Fear and loathing in Second Life
Logging into my electronic banking account today i noticed a press release stating that ABN AMRO now also has an online presence in Second Life. Weirdness. Is the bank desperate to be aknowledged as an online player, hip with the times?
SL seems to be more popular in the manager crowd than it is among actual people or, more fittingly, customers. When Sun announced Java was open sourced in SL they could host 60 people max in their virtual conference center, when dutch candidates for the elections flyered in SL about 10 people attended.
Lots of organisations do not seem to understand that the maximum exposure they will get on a given day in SL is very limited since the virtual space, like real space, is just that; a (3D) space with (virtual) boundaries. Unless you build a giant arena not many people can attend. Unless you build a giant arena that offers more than a bit of eye candy not many people -will- attend. And if they do you quickly run into the technical limitations of the SL servers and software.
Don’t get me wrong i think SL is a very interesting environment and phenomenon but the ease with which organisations are throwing dollars at the it makes me wonder if anyone calculated the ROI such online presences deliver compared to a good website. I guess one can always use a good excuse for a press release though…