In case you were wondering what the world outside of advertising and marketing thought of Second Life, it featured somewhat prominently in a recent episode of NBC's hit show The Office. And as Jim is explaining the game to Pam, he notes that "there are no winners or losers. (PAUSE) Okay, there are a lot of losers, but..." (or something like that, but you get the gist.)
Point is, SL is now the punchline for jokes in a network sitcom. Not a place you particularly want to be. Again, I think the technology has potential, but the fact that dozens of companies followed each other like lemmings onto the platform, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece, is nothing short of astounding.
UPDATE: So today's Adweek reports that CNN is launching a news gathering site in Second Life. And relying on the Dwight Schrutes of the world to gather news for them. So many "beat/beet" jokes. So little time...
To quote a different episode of The Office, on this question "there are basically two schools of thought."
ReplyDeleteFirst, one might argue that because Second Life has featured on a network sitcom, it is now mainstream enough to move beyond the classic "computer nerds" one would think are on it and should look to gain new users.
The second school of thought says that the fact that it has featured on a network sitcom means that the exclusivity/coolness factor of being on Second Life has passed. Especially since it wasn't featured positively on the show.
Before the MySpace/Facebook situation, I would have been in the first camp. But having seen the migration from platform to platform based on which is the "hot" network, I expect that virtual worlds will see something similar.
Second Life is just not cool anymore (if it ever really was), and nobody wants to be playing a game that Dwight Schrute is playing. Right?
@DB: Second Life took off in a hurry, and there were all sorts of mainstream companies (Coke, the NBA) jumping on there to capitalize on what they were convinced was the "new new thing" (props to Michael "Liars Poker" Lewis for that phrase)
ReplyDeleteCheck out these two posts I did back in August- and be sure to read the Wired and WSJ articles that's linked. Explains a whole lot
http://tangerinetoad.blogspot.com/2007/08/second-life-takes-another-major-hit.html
http://tangerinetoad.blogspot.com/2007/08/second-life-recap.html