Shirky FTW

The inimitable Clay Shirky has just posted a wonderful essay about the recent hype on Second Life, and the relevance to our understanding of the New New Thing (tm).

There’s nothing wrong with a service that appeals to tens of thousands of people, but in a billion-person internet, that population is also a rounding error. If most of the people who try Second Life bail (and they do), we should adopt a considerably more skeptical attitude about proclamations that the oft-delayed Virtual Worlds revolution has now arrived.

God, I wish we'd been able to able to buy him when we started Terra Nova. There's no way we can afford him now.

Comments

[IAmEric]

I don't get it. What is so wonderful about the article?

[Don McGlumphy III]

Second life shows what a great job LL is doing to convince the media that SL is the biggest thing to come along since sliced bread, and demonstrates how poorly the media does it's job to actually do any journalism.

LL keeps shoveling out tripe, and the media keeps asking for seconds without asking any questions.

There was a recent slashdot article talking about a "grey goo" attack with a quote stating that SLs 600k players dealt with that attack. I was in SL at the time and there were only ~14k users in the world at that time. This is a gross misrepresentation of their user base.

More recently one of the technical guys at LL stated in an interview that SL is as popular as WoW because SLs peak concurrent ~16k users are all in one world whereas they are sharded in WoW. I guess that makes SL about as popular as a single WoW server, but to read his comments it would appear to a casual observer SL>WoW.

Their outright lies are appalling. Using LLs "maths" EVE Online must be twice as popular as WoW because EVE has achieved ~33k concurrent users in a single world. Go comprehensive journalism for teh win!

I resisted checking out my second life because the premise of the VW didn't appeal to me. After reading the slashdot comments regarding "copy bot" i finally figured i had better have a closer look.

If Jack Thompson ever logs into SL, we are going to have the LL founders before a congressional panel. People seemed so opposed to the copy botters "stealing" their IP. The first thing i noticed in SL is that it's little more than an analog of first life. This includes the rampant real-world IP violations going on there.

I know Toyota and Pontiac have virtual cars in SL, but I'm sure the many other car manufacturers whose brands are being diluted in SL wouldn't be very happy with the blatant IP violations going on. This doesn't just apply to cars, but to pretty much anything you can find at your local Walmart.

I got a can of coke from the coke vending machine, bought a Sig Sauer handgun from the gun store, drove around in a dodge viper, and danced at studio54. Funny how the people who steal real-world works get mad when someone comes to steal their virtual works.

I've seen many cases recently where 45-year-old-male detectives pose as 13-year-old teenage girls and bust someone for some immoral online contact. I wonder how this is different that said 45-year-old-male resident of SL having "immoral" contact with someone pretending to be 13 in game. I'm sure Jack Thompson has an opinion.

The only three places people seem to frequent in SL are red-light districts, dance clubs, and casinos. Odd that it's illegal to send my money to paypal, and then oversees to do some online gambling for real-world cash, yet I can do just that in SL. I've seen the forum posts that claim gambling -- for real US dollars -- is "legal" in SL because Linden dollars aren't real true US greenbacks. This ignores that those linden dollars are readily convertible to US dollars via the linden exchange, and still ignores that you don't have to gamble with dollars for it to be gambling.

I don't gamble with greenbacks at my local casino. I trade them in for little plastic chips -- much like little linden dollars -- and gamble with those. At the end of my gambling session, I convert them back to good ol' US dollars much like people do on the linden exchange. It matters not where I'm gambling in Linden dollars, Yen, or Pounds, since those can be readily converted back to US dollars it's gambling just the same.

I'm not stating that diluting trademarked brands, having immoral relations with pretend teenage girls, or online gambling should be illegal – in fact they should not -- but the US government prosecutes people in all three of those areas and I wonder how much longer the LL propaganda machine can run until one of those "journalists" actually starts digging.

~don

It's pretty

Now to find those linkies...

[Don McGlumphy III]

slashdot quote talking about 600k "active" users:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/20/0218221

repost of SL article at brokentoys.org regards SL popularity:

http://www.brokentoys.org/2006/12/07/well-sure-you-could-get-them-all-in-one-place-if-they-shared-five-computers/

Addendum to previous post. It's also funny how the LL VP of Technology states that SLs ~16k users can "all" attend the same event if they wish. This is a lie. The "sims" in SL on the mainland have a 40 user limit. This means only 40 people can be in the same area at the same time. Even private islands are usually capped at 50 users/island. If you held an in game even you can only have 50 users maximum attend your event. Not 16k as they claim.

Of course LL will bring in additional servers for your event if you tell them weeks in advance of your event. Now that's load balancing!

~don

[Michael Chui]

You guys ought to figure out a way to do "Related Posts" automatically. For instance, the interview with Anshe Chung goes with this one.

