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more infoWhat is it about Second Life that people *need*?
Please note that I am not yet answering the title question in this post, but I am setting the stage for a dialogue.
I was right in the middle of my typical introduction to Second Life session yesterday, fielding what has become the normal Q&A session.
Q: "Do people pay *actual* dollars for *fake* goods?"You get the idea. This usually goes on for twenty to thirty minutes, and most of the questions clarify or reinforce points I have made in the initial presentation about the economy, how many people are in Second Life, what people do, how they communicate, etc.
A: "Yes and no. People pay virtual currency, derived from actual US currency, for digital goods and services - most of which are tailored for the virtual world."
Q: "Do people actually *make* money playing this game?"
A: "Yes and no. Yes, a few thousand people run profitable businesses but unlike WoW, Second Life is not a game."
Q: "Are crimes committed. Can someone kill you?"
A:" Yes and no. There are rules outlined in the Community Standards and Terms of Service ....."
This day, as we were moving along the ultimate phase shift from scoff, to skepticism and disbelief, to interested but not impressed, and some to "a ha", I heard this question.
Q: "What is it about Second Life that people *need*?"Of course I started with my visionary statements about the new Renaissance and rise of the creative class (more on this some other time) and "this is the future of the Internet/web 3D, go read Avi's 7 part series on the topic" followed by a more familiar reference: "it's analogous to MySpace on steroids", but even they knew I had failed to answer the question. And so began my restless night.
A: "Um ..."
By now you've probably guessed that I had hoped to craft this entire post in the "second person" meaning, Grace writes the whole thing and I - in the first person - merely observe. After all, Grace is embedded within Second Life, but on this issue her perspective is somewhat limited. She can head off this morning and start asking a few people in world that question, and in the mean time I am going to hit the books because I have a feeling that Grace and I will have to work on this one together.
If you already have this figured out, please leave me a comment or drop me an email.
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3 comments:
I truly think that what people need in Second Life is exactly what they need in every other online community, which is precisely why places like myspace are so popular. People *need* to feel like they're part of something- like they're part of a community. Why do people rent places to live in Second Life? No one truly *needs* a place to live there, and yet we see people over and over again having not only one place to live in Second Life, but several places. They may own their own land, but I think most people that have purchased first land in Second Life know that there's no real 'community' aspect to that land. Everyone just sort of does their own thing and a lot of it is not anything you'd want to live near in the 'real world', and so people begin to search out things to make them feel like part of something. They rent apartments or homes in areas where they feel they 'fit in', they begin to form friendships and join groups to feel even more a part of things. People want to belong and feel important, and in Second Life there are infinite ways of doing just that.
You already have my input on this. :) I'm waiting to see how you'll rephrase my words, hoping that I make some sense at 5 AM.
The question is a very good one, but there are as many answers to it as there are SL users (and growing).
Hi Grace!
It seems to me that there are two kinds of needs Second Life fulfills:
First, it's something to do. If you find yourself with no plan for your free time, you could log into Second Life just as you could go for a walk or watch TV. And like those things, it can become a habit so that you find yourself logging in without even really knowing why.
Second, and more importantly, it allows you to do the things that you can't do in Real Life. Things like travelling and socializing that we may want to do in Real Life but can't are available without the barriers like the monetary cost or travel time or feeling unattractive or not knowing where to go. Sexual adventures are safer, easier, more anonymous if you want them to be, and (sometimes!) less emotionally complicated. (More on that at my blog.) Shopping costs very little in Real Life money. And of course there are any number of things you can do in SL that are simply impossible in RL, like be younger, fly, or (in my case) have wings.
Short version: apart from just being an entertainment or a distraction, from where I'm standing Second Life seems to fulfill many of the needs that are unmet in Real Life. Second Life can't answer for every need, but it can cover enough of them to make a real impact in a person's life.
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