Metaverse - Second Life business survey

I am an student at Newcastle University UK. I am doing a consulting project for online business models specifically focusing on online game Second life. This survey will take approximately 3 minutes to complete. This information will solely be used for academic purposes.


I have posted a questionnaire-'Metaverse - Second Life business survey' on web. Please help me to fill the questionnaire http://www.my3q.com/home2/162/fansy/47512.phtml



Thanks in advance.

Fasty Ling

Edited - Thank you for everyone that posted

As requested I have included a link to student homepages http://www.students.ncl.ac.uk/r.j.b.lee/

Please add Fasty Ling onto your friends list if you are interested in the topic and would like to discuss them in game.

Hey Fasty, what course are you studying there at Newcastle? I guess it's something business oriented. I'm a bit further south at Salford uni, also using SL within my course, which is to do with virtual environments rather than business

question 10 of your survey makes little sense, you might consider rewording it, to something like "do you think real life businesses becoming more involved in SL is a good thing?" with the same scale rating. as it stands, the question is not a question, and the rating is unrelated (sorry )

Interesting survey...though I think you left out some major markets in your available selections. At least there were "other" boxes available.

Good luck with your survey and the results. Hope it does well.

If it's not too late to modify the survey, I'd like to suggest an enhancement to the question:

10* Please rate your opinion on real life brands coming and involving in SL?

I'll just give you my take on the question, and you can figure out how to optimize the choices for the question, including an "other" option for free-form commentary.

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Real world corporations as well as small/medium sized businesses establishing presence in Second Life is of course inevitable. The way it's happening right now is a bit like the way it happened with the web:

"We need to get on the web."

"What's the web?"

"I'm not sure, but we need to be there."

"What will we do there?"

"No idea, but we need to do it."

"How much will it cost?"

"Lots"

"Ok. Let's do it."

In my not so humble opinion, there is plenty of room on the grid for real world corporations. What they actually do here, and how they actually will use the platform, I don't think they really know yet.

I envision it this way:

Barnes and Noble enters Second Life. They hire Electric Sheep Company to build a virtual book store for them.

Joe Resident really likes the interactive, 3D experience that is Second Life. He's also keen on getting a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. He could use the same old boring website, or he could simply pop over to the B&N sim, find the virtual book on the virtual book shelf, click on it to get a notecard or two of excerpts from the book, walk over to the virtual starbucks, grab a cup of prim coffee, texture animated and particle steam for good measure, and then shuffle through the maze of other shopping avatars to the reading area.

When Joe is done, he decides that yes indeed, must have this book. Goes back to the shelf location, right clicks, buys, and two days later the book is in his real life mailbox.

This is doable, and would be a revolutionary way to shop online for products and services. Leaps and bounds closer to the way we shop in the real world, and the way we interact with other shoppers in the real world. This is the future of corporate involvement in Second Life. I welcome it.

Now, if Nike wants to come in-world and sell virtual shoes, or if Ikea wants to come in-world and sell virtual furniture, or if Microsoft wants to come in-world and take over the LSL script market, forget it. This is the domain of the residents. Corporation expressly not welcome here. Corporate involvement in Second Life must COMPLEMENT the experience of the residents. It must not COMPETE with the existing residents who provide virtual products and virtual services.

In summary, your offering of answer choices to that question is severely lacking, and that is the most important question in the entire survey.

Fasty Ling, i'd be happy to participate if i had some kind of guarantee you're a student and not a market research company.

Can you host a link to this survey on your uni's website somewhere?

Seconded.

I disagree. Especially since I know quite a few people who buy the Nike shoes in SL already. Plus, here you could try them on, walk around in them, and if they look good on your AV, you could purchase the real thing in RL. Nike could test new products without ever having to manufacture samples. If IKEA was/is in SL, I'd/I'll be shopping there in a heartbeat. Again, for IKEA it would be a good way to test market new products without spending money on prototypes or gearing up factories.