[Prokofy Neva]

Terra Nova once again revealing their deep-seated biases against Second Life, evidently because it is not a game.

[Cael]

That is possibly the single shortest Prokofy Neva comment ever.

"Terra Nova once again revealing their deep-seated biases against Second Life, evidently because it is not a game." - Prokofy Neva

More likely because it is a) an excercise in hype over substance, b) a technological joke which still fails to be funny and c) shit.

[Cael]

Incidentally, what's so wonderful about the essay is the clear, unbiased and matter-of-fact way in which it is written and the arguments presented.

I can't do that without frothing at the keyboard about the way that SL is an armed nuke pointing at the whole online world industry and that "age-play" alone could kill us all. Maybe Mr Shirky is somewhat less personally invested. In any case, it's a great essay.

[Jed Harris]

Clay's essay is interesting but he isn't focused on the lifestyle issues that engage the commenters here, he is asking for SL numbers.

Curious to see if more numbers are available, I used Google and indeed they are -- many, many, many numbers. Including how many hours are spent on SL each month, the 30 day visitor number Clay wanted, total transaction volume broken down various ways, etc. Many of these are available down to the day granularity.

Also these numbers are available in conveniently formatted text files and spreadsheets.

The most surprising number I found is 7,464,000 hours used in November. Maybe they got the decimal point wrong, but it sure is a big number -- nearly 25,000 people pulling 10 hour days in SL every day of November.

So, I'd like to see people analyzing these numbers rather than complaining about not having them.

[Leonel]

Oh yeah.
If this guy's sooo right, I guess he should have looked at this:
http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy-graphs.php

40000+ PAYING residents, paying monthly, and rising rapidly. Quite a long shot from 10000.

Now add a conservative estimate of non-paying users...
Then check who's paying to use land or other stuff.

Yeah, it can be a fad. And yes, this guy is reporting from his wishes, not from reality. Both things are true.

[Peter Clay]

"Terra Nova once again revealing their deep-seated biases against Second Life, evidently because it is not a game."

Funny, I've seen many more pro-SL than anti-SL articles on here.

[Ace Albion]

Yes, as the comments in the linked post say, the 30 days figures *are* there, but I guess Shirky couldn't find them. What were people saying about researching before making headlines?

That said, I thought everyone kind of accepted that the claimed an quoted figures were highly spun, and I wouldn't argue against that. Maybe when it all blows over, the backlash hungry people can go back to playing "queue for the whack-a-mole game" and leave us to build and socialise in some kind of peace. If Reebok want to shake some spare change out of their sandwich budget to pay some sherpas in SL on the back of some inflated figures, then let them. I expect they are quite aware of the "truth" of the situation anyway.

Sidenote- From what I understand, EVE's concurrency is massively overstated compared to actual active players playing at the time, but then a lot of SL avs online are afk campers, so who knows.

[ren reynolds]

The press, getting it wrong about SL. Not researching stuff or having any history and just un-critically regurgitating hype - I’ve never heard such nonsense, certainly never touched on that on TN. Look at this from yesterday’s Washington Post about SL, every word of it adding muscle behind the sword of truth and clarity that is the press:

“Second Life is a subscription-based 3-D fantasy world devoted to capitalism _ a 21st century version of Monopoly that generates real money for successful players. More than 1.95 million people worldwide have Second Life characters, called avatars.”

[Prokofy Neva]

So, the press has it wrong this week? Next week -- next year? They'll get it better. Shirky himself didn't even read the economics page.

"Snarky Shirky or Why the Geeks Got to Go"
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2006/12/clay_shirky_or_.html

Some better analysis of publicly available numbers:
http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/12/what_is_the_tru.html#comments

[Cael]

By the time they get it right, the backlash against Linden Labs' outright lies and of course, all the porn - "PAEDO GAME SUCKERS BBC!" - might well flatten Second Life.

Which would be good.

But it might also flatten every other online world. Which would be bad.

[Ren Reynolds]

Cael > By the time they get it right, the backlash against Linden Labs' outright lies and of course, all the porn - "PAEDO GAME SUCKERS BBC!" - might well flatten Second Life.

I already have the Countdown to backlash post written, I was just waiting to post.

>Which would be good.

why?

[Endie]

That "Snarky Shirky" piece that Prokofy wrote is pretty hilarious. Well worth a read if you fancy a laugh (although admittedly perhaps not in the way intended).

[RickR]

Many people, I think, log in for the first time, realize all the fetishists really do give them the creeps, and leave 10 mins later when they realize there's nothing to actually do... around about the time the environment has finally finished loading, I think.

I'm personally quite surprised good ol' Jack Thompson hasn't chimed in on SL yet. That'll be a hoot to watch. I'm planning on making popcorn.

