Minx Bade Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 It's hard to stomach the idea of my online escape becoming facebook. It's heartbreaking to think that LL has somehow forgotten why people come here. Content that is created by people who don't have an agenda other than just having fun in a 3D world. If I had wanted to be on facebook I would have gone to facebook and I would have stayed on facebook. I come to Second Life to enjoy things that people create. In my humble and personal opinion LL should focus on the user experience in world rather than trying to compete with facebook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Ahren Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 I agree. If I wanted to be facebooking, I would be there, not here. LL's vision for SL can be summed up in one word: Facebook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peggy Paperdoll Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 Well, with all the threads and posts that have been cropping up lately about "how can I find a BF or GF?" "How can I send my RL picture to xxxxx?" And "Where do I meet people?" it would seem that there is a market for the Facebook like environment. I don't see SL ever being too much like Facebook....it's just doesn't lend itself to that type of platform at all (totally different in that the whole world is anonymous........Facebook is the opposite). LL has introduced features that would appeal to the Facebookers as an option (Twitter, too.....that "follow" option on the profiles comes to mind). Every time LL markets SL there is an uproar about who they are marketing too. And at the same time everyone wants LL to market SL so that it grows. For 6 years that I can attest to SL has been a platform that attracts a niche group. And niche groups are small compared to the rest of the markets out there. If SL is to grow, it needs a wider appeal that what it is now. Does the group that LL is marketing to now appeal to me? Not really.......but then I'm part of that niche. Would gaining the Facebookers into SL kill the platform that it is now? Possibly.........but it hasn't yet. So I'm still here enjoying the same SL that I've enjoyed for 6 years. New faces (some are even Facebookers) are just as much fun and the old timer niche buddies I've hung with for so long.......got to say, though, they are different. :smileyhappy: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Venus Petrov Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 One can only hope that with the aggressive outreach to FB users that LL marketers are tracking: 1) how many actually join SL as a result of a FB outreach 2) How many of those signup for premium memberships 3) How many of them stay (attrition rate after 1 week, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year) How else will LL assess the success or failure of this strategy? I know that SL needs new residents and I hope that a good number are interested in creating content, supporting content creators, and/or otherwise helping to make 'our world' a better place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Ahren Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 @Venus & Peggy: Not everybody can be Walmart or Facebook. Consider the Hooter's chain of restaurants. It's quite successful and they have branches all around the world. However, it serves a specific niche, a certain kind of clientele. What do you think would happen if Hooter's management suddenly got a case of MacDonald's envy? So to grow, they attempt to Disneyfy their Hooter restaurants to be more BigMac-like and have a broader customer base. Now if you want to be served by buxom waitresses bursting out of skimpy tops, you have to go to a special, small room in the back by the restrooms, and they put a playland out front for kids. How successful do you think that strategy would be for Hooters? People come to SL because certain types of content is available there. They go in-world because it's important for them to be there to access that content. LL should figure out what they got right about SL and do more of it and do less of what they got wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peggy Paperdoll Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 That "certain type of content" will always be there so you can always go in-world to enjoy that content. LL wants more content for a wider range of that "certain type of content" so that others can always go in-world to enjoy that content. There's nothing wrong with that strategy. I've noticed a change in direction for SL..........it started just about a year ago with the Teen Grid/Main Grid merger. I wasn't in favor of that change but there was nothing I (or anyone else) could do about it except adapt. My worse fears, thankfully, have not happened (yet, anyway) and all I've noticed to any great extent is the marked change in maturity of the population. I've learned to ignore the stuff I don't like and focus on the stuff I do like. I don't frequent many of the places I used to frequent but I've found new places that are just as much fun. I haven't noticed the Facebookers being anything more than silly people wanting personal information from me.......it's easy to blow them off (and even tout them a little in process). Second Life will never become Facebook..........I don't think LL wants that either. But they do want the Facebookers to come, spend, create, and maybe stick around. You can't fault a company for wanting more customers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Jetaime Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 I have no objection to the marketing of SL to facebook users. If LL wants to offer a facebook like interface than fine. BUT it should have been done as a choice to OPT IN, not by default with limited opt out options. Not everyone in the world likes facebook or wants to participate in anything like it. I think why people are mostly upset is that they weren't aware of the feature and didn't like that no one asked them if they wanted details of their SL spread all over the web. No one asked them if they wanted followers and when they got them and didn't want