Linden Homes -- Their Future....

I'm a premium member with a 512...who is thinking of trading up. I've been thinking a lot about Mascara. I can't guess if it will be a success but as I read the blog thread on it, before that thread got derailed, I realized that what I read only confirmed my ideas.

Here they are: Participation on Second Life does not follow a normal distribution. Think about how few residents (not alts. Just residents) own land, either by being premium or by renting from a land baron. I've heard the percentage quoted at anything from ten to twenty percent.
Just listen to the way people talk about living on a 512. I've heard: "You'll have to get more" until it sounds like a broken and antiquated vinyl disk that plays sound. Paying participation when it happens seems to shoot through the roof.

What we're looking at (and what Linden Labs is looking at) when they graph out paying participation, is called a power curve or J-curve. There are twenty percent of us and we spend most of the money and participate a lot.

Pushing nonpaying members up the J-curve would make Linden Labs a lot of money. Out on the educational islands, professors routinely bring in twenty-five or more students per class as nonpaying members.

But what pushes NPIOF's up that J-curve? Does any one know? I suspect from reading the blog and from reading here, that users climb up the power curve for a variety of different reasons.

1) The interface agrees with them. Some people don't mesh with the viewer and all its details. These are the ones that talk about a learning curve. If you can't handle the interface, it's over.

Assuming one gets past usability issues, then there are several routes up the curve.

1) Users who want to build and rezz items are one group. Artists, scripters, would-be fashion designers all fall into this group. I had been a member four days when I put payment on file and bought my first lindens and could make a polka-dot shirt.

2) People who want pretty and realistic stuff.. Lots of people are like this. I don't pretend to understand this, but I see a lot of expensive land that is not only pretty, but has a covenant to keep it that way. Pretty in this context means perfection and photo reality.

3) Special needs types are the third group. Maybe they come to shoot each other in places like Velocity. Maybe they want quad avatarim. Maybe...they want porn. They know what they want.

4) Role players are the fourth group. They want to be vampires, angels, Goreans and I'm not sure what else. These people need special themes and special areas. I don't know much about them except one of them wanted to bite me more than once.

The Linden Homes only appeal to group two. Maybe these folks are the majority, but are they a huge and overwhelming majority of those who will climb the curve? I don't have the demographics, but the demographics are a make or break deal for whether Linden Homes works.

Also if Linden Homes really takes off blazingly well, it will change the rules of the game for those of us who are all ready on the top of the J-curve. Users who are willing to make the ongoing committment for a 512 may not go any further, ever. Six dollars a month is a much easier committment to make and keep making than something more, especially in a world where medical bills and layoffs loom.

Bringing a flood of largely group 2 users into the mix of paying members may alter the demographics of paying members. Again, a lot of them have to take this offer.

I wish Linden Labs had offered more of something for everybody who might want a trip up the J-curve. As a newbie builder, land with a ready made house would have held no allure. I wanted a place for a garden of my own plants and my chartreuse quonset huts. Someone else' house might have been pretty but it wouldn't be mine. I can't speak for the quads, role players, combat enthusiasts, but they too have their passions and if Linden Lab doesn't speak to their passions, will Linden Homes entice these users up the J-curve?

I think they just want to help new people get their feet wet so that then they won't be scared to get immersed. As to whether it's a good idea or not, I don't know.

Ya, this.

I don't think it's an altogether bad idea, though, and worth trying. Maybe it'll do better than Shermerville did.

It used to be when you started as a newbie, all the guides said: WAIT THIRTY DAYS before buying land. This took care of the "scaird" factor though not all the absolute bone headed, newbie stupidity.

I had time to build my first house (on the steps at NMC and later on a private island whose owner forgot to set permissions to keep out vandals) and make a pile of plants. I also had time to work out costs on a spread sheet so that I understood what I was paying.

What I did not learn in those thirty days is:

Houses are overrated. They are great for photo shoots (I can borrow someone else' property for that.) but little else. I can change clothes on the fly. I don't need to sleep though it is nice to lie down, you don't need a house for that. I have no need for storage space.

Neighbors change. Buying land because you are near interesting or good neighbors is dumb unless you know these people. Just because you like the neighbors now, doesn't mean they'll be there six months from now, even on mainland where members pay a monthly tier.

Land is good for gardens, outdoor furniture, having "control of the radio," having a cute little device that can display a choice of web pages, having several other cute devices that release butterflies and light, emergency retail space, space for a certain web based distribution system's box. Land is wonderful when you run afoul of a security orb or are in a bad situation and hit Ctrl-Shift-H and know you'll end up somewhere quiet and safe.

It feels great to know I have some items that would otherwise not exist within Second Life (My bee hives and some of my plants).

If Second Life wants to improve retention and get payment from users, the way to do it is not with an ongoing committment and a prefab, but with encouragement to become PIOF and then buy a few dollars worth of Lindens. This is a one off! No committment required! This is a simple cash transaction. There is no signing up for special offers. You are not forced to see ads. It is simple and honest. Linden Labs should stress this.

Second, put info-hubs near value-added malls. One of my favorite malls as a newbie was Ilha Bella Gomorra (Yes, I went looking for a Sodom, but it is covered in ban lines but it does exist). It had stores at which I window shopped (Those weren't my clothes. I was making my own designs.) and explored (No soft spots in the floor). It had a beach with a water slide, a trampoline, a dance ball, and there was also a pool. I wanted to make Ilha Bella Gomorra my home, but since it was not an info-hub I was out of luck. The closest experience to Ilha Bella Gomorra in present day Second Life is the newbie area is Akiba. I'm not sure how well the Japanese model would translate for a largely American audience.

And even if you loathe malls, I think there needs to be some commercial activity in a newbie friendly area so that newbies can learn about spending lindens.

You make a lot of good points, Iyoba. As for me, I've never been happy without a home place of my own. And wherever I've been, I've wanted a house. My first "house" was a yacht. I've had ground level homes and skyboxes. But I love making them, having them, decorating them. I love having people visit me at my home and seeing what I've done.

The times I've been a homeless vagabond, I made out all right. I could still change clothes, find places to open boxes and sort inventory, and so on. But it has that same feeling of impermanence you get when you are on the road traveling, a sort of constant mild disorientation combined with a feeling of not belonging. It's nice to have one familiar place to call home...and for me, that includes a house of some sort.