berkman harvard class

the chairs class

and that’s how the prince turned green

Naimya Price is all about the economics of Second Life.

With over US $1 million passing through the system every 24 hours, the number of registrations about to crack 10 million, and Linden Labs planning a new architecture to accommodate 2 billion users (up to 100 million of them simultaneously), you don’t need to be Alan Greenspan to see where this is going.

So the question is, how do we profit? Hey, hold it! Anyone who knows me knows that what I really mean is: Gosh, this is fun! Second Life is the most entertaining, educational, social, immersive, engaging, interactive, online experience on the web…or the planet. (I said, online experience; I’ll leave the SL vs. RL arguments to the philosophers.)

We already know that the web is better than print, better than radio, better than TV, right? And Second Life is better than the web.

So please pardon me for having arrived at the place where I’m asking “How do we monetize this?” We need to monetize it so that it survives and grows. We need to work here so we can continue to live and play here.

I already make my living online, spending 10+ hours a day staring at the screen. What am I looking at? Websites of the 1.0 and 2.0 variety. Microsoft Office docs, and a lot of Outlook emails. Flat, flat, flat. No wonder I find Second Life more appealing. And there are 10 million to 2 billion behind me.

As always, the economics comes down to: where can one add the most value? Maybe you’re a great builder/scripter and can make better furniture than Tequila Tapioca, better clothing than Shai Delacroix, or better buildings than Raziel Vesperia. I can’t.

I’m an idea man, with an eye for talent, and a mind that connects things in novel and funny ways. Creative marketing, I guess is what you’d call it. My kind of ROI is “Return on Innovation.”

And that’s how the prince turned green.

a million Lindens?

Prof has asked us to answer the question, “What would you do with a million Lindens?” Let’s see… that’s almost US$4000. Well, you could always cash out and pay a month’s worth of RL bills. But since it might end up being taxed as unearned income, it’s probably smarter to keep it in-world.

 

You could buy a business that has demonstrated revenues [SL Amsterdam was sold for US$50,000] – or you could take a flyer on a business of your own [I’ve wanted to start a chain of SL Oxygen bars for the longest time].

 

Maybe the best thing you could do with a million Lindens would be to donate it to a charitable cause with an SL initiative. Or have one helluva virtual block party.

SL demographics (July 07)

July 2007 key metrics released by Meta Linden.

You can download the Excel spreadsheet here.

Users are 58% male, 42% female

25-34 is largest age group, followed by 18-24, then 35-44. Half as many are 45+

Top countries are: U.S., Brazil, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Canada, Australia

So who are the users of Second Life? Looks to me like they are mostly affluent, privileged young adults from the developed countries. Early adopters, cultural influencers, the folks who are — or will be — running the world. But that’s just a quick takeaway from the snapshot.

What do I think they want? Well, according to New World Notes, dancing is the most popular activity. See the Top 20 list of most popular places in SL.

I hate building

I hate building. Vectors, ratios, coordinates… not my strong suit. (Speaking of suits, I picked up a nice fall wardrobe in under 20 minutes by consulting Second Man for the latest styles and making a beeline for Casa del Shai and Jeepers Creepers.)

I glanced through the chapters on building in SLOG and my eyes glazed over. But prof says I need to have basic proficiency so I can evaluate a project team – plus it’s a requirement for the course and the program – so build I must.

A chair. Let’s see. I have at least one chair in my Library. I rezzed it (and rented Tron from the public library this weekend to see where the word rez originated) and then copied the “sit script” into my Inventory.

My strong suit in SL is creative marketing. I get my kicks from the user experience side. So naturally, I can’t just make a chair. What else can you sit on? I thought about making a cube and pasting an image of the Herman Miller Aeron chair on all sides. But people would probably say that was cheating or cheap (the chairs, however, at $1000 are not cheap)

What else can you sit on? A pole! Yes, pole-sitting is a long-neglected art. And it’s part of the history of advertising and marketing. I will build a pole and sit on it. A cylinder up to the max prim height of 10m. A sphere on top with the “sit script” embedded.

It turned out to be not as easy as that. Details when I show & tell in class.

And I’m looking for a sponsor for when Naimya Price goes after the record for pole sitting in SL.

Bantam/Dell Book Shop

I was showing SL to an old friend who has worked in book publishing. Whenever I show SL to people who’ve never seen it, I always start out by saying, “People think this is a game, or that I’m playing with puppets, but…” (and of course, it IS a game and I AM playing with puppets, but…)

“But it’s just the 3D web. So whatever you do on the web, whatever you do in life, you can do in Second Life. So what do you like to do?” And then they tell me, “I like to play / listen to music” or “I like to read books” or whatever. And then I do an SL search for that stuff and show them that.

My friend in book publishing remembered hearing that Bantam/Dell had done a build in Second Life (though she didn’t use the word “build”) and we were able to find it and look at it a bit. So for this week’s assignment, I went back there to really take a close look.

Bantam/Dell Book Shop

This time, I noticed it was located on Sheep Island, next to the Electric Sheep headquarters; I guess it’s their build. (The island is adjacent to the Sundance Channel sim, which I visited not too long ago with an indie filmmaker whose recent documentary is part of Sundance’s current The Green series.)