them, there was no way to get rid of them. Its an issue of communication. LL didn't make it widely known what they were doing or consult their existing customers about what the options should be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minx Bade Posted November 25, 2011 Author Share Posted November 25, 2011 I know I might sound paranoid, but I've used the beta viewer in world and I've seen the interface. They have posting walls for avatars in the profile, including buttons for Love and Comment. Anyone can post and include pics. You can comment on someone else's wall and send personal post to people. It looks so much like facebook it's really hard to ignore. As was mentioned in a previous post LL should not venture toward new markets when they already hold the top slot in one specific market. Playing too many songs at once will sound like confusion and people don't like confusion. Also, meeting people has never been a problem for me in SL. I go to place that interest me and I meet people that are interested in the same thing. LL has a new feature call Recommendations where they send you a list of people you don't know but have selected similar interest in profile. You can choose to Follow, Add Friend (in some cases), and IM. This is not unlike something you would find in FB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canoro Philipp Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 is not that SL is becoming Facebook, is that now Second Life has more tools for social communications, it is an expected step, because one important aspect of Second Life is the communication between its residents, for some is so important that if there were no one else in SL they wouldnt have a reason to stay. social networks has been proven to work well for people, the proof is that Facebook is the second most visited site on the web, not Wikipedia, or Amazon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peggy Paperdoll Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 And it's all optional. I don't see a problem. I don't participate but I don't have a problem with others who do. Pretty simple really.........I enjoy SL my way, someone else enjoys SL their way. No harm, no foul. Second Life will evolve into whatever it evolves into. When it evolves into something I no longer enjoy, I'll go somewhere else. Everyone has that same option. So far it's not to that point for me. Apparently it is for others........so what are you going to do about it? Whine to no avail or leave......those are your choices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Ahren Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 Facebook is like the Borg: You will be assimilated. All your personal information belongs to us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canoro Philipp Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 i would say the internet itself is. one curious thing is that people believe is a fair price to give information about themselves for the benefits the internet offers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peggy Paperdoll Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 There really should be a requirement that the ISP's tests everyone who signs up for Internet access.......fail, and you only get viewer download bandwidth and no upload bandwidth. If you can't send anything from your computer you can't do the stupid things people do with information. Facebook is a prime example of what people stupidly put on the Internet........it's really quite amazing that people actually lay out their entire personal life then complain when the nasty stuff hits the fan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Ahren Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 Why is it necessary to give up personal information? Other residents don't need to know my real name, age, income, gender, or have real photos of me or know my income or whatever. That's great information for a repressive governments such as China, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Cuba, and so forth so they can hunt dissidents down. It's also great for drug cartels like they have in Mexico where bloggers were tortured, executed, and their bodies hung from a bridge. See this (warning: graphic content) article. There are also a number of people in hiding who made the mistake of publishing something critical about a particular religion on the internet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canoro Philipp Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 its not necessary to give information about yourself to use the internet, but to get more out of it sometimes you need to. like giving information about yourself to Linden Lab to have access to the 3D world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canoro Philipp Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 i dont know if they are aware of the risks or they are aware and dont care. i know some people that think that nothing really bad is gonna happen to them if they continue to live their lives normally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Ahren Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 Back on the subject of the OP, why would this Facebook wall in SL make anyone more likely to use SL? