The Death and Life of Second Life

Looks like Second Life is on its way to join the choir invisibule. Once upon a time (in 2006) it was ubercool to put you business on Second Life. Now its not - BBC quoting Wired's Ben Hammersley being Wise in Hindsight (Wired et al hyped it to the nines at the time - restraint was not their watchword, I recall ):

"The first to go online would make the front page of the Guardian," Mr Hammersley says. "But when you're the 15th country who goes on Second Life, no magazine, no newspaper touches it."

Some businesses and users found it wasn't quite for them. The technology wasn't easily grasped and some computers couldn't handle it.

Second Life has had to temper its ambitions for the quality of graphics to extend its accessibility across varying speeds of broadband around the world, leading to complaints about the cartoony look and feel of the site.

In other words the Marketing/PR/Meedja industry is no longer interested, so it must - therefore - be dying.

What can we say - we thought - and still think - that its a great environment for Real Geeks to self express themselves, and it will carry on as such but as a model for mass market marketing we believed - correctly, clearly - that it would suck. It requires skill and dedication to use, and grockles don't have that.

A prediction - this is the "Second Life is Now At The Bottom Of the Slogh Of Despond" article, signaling the slide down the Hype Curve is complete. in about, oh, 2012 when broadband is better, the standard laptop is more powerful and navigation software is better people will "Rediscover" virtual worlds as the New New Thing. And by then it will be up for mass market commercialisation.