[Cael]

Ren:

pour encourager les autres, of course.

[Hellinar]

RickR > Many people, I think, log in for the first time, realize all the fetishists really do give them the creeps, and leave 10 mins later when they realize there's nothing to actually do... around about the time the environment has finally finished loading, I think. <

I’ve spent a lot longer then ten minutes in SL, and never to my knowledge run into any fetishists. I’m aware it’s a big part of the scene in SL, just look at the clothing stores. But in my experience at least, you can travel a long way in SL without actually coming across any active fetish scene. My friends in that world are not involved in it, and its easy to ignore.

[Mike Sellers]

Thanks to Leonel for pointing out the SL economics page above. This is good data.

Though I'm not sure why he and other SL boosters are crowing about SL having 36K "premium" users. As the referenced blog post says, while these aren't the only users who contribute to the economy, they are the only ones who might be called "subscribers" supplying regular recurring revenue.

So, by the numbers:

• 2,000,000: Number of users total sign-ups projected for SL by the end of the year.
  
• 789,440: number of those who have logged in over the past 60 days -- meaning that about 60% of those who have ever signed up haven't been back in the past two months, even using this "long tail" view of what an active user is.
  
• 527,556: Number of 'active users' the more industry-standard (though perhaps inapplicable) 30-day number. This represents a 74% churn overall.
  
• 90,000: Number of people who have bought L$ on the exchange. Ever. -- just under 5% of all registrations.
  
• 36,000: Number of people paying a subscription for their SL account, or just about 2% of overall registrations.
  
• 16,000: According to LL VP Joe Miller, as quoted by the BBC a few days ago, the number of people who can be in one place at one time, "enjoying the same live music event" in SL.
  
• 15,000: The approximate number of concurrent users typically on SL.
  
• 4100: The approximate number of servers powering SL (about 3.6 users per cpu).
  
• 2946: The number of SL users ("business owners") who made more than $50 in monthly profit in SL in November. This is less than 0.4% of the 60-day active users.
  
• 50: The approximate number of SL users who can actually be in the same place at the same time enjoying the same live music event (maybe a few more if they all take off their hair).
  
• 0.0: The probability, in my opinion, that by any rational measure Second Life will overtake World of Warcraft. Dmitri's quarter is safe. Except maybe from hype.
  

Second Life is in many ways unique; it is an innovative virtual world, borrowing from the past of Club Caribe, Worlds Chat, The Palace, and the like, just as most MMOGs borrow heavily from the Diku MUD tradition. Unfortunately, as Shirky's post points out, its uniqueness seems to breed an attitude in its proponents that comes out as either hype that would make PT Barnum blush or knee-jerk protectiveness. Neither of these or the perception that it is made up almost entirely of hyper-sexualized fetishists, casinos, and soulless dance clubs are going to help SL's case as its public visibility grows. Hopefully LL and its boosters will look to shoring up the difference between the reality and the image before the otherwise inevitable backlash hits.

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

Endie: That "Snarky Shirky" piece that Prokofy wrote is pretty hilarious. Well worth a read if you fancy a laugh (although admittedly perhaps not in the way intended).

Actually, it was rather good. He flamed geeks for a lot of the right reasons in a funny way. I am a geek. :P Mainstream people enjoy productive leisure activities: knitting, gardening etc... Seen that in LPmuds, MOOs, Activeworlds etc, even with horrible toos, but 3D worlds won't be mainstream until computers come with client software preinstalled and are vastly improved. Most people won't install software and LEARN it, unless they are forced to. Heck, even point-n-click web-browsing can be complicated.

[greglas]

The key point of Clay's post is not about numbers, imho -- that's just the frame. The key part, imho, is where he gives guesses about why journalists find the Second Life hype so appealing -- and I think he gets that part quite right.

The only thing I might say in reaction is that his first point about the press fascination with SL -- the fascination with mimesis by the average journalist -- is actually something that I am beginning to think is more substantive than I previously realized.

In other words, "virtual cow gives virtual milk in Second Life" is such a cliche news story that we can roll our eyes about it, but I'm *reluctantly* starting to realize that it is fascinating to a journalist because it does have some explanatory power for the popularity of VWs. There is probably some interesting work to be done in unpacking our fascination with this. My hunch, though, is that any good writing about this will need to go back to Plato and Aristotle, and not just focus on the last way this has played out with computer technology.

Ace Albion > Sidenote- From what I understand, EVE's concurrency is massively overstated compared to actual active players playing at the time

To clarify, the concurrent users are total logged on characters. This means that yes, alts can be logged on to inflate the number, but does this damage the record itself? Since alts are actual second accounts (only one character per account can be logged in at once) it represents a seperate login to the servers. CCP's claim is less that they have 33,000 unique users logged in and more that their game can handle 33,000 unique connections to the virtual world.

