IT Professionals

Why Facebook Eclipsed Second Life

Posted by on Dec 23, 2010 | 5 Comments

Only a few years ago, it was thought that Second Life would change the way people interact with each other while on the Internet. Assuming one could find a way to maintain their interest in it, Second Life could have been a huge smashing success. Unfortunately there were at least half a dozen barriers to entry for most people that kept Second Life from being what its creators initially intended. And while today is has found a solid niche as a virtual teaching platform and meeting concept, most people don’t care.

So what happened? Where did things go horribly wrong? What was amiss here? Below I will highlight some areas where I see Second Life missing the boat and where Facebook was able to capitalize.

1) Ease of use. While I would say Facebook’s old design made MUCH more sense to use, Second Life was entirely too complex with way to many advanced factors going on for the casual use to ever have a chance of realizing its full potential.

2) To resource heavy. Facebook runs on just about everything. Second Life needs a minimum of a decent gaming rig. Nothing super fancy, but more than I’d say 70% of the population has to be honest. It should not require first person shooter skills to work within a community. Second Life never learned this.

3) Provide a basic space from which to grow your world. Facebook is allowing its users to do this. Stupid little games, status updates, sharing photos, the list goes on. Yet with Second Life, this was never very seamless or clear. And then there was the hope that 1 & 2 would not be a problem.

Why Facebook Eclipsed Second Life
Photo by Torley

4) Runs in the browser. This, right there, ensured that Facebook could easily be adopted. So while it was awesome that Second Life had clients for all three major platforms, it still needed to be installed and often times, updated. Most regular people didn’t want this.

5) Identity. Ask people who have tried Second Life once or twice what it was and 99% of them will say it was a very long, boring game. Fact is that it’s not a game, rather a living, breathing community full of those who “get it” and many more who have no idea what the heck they are doing. Second Life is still around, still has a shot at retrying to capture users with some heavy retooling on the issues listed above. But the fact of the matter is, it’s still too difficult to define exactly what it is. And this is a problem.

At the end of the day, roles could reverse. It’s not impossible, just insanely unlikely that Facebook is going to drop back at this point and something virtual world based like Second Life is going to overtake it. But then again, we once thought that MySpace was the be-all and end-all, too.

  • http://mugnatto.blogspot.com Marco Mugnatto

    To me they are different things, not something to compare. Of course you can compare Facebook to Myspace. Maybe SL will run inside Facebook someday.

  • http://moniduettmann.blogspot.com Moni Duettmann

    I agree with Marco. Just because both were hyped at a certain point, it does not mean, they are comparable. However the authors point, that SL demands too high a skill and rig comes close to the truth to be p0ndered about. But what exactly is this skill? I think it’s less something technical, but the ability to create out of nothing, instead of consume a pre-fabricated game. This may only apply to a few users, and it is my hope that Linden will understand and develop SL for these creative group instead of down-sizing the idea in order to compete with something that nobody needs.

  • http://www.matthartley.com Matt Hartley

    As line by line code comparisons, no, they are not comparable. They are not even comparable as venues. They are however, *very* comparable as social communities.

    1) Commerce – check.

    2) Making friends, talking with folks and sharing stuff – check.

    3) Attempt to keep you inside their own social portals instead of encouraging you to explore the world outside – double check.
    ;)

  • King Zog

    Your forgot, Matt, they both have pretty colors…

    They’re apples and oranges. Facebook is lousy for creating community in the sense of a close knit group of people who share; groups in facebook are mailing lists, that’s all. Facebook doesn’t even work for extended families, I’m friends with mine, but they all have me on hide because they don’t want to read my political rants.

    Facebook is also horribly customizable, that was myspace’s one advantage, and one it still holds. If anyone comes up with a customizable home page facebook, they can get billions of dollars.

    Second Life, is infinitely customizable. It does take a massive investment in time to become natural at it. There should be more done inworld for newbies. An awful lot of people come through their front door, and there’s nothing for them to do, and they leave. The Linden Lab people have left all ‘content’ to the current members, and do almost nothing in the way of a directed plan for new members.

    Linden Labs’ biggest failing is that it does not trust its own members. It could draw on hundreds and thousands of hours of volunteer work to improving itself, but it just refuses to reach out to people who, —many now by this point, have years of their life invested in the thing. And many of them are IT professionals. If it wanted newbie programs, it could get them, if it wanted a real wiki, content, etc., etc., all they would have to do is ask. But as I said, they don’t trust their own members.

    And because they hesitate on that brink, that’s where they’ve been stuck.

  • King Zog

    Imagine the first interactive community where the programmers and staff were seamless with the users.