Comments on: Has Second Life Already Left The Station? http://www.psfk.com/2007/02/has_second_life.html Ideas & Trends Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:14:19 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: csven http://www.psfk.com/2007/02/has_second_life.html/comment-page-1#comment-576 csven Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-576 <p>I'd suggest that the reason SL is still growing (so fast now that Linden Lab has just announced a contingency plan to restrict logins to so-called "verified" users to keep their grid from locking up; concurrent use has skyrocketed) is because the catalyst for the recent SL backlash got the media story right but the meaning story wrong. Yes, MSM was screwing up and fueling hype with worthless "resident" numbers, but before those numbers ever became a story, plenty of major media outlets were talking about SL. And for good reason.</p> <p>Second Life cannot, as Shirky, the author of the article that acted as catalyst, be evaluated with an accountant's mindset. There is an element of Design going on here of the likes that separates Dell from Apple. People who spend their time using only numbers to evaluate success in an age when everything seems to become a commodity, will inevitably find themselves having to deal with real people... even if they're represented as avatars in an online virtual world.</p> I’d suggest that the reason SL is still growing (so fast now that Linden Lab has just announced a contingency plan to restrict logins to so-called “verified” users to keep their grid from locking up; concurrent use has skyrocketed) is because the catalyst for the recent SL backlash got the media story right but the meaning story wrong. Yes, MSM was screwing up and fueling hype with worthless “resident” numbers, but before those numbers ever became a story, plenty of major media outlets were talking about SL. And for good reason.

Second Life cannot, as Shirky, the author of the article that acted as catalyst, be evaluated with an accountant’s mindset. There is an element of Design going on here of the likes that separates Dell from Apple. People who spend their time using only numbers to evaluate success in an age when everything seems to become a commodity, will inevitably find themselves having to deal with real people… even if they’re represented as avatars in an online virtual world.

]]> By: csven http://www.psfk.com/2007/02/has_second_life.html/comment-page-1#comment-577 csven Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-577 <p>As I've been discussing the anti-hype elsewhere and some of what's been said may be of interest, here's a link:</p> <p>http://www.howardowens.com/2007/be-skeptical-of-the-hype-around-virtual-worlds</p> As I’ve been discussing the anti-hype elsewhere and some of what’s been said may be of interest, here’s a link:

http://www.howardowens.com/2007/be-skeptical-of-the-hype-around-virtual-worlds

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