According to Au, the spread of unique weekly visitors to the SL sites of corporations that exist in the real world-rather than just the SL metaverseis 6,454 to 0. Many huge real-world companies with a presence on Second Life receive fewer than 500 unique visitors a week-while about 400,000 Residents log on to Second Life every week. And where do they spend their time? Au says:
By far the most popular sites remain grassroots “native” locales; over the last three weeks, for example, the most heavily trafficked place was not a casino or a sex hangout, but “Phat Cat’s Jazzy Blue Lounge”, a PG-rated ballroom for elegantly dressed avatars. With a highest weekly performance of 31,248 unique visitors, it vastly eclipses even the most popular corporate site.
Some data here.
Au asked Steve Prentice, an analyst at the Gartner Group who’s been bullish on corporate presence in Virtual Worlds, about the unimpressive results from SL—then pointed out the obvious: ”[Y]ou’ve got to be able to go in there and interact [with people],” he said, “that’s the nature of 3D interactivity.”
Indeed. If you can’t staff your SL presence, there won’t be interactivity and that’s an expectation of visitors to the metaverse. Go native or don’t go.
See also Second Thoughts on Second Life.
Michael Stoner Co-Founder and Co-Owner Was I born a skeptic or did I become one as I watched the hypestorm gather during the dotcom years, recede, and congeal once more as we come to terms with our online, social, mobile world? Whatever. I'm not much interested in cutting edge but what actually works for real people in the real world. Does that make me a bad person?