Three-Dimensions limits Second Life as a social media tool
Doesn’t seem a week can go by without some big announcement of a group, organization or government taking a plunge into Second Life. I suspect many are doing it as either a low cost means of grabbing a few inches of type in traditional press, or to be able to demonstrate their company’s ‘view to the future‘ as opposed to any real outreach to a digital community or strategy to leverage the world for business uses.
I’ve been a resident of Second Life for close to a year now, logging in for an hour or so towards the end of my day (at last the dirty secret to my low blogging output is out). During this time I’ve observed and taken note of much of the culture and workings of this world of communities. I see great potential here. I see much opportunity. But there are limitations that are important to consider when building a serious strategy to enter your company into Second Life.
With most online communication, scale and time are not an issue. A document, sound file or video on the internet can be posted and then experienced by any number of people at any point in time. My blog posts sit on my web page and on any given day something I wrote a year, two years … even four years ago, are being found via some Google search and read. I have about a week’s worth of Daily Source Code episodes which I’ll be listening to tonight whilst coding. I have a dozen tech conferences from last year via IT Conversations that I’ve been slowly working my way through on commutes into Toronto, but those will be bumped aside as soon as the new For Immediate Release comes down from the feed.
What makes new and social media compelling isn’t the technology but rather the conversations themselves. However it is the technology that allows these conversations to be found, linked together, shared, aggregated, mashed up and deconstructed: and through the process to grow and spawn entirely new conversations.
Conversations in Second Life are much like a conversation in real life. Limited to those within the sound of your voice. What Second Life offers is an experience. But, as anyone who’s tried to relate these to others, the conversation often ends with, “I guess you had to be there.”
That’s the crux of it. You have to be in Second Life in order to have the experience. But more than that, you have to be there at a specific time. And a specific location. For example, I’m more often than not tied up with work at the time that Coffee in Crayonville takes place so I’ll forever be missing those experiences and conversations. But even if I were in world at that time, there’s the chance that the room is already to capacity. Only around 50 individuals can interact in a given area within Second Life. Though that limitation is bound to be pushed to 100 and then higher and higher - you are still in a physical space. There are only so many people you can comfortably squeeze into the same room.
But I’m able to experience Managing the Grey and Across the Sound at my own pace and in my own time. I can just as easily comment on something Jason Calacanis blogged today as an entry he made last month or a year ago. And just as I’m experiencing these and other writings, discussions and thoughts - so too are thousands upon thousands of others.
These conversations transcend time and space. Second Life conversations are framed by time and space.
There are a lot of great uses for Second Life and a number of ways it can be leveraged for business use, but do keep in mind, when working out your Second Life strategy, the limitations of the three dimensions.
