Could this be the next Virtual World platform

http://www.yoick.com/

Rumours are afoot that a rival to Second Life is currently being developed, probably
recognising the huge market that remains untapped.

I for one would welcome a rival virtual world built around the concepts that SL has used which includes a virtual economy and currency. I believe it would kick Linden Labs complacent a@@ into gear for one thing! Having a monoply is not a good thing in any format.....we have had to put up with a patched-up unstable platform for far too long, online gambling bans that non- applicable in most other countries, a flood of SIMs (nealry a 1000) dumped in world that has effectively flattened the land market, the prospect of increased tiers on old grandfathered SIM's.......and the endless list of bad management planning and decisions made. (e.g Who really cares about VOICE?)

If a rival appeared onto the scene, LL would have to focus on developing a quality product inorder to maintain their market share or hit those projected registered users included in their business plans. They might even be forced to reconsider their pricing structure......what if you could buy a virtual Island for $1000 bucks with a $100 p/mth maintenance fee without any prim/object limits on a very stable operating platform? How long could LL carry on with $1675 purchase and $295 Tier.......fearing a signifcant exodus of users to something more viable and affordable?


Food for thought.

I mentioned in a blog at the turn of the year, that i wouldn't be surprised if a rival concept
was not already on the drawing board of some large corporation. I still believe that!

www.multiverse.net

I think they've got the most potential.

Just took a look at the above URL.....probably not too far away by the looks of things.!!
The key aspect is developing a fucntionable economy ....there lies LL advantage!

nah the aussies will do it better.
looking forward to outback.

SL already have serval rivals. One is even names secondlife in Chinese. Heard of Song's PS3 Home?, Hipihi?, trueplace? I keep forgetting their names, because most simply don't work.
If the ingrates from SL every log on to one of those sites they would cry bloody murder!

that might hold true for now.......but for how long will they enjoy their no.1 position, virtually unchallenged.

If there is a virtual environment with better graphics, (but yet runs on as many computers as SL can), has an economy, doesn't force you to follow a theme(like a scifi thing), allows user generated content to be owned/resold, has sophisticated yet intuitive in world design tools, and social effective social networking then I would say its a serious competitor. After visiting the websites of the above listed worlds, I couldn't determine if they offered those things. Just vague references.

A virtual world that has all those features *and* has a lower cost than SL would be even more of a threat.

I think the Endless Forest is most likely to give SL a run for its money.

http://www.tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/

Here are what I see as some points to that effect, though...

a) it's already available

b) it's treated as a platform for MMOGs so people would have a lower expectation and not look like a huge ass when they lose huge amounts of money like in SL. This would allow the technology to mature with less of a negative impact on the customer (i.e. lost inventory and revenue through glitches and downtime) which could potentially lead to expansion of the platform.

c) it's free for the developer (except for having a server) and they just ask for 10% of any RL$ you make off of it through membership fees or other money made...

...which means...

d) you could potentially set up your own in world economy and currency

e) you could potentially allow user created content to a lesser extent by having creators that aren't in the developer team use the tools needed to make things for multiverse and send them to you to add to the system. This could essentially be the equivalent of zoning and would get rid of a lot of lag issues, too!

f) the current setup is basically you can log in as a regular guy and go to different worlds people put together...not sim based and all stuck together...which is a lot more "3d Internet" than SL imo. SL is like going to theonion.com and seeing the top half of the front page of yahoo when you scroll all the way to the bottom...unless you can afford a private sim!

Someone could essentially make a copy of SL as an MMOG and just call it "Barbie and Ken: Shopping and Talking Online!" and suck half of the residents out of SL!

But seriously, SL has a lot of features that I dig (building is easy compared to most other 3d programs from what I've seen and experienced) and I lack the funds and free time to take advantage of what multiverse.net is offering. I'll definitely be watching multiverse to see how it progresses...from my tiny island in SL!

How? It looks like the only point of the forest is to run around talking to other deer. Cute, but not the same thing.

only?

Less than $1.00/mo if you have a $10.00/mo subscription fee? Sounds reasonable to me!

Remember, this would start out as more of a game (see the points I outlined in my other post) than a place for people to go to pretend they are successful business people.

If the web page is any indication, Nope.

My 9 year old niece has a more advanced site than Yoick.com

Bad news:

I think Yoik's world (Outback) has died already. There main coder left because he wasn't happy with the direction Outback was heading. You'll also notice that Yoik haven't updated their blog since the coder left. That may be a sign that they've given up.

But there's hope!:

Their main coder left and started his own virtual world - www.pocketrealms.com. Although that website has been a little quite lately too. BooOOOoo!!