"You can travel a long way in SL without actually coming across any active fetish scene."

Now, there's an ironclad argument for any platform.

****

Picking up on Greg's thoughts - I think the real world finds SL a lot less threatening. The real threat to the daily order is provided by fantasy games, where people can live in an alternative mythological cosmos. Journalists seem to be in denial about that, and find the SL form of escape much more digestible.

****

The SL numbers I am watching are concurrent users, which they conveniently post on their front page. It's been under 10k for awhile. If it starts sneaking up to 30k or so, like EVE, then we may have something happening.

[Dmitri Williams]

Sure, the quarter appears safe by any reasonable metric, but it's also conceivable that hype actually impacts reality. So on the plus side for LL, the coverage must be increasing the number of people trying SL out. On the minus side is the very low retention rate. And Clay is probably right to nick at that bubble.

As I've said before, I love the concept and the people behind it, but I'm doubtful that the place can bring in loads of "regular people" until it gets a lot easier to use and offers more than sex and casinos (not that I am personally above such things). I'm still rooting for it. Despite what some posters suggest, there aren't any haters on that author list.^fn1

fn1 We might make an exception for Entropia.

[Fedelmid]

STOP THE PRESSES!!!!

This just in:

*** BEGIN QUOTE ***
On Friday, December 15, IBM will be giving a tour at 10:00 a.m. ET to show new areas of experimentation on the IBM islands in Second Life. We expect the tour will take approximately 30-45 minutes, and you will be free to explore the islands on your own after that.

As you may know, earlier this year IBM announced it would launch a new business around virtual worlds and 3D Internet. IBM's work in virtual worlds, and what IBM will be opening to the public next week, focuses on three key areas:

1. Virtual business, or v-business – exploring how to extend business opportunities into virtual worlds, but also how to apply virtual worlds to business problems and opportunities. We can show you some of our early experimentations underway in this space with clients.

2. Collaboration and education – focusing on how to extend virtual worlds to help business collaborate both internally and externally in ways that more closely resemble real life, and where we are using these immersive, 3D environments to simplify complex concepts by "showing" them in a visual fashion.

3. Innovation experimentation – working with a broad community to push the limits of what is possible with virtual worlds and to build a community to help build out the next generation Web, one that is immersive, interactive and 3D.

IBM is in the very early days of experimentations here and is not marketing to the average Second Lifer, but rather using Second Life as a platform to experiment on how to apply 3D environments to business and real business problems.

Please let me know if you want to learn more. We will send an invite with details on the location of the event on Friday morning.

Best,

Kenny

SL: Kj Cao

Kenneth Harley

Text 100 Public Relations
Direct: 212.331.8416
Mobile: 212.464.7337
kennethH@text100.com
Holmes Report Technology PR Agency of the Year

*** END QUOTE ***

[Michael Chui]

The irony of the SL is that while it's built for the non-geek, the actual users happen to be just as geeky as the people who play run-of-the-mill games. And more normal people play games, overall, than run businesses. Unsurprisingly, more geeks play games, overall, than run businesses. Ergo, the preference for stupid (yes, very, very stupid; but popular) games like WoW over businesses in SL. You might say socialization, or identity play. I can do both just fine in both WoW and SL, so it's a non-factor. (Well, I've never played WoW, so maybe you can't, but from what I hear...)

As has been stated over and over, the marketing is drawing new users. The new users rarely stick. Yes, some do; most don't. It's great that so many companies are taking an interest in SL. Let's see some results. "20% reduction in productivity due to employees fiddling with their hairdo so one participant each from 75 locations can meet up. And then we realized they couldn't actually hear each other, so we went back to a chatroom, which was the same but the window flashed when someone else spoke."

Separate the concept behind SL, which everyone is nicely infatuated with, from the product of SL, which is incredulous.

The concept is great. Like Anshe, I expect it will be picked up by a competitor who demonstrates some competence, at which point SL will explode. Slowly. Unlike Anshe, I don't expect it to happen "later".

Since I'm a poor college student, I can't afford a quarter. My dime says a serious competitor by 2010 on SL's own playing field. By 2020, we'll be referencing SL the same way we do LambdaMOO. (Remember that thing back in the day?)

[csven]

"My dime says a serious competitor by 2010 on SL's own playing field."

I tend to agree. Only I'm not so sure it won't be LL rolling out a new version.

[Raph]

I actually just posted about the cultural gap between SL users and the rest of the MMOsphere today. I think alot of this thread illustrates it.

http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/12/13/the-sl-cultural-gap/

[greglas]

Hey, LambdaMOO was still up and running, last time I checked. :-)

[Michael Chui]

I didn't say SL would shut down; people would file lawsuits and such, though I haven't been convinced they'd succeed. (Did anyone file after Asheron's Call? I would have expected it to be noted here, so I'm assuming not.) And how often do you talk about what you did last night in LambdaMOO, Greg? =P Virtual worlds are like zombies. Eternally after your brains.

