaces (ex. This_is_a_demo) do not get filtered out, and unclear whether things with "try a demo in-world" also get filtered. Setting the keywords for your search messes up all your other settings, so add any specific search terms ~before "NOT demo" and search. "items per page" and search order don't matter at this stage because you will want to reload the page again rather soon.
2. After searching by keywords, you can then safely change other search parameters: At the top of the page under "# items found" there's a fairly easy to miss grey bar that has 3 important settings (these can carry over between marketplace sessions, so be wary of them!) : display type, number of items per page, and result ordering. "gallery" is the default and IMO best display type. setting the number of results per page to 96 means slightly longer page load times than the default of 12, but makes it much easier to visually look through lots of results. The result orderings are all self-explanatory, I set it to "Best selling" instead of relevance as it seemed to give better results for the particular search. It's not a bad idea to set it back to "relevance" after you're done searching for a thing. I've had at least one "why do all these results look weird" befuddlements for not realizing the sort was left on something weird.
3. Last but not least n the left of the page you have the filters. I often find the category selection is better than keywords if you're looking for something sufficiently generic (clothes categories can get surprisingly specific though) Remember to set the results per page to 12 if you're going to quickly whittle down through multiple sub categories. You can also put in specific price ranges, range 0-0 obviously for this example, but I often find searching in a higher price range (1000-5000) makes it easier to exclude individual color options from a search (If I'm interested in a specific thing ~then I'll re search for it to see color options), especially if you're just looking at a single store. Permissions checkboxes can help to find things that have the specified permissions. leaving a box blank will include results that do and do not have that permission. Checking "Demo" under "do not show" removes all items specifically marked as demos from results. 

TL;DR: search for keywords + "NOT demo" first, (12 results per page for slightly shorter load time) then set:

• Gallery page layout
• 96 results per page
• Sort by: Best selling (or relevance)
• Price: 0 to 0
• Land Impact (empty for any)
• Permissions: (unchecked for any)
• Do Not Show: Demo Items

 

P.S. If you have too much time on your hands, you can flag almost all of the results from this search as "Disallowed listing practices -> Demo not linked to full Version"