Second Life: before and after the hype

Do you still remember Second Life? The online virtual world national media seemed obsessed with hyping it up in 2007? You probably do, don’t you?

Second Life (SL) was created by Linden Lab in 2003 and is defined as a three-dimensional, immersive, user-created, social virtual world (not a game!). Apart from the user-created factor also its software, the grid technology, is unique. The media declared SL as a herald of innovative virtual potentials. They expected among other things that the virtual world would overpower traditional websites and that virtual economy would make its definite entrée there.

But the media that created the hype eventually also killed it. SL gradually disappeared from the spotlight and was declared mortal in the Belgian newspaper De Morgen (‘Second Life op sterven na dood’, De Morgen, April 4, 2009). The article said SL had become a ghost town, with deserted companies and sleeping avatars. The only thing that remained was virtual sex.
On August 13, 2010 De Standaard wondered in its dossier ‘De zomer van de nerds’ (‘The summer of the nerds’) if SL still existed. The article concludes that SL has stagnated, a conclusion they only draw from the virtual economy, not from the perspective of the individual user.

It is accurate that big companies have left SL, but for the most part they had the wrong idea of it. SL is an interactive medium and certain companies, for instance Coca-Cola and Humo, believed it sufficed to be present in-world, without taking part in the community building. Other companies, like Mercedes, offered virtual versions of their products that did not fit within the virtual surroundings of SL. Undoubtedly, cybersex has always been important in SL, but claiming that it is the only thing that remains is a huge generalisation. Both articles are interesting examples of how one-sided SL has always been reported on in our media: the focus was either on sex or on virtual economy, and preferably centred on excessive incidents.

Some other remarkable errors are made in De Morgen. The author claims that the 60,000 SL-residents that are on average online at the same moment in 2009 is only one tenth of the simultaneous log-ins in 2006. But if 600,000 residents had been able to log in simultaneously in 2006, the servers would have crashed immediately.
Actually, in 2010 more users are on average online at the same moment (60,000 - 80,000), which is thus more than during the hype.

It is true that less accounts are being created and that the real (r)evolution is now elsewhere, but SL is still alive. Only the hype ceased to exist.

Due to their stereotypical coverage of SL the media have created a distorted image of this world and its residents. The varied motives why someone is active in-world – creative, business, and relational (friendship, love, networking) motivations – make it a very complex and diverse virtual world. Although there certainly are shy, addicted, or sexually frustrated residents, it is not a mere gathering of lunatics.

The climate conference in Copenhagen was streamed in SL, several art exhibitions are being held in-world and in November ‘Slactions’, an online conference, will be organized again in SL. These facts are not being reported on in our media, as they do not fit the clichéd image of isolated residents that can only find sexual satisfaction in an online second life.

It seems difficult for traditional media to cover new media like SL in an accurate, nuanced way. Nonetheless, Linden Lab has opened the way for new social virtual worlds, like InWorldz and Blue Mars.
The server code of SL that has partly been released by Linden Lab has led to OpenSimulator. Rezzable is doing efforts to make OpenSim available in a standard browser. If that would gain popularity, the evolution of ‘www’ to ‘3D’ might not have been a meaningless prediction. In any case, (r)evolution is probably hiding in these innovative developments. But watch out for the hype!

Katleen Gabriëls is researcher at  IBBT-SMIT-VUB. She has been studying virtual worlds for years and is currently working on a Phd about morals and ethics in social virtual worlds.