If LL rolls out a new version that makes everything all better, I'd be shocked to my core, but extremely pleased.

[Michael Chui]

I forgot to mention that I think the competitor will be IBM.

[Prokofy Neva]

Michael they roll out a new version that makes everything all better every Wednesday, Michael, do be shocked. Um, it doesn't always making things better, but actually, SL is running like a Swiss Watch today. My theory, too, is that they will at some point, rather than face the agony of having to dump all the land barons and blingtards off the laggy clunky server farm, they will leave us there, and just make a new server far with a clean boot of a new improved SL that they can license to third parties to either host their own or have some kind of customized registration -- they already have a third-party registration API, and this is all the talk of their latest secret FIC session:

http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/12/other_worlds.html

[Ace Albion]

I wasn't picking on EVE except it was given as an example, and I know some things about how people play it that make me think twice about being impressed by the numbers.

A lot of players do use two (or more) accounts to fly around, but a lot of players also leave their characters logged in game in space stations all day- areas of the game that are outside of the world except for text chat and "spreadsheet" stuff. That probably doesn't put much strain on the system.

Michael, there are a lot of geeks in SL, but most of the people I meet in SL aren't geeks at all- they are in the "you have internet, you're a geek" sense maybe, but they're not technical, or into star trek.

A friend of mine suggested that the only way Linden Lab could beat the next big thing to take on SL, would be to be the ones who make it- become their own best competitor. So Prokofy's theory makes sense there, but who knows (or is telling) what goes on behind closed doors? In the meantime I'll make prims while the sun shines (way too much at noon in SL).

[Cael]

There is a pronounced difference between "geeks", as in people who enjoy and understand technology and "infatuated morons", like these people :-

http://www.wearetheweb.org/videos.html

I bet they play Second Life.

[Michael Chui]

(I look over my comment and it looks more like an undirected rant than a response. So take it as such. Sorry if I derail the thread.)

Photo geeks. Architecture geeks. Sound geeks. Hell, I know business geeks. The term geek is characterized by extreme passion for, and expertise, in an unexpected specialization. I know people who think the Internet is a waste of time, but consider themselves geeks. Remember: geekhood existed before Al Gore. But like many other things, this is conveniently forgotten. It's called Presentism by Barry Wellman. To not be a geek, in SL, means you're there solely for the socialization, the museum tours, or playing with a gadget, since there's nothing else to do.

And yes, I entertained the possibility that they'd do the same thing I'm starting to complain (following HRose/Abalieno's lead) about: every MMO company can't maintain even one MMO, but that doesn't stop them from trying to maintain two, three, or four.

I'm really not convinced Philip Rosedale has enough evil genius or visionary in him to pull an Apple revival. I admit I don't pay much attention, but I only started paying attention to TN again a couple weeks ago. My laptop broke down, so I couldn't keep tabs during class anymore.

What you're suggesting, Prokofy, is more like a Sun: constantly limping behind the big boys and shaking hands with whoever extends one. "We do both believe in intellectual property," says Ballmer to McNealy. Right. Hey, McNealy, you change your tune again with SE 6?

Though Sun did take initiative with Project Blackbox, which was tremendously admirable. Maybe LL will buy a couple of those shipping containers and load'em up with bits and bytes of randomized ownership and do the private selling to corporations. If one of the Lindens is paying attention, I'd say do it. It's a good idea.

I should end on that note. And sleep. And maybe sign up for one of those IBM tours so I can fly through the halls. Ought to buy a Superman outfit just for the occasion. See if I can find Lex Luther somewhere in there.

[Moses]

"they will leave us there, and just make a new server far with a clean boot of a new improved SL that they can license to third parties to either host their own or have some kind of customized registration"

This is exactly the sort of thing which I find irksome about where development of these technologies is headed in a general sense. People often reference Stephenson's Snow Crash in these blogs, but I think the piece of his work to keep in mind as we're looking at how virtual worlds get developed and who has access to them is The Diamond Age. The potential implications for further technology driven socio-econommic stratification are disturbing to say the least.

Now I know this is more than a bit off topic from the general thread here, so let me bring it back by saying that this entire thread has been tremendously informative for me. Its been particularly sweet having all of these #s in one place. As far as Shirky's piece, all I can say is it doesn't matter whether or not he got it all right. He got enough of it right to incite Prokofy to post a rather excellent counter argument, and for those of us who are "new in the game" he also provided some back story which is good to have.

[Andy Havens]

I get so beefed some days...

