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Magazines offer opposite takes on Second Life
4 comments- IT TOPICS:Internet, Networking, Personal Technology, Software
Current issues of Newsweek and Wired offer two opposite views of the Second Life virtual world.
Newsweek's article, "Alternate Universe," is overwhelmingly positive, claiming that "Second Life is emerging as a powerful new medium for social interactions of all sorts, from romance to making money. It may be the Internet's next big thing."
Wired's article, "How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life," is decidedly negative, stating that the environment is largely empty, hindered by nonscalable technology and boring.
Here are some contrasting passages from each article:
Participation
Newsweek: "It's 1 a.m., and the 'Dublin' nightclub is packed."
Wired: "One of the things you never see in Second Life is a genuine crowd — largely because the technology makes it impossible."
Number of users
Newsweek: "In the past year, membership has soared to more than 8 million users -- 2 million having signed on in the last two months alone."
Wired: "Second Life partisans claim meteoric growth, with the number of 'residents,' or avatars created, surpassing 7 million in June. There's no question that more and more people are trying Second Life, but that figure turns out to be wildly misleading. According to Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, the number of avatars created by distinct individuals was closer to 4 million. Of those, only about 1 million had logged on in the previous 30 days (the standard measure of Internet traffic), and barely a third of that total had bothered to drop by in the previous week."
Fun factor
Newsweek: "The power of Second Life lies in its utility for the gamut of human activities. It's a potent medium for socializing -- it provides people with a way to express, explore and experiment with identity, vent their frustrations, reveal alter egos."
Wired: "Then there's the question of what people do when they get there. Once you put in several hours flailing around learning how to function in Second Life, there isn't much to do."
Marketing value
Newsweek: "More than 45 multinational companies, including the likes of American Apparel, IBM, General Motors and Dell are beginning to use the medium for customer service, sales and marketing."
Wired: "Companies say, 'It's an experiment' — but what are they learning?' Tobaccowala asks. 'Basically, they're learning how to create an avatar and walk around in Second Life.' Which is fine if that's what you want to do. Just don't expect to sell a lot of Coke."
Technology
Newsweek: "It was created on software that operates across multiple servers -- a grid system that could easily grow to accommodate a large, far-flung community."
Wired: "And even the popular islands are never crowded, because each processor on Linden Lab's servers can handle a maximum of only 70 avatars at a time; more than that and the service slows to a crawl, some avatars disappear, or the island simply vanishes. 'It's really the software's fault,' says Andrew Meadows, Linden Lab's senior developer. 'Way back when, we used to say, 'This is not going to scale.' "
So keep an open mind about believing everything you read -- except for Computerworld articles, of course!
By the way, here's another good blog on media coverage of Second Life.
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