The bookstore example probably isn't such a good one. I'd prefer to go to a real coffee shop with Wi-fi access and drink some coffee, go to the Barnes and Noble site, read the Harry Potter excerpt there, and order from there. SL coffee just doesn't taste as good as RL coffee.

One HUGE area of SL business that you overlooked is real estate. For those who are in it, it's the most lucrative business here. I bought and sold one sim and made as much there as one could make selling flexiprim dresses for a year.

Hello,

Thanks for all the responses so far. Have changed the Q10 but I'm all sure from your replies you understood the meaning.

I have included a link from my student home space as requested by some to confirm I am a student of Newcastle University

http://www.students.ncl.ac.uk/r.j.b.lee/

Please ignore the picture lol. But compliments are welcome ^_^

Fasty Ling.

PS If anyone plays World of Warcraft could you spend 2 minutes answering questionaire from http://www.my3q.com/home2/163/fasty/76489.phtml

Is there any random question that secretly finds moral value of Second Life resis?

Q: Have you or anyone you know ever engaged in age-play, two-legged-animal-play, capture-the-girl play?

A few comments..

Yeah, a cup of Peet's French Roast tastes better than plywood prims, to be sure. It smells better too. It may be your preference to have a shower, get dressed, get in your car and drive to the coffee house. Other people prefer to shop in the comfort of their own home. That is where the example I gave has value, and enormous potential.

My big concern is that I really truly fear that if corporations aren't responsible and sensitive to the incredibly important role that resident content creators have in Second Life, it will become "Walmart's world, Walmart's imagination".

I'm receptive to corporate endeavors to reach me in-world, and as an occasional online consumer, I welcome the day when I can cruise over to B&N and have the experience I described in my previous post. It will be alot more fun, engaging and immersive than clicking through a bunch of flat, static web pages to get the product I'm after.

As a consumer of in-world products, be it furniture, vehicles, scripts, houses, garden products, what have you, I will always favor resident contribution over corporate contribution. The prototype idea for Ikea is an interesting one. For them to enter the market at full steam, and put resident creators out of business, well, I've no interest in that. Revenue wise, it's pennies to them. It's a show stopper for the average resident who was one day covering their Linden Lab bill with their product proceeds, and the next day found that all their customers are flocking over to the Ikea sim.

Mine too.

I just read that Kraft is coming into SL. Eesh. I can imagine going to its island and receiving 30 cent coupons for Velveeta! Rock on, Kraft!

The corporations need to think of this as a place to promote their RL products, because, as ZK says, SL income is pennies to them. I doubt highly if the Coldwell Banker agents in SL are getting much business, and I sure hope they aren't thinking they're going to make moolah selling SL houses. The SL real estate market is totally not like RL.

I think the only corporations that will flourish here are those that can take advantage of the 3D simulation of their products/services or create educational in-world seminars (how to buy your first house, how to make Velveeta cheesecake) or stage cool events like concerts. (Kate Bush refuses to cross the ocean to tour in the States, but we could have her in SL, singing only to us SLians. Rocky swoons at the thought.)

A corp. would be an idiot to promote itself in-world with spam IMs, Billboards, phony events and the like. The ill will and then bad word-of-mouth advertising that would be generated by this community of innovators and early adopters is absolutely not what they want.

Corporations need to make the experience for us different than what the brilliant independents have already done. I had no interest in going to that car company's island to test drive its car. How dull. Now, if I could select all the options I wanted and hit rez and a 3D version of my car appeared, that would be interesting. Then I could sit in it, see how my sight lines are. Look at the cup holder and make sure it's in the right place. Then if I liked it, I'd ask for a quote and I'd receive a notecard with prices and the names/addresses of the closest car dealer.

As for Barnes and Noble, what would get me there is to meet RL authors. They could read their work to us, hold Q and As. Maybe you could order a book then, tell B&N what you want inscribed on your copy and then the author-signed and personalized copy would come to you by snail mail. Can you imagine how much more cost effective it would be for publishers, too? No travel costs. No elaborate logistics in-store with date-scheduling, security, etc. In fact, authors could just drop in whenever they wanted. Celebrity sightings in SL! So cool.