"What are the real numbers?" Asks Clay Shirky, whom I generally do not care to read. Sorry, Clay. I'm with Prokofy on this one. Clay got he numbers wrong while giving other people crap for not paying attention to the numbers. That rings the "Game Over" bell in my head.

He also isn't paying attention to the right number.

I don't care how many people *play* WoW. None of them -- not one -- has ever impacted that world the same way that dozens and hundreds and thousands of people have affected SL. Call 'em users, members, citizens, avies, whatever. I don't care.

We are talking about the difference between *readers* and *writers* here, people.

It seems like a very similar thing, because the interfaces are similar. Look! There goes a weird, purple character that I control with the WADS keys. Look! I can type in an IM window. Look! I can move crap around on the screen and do other various stuff with my avie...

The difference between SL and just about every other MMO out there is the difference between going to an art museum and taking an art class. It's the difference between listening in church and preaching from the pulpit. Dancing in a club vs. watching Club MTV.

Comparing user stats from SL and WoW is like comparing the number of people who watch movies and the number of people who make movies.

I don't care that only a few people are doing it now. It's complicated crap (today) this 3D design and scripting and texture creation. 5 years ago it was IMPOSSIBLE crap.

It comes down to this: In SL, I can be a game god. I can say, "Let there be prims," and there will be prims. I can make the world in my image.

The number that is important, the number that Shirky is ignoring, the most important number is Second Life...

...is the number "1."

One. Me. My. It's my world. Because I can dance with it.

[Michael Chui]

I found it ironic that this was posted today: Become the thing that replaces you.

Hey, Andy, what happens when that number is 2?

[Amarilla]

yo, Andy,congratz ! Btw, where are you dancing at, at the time when LL cannot find more " passionates " to pay LL's expenses and profits, heh ? Remember Enron ? When a company is starting to hype blatant lies , that's the sign that the company is going down ; for a very simple reason : the players figured what's going on and are cashing-out.So,the company needs some fresh blood;wich aint gonna happend, because the gamers have a bad habit : they communicate rather about their bad experiences in a game.Now, it's very probable that SL will continue to exist for the next decades...afterall, Pokemon does too.

[Richard Urban]

Hi TN,

So does anyone know of any reliable statistics from the MUD, MOO, AciveWorld days? Just doing a little bit of backstory for a paper I'm working on and haven't stumbled upon anything similar to the convo going on here about SL.

Tnx.

[Andy Havens]

@Michael: Good Lord... More 2.0 humor. Me 2.0? I think we call that schizophrenia, don't we?

The "Passionate Users" post is interesting. And what Kathy calls "finding the meta level" is old wine in a new skin. Back in the Total Quality days, we called that "The Root Why." You keep asking "Why" about the reasons for doing something -- whether that be a new product, an improvement, a campaign, etc. -- until you get to something that is part of the foundation of your business. You don't ever "just do stuff."

The concept is also linked to the idea of "doing the right things right." Many companies (and people) do a great job at the wrong things. But because they don't identify the right things (using tools like "root why"), they "succeed their way into failure." They get very good at stuff that doesn't matter.

I don't really care if Linden/SL are the ones that finally (and only) "get it right" when it comes to a user-created VW. I think they're generally nice people (Enron? Jeez, come on) who give good product for the price, which, for many of us, is naught.

What I *do* care about, from a communications and creativity perspective, is that the folks who are most involved in this industry, do just what the blog you pointed at asks us to do, and what I was yapping on about above: identify *the thing* that makes any experience unique and/or powerful. In the case of SL (and, maybe, other good competitors in the future), those are the creative tool-sets and interactions with the world at a higher level.

I'm not a raving SL fan. There are issues with it. If I'd been on the Linden team, I would have *insisted* on much, much more of an emphasis on in-game training "games" for newbies, since revenue relies on folks being able to build/make stuff or buy things from folks that do so. I don't know what the ratio of "builder" to "buyer" is, but I'm guessing that for every one person who learns how to add content to the world, you get a couple people who stick around to use it and buy it. Linden generally treats their high-end users like good customers. Which feels right under the old rules. But if they did the "why-so-who-cares" thing from Kathy's blog -- the root why -- I think they might discover that they should be treating them much more like employees.

SL may be on the decline or the incline. I don't know enough about the metrics and the insides of their finances to be able to tell. But I think that, to paraphrase the scriptures, the difference between SL and most MMOs is that in many games you are "in the world," and in SL you are "of the world."