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willow Danube Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 I'd like to think it as this... SL is searching for the younger crowd. Younger crowd meaning those below 25 years old who grew up with Facebook. SL is a social platform and while it was the thing about 4 years ago, it has been shadowed with the much faster, more informative and seemingly vibrant Facebook, MySpace & Twitter types of social platform. If SL wants to continue its presence in the internet, they need to start looking at the future generation trend of socialising. Whether you like it or not, Facebook is leading the pack. SL cannot remain as it is. Older generations like us WILL Grow old and die... If SL is treating its platform as a retirement place for the "been there, done that... let me re-lived 'em before I die" residents, then I don't think LL would have generate enough sustaining power to compete for the future. SL still has the niche and will continue providing those niches. But it will be approached in a slightly different way to placate the younger generation's palate. We do not see a big difference now... we see a lot more Facebookers dropping out from SL ... but eventually they'll come back and will be here to stay. About 10 years ago, HIS was slowly introduced to the healthcare institutions and there were big uproar and threatening of resignations from the heatlhcare workers especially among the physicians. Adopting and adapting was almost impossible. Eventually, they grew accustomed to it. Today, they are demanding for a much faster, much more sophisticated software and hardware because pen and paper is just simply time consuming. These demands are mostly from the much younger physicians who grew up having a computer at home. Where are the old timers? They had to go back and learn to type and hold the mouse properly in order to compete with the younger physicians. SL, will become one too. The Key word here is "Eventually". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canoro Philipp Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 i dont see it as a promotional tool, i see it more to fill a need that many users had, specially the more social, im sure many of the ones who use second life for social purposes are the ones using it the most, and i bet many of them have a Facebook account to be in contact with their rl friends, the problem was that they wanted to make use of that tool to contact their sl friends, but the avatars accounts keep getting deleted for not providing real information, Facebook deleted them, Google Plus too. the solution of the wall is a great idea because it separates more the rl and the sl of the users, and the users will keep a safe wall where is not gonna be deleted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monti Messmer Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 Allways love the "if you don´t like ít leave" replys. I like SL as it was. If a company changes the parts of your work contract you cannot just leave. We have friends and/or buisnesses here things that need us to stay. Leave that FB crap optional and off by default then i´m fine with. Monti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freya Mokusei Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 You have to understand that your idea of SL's direction is asynchronous with how others socialise around in and around SL. SL doesn't and can't exist in a vacuum. Resident-run projects such as 2ndHub, SLProfiles and AvatarsUnited have shown that there is definitely a market for 'avatar-centric social networks'. Lots of SL residents were (and in some cases continue to be) affected and outraged by Facebook and Google+ with their steps to delete avatarian/pseudonymous personalities from their networks. Plurk, Reddit and Twitter continue to have a large SL-focussed audience. Personal blogs have always been, and continue to be, incredibly popular with residents. Moreover, I contend that your original premise that SL has changed is incorrect. 'Sharing' has always been a part of SL, as evidenced by the viewers 'Snapshot > To Email' and more recently, SLURLS. The only difference is that it's finally getting easier to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Venus Petrov Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 @Randall: I do not disagree with you. I am fairly certain that whomever is marketing SL to FB is not capturing data to measure the success of any one campaign. Thus, the campaign is useless. The increased transparency that Rodvik advocates has not translated to how information is shared with residents either via the SL blog or this forum. For example, I would like to know how LL measured the success of the recent Spampire initiative. Share some data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minx Bade Posted November 25, 2011 Author Share Posted November 25, 2011 I wasn't aware that Facebook and Google+ deleted accounts set up by SL residents. Perhaps SL does need to employ this type of feature as a way to safeguard against such discriminating actions. What I really think worries me is that as long as people can communicate out of world why would anyone come in world? All these post are really insightful and well thought out. I know I will not completely accept this new change for myself personally but for now I will try to be more understanding of its need for those who have been rejected by Facebook and Google+. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carole Franizzi Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 Freya Mokusei wrote: You have to understand that your idea of SL's direction is asynchronous with how others socialise around in and around SL. SL doesn't and can't exist in a vacuum. Resident-run projects such as 2ndHub, SLProfiles and AvatarsUnited have shown that there is definitely a market for 'avatar-centric social networks'. I thought AvatarsUnited got closed down. Am I getting confused with something else? A sort of avatar FB thingy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Venus Petrov Posted November 25, 2011 Share Posted November 25, 2011 Minx Bade wrote: I wasn't aware that Facebook and Google+ deleted accounts set up by SL residents. Perhaps SL does need to employ this type of feature as a way to safeguard against such discriminating actions. What I really think worries me is that as long as people can communicate out of world why would anyone come in world? All these post are really insightful and well thought out. I know I will not completely accept this new change for myself personally but for now I will try to be more understanding of its need for those who have been rejected by Facebook and Google+. FB wants accounts with real names so they can cull real information for marketing purposes. Fake names dirty the dataset. All of my meaningful and significant communications occur inworld or via RL alternatives. Not on an SL forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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