But wait, Read on.....

Plus actual collection costs ( credit card processing, ect. ) estimated to be 3% to 10%

So it will cost 13% to 20% of your GROSS income. and what about chargebacks and fraudulent transaction?

You also have to run the server and pay for bandwidth, and bandwidth isnt free.

better than Tier? perhaps, Still a little high.

At least in SL I know what my costs are up front and that is a big plus.

...high compared to what? It sounds reasonable to me considering you could not charge anything if you wanted to! Just like some people do in SL!

I want to buy a 07 Mustang for US$0 down and 50.00/mo for 3 months, but that's compared to what I could get an 84 Crown Victoria for.

This time next year it might be a different story!

Don't get me wrong, i don't really want to leave SL, having invested a lot of time and money into the game.....but at the same time, having a rival game would be no bad thing and might keep LL honest!

SL's success hinges on a large part to its flexibility...and the ingenuity of its own residents. Mutliverse looks interesting...but its scope seems far too narrow...limiting itself to the gaming genre. Unlike SL, which allows its residents to build, create, sell and play all in the same online "universe", the partitioned nature of Multiverse leaves a bit to be desired. That having been said, I'm interested to see what they *do* with the place.

Since the SL infrastructure is already in place, and the world has been populated for quite some time...LL has the definite advantage over the competition. Who wants to invest in something that's "like" the coolest thing, rather than in the coolest thing, itself? *grin*

SL provides me with the greatest flexibility of any online environment...it allows to create..own land...roleplay...and even teach. I still think many in the industry are still trying to grok the differences between an MMORPG and an on-line "environment".

But, LL really does need to raise the bar a bit in terms of its customer service. Better communications, and a revisit of their "unlimited alt" policy would be a good start.

If something else on the same level as SL came along, with better service, I'd be gone in a blink.

I think it is only a matter of time that something shows up to give SL a run for it's money.
There is one constant in the computer world. If you make it, Someday there will be someone to do it better, faster or cheaper than you.

Anyone use loutus 123, compuserve, cuseeme or netscape anymore?

Rox

I still have my Word Perfect keyboard shortcut card.

Yes. I use Netscape. But it's now called Firefox

Funny that nobody mentions Activeworlds.

Second Life wasn't first, not by a long shot.

VRML, Activeworlds, There.com, Entropia, World of Warcraft (ya really), there's been a lot of them. Second Life is also by far the most expensive.

It's going to be interesting. What we'll see when competition comes is this:

1) lower prices
2) same or worse service*
3) two major players a la Coke/Pepsi and a lot of still-online-but-dead failures
4) a polarisation of demographics, possibly premium -vs- economy
5) a race to the lowest common market denominator; fewer daring risks taken


I'm guessing that Second Life will become Coke. There will be a competitor with arguably better specs, not much cheaper (why? because if SL is so expensive, why be less than 15% cheaper?).

The main competitor will be a successful Pepsi: without the firstness, without the initial marketshare, without literally millions who were 'educated' that Second Life is what the metaverse is supposed to look like. Try dropping an IBM user onto a Mac, or vice versa.

I think Second Life and its competitors will ultimately go the way of AOL/Compuserve. 20 year horizon. Why so long? Because it's not just like connecting websites - it's a lot more complicated, and perhaps more akin to the Win/Mac/Linux conundrum.




*WORSE service you say? Yes, not kidding. Watch the new competitive world be managed by baby monkeys of the same species that seem to run most MMO's, in a buggy, alpha version grid thus lowering the service bar even lower. Let me put it this way: when Star Wars Galaxies came out, did it revolutionise customer service and community feedback in the online business? Buckle up, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

I think most competitors are going to be waiting to see what the eventual benefits and tradeoffs of Second Life's user content creation model are.

The fact of user content creation is that it's responsible for many of SL's technical problems and it's had complex consequences that are still only just sorting themselves out into a business case. If SL banned all adult content and casinos, would it still be market viable? If the answer is 'no' then, if you create a competitor, you're doing it with advance knowledge that it's going to depend on them to survive. Does user content creation really have a business future? Will the "endgame" of SL be all of the best creators hired by MDCs, all creating their own "communities" with their own OIs, and most other paying users just having no _need_ to create anything?

If another virtual world wants to be able to attract starting capital, it's going to need to answer these questions, and it's likely that watching SL is the only way they're going to be answered.

a waiting game is correct........and learning from all SL's pitfalls.
The Japanese always had a knack of copying technology but at the same time improving it and ultimately lowering the price of said item whilst adding adding extra functionality.