Is the Demise of Second Life Nearing?

Couldn't they at least commit us to disk like in one of them William Gibson books? I always wanted to be downloaded into someone's earhole and mess with their head.

In fact, I often try.

Yes the demise of Second Life is nearing, just depends upon how much of a negative Nancy you are with regards to how near the end is, 1 year, 10 years, 20 years.

Sure, they could....but who's going to run us? I'm reasonably sure that if they shut us down tomorrow, we'd be backed up first, and sold to the highest bidder.

/me frowns

What a strange concept that is!

This is what *every* company has missed so far.

You know, you can see the same thing on the web way back when. Look at what corporations were plopping into the internet in 1997 or so. Ugly, one-page sites that were little more than "look, we're on the internet! Whee!" If you visited -- if you ever wanted to look in the first place -- then you did not need to come back. Traffic to their sites was abysmal. Eventually, everyone lines up and talked about the end of the World Wide Web and the Internet as a whole.

And yet, here we are.

The corporations blew into SL with this same sense. this whole "we're a big company, we know what we're doing, and we'll show you how it's done." They angered the userbase who, as I recall from these very forums, wanted nothing to do with many of those places out of spite. They provided little in the way of engaging, repeat-worthy content, they held few events. As such, people rarely visited, and did not come back.

So yes, now it's SL that is dying, according to those same business sites that once touted the end of the Web. Meanwhile, LL is profitable, there's a record number of people on the system, and life (first and second) goes on.

Are there things to be concerned about? You bet. The real world economy, scalability, etc. That businesses are so arrogant and so clueless as to not understand yet another new platform is not one of them.

Mari

I see there are a bunch of pessimistic users who agree that SL's demise in nearing.

Well, I always thought that some sim owners are run by businesses or corporations who are on the verge of bankruptcy or are already there and had to close the sim completely. I know of one sim that had to shut down by the end of January and that is Harmonia. But what I wonder is, are the costs of some sims shared by users who rent property on those sims or islands? If so, then I just bet SL will be around for a while yet. It's not like armegeddon is near for SL by the turn of the next decade or even 2012.

And as I post this, the status of islands may be up today compared to February 24 last year.

Well, there's "twaddle" in that name. Maybe that's a signal that it's just a joke.

Whether the demise of Second Life is near is a relative call.

I believe that Second Life is past its peak and driving into the ground without any plan to save itself. I think the concurrency numbers bear that out. After skyrocketing in 2007, there were only modest gains in 2008. Second Life has lost momentum. So in that sense, the end is in sight.

However, Second Life has lost momentum, but it still has momentum. Even shoddily managed, Second Life can probably eke out a year or more of life as it spirals into oblivion.

And, Second Life still has a brand. It's not as shiny as it once was, but it still has some weight. Linden Lab does have time to turn it around and make Second Life sustainable and the true wave of the future. I don't think it will happen based on past performance, but there is enough time that it's possible to happen.

Good press is the best press. But bad press is better than no press. The fact that Second Life is on the "deathwatch" means it has a little life left. If it weren't mentioned at all, that would be death.

My prediction for the possible end of Second Life though is death by lawsuit. There are people who are going to use Second Life despite how poorly it's run, because it's cheap to use. Linden Lab is in greater danger of causing enough monetary damage to the right person- whether it's failure to protect IP, or loss of data, or transaction problem- that they'll get sued out of their thin profit margin.

Lord, you're interpreations of things are very odd.

We do not agree that the demise is nearing. We are just very realistically pointing out that SL could, if they chose, close the doors. Not that they ARE.

Further, I am a sim owner. Demond is a multi-sim owner. Some sims are profitable. Some are not. An RL company who show up, plops down on a sim and puts a building up cannot realistically expect people to swarm to it. We, the users, insist on content, in order to find a sim interesting.

Do you actually READ what's put before you?

This article about SL is not bad, I think:

http://henryjenkins.org/2007/01/a_second_look_at_second_life.html

Yes there are some companies going belly-up. There always has been in SL, ever since there were companies.

Yes there are others struggling due to the recession.

Both are happening in RL and SL - nobody is saying that this is the end of RL, and I'm not sure it's going to be the end of SL.

The bar is going to be raised (again). People are going to only pay for quality. Standards are going to be even higher. Content makers will have to step up or close up. And they will - they always have in the past.

There are businesses that are still more than covering their costs in SL - the company I work for is one of them.

I'm not seeing the end is sight yet....

Me neither. SL is a site that I really enjoy, and it does have its ups and downs, but despite the businesses and sim owners that fail, new ones may come in. It's just that this time period may be what you call the "Winter doldrums" - where there is not that much business in RL or even SL. When the spring comes, business will boom again.

As I post this, there are over 71K users online right now. It is a higher level of SL users online compared to this day last year, if I am not mistaken. And yes, despite the businesses and sims that fail, there are more that make profits than you can realize. It's 4:20 PM on my PC right now, and chances are there will be more online later this afternoon or this evening, depending on where you are.

I do not take seriously reports about SL's health from writers who have no idea what SL is about in the first place.

I am almost certain we've discussed a different piece by this guy. It was made perfectly clear how much he hated SL and then went on talking about how much sex there is, etc.

Does anyone else remember that?

You're such an unimaginative dork, Bradley.

You're correct on both counts.

Wait a minute... there's sex in sl?

Uh-huh. However, I don't engage in such activity. I just have fun.

Here you go Bradley. A cornucopia of doom and gloom to choose from.

http://blogs.forbes.com/digitaldownload/second_life/

I remember. I started the thread. It's here.

/327/7d/308640/1.html

This thread got a lot more traffic than my thread, though. It must be about choosing the right title.

And people do leave SL at times. But when they do, more new faces come in. In fact, I know of two avatars who registered in recent months, and another maybe in the works.

SL is not going anywhere anytime soon, I can promise you. I bet there'll be a better chance of winning the lottery within the next 5 years than SL being canned.

As for the blog post, the OP probably based it on his opinion when a business he knew that owned a sim had to close it down due to dire times. But there are a lot of sims still doing well.

He's just bitter because he can't get any.

Is it Friday or am I going to have to take abuse on any day now.

Not you. The guy who wrote the "article".

oh god dont say that ,i have no life what would , i do,there is alway "there.com" but that place sucks they dont have sex or illegal gambling and fist her up the A** poseballs
cant make anything there,oh god second life dont leave us.

Well, "technically", there is gambling in SL. There are many places that have Zyngo machines, and many clubs do have a "Sploder" where you deposit lindens and randomly selects how much each person who deposited lindens gains or loses. You may even win more than you deposited.

I think people are just having a bad day, from what I read today. Winter is stressful for many, and lots of people do read into blogs and tabloid sites a bit too much. I can see why many people are very worrisome that SL is going out of style. But really, it's probably just the time of the year. Sims do come and go, but new ones do come in. If SL was going downhill, would there have been 71K+ users online less than an hour ago?