Redesigned Second Life Homepage for new visitors going Live

This pretty much sums up LL's entire philosophy. "It doesn't really matter what people think - as long as we think it's a good idea, it's gonna happen anyway. If folk don't like it, we'll teach them to like it!"

If a Linden can point me to a specific example where this theory falls flat, please do.

I don't see how Les could fail to like the page. It has a black background, and you couldn't get any more Les White than that, could ya?

I'm very glad the new HP is giving good results in terms of traffic and registrations,
I hope that with some further adjustements this can eve increase more....


Just I hope you don't forget some "verbs" that are really important for the Second Life growth and community: Art, Photography, Machinima


Not only these areas are widely developed in Second Life, but in some way, they are one of the most important difference between Second Life and the other virtual worlds......
I know you have the verb: "build" but saying: "build" you can't represent all the creative and artistics featured and possibility you have in Second Life

just, try to think to all the Second Lifers that are using services as Flickr, Snapzilla, Youtube, Koinup (which I serve as CEO), Slprofiles

I know many people hear (and watch) of second life from services like Flickr, Youtube. I have on Koinup many users from other virtual worlds that are impressed by the visual art created in Second Life and decide to give it a try just to replicate this fantastic art and photo visuals....

I could also talk about Machinima. Don't you think that Second Life is absolutely the best machinima tool ever made? I'm sure about that........
Moreovoer, the machinima scene in Second Life is active and actively running some great projects. They are even getting mentions on mainstream media
(http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/10/steampunk-city-in-se.html )


A lot of people are knowing second life for their artistic, photographic, machinima potential
and I'm sure you should give them (in the homepage) a recall about that.....

They are only three verbs, but they can make the difference and they could convince more people to start a second life

If I had to use this page for anything it would drive me crazy. The thing is though, I guess this page isn't meant to be USED it's just meant to look pretty and convince people to sign up and log in. Once logged in people never see the page again pretty much. I know I never go to the front page at all and always go stright to secondlife.com/account. Assuming that's the theory then this page is not so bad I suppose.

One thing I'll say, I hope you are counting actual sign ups who log into SL and not just people who hit the sign up page without filling it out. I accidentally clicked on that thing a couple of times just scrolling around and playing with the page.

I don't want to come in here and just rip the page apart, but... I'd be lying if I said I thought it was a good idea.

I think it is _better_, but...

To me, this mis-understands the purpose and use-case of a web site. I arrive, and the page is "Hey, I'm shiny and high-impact, look at me, why don't you click one of these images? Oh, and they zoom, isn't that cool?". It screams for my attention, and it gets it. Thing is, it doesn't need my attention. I haven't actually just fallen over your website while trying to type amazon.com, I have delibrately chosen to come here and now I want information and I want it fast.

Once I peel my eyes away from the "pods", I notice that there are clear "What is Second Life?", "Download SL Viewer" and "Get Started" links. Fantastic.

How about, reduce the pods down to about 2/3rd their current size, and put some text in at the top talking about Second Life. Say it's a virtual world, that you can build your own content or buy it, and lead the user down to the "pods" (learning to hate that word) for more information. Mostly, keep their eyes up the top of the page so they notice the links early on.

In one pod : "...behind every avatar is a real person..." !!!

i really love the new page just one small thing........... flirt just wont fit in with the second life theme i feel. id rather replace it with socialize.
Merry Xmas to you all at the lab! and a happy new year!

Joy

I don't think the designer's planned ANYTHING. I stress that I am a professional graphic designer in RL as well a designer of all sorts of other things. I can see from this website that Big Spaceship did not do their homework. You have a video for 'dance' where the people in the video aren't dancing, just a panoramic shot of a city and a cute girl.
I scrolled through the page and examined it. I just got the impression that 1) Nobody from big spacehip has any real idea of what SL is about and 2) none of them tried to understand what SL is about. Instead they just came up with some noobie flash site that took about two days to code up in ActionScript and CSS.
I recommend everyone from Big Spaceship spend a month playing Second Life and THEN design a homepage. Was clear to me that they were only shown videos.
Your initial figures were good because you spent so long touting the website as the next big thing since the Resurrection of Christ that everybody was curious to look.
They came - they saw - they universally hated: I expect the numbers to drop away anytime soon.

Trust me when I say Big Spaceship was a bad idea and by no means cost-effective to LL. You're wasting money.

I think that it's very relevant, actually. Linden Labs talks at great length about the target markets of business and education. With target markets like that, marketing needs to be mindful of what images are displayed to market their product. That particular image obviously had very strong connotations. Enough that a lot of people commented on it. If Big Spaceship was instructed to remove the image because it was not aligned with the marketing strategy, then I take that as a sign of good marketing sense. ("This isn't what we're selling!" If it was removed because the photo was submitted without her knowledge and she expressed some displeasure about it, it would be enlightening to know, since it means that such imagery isn't being removed for branding purposes.

