Facebook and SL: the balkanization of our world?

No, we're not in competition with social networks -- just the opposite. We've created official Second Life outposts on several. You can connect with us at Facebook.com/SecondLife or Twitter.com/SecondLife, for example. And, there's a very active community on Flickr and Plurk. Plus we're working to add social tools that enable Second Life to be more tightly connected to the social networks most popular with our users.

While people are connecting, socializing, and sharing with each other in Second Life, the virtual world is in its essence very different from social networking sites. It's a rich and immersive three-dimensional experience, enables synchronous communication, and has its own vibrant virtual goods marketplace where users will conduct more than $500 million worth of user-to-user transactions this year. Residents spend an average of about 100 minutes inworld each session, and about 40 hours in Second Life each month.

For years, LL executives have been obsessing about Facebook. It seems the two just keep tangoing a little closer to each other ... a leeeeetle closer ... now the MOTD is about a Facebook SL sharing site. Yet, if CEO M can be believed, LL DOES know the advantages SL has over traditional social networking, at least on a statistical level:
Here's my question: it seems to me that an influx of Facebook users into SL would greatly stimulate a very narrow section of the economy, those who create photoreal clothing and furnishings. Maybe there are Facebook users yearning to be speaking wolves wearing waistcoats living in aerial dungeons, but it seems more likely that Facebookers would think it cool to hand a video of their living room -- or one from Architectural Digest! -- to someone and have them recreate it in SL.

SL has already split into two communities that rarely touch: RL business/education, and those here for entertainment. There has been a lot of paranoia about this, people ranting about business taking over SL, but it just won't happen. The two will remain segregated, and the bulk of LL revenue will continue to be from entertainment. But ... entertainment of who?

Will there be a 3rd separate community, RWOLers? (real world on-line-ers?)

I fear that the bulk of people online at any moment will come to be the RWOLers (augmentationists), imported from social networking sites like Facebook. In this scenario, those who LIVE in SL will be eased into a twilight existence - no longer who LL means when they say, "the residents". And, since RWOLers will generally not spend a lot of time and attention on SL, the richness of our world may slowly drain away, or be confined to ghettos which new arrivals will never find.

Thoughts?

How To Make Second Life Truly Mass Market, Part 1: Deep Integration With Facebook

The latest official economic stats for Second Life are now available, and they tell a mixed picture: while user-to-user transactions continue to grow, the absolute number of unique users does not. After a steady growth period at the start of the year, monthly unique repeat SL users have plateaued to around 750K. In his report, Linden Chief Product Officer T. Linden suggests this flat growth is the result of the new policy (imposed last May) banning Traffic-gaming bots.

That may well be the case, but what's undeniable is that Secnd Life is still struggling to become a virtual world with mass market status. By way of comparison, consider today's largest virtual world: YoVille, from Zynga, a web-based MMO played in Facebook and MySpace. Only launched in May 2008, it now counts nearly 20 Million unique monthly active users on Facebook alone. (Making it much larger than not just World of Warcraft, but web-based MMOs like Habbo.)

There are a number of reasons for YoVille's rapid and sustained growth, but one in particular stands out: Deep integration with leading social networks, especially Facebook with its 300 million active users. This explains how YoVille managed to grow so speedily, for its appeal is not just the virtual world itself (cartoonish and simple as it is), but the desire to play it with Facebook friends. "At their most fundamental level," Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga, recently told me, social network-based games like YoVille "are games that you can play with real people with real identities."

I recently wrote about how mass adoption is so crucial to Second Life, and at the time, I promised to offer suggestions for making that possible. Taking YoVille's success as a reference point, my first recommendation is this: Second Life needs deep integration with Facebook.


I don't mean a mere SL-related Facebook Application (those exist already), but integration across all channels, starting with the very first SL signup page, which should accept Facebook account credentials.

Doing this would associate new Residents with their Facebook page, which generally contain many of their real life details. In that way, the subsequent SL avatar would have a subordinate status, after the owners' real name and autobiographical details. (As with my YoVille avatar friends, at left, who are automatically linked to their Facebook profiles.)

Philip Linden often says that someday, Internet users will feel obligated to use an online avatar that's somehow distinct from the actual owner. However, with the largest virtual world (and other leading social games) the exact opposite is the case: the most popular avatar types are explicit extensions of an already existing real world identity.

Or to put it another way: to gain mass growth, Second Life may have to abandon the expectation that new users adopt a whole separate personality. As YoVille and other top social games (which now count 100 million+ users) suggest, most people prefer avatars that are firmly linked to their first lives.

What are they going to *do*, though, after they've bought their Architectural Digest living room?

So everyone who isn't willing to attach their RL identity to their avatar for all to see is automatically dishonest?

I don't know. Are they, Steve?

Beats me, Myrtle.

Other than a very tiny, very loud sub-group that feel threatened because they're not willing to be honest about themselves, most on SL will be unaffected. No, I don't want everyone on SL to have my phone number...but moving towards real name association with avatars will reduce griefing and increase personal accountability, both of which would be tremendous improvements in the culture here.

Here's my question: it seems to me that an influx of Facebook users into SL would greatly stimulate a very narrow section of the economy, those who create photoreal clothing and furnishings. Maybe there are Facebook users yearning to be speaking wolves wearing waistcoats living in aerial dungeons, but it seems more likely that Facebookers would think it cool to hand a video of their living room -- or one from Architectural Digest! -- to someone and have them recreate it in SL.

Other than a very tiny, very loud sub-group that feel threatened because they're not willing to be honest about themselves, most on SL will be unaffected. No, I don't want everyone on SL to have my phone number...but moving towards real name association with avatars will reduce griefing and increase personal accountability, both of which would be tremendous improvements in the culture here.

I agree that RL info for the purposes of personal accountability on the part of those who are seriously involved in commerce within SL would be very good indeed.

However, your characterization of anonymity as inherently dishonest is very naive. Part of Philip Linden's vision for SL was to offer a platform for personal development - for people to be freed to reach beyond their current RL identities for personal growth. SL works for that, enabling those who are hampered by phobia or life circumstances or physical disability or even just crippling shyness to encounter others, to try new roles and new traits, in a less demanding environment than reality generally offers.

I agree that RL info for the purposes of personal accountability on the part of those who are seriously involved in commerce within SL would be very good indeed.

However, your characterization of anonymity as inherently dishonest is very naive. Part of Philip Linden's vision for SL was to offer a platform for personal development - for people to be freed to reach beyond their current RL identities for personal growth. SL works for that, enabling those who are hampered by phobia or life circumstances or physical disability or even just crippling shyness to encounter others, to try new roles and new traits, in a less demanding environment than reality generally offers.

But I do think when that happens, there will be a move towards more RL info, and overall, I see that as positive.

I am still not clear why, Ayesha?

It's doable now all we need is a HUD that puts peoples RL name, number of friends and groups above their head in Hovertext, and we then know exactly who to avoid in SL

Part of Philip Linden's vision for SL was to offer a platform for personal development - for people to be freed to reach beyond their current RL identities for personal growth. SL works for that, enabling those who are hampered by phobia or life circumstances or physical disability or even just crippling shyness to encounter others, to try new roles and new traits, in a less demanding environment than reality generally offers.

BUT....if LL said "your avatar name will be changed to your real name and that is the only option"....I'd go with it. (Because I'm addicted to SL.^_^)

RL names are not unique where SL names are and pretty much have to be.