Content, Community and Second Life.
Is content or community the reason that drives Second Life and other virtual worlds? Depending upon who you ask the answer is one or the other. Some like me obviously take the middle path and argue that… it is in fact a combination of both. Poor content doesn’t attract people thereby eliminating any chance of a community. On the other hand good communities give the necessary impetus to create good content to keep them coming back. However, all this is so ’06s.
Here’s an excerpt of an imaginary conversation I had with my 18 year old cousin from Bangalore, about Virtual Worlds and Second Life!
Sid – “Heard about Second Life?”
IC – “Duh!!…”
Sid “And…?”
IC – “And…. nothing.. its freaking boring … except for some hot chick , I met and some good music at a night club! But I have an Ipod and enough girls on the Internet…many with webcams!”
Sid – “Okay…but how about the HUGE potential? Think about it… your avatar was bloody in a Virtual World…Matrix style… you can buy land, build a house , get hitched.. hold a business meeting!”
IC – “Uh…. nice to know you oldies are excited about this … “Matrixy” thing.. however… really.. why??! I mean sure it’s nice in a way. Nothing more or less than WoW..
Sid – “What about the fact that you can build the world? Isn’t that kinda cool?
IC – “I guess. But not beyond a point. Plus, I am not Really into coding …so its kinda tough to figure out how to make stuff…”do” stuff…you know?”
Sid – “Hmm…So what would make you go back to Second Life? More girls, music, games, better tools to build and easier scripts? Or maybe a Second Life India place – like Bollywood – to meet other Indians in Second Life?”
IC – “Nope…Better girls, music, games I have. Building and scripting is really not my thing. Second Life India places like Bollywood are cool .. but I can do that on Facebook or Orkut so again not the biggest deal”.
Sid – “So Second Life and VWs are not for you ?”
IC – “Uh-huh.”
Sid – “Uh-huh.. as in No? Or uh-huh as in Yes?”
IC – ” No as in No”
Sid – “So they are for you?”
IC – “Sure”
Sid – “You just tore them apart man!”
IC – “Yeah, but I’d go if I had something to do! Something cool that I couldn’t do in other places – and not like building and coding. I mean something that a regular chap can ‘do’. Like emailing on the net.. you know. Or gaming on Playstation. The one thing that is best done in Second Life or other VWs”
“What can I ‘do’?” is the question I hear over and over again. There are millions of things to do in VWs but ..what is the one killer utility?
This is something we have been grappling with at Indusgeeks. To make Virtual Worlds into the envisioned 3D Web we need to create more Utility. As has been oft repeated by many Metaverse seers we are in the need of an “email moment” in Virtual Worlds. More on this in the next post!
- Sid