This week we discuss Second Life usage and user retention as we ask a new user about his first Second Life experience.
This week’s topics include:
- Second Life Usage Surpasses 2 Billion Hours
- Rod Humble Asks for Suggestions
- SL first user experience from a noob’s perspective
- We are not the Customers the Lab Wants
- Cloud Party Usage and Growth Seems to Plateau
- Exodus nightly builds
- Curio/Gala Update
- Curio/Gala IndieGoGo
- Hair Fair
- Botgirl on “Inside the Avatar Studio”
Guests
Geenz Spad is the graphics guy for the Exodus Viewer. He is also responsible for the slick shiny Rubber Infusions range of avatar modifications.
Ash Qin is Exodus’ Linux developer, he also provides various viewer related documentation and server related stuff! Ash also owns and runs the popular Sci-Fi sim Deshima.
Corey Persing is a new Second Life user.
Karl Stiefvater (Qarl Fizz, formerly Qarl Linden) is visual effects artist, software developer, and interactive designer extraordinaire.
Thank you to our sponsors, Botgirl’s Identity Circus and Pretty Feet!
The problem is that Second Life is similar to the entire Internet, in that anything you can name that you are interested in, there is a sim for that, or content for that. Linden Lab is ushering new users through one single portal, and then relying on their destination guide and their search, and we all know search is horrific. Finding anything useful in search is like finding a needle in a haystack.
The internet was the same way, but then along came Yahoo and finally Google.
Second Life doesn’t have that, and not sure it ever will.
Here’s a suggestion. Partnership with StumbleUpon. For those who don’t use it, basically you just click off subjects and topics you’re interested in, then you click the “Stumble” button and off and away you go. Add 100 topics and allow parcel owners to click off the keywords that apply to their location.
New users come in, they click off their interests on the web before getting in world, and they have a stumble button to whisk them away. There just needs to be some sort of system of checks and balances so that land owners don’t try to game the system. The last thing you would want is for someone who is interested in a topic, land somewhere irrelevant because the sim owner was just trying to get traffic, then you are back at square one.
I’m not entirely sure about StumbleUpon. I used it early on, and didn’t find it all that compelling. And what is to prevent the app from redirecting you to outside sources unrelated to SL? I would personally prefer that LL use Google as it’s search engine. They use the Google maps engine for mapping, and it works rather well. Of course it boils down to how much info the Lab wants Google to have.
Allen, my suggestion would be something inworld only, nothing to do with the outside web. Linden Lab I think already uses the Google search engine for search (or did) its not built for a 3d world
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Hm. I’m now at the third WTF-point in this episode, so the urge to comment is finally at a tipping point.
1. (11:30) What the hell is your problem with SLU? From my experience, it’s full of extremely experienced, savvy, and helpful users, and that particular thread (which you haven’t even linked to, but instead to a NWN article reporting on the thread???) is a good example, as it contains a lot of thoughtful and polite answers to Rodvik’s question, so honestly, it seems like it WAS the best place to ask.
2. (30:33) Premium benefits are a problem? And you’d rather pay for invisible logins except for a Linden Home?
3. (38:10) You’d pay for an invisible mode, but you think Linden Homes (which means essentially 512 sqm of tier) should be free? How, why, what??? In the beginning of this episode, there was talk about 20.000 new signups every day. All of them should get a free 512 plot? That’s 10 million square meters (aka 156 regions) every day. Free. I don’t think all the invisible modes in the world could ever make up for that.
Sorry, I’m just weirded out.
I talk with a lot of new users volunteering time to work with new people to help them get over that hump. I find three things seem to top the list of questions i get. 1) What is there to do here? 2) How do I change my avatar? 3) How do I find money/job? These things are almost always asked, though the order does change.
I am attempting to help answer some of these questions by opening my own infocenter and focusing on providing answers to some of these questions. That said I think that LL could use context in the viewer to help provide some training. When someone first goes into build mode, pop up a dialog asking them if they want to watch a tutorial. Then follow that up with a package of textures used in the tutorial. When someone goes to appearance the first time have a option to learn about that and then offer a nice new outfit for free.
i think the hardest question to answer though is, how do I get money. Jobs are not good answer, IMHO the only good answer long term is to pony up your credit card, but that doesnt work for most people. Its my hope to work with some content creators to help me put together nice, simple free outfits to hand out, but that doesnt really answer the question.
As to giving away land (Linden Homes)to everyone for free, I think that with some qualifications this could work. I do think it would need to be limited in time. I would suggest that it be a 30 day free trial of Premium. So you need to put in a card, and you need to subscribe. You get your first month free when you sign up for one of the plans. Your timer doesn’t start for the 45 days to get your 1000 L until your free month is up, but you do get the 300L monthly stipend. Now of course some # of people wont cancel when they meant to and will complain because they got charged, but this is a pretty common practice to get people into a service. Some number of people will like it a lot and keep with it. Others may not keep it, but will like the idea of having money and will turn that $10 a month into jut a set of lindens which helps everyone.
I do like the idea of monetizing more features as well as individual or package addins. I am not sure what all features could be added, but the idea that everything has to be free should be considered a dead relic.
I will close by saying that only a small number of people that I help over the hump actually seem to stay for long in SL. I set them up with nice clothes, an AO, eyes, hair the whole 9 yards. I have some freebie skyboxes I let people use and try and bring them around to different places where I know people will be. Still, some people disappear after a few days or weeks. For many, I think SL isnt the “game” for them. There is a commitment beyond what they might expect from Skyrim or the Sims or even Facebook. Its a very different animal.
Just wanted to share a link to my blog where I share the ideas I’ve had about the experience of new members and how to keep them;
http://joyardley.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/starting-your-second-life/