The fact that "flirt" remains on the front page when so much of the bad press that Second Life has gotten has been due to interpersonal scandals points out to me that they really haven't come up with a way to unify that marketing message so that business and education isn't potentially turned off. Simply changing the verb to something less evocative like "meet" or "socialize" would be a step in the right direction, I think.

As for the page itself, now that I've seen it functioning interactively, I'm still underwhelmed, mostly because I felt like it was too busy. My first instinct was "where do I click?" If tests of actual new sign-ups show that it works, so be it, but my instinct when I arrive at a site where I have to figure out how to operate the page is that unless I arrived with a compelling reason to stay, I move on. Attention spans -- mine included -- are too short for less-than-obvious navigation.

But you see, thats what eBay *used* to say too... Their mantra was "We're just a venue...."... But now, they've got their noses into every nook and cranny of every transaction... Look for Linden Labs to try to do the same thing... Not quite sure *how* they will do it, but if its possible, count on them doing it...

Tas

OK then, let's play this game shall we?

Show us the numbers that say New Residents Polled about this new Webpage liked what they saw?

Show us the RAW numbers of the amount of New Residents polled.

Show us how you choose these New Residents to participate in your study.

Show us the questions asked, verbatim, to these New Residents and their answers, verbatim.

You want to say that you have RESULTS, then we want to see them. Prove to the world right now that Linden Lab isn't LYING to us!

Well? We are waiting!

And one more thing you can stop doing.

Stop getting your employee's to come onto the Forum and post these ridiculous, "I really like the new webpage" comments.

Do you really think we are that stupid? When someone who joined the Forums a year ago, and then suddenly shows up to write a comment, especially when the overwhelming majority of users are saying quite the opposite.

QUIT trying to make it look like someone likes this piece of shit; face it, it's crap and you got sold a bill of goods by Big Spaceship.

Whoever was in charge of this project should be FIRED along with the cancelling of the Big Spaceship contract. CUT the cord now and be thankful you lost only so much money.

THEN, turn to the Second Life Community, who knows MORE about Second Life and NEW USERS then you ever will. We are the ones in the world, we are the ones dealing with the New Users day after day, WE are the ones that know what the New Users want.

For crying outloud, figure out that you have one hell of a Resource in the User Community and USE IT.

Just WHY do I have to give you basic lessons in Business? Didn't ANYONE at Linden Lab study Business and Marketing in college? Doesn't anyone at Linden Lab have experience in dealing with a large USER COMMUNITY?

Get off your collective BUTTS and do what is best for Second Life, not what's best to try and save face, after ANOTHER failed program.

I am afraid that, for me, it looks very much like a web page designed by someone who really doesn't understand the web as a medium. It is the sort of thing I expect to see from a design company that specialises in print media.

I would certainly echo what many have said about the quality of images and the 'flat' feel to the page as well as the difficulty of getting to any real content. The need to scroll horizontally is really annoying given the amount of screen space that is effectively wasted.

I really expected better

Wow ... all these people ranting about how "they" are the smartest person on two legs with all perfect savvy advice and enough attitude to fill a "circular file cabinet" (which I'm sure is where those little rants end up)? Anyone with 2 licks of business sense knows that rants are unprofessional and hardly business-like.

In fact the new homepage is a nice start. It's not perfect, it has some issues both in content and delivery, but I'm sure it'll get better over time. Nothing launches as a perfect piece in this world. Oh, and, NO, I'm not a Linden, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night! Next up, brain surgery!

OK, so I've tried the new site, and looked at every last one of those silly "pods".

I'm on a screaming-fast Cable modem connection - fastest available home access in my region, short of paying for a dedicated Business-level Internet connection. I have a high end Mac and a darned good video card. And those "movies" took so long to load that in most cases, I had left the initial still image behind and moved to another image without even realizing there WAS a flash movie in that pod. Initial impression was that most of them are static photos, and that the site was some photographer's art gallery site. I didn't find many movies at all on the first pass, and only tried again, lingering on each image, because I knew these were supposed to have videos.

You really need a "SKIP FLASH INTRO" link. Just because someone has flash enabled doesn't mean that they want to waste time on useless flash fluff.

When I DID get to see the videos, in most cases they were worthless in explaining or providing any better imagery for the selected topic. Most of the pods you had no clue what you'd get when you clicked there. I didn't see a single video that was worth the time to watch.

The video that left the most lingering impression? The 'flirt' video showing a fair-skinned girl and a very dark-skinned male interacting and apparently heading off on a date. While it may be typical in SL that very different avatars fall in love and mate, it won't go over well with some market segments.

Several of the pods seemed to dwell on "gaming", and implied that there were lots of 3D games like combat simulations and cyberpunk worlds that people could participate in. I think most gamers lured in with that bait would have a difficult time locating anything close to what those images implied exist in SL, and would be VERY disappointed in comparing such "gaming" experiences to any other "Game" that they are familiar with.

