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The other day, I slagged Second Life for having been overrun by porn and gambling enthusiasts. After I posted the video last week, several of you out there who live in the Second Life community were none too pleased with my assessment, including Phaylen Fairchild. Many of you were quick to point out that while porn and gambling are still found in your online world, they are not what rule the roost anymore. Fair enough, I suppose. I figured the least I could do was to log in and give it another shot for myself, just to see if my opinion could be swayed.

Bottom line? I still don’t get it. Yes, it’s a virtual world / community where you can create your experience – but performance and usability is still ass-nasty (no way around it). It’s just as much of a kluge to use as it was back in the day. I am using a high-end Mac Pro to play around, and it’s still sluggish and slow.

Oliver is one of the people who reached out to me, offering to give me a tour of the newer version. My friend Beth Goza actually designed my avatar back when she worked for Linden Labs. Even with Oliver’s obvious enthusiasm for his world, I still just couldn’t get into it. The frame-rate was just – ick. The sound effects were something straight out of the 70s.

I do understand that the community offers disabled people opportunities they might not otherwise have. I get that many of you truly feel like you’re a part of a wonderful group of friends. However, that doesn’t excuse poor performance in my book, y’all. With all of the advancements in the gaming and online community world, why the hell does this one act as though we’re still stuck in 1995?

I applaud those of you who have stayed with Second Life for so many years. I am not in any way questioning you – nor your reasons for wanting to continue your traditions. My slams are against the platform and lack of performance, not the many dedicated users.

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Will You Give Second Life a Second Chance?

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Over on Lockergnome, Guyfromdenmark wonders why Second Life never became a hit. When it was first launched, he (and many of you, really) thought that it would be a HUGE deal. It pretty much just fizzled and died, and our Denmark friend asks the community their thoughts on what happened.

Second Life is a free program that lets users (Residents) interact with each other through avatars. Residents can explore, meet others, socialize, take part in individual or group activities, and create or trade virtual property and services with each other. Second Life is for adults over the age of 18, while Teen Second Life is for the younger crowd (ages 13 – 17).

Nothing really “happened” to it other than being overrun by people addicted to porn and gambling. That covers about 90% of the galaxy, right? It was a fantastic platform, so long as you knew how to use it. Second Life, in my opinion, was the victim of overload.

Everyone was all into Second Life. Some of us were looking at it going “Dude… seriously? It’s an avatar.” I went on record with these same thoughts years ago. I was fairly certain back then that it wouldn’t be a huge hit. It’s still around, to be sure, but it’s not the be-all, end-all that people thought it would become.

I don’t hear much about it in my regular news feeds, and I rarely hear of anyone logging in there. I can’t say anything “happened” to it other than people realizing that it wasn’t really all that exciting in the first place. It was new and different, yes. It just wasn’t revolutionary.

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Why Didn’t Second Life Become a Hit?

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. From the moment you enter the World you’ll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you’ve explored a bit, perhaps you’ll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business. You’ll also be surrounded by the Creations of your fellow residents. Because residents retain the rights to their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other residents. The Marketplace currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the in-world unit-of-trade, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden Dollar exchanges.

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Chris has written about Second Life before: “I don’t get it. I just don’t freakin’ get it, man. I know Second Life is supposed to be cool and awesome and amazing and unbelievable and futuristic and what-have-you – but I just don’t get it. Sorry, I must be stupid. I’m not afraid to try new things, but I think I’ve gotta wait for this thing to bake a little longer and get a bit easier to use before I spend every waking moment inside a second life I have no time for. ”

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Get a Second Life

I like when people send me links – I really do. Jonathan Cohen first popped into my inbox a few months ago, and today he sent me a link to his well-structured essay on Second Life. Not in Second Life, on it – even though he prefaced the notification with somewhat-inaccurate information:

I know that you have an interest in Second Life, so I’d like to point you to a blog post I wrote about “Second Life: The Failed Experiment.”

I don’t really have an interest in Second Life – although I’ve written about how “I don’t get it” a few times in the past. Beth Goza made a Pirillo’esque avatar that I’ve placed upon myself, but I seldom drop into my Second Life – unless someone IMs me with an event of interest (like when Suzanne Vega did a live concert). Jonathan’s teaser continued:

My premise is that in virtual worlds, the behavior you see is a function of the world’s design – whether intended or unintentional, and that Second Life’s design has several unintended consequences that weaken the community they’re trying to build.

I’d expect SL supporters to crawl out of the woodwork any minute now, but they’re all too busy building things in a world that only exists in cyberspace (though this metaverse enables revenue generation to the point where some users are able to go full-time with it, until Linden’s structure changes and everybody becomes virtually homeless). /me is still leery.

Another Second Life Rant

Every time I turn around, it seems that one of my friends has signed up for a Second Life account and is raving about it. I finally took the plunge tonight and gave birth to “Wicket Pixie” (yes, that’s my SL character’s name, you can look it up and everything). My initial impressions were… well, they weren’t all that good. I know you can create all sorts of objects in Second Life, and it’s a metaverse that has unlimited potential, but I’m not a developer and I’ve never been addicted to chat rooms of any kind (three dimensional or IRC-like). I asked a friend to help, and he introduced me to a guy who helped me…

WTF?! How the hell did I get a box on my head? When I did that, I swear I laughed (in the real world) for five minutes straight. Is this what landed Linden Labs on the front cover of BusinessWeek magazine? It’s so far ahead of the curve. I decided to fly around the metaverse to see what was happening – and apparently there’s a lot of sex happening in Second Life. Wow. Hot avatar on avatar action! Time to make “Wicket Pixie” look a little more like me and…

Jebus Christ – how the f*ck did I end up with a beer bottle sticking out of my ear!? I don’t get it. I just don’t freakin’ get it, man. I know Second Life is supposed to be cool and awesome and amazing and unbelievable and futuristic and what-have-you – but I just don’t get it. Sorry, I must be stupid. I’m not afraid to try new things, but I think I’ve gotta wait for this thing to bake a little longer and get a bit easier to use before I spend every waking moment inside a second life I have no time for.

Second Life: I Don’t Get It