[Amarilla]

Andy : the ideea of a 3D platform , and the ideea of interractions on it sounds ok, nice, dandy and all.Sure LL deserves a payment for their work. But making it a shady business , acting by purpose in the gray area of laws , and performing this activity ( service provider ?! product seller ?! )under the auspicies of LL's EULA and ToS,is wrong and bad. I can see it from Bragg's case , from the " copy bot " and from many other issues.I apologize for my harsh tone,but even the dynomite was a nice constructive ideea.It counts very much how the ideea is applied. And by whom.IMO, LL -and not only - are ruining a concept.It sounds like when one " brings money into the temple".IMO,the problem is exactely at " bluring the lines between IRL and the game ".Yes,the producer of a game have to be paid.Let the customer to decide how much -and if , at all-based on the percieved quality and value.But what's going on in a game should be just that, a game, meant for fun.The scammery is when the producer start misleading claims , based on the business model : " ...ok,we have 1k new accountants/month, at a 10 % retaining rate there still are 100 of them paying $ 10/month. No problem if they will leave next month, a new sucker is born every minute.Let tell them a load of lies, afterall there is no law or liability against us ".

[Andy Havens]

@Amarilla: I'm confused as to what part of SL's EULA/TOS you're thinking is shady/illegal. Nobody forces any player to spend a dime in SL. You can play for free. If you want to pay a reasonable amount per month -- very similar to what you pay for an MMO -- you can set up a piece of land and have a "game space" to build things, chat with friends, keep your virtual stuff, etc. etc. Again, totally your choice. If you want to spend more money (and think of it as "investing" -- it may not be, but use that term if you like), you can buy more land, set up a store, spend more time, sell stuff, etc. etc.

But nobody is forcing anybody to do anything in SL. And I don't ever recall Linden forcing anybody to translate their user statistics incorrectly. Does the press? Hell yeah. Is it good for SL when the press does so? Oh, yah. When some idiot in the MSM gets all gushy about SL having "a million residents," and interprets that as "a million people all in one big room having a simultaneous naked rave," that sounds great and generates more interest.

What, specifically, is your beef?

[Clay Shirky]

Andy, if you like SL, more power to you, but note that my question is not "Why do the people who like Second Life like it?" I'm not passing judgment on passionate users, who are rightly a law unto themselves. My question is "Of the users who try it, how many become passionate users?" (The related question, of course, is "Why is that number so hard to get to, and why is the press (wilfully? cluelessly?) reporting logins as a metric for those users?")

Your 'Game Over" complaint suggests that you are looking for a way to ignore the question, rather than provide an answer, so let me see if I can ask again, in a register that is less grating to you:

Of the users who log in to Second Life once, how many come back? And of those, how many keep coming back?

I will be the first to admit that I do not have those numbers. Do you? or do you know anyone who does?

[Andy Havens]

Clay: I'm not seeking a way to ignore the question. And I'm not even really a passionate SL user, myself. I agree, in fact, with a number of the points you make in your essay. Your statement about the press being all over SL because "the tech beat is an intake valve for the young" is right on point and one I haven't seen before or thought of; nicely done. But I don't see the question in your essay about "passionate users" that you pose here in your comment. You ask, simply, "What are the real numbers?"

OK... The question you ask in your essay is: "How many return users are there?" You then quote the numbers from the SL home page:

"We know from the startup screen that the advertised churn of Second Life is over 60% (as I write this, it’s 690,800 recent users to 1,901,173 signups, or 63%.)"

Right. That's 690,800 users who have logged on in the last 60 days out of 2 million+ (as of recently) who have created accounts since the beginning of SL and not explicitly expired them [I'm a bit shaky on that last; if someone knows differently, if the 2 million includes expired accounts, please correct me].

Churn in most industries does not measure the number of customers you have lost since the beginning of time, but the percentage who have left during a particular billing period (usually, as you point out, in a month).

In the cellular industry, where I spent 10 years, 2% monthly churn was considered pretty durn good back in the 90's. That works out to about 25% a year. SL has been around for more than 3 years. Now, to figure out the average monthly churn, we'd need to know a bunch more info (which, I agree with you, would be fun). But saying they've had 63% total customer churn over more than 3 years is, well... while not misleading, somewhat less than fully instructive.

You're looking for more data from Linden? Well, some more monthly data is available here:
http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php

As I write, here's what we get for log-in info. Residents Logged-In During:

Last 7 Days: 227,254
Last 14 Days: 335,795
Last 30 Days: 541,627
Last 60 Days: 821,549

You say:

"Were the press to shift to reporting Recently Logged In as their best approximation of the population, the number of reported users would shrink by an order of magnitude; were they to adopt industry-standard unique users reporting (assuming they could get those numbers), the reported population would probably drop by two orders."

One order of magnitude? OK... 2 million drops to 200,000 logged in last week, per above. Two orders of magnitude though? Well, that would be 20,000... which is close to what the logged-on right now number is right now (17,489 as of 6:34 est). But we're not talking about that.

You then say:

"There’s nothing wrong with a service that appeals to tens of thousands of people, but in a billion-person internet, that population is also a rounding error."