I saw almost zero involvement of non-Human avatars. Where they did appear, they were a character in the background of a video, quickly panned over, and left unexplained. A couple still images showing a robot and an animal character didn't make it clear that they were actually avatars.

Glad you dropped the image of the babe with the huge breasts, even if it was because her Player complained about being portrayed without her permission. Showing a female with breasts that seemed larger than are even possible with normal slider settings is hardly the image you want to portray to new users, unless you're intent on making this a porn site.

I accidentally clicked through to the sign-up page three times while attempting to make sense of the site. But that certainly shouldn't taken as an indication that the site successfully encouraged me to create an account. That should only be counted if they download the client AND fully complete the registration process AND actually log in to the Grid with the account.

In general, the site is still very unlikely to appeal to business users or commercial concerns. And I really don't believe it will attract people who will actually STAY.

Could we change "Build" to "Create?"

Who selected these Verbs? Why not words like:

Create
Explore
Engage
Invent
Share
Trade
Learn
Grow
Discover
Reach Out
Entertain
Teach
Interact

Any my personal favourite... Imagine

And I agree with the poster below me.. it would be nice if SL's webpage at least displayed a little more of the whimsy within second life, instead of homo-sapiens only (yes, I know there's *A* robot). Given LL's home offices are in San Francisco, CA, It'd be nice if a same-sex couple were shown as well.

Needs more furries. *chuckles*

My serious opinion? I don't care. For once, you're making a change that doesn't negatively impact me or anyone I know. Just keep the old one around for those rare times I have to see the homepage.

I'm not here to destroy the great work you put on that homepage, but i think it is quite incredible all the energy you put lately, "to improve the new user experience and to increase registrations" as you put it, and at the same time, have managed to annoy almost all of your current residents.

I am very perplexed about this.

Yanik

Well, let me help you understand something my "elightened" friend. Linden Lab has stopped listening LONG AGO. The only way they can hear, is when we YELL.

Linden Lab employee's come here, with their hot-air gas filled posts, claiming they and they alone know what is good for Second Life, yet they spend so little time in the world.

Linden Lab makes wild claims about how great numbers of X approved what they were doing, yet when asked to produce those numbers, Linden Lab employee's fall deftly quiet.

You want to talk UNPROFESSIONAL, Linden Lab employee's and management are at the top of that list. I follow ONLY in their example. If the only way to get through to these people is by YELLING, that's just what I'll do. You see, I LOVE SECOND LIFE, and I HATE what Linden Lab is doing to it. Second Life is failing simply because Linden Lab has failed to use the Community Resources at its disposal.



As for your sudden arrival to this issue, just WHICH employee are you, or WHICH employee asked you here? Sorry, but again, someone who signed up to the Forums over a year ago and you suddenly show up and speak so highly of what is by all accounts here,l a steaming piece of cr*p, then I must suspect your intentions and your arrival. I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn, but I did take my meds, and while they confuse me, I can still see clearly enough to know that Linden Lab is once again failing us, the Community of Second Life; and that's just not something I will stand idly by and watch happen!

I've finally seen it, and I think it's pretty good, although I was alarmed when the page started rolling left and never stopped. I think a hard stop to left and right would be nice, because the repeats are not immediately obvious (at least to me).

Aside from that, I think it's a lot better than the old one and gives more of an idea of what SL is actually like.

Ranting has its place, see Blake Sea for further details

Inviting feedback on a design issue is always going to raise criticism, in all reality the only feedback that matters initially is whether or not the page improves the signup rate, that's the bottom line.

If the page doesn't improve the signup rate then maybe some of the feedback will be considered, but I doubt it. This is a done deal between Linden Lab and Big Spaceship and the only feedback regarding design that will matter will be between Linden Lab and Big Spaceship. If you're going to engage in a project you have to get to a point whereby you allow the designers to do their job, we're at that point now.

What LL are failing to see in their noobiness, is that the 'numbers' in question isn't new Residents at all. It's us going there to look at how rubbish it is!

Well I think we shoud care. As this page represents all of us.

Lots of verbs missing. Where is community? Photography? And most important where is Art?

The old page mentions the community right on top and that's what drew me in years ago. Where is the mission statment, this should be in the prospective users face also.

Katt, what's the purpose of the slider thing at the bottom? Moving it causes constant screen scroling in that direction. Is this a feature or am I doing it wrong?

I know you are going off your sikrit stats, but how good can those stats be if the page has only been up for a week or so.

Please remember this page is not just a hook for newbies...it represents all of the users.
Imagine yer mom looking into what you do, and seeing the "flirt" pod first....

I just saw it for the first time and I like it. Helps in explaining just what the SL experience is like to folks who have no gaming or online virtual life experience.

Oh I see .. if I disagree with you I'm a linden? No one invites me anywhere and no self-appointed expert is going to stop my posting when the mood strikes me. The web page is fine. It's neither a catastrophe nor earth-shakingly wonderful. Come see me inworld if you want to discuss this further and check out my non-Linden status. I'm inworld every evening CST by the same name as I post by here.