Anyway, I guess what I’m getting at here is that all these builds seem to be substantial efforts by established companies to create serious extensions in SL.

Of course, the first thing you notice about Sheep Island is … it’s deserted (hehe). That could be a function of the time of day I visited but still … shouldn’t one of SL’s main developers have attractions going 24/7? I would think so.

The Bantam/Dell bookshop is well done, with lots of nice details — some solid thinking has gone into making the experience pleasurable. Here are my impressions:

1.) I clicked on the poster outside and it gave me a landmark to the bookstore: dumb. If I’m there, I don’t really need a landmark. The poster should do something more, maybe offer a teleport to “the world of the book” or something.

2.) I walked inside the shop, which had shelves bearing thumbnails of many different books (tho they seemed to be repeating the same dozen). I touched the cash register at the counter, and it took me to the e-commerce website.

I suppose this is as integrated as they can get right now. Eventually, I’d like to be able to make my purchases in-world — without having to go out to the 2D web. The transactions will be in Linden dollars and automatically debit my PayPal or credit card via my SL account.

3.) I touched the book Mister Pip and got a dropdown with choices, including an audio podcast. This was neat!

4.) I clicked the e-mail list option and it took me once again outside SL to the website to sign up for an e-newsletter. Where’s the in-world group?

5.) I found it through Group Search and joined. Lots of members! The poster over the fireplace also invites you to join but it was above eye level and I missed it. It should also be placed at the door of the shop so it’s impossible to miss.

6.) On a table inside the shop, you can get a freebie branded coffee mug. Cute, but is that the right freebie to be offering? I’d prefer a free chapter of a book, or a discount coupon on a book purchase.
The suggestion box is good idea — they are apparently going to build an entire Bantam/Dell Island — though it seems to have a glitch in instructions.

7.) A second, larger space inside the shop is actually a cafe with space for author visits, Q&As, readings. There’s a nice touch in the cafe: a counter bearing a wine tasting tray and a plate of bran muffins (offering a notecard recipe “from the kitchen of Sue Stonebender”). Really nice, engaging touches!

8.) In the Media alcove there’s a small movie screen where I watched some Quicktime shorts.

9.) Some of the book posters on the walls aren’t clickable. I suppose it can be overdone, but shouldn’t everything be clickable?

10.) The doors to the Book Shop were locked! I couldn’t walk out. Had to teleport.

11.) Again, the sim was empty. Wonder if there’s a way to create a “network” of linked sims that, when empty, redirect all traffic to a central place where you are always sure to find other like-minded people online.

12.) In writing up these notes, I notice again that I can’t seem to cut and paste directly from SL notecard to Word. Had to go through a plain-text app. Why is that?

Ciao for now!

snaps from first in-world class

Garbo talks

I bought a Logitech headset today and tested it out briefly on my Intel iMac. I went to a Welcome area and just as I had feared for months, the introduction of voice changes everything — and not necessarily for the better: burps and curses were the first sounds I heard.

Unlike Garbo, who made the transition from the Silent Era to the Talkies, Sphere is likely to remain behind as I doubt I’ll go to the trouble of voice masking. Maybe the pluses will outweigh the minuses for business and education. But something tells me that turning SL into a Skype conference call will also make it easier to start multitasking (surfing, answering emails, etc.). We’ll no longer be compelled to “look” — we’ll start turning away…

Introducing the Second Life Grid

Today marks a momentous occasion: Second Life the Virtual World and Second Life the technology platform are no longer synonymous; they have split and begun inexorably to diverge. What this means is that, as Sphere Gasser would say, “We’re going up to 20 million. See you there!” That is, the whole enterprise is moving toward serious mass adoption as an online platform by people and organizations.This is my favorite part of the ride: hitting critical mass – after having gone from hundreds of thousands to “Millions of Us,” from open source code to (shortly) open source servers, we’ll soon see an explosion of creative growth that will likely dwarf what has come before.

Hype, for sure, but have you taken a look at the new Grid site and pages? The presentation is buttoned-down Web 2.0 (ok, 2.5). The feeling is no longer that of some cartoon-world full of misfits but of a reliable business tool. Let’s hope the system crashes can be better managed from here on out. All eyes are on Linden Labs now to prove they are a serious player and not a phreak playground.

This of course would also be a ripe moment for a “senior technology partner” to emerge. Google would be the obvious choice – especially after the MIT Review cover story imagining a Second Earth mashup. In fact Unype.com is already offering an early prototype; and it was obvious from that March 2006 Google Talks video that both sides harbor an urge to merge. But Microsoft, Cisco, Dell, even Yahoo are also big brother possibilities.

And have you seen SLboutique lately? It’s now called OnRez, and also looking very Web 2.0. No doubt about it – Second Life is “cleaning up real good” for the corporate world. And while it might bother the hardcore in the extreme, it suits me, Your Average Consumer, just fine. Because I’ve bought into the 3D Web hook, line and sinker: it’s the next platform for online commerce and communication – and the most exciting, compelling, immersive experience online.