It's not a billion-person Internet of people who can play SL, though. You need broadband, which is significantly smaller than a billion. And when you look back just two years ago and see that the idea of a "mainstream" MMO getting upwards of a million users was considered a very big deal, the idea of 200,000+ folks logging in every week to mess around with a non-game like SL is not a small thing.

You say: "If most of the people who try Second Life bail (and they do), we should adopt a considerably more skeptical attitude about proclamations that the oft-delayed Virtual Worlds revolution has now arrived."

I don't agree. Churn in and of itself isn't a predictor of the final analysis of the success of any product. You need to know adoption rate, profitability numbers and all kinds of other neat stuff (again, that I'd like to see, too) before you can make that call. If a billion people join and then 90% jump... that's good eatin'.

We also don't know how many people -- like myself -- are "froth" in that churn; people who quit and come back. Now, that will lower the overall pop number, but it will also raise the repeat-customer number. More info that would be good to have, yes.

If you are curious and skeptical, fine. So am I. Lots of what passes for PR for SL raises my BS meter. My point was that you are criticizing folks for wrongly reporting numbers and then doing that yourself. If you wanted to go one click further and do some trend-line analysis of the economic/pop data that SL makes available one-page-down from the home page, and then make some good guesses as to what that means for long-term adoption or month-by-month churn or casual users vs. serious users... OK. But it seems like you're taking the same shallow data that everyone else is saying "Hallelujah" over and, instead, saying "Bah, Humbug!" over, but with no more cause.

My "Game Over" comment was an attempt to be punny (you know... game?). I then went on to be all poetic and stuff about the difference between SL and blah blah blah. I like to mix my qualitative with quantitative. I get like that.

I agree with you 100% that having better numbers would be interesting. And I also agree that much of what passes for PR around SL is goofy. But I think that dickering over even 1 order of magnitude when some "fairly large" number of people have decided to mod 3D structures, design textures, program and animate characters for fun and profit is, well, missing the point. Less than 5 years ago, the only people that did this 3D design and texture work were the creators of games; now players are doing it. Some tens- or hundreds-of-thousands of players.

[Amarilla]

Andy, nobody is forcing you to buy drugs as well.Nobody is forcing you to become a victim of a scammery, misleaded by hypes and false advertising.
The very first - and actually the sole SL's EULA statement - " we have all the rights and you have none " is the illegal one. It doesnt matter how one sugar-coat it , it doesnt matter if LL is selling a product or a service; such claim in a contract is illegal. It's against the basis of any civilized commerce. Explaining me the dynamics of a scammery,and the options i have as a victim, and telling me that nobody forced me to become one, doesnt change the nature of a scammery. I'm not telling that SL is a scammery.I'm telling that LL makes aggressive public claims and statements wich contradict their EULA and ToS; i'm not telling that LL pays the media to release misleading numbers and hypes.
I'm telling that : it " wack " like a duck, it walks like a duck, it smells like a duck , i step into a duck poo.....nah, it's a Virtual World :-)

[Amarilla]

Andy, ofcourse i play for free. But what about those who paid their $ , misleaded and hooked by the hype PR ? What about those banned for arbitrary reasons or for no reason ? They have some real hard earned cash there , and to simply take their money away just because the EULA and ToS says so, to me it sounds pretty illegal.
Yes, the devs are the Gods in game and you are free to remove / modify all my skills /items , i have no problem with that.Ban me, for any reason or for no reason. But what about the $5000 i've paid to you 1 hour ago ? Yes, i was a sucker and i believed your hypes and the PRs. Yes i was a sucker and i never red the EULA /ToS. Does this make it legal for you to take my money and to give me nothing in return ? As long as i dont have any legal recourse against your " right " to vanish with my money , this is what makes your business shady and illegal.

[dave]

To Amarilla:

http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php

3.2 You retain copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to Content you create in Second Life, to the extent that you have such rights under applicable law."

Now, section 3.3 might give you pause as it says:

"Linden Lab retains ownership of the account and related data, regardless of intellectual property rights you may have in content you create or otherwise own."

But council has elaborated on this and said that Linden maintains ownership of the bits and bytes but not any item you create.

http://secondlife.com/knowledgebase/article.php?id=321

I challenge you to provide something that says otherwise.

What nobody cares to mention is the fact that SL seems to be the most unsecretive virtual world. What other game tells me the number of current users logged in? The number of people paying for a premium membership? The number of profitable members ranked into tiers?

No one knows for sure how many people play EQ2 or WoW.

Linden should be praised for openness.

[Matt Mihaly]

Dave wrote:

What other game tells me the number of current users logged in?

You're joking, right?

www.runescape.com

Most popular MMO in the West. Numbers are right there.

155,000 simultaneous users at the moment.
--matt