This week, Philip Rosedale, the creator of Second Life discusses the economics and future development cycle for it's virtual community.
Philip Rosedale, Founder and CEO of Second Life states proudly, "Second Life has the unusual property that it's a landscape that you will never see all of... like the internet, you just couldn't consume it all."
With over 20 million registered accounts, Second Life is a virtual world phenomenon that has been active for five years. Even with it's success, the company has faced a backlash with its developer community and media frenzy. Is the virtual world ahead of its time?
Rosedale says, "I think we can do better. Second Life is the kind of thing where people are so excited about the possibilities... that it also easy to be frustrated that we're not faster."
Active user rates have not exceeded 550,000 since August. Are Second Life's users consuming less?
Rosedale believes, "Overall usage hours have all been trending upwards. The peak concurrency and user hours are going up... as is... the economy. Which is one of the most important indicator that we watch. Many new mediums, not everyone stays... a majority of many people still basically leave and don't come back. After an initial period."
Can Second Life survive?
Rosedale says, "With over a million dollars in people transacting things with each other, there's an opportunity here we're creating for people... much like the earlier web. I think we're going to see lots and lots of hype cycles... in the same way that we did in the earlier days of the Internet... and I don't think we've really seen the beginning of this whole thing. We're not going anywhere. "
Hitlines:
1 - Hulu.com debuts this week:
For those who haven't played around with the beta , Hulu is really easy to use and reliable. It's web-based, so there's no download required, and the picture is good. Full-screen mode is alright, and neither is as good as watching it on your 50 inch plasma.
Hulu isn't perfect. It doesn't have content from ABC or CBS - so no Lost for you! It does not make every episode of every show show available. So you can't park yourself and watch every episode of " The
Office" in a marathon sitting.
And there are some questions about the economics behind Hulu's hosting costs. But if you're looking for a great way to kill time, or introduce someone to TV on the Web, Hulu is hard to beat.
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Posted by Hellfighter on 03/22/2008 at 11:27:28 am in GigaOm Show
Hey Opensource Obscure,
I was going to take some time to study how to create stuff a week ago, but never got around to it. Now I'm too unmotivated to bother. The slowness I was talking about was the downloading. I just don't dig teleporting and then standing and waiting for hundreds of pictures to load. :p
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Posted by Cirris on 03/19/2008 at 01:01:53 am in GigaOm Show
I Used to play There.com back when it was beta testing. The concept is fun at first, but after awhile it became boring. "There" had fun zones where you could build race tracks or paintball courses, but the games weren't well made and the physics we're god awful.
I never tried Second life, a lot of people from There had both and preferred SL's customization of the avatars and building tools.
The There is mainly social gathering world. It's great if you want to have "voice chat parties" and try on different clothes or build houses. But as for any adventure it gets stale pretty fast.
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Posted by Blackbird1 on 03/18/2008 at 04:54:03 pm in GigaOm Show
I don't know. I messed around in “Cybertown” for years, even for a couple after they when “Pay for Play”. Obviously “Second Life” does a lot of things better than “Cybertown” did (does), but after a while you (well, I) just lose interest. It is not that I don't like the Idea, but I have better things to use as a massive timesink. Ho-hum.
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Posted by Opensource Obscure on 03/18/2008 at 08:37:48 am in GigaOm Show
@Hellfighter:
actually it's plenty of things to do in SL - you just have to focus on your creativity; or, if you're not a creative persone, you may prefer to visit places made by other people. However, you're not alone in your concern. See here:
*link*
Second Life's slowness usually depends on the computer you're using. Make sure the one you're using while visiting Second Life meets the requirements:
*link*
You don't really need a pro-gamer machine. However, enough RAM (1 GB or more depending on your operating system) and a supported graphic card (the ones at 50-60 US $ are OK) are a must, or your Second Life experience will be really bad. Unfortunately it appears that lots of people still log in Second Life with unsupported hardware.
Slowness also depends on the fact that Second Life is totally based on user-generated content. You can't buy a DVD with all the textures featured in Second Life so they get quickly loaded on your screen from the discs. Instead, users upload every minute new content into the world, so you have to download them.
Similarly (and according to your available bandwidth), a Flickr slideshow is usually slower than a slideshow of images stored on a disc in your computer.
Ugliness .. well, it depends on your standards :-) and on the kind of places you're visiting. See below for some tips.
@bthug7:
I suggest you not to teleport in random places. This is similar to randomly browse the web, or follow links you receive in spam mail messages. Usually you don't get the best content available on the net :-)
Some useful resources to enjoy Second Life
Second Life residents blog a lot. If you're curious about Second life, I strongly suggest you to read some of their blogs, choose a couple of them that you like or that feature interesting stuff; then, visit the Second Life places they're talking about.
This blog is a quick wayto find nice places and interesting things to do:
*link*
This is an aggregator of many Second Life blogs:
*link*
This is a short reading with some useful tips to enjoy Second Life: Gamers Rough Guide to Pwning Second Life
*link*
If you're a 'visual' person, you may want to browse photos taken in Second Life and teleport to the place where they've been shot:
*link*
Opensource Obscure
*link*
I am not english mother tongue, so I apologize for my broken english. :rolleyes:
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Posted by bthug7 on 03/17/2008 at 11:47:38 pm in GigaOm Show
Not gonna lie this episode of gigaOm persuaded me to start a second life. I casually wandered around and literally 3 out of the 5 places I teleported to were programmed to support orgies. I don't want to sound fascist but the second life people really oughta limit that if they wanna maintain credibility.
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Posted by Hellfighter on 03/14/2008 at 03:33:00 pm in GigaOm Show
I wish I could make my own SL... It would be better. Totally.
After watching this episode, I decided to log back in to SL. There's nothing to do in it! And it's so ugly and slow!!! Why do people log on to put dancing virtual people somewhere and do nothing!
Someone go build a hangout for Revision3 people or something.
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Posted by bthug7 on 03/14/2008 at 11:10:18 am in GigaOm Show
Good episode, second life is a really interesting idea. I must admit though it made me think of the matrix haha. Also hulu is great. The networks are listening to the consumers, not perfectly, but atleast their trying. I'm interested to see if there is going to be any noticeable affect on torrenting of the Hulu Shows.
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Posted by mari1ee on 03/14/2008 at 10:28:06 am in GigaOm Show
This week, Philip Rosedale, the creator of Second Life discusses the economics and future development cycle for it's virtual community.
Watch the episode here
Read More »
