Apr
16
The begining of the end for Second Life
Filed Under Marketing
I’ve been reading a very interesting post about why is second life a dead end. I guess I kind of knew it a while ago from now. The reason is very simple: it collapses under its own weight.
As hard as I try to envision a way in which it could rise from its ashes, I can’t. Every service in the internet-world will fail sooner or later if it gets to complicated. I’m sure you are wondering why is Second Life complicated. Well, it’s simply too big. I mean, I’ve setup an account, played around a little and soon got bored. It’s too big, too real-life like. I’ve got my own life, I don’t want another one. If you come up with something, you’d better at least try to make it different.
Over on the marketing side, the whole project started wrong. In order to be able to monetize your business, you must have the capacity to easily reach your target audience with some sort of publicity. Not only that, but you must also be able to concentrate your visitors in groups so that any form of commercial you send to them have maximum of efficiency. Only then is when people will pay.
The problem with Second Life is that individualism may occur. I mean, vast amounts of users choose to wonder around, not really binding to others. Furthermore, the domain is so vast, the ways in which you can travel around are so diverse, that it makes it impossible to have any control of someone’s path. Imagine if the user had to go through certain gates in order to … something. Then, when at “gate momentum”, you have total control of what your user sees or feels.
To better grasp the concept of individualism, think about blogs. Why did they appear?
People felt the need to express their uniqueness. As you have your own place in real life, so you must own one over the internet. Who would like to live in a hotel all his life? You know the saying: there’s no place like home…
That’s what Second Life offers, a nest for individualism to occur. Not only that, but it’s uncontrollable individualism, the worst form of them all. The whole beauty when devising a marketing (and business) strategy lies in the ability to make your client feel unique, without knowing that actually you control his uniqueness.
Forget about best client-services. They mean nothing if you don’t have control over your users, if your ads don’t get to them and they don’t fancy noticing them.
The idea of a user who must click a link in order to be a potential customer is wrong. It’s way better if your product remains somewhere in his memory, because as soon as the right trigger or opportunity arises, the memory will work it’s magic in the buyer’s decision.
I’ve only written the last paragraph to better explain that you don’t need your users to click on ads, you just need them to acknowledge them. That’s why you can make money from something Second Life-like, but you must find ways to simplify and still diversify.
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2 Responses to “The begining of the end for Second Life”
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Isn’t clicking of a link tantamount to making a phonecall/responding to an advertisement in real life?
I do agree with the individualism argument though - the marketing platform needs to be more intuitive and reflect the complexity of Second Life itself.
On a parallel note, I feel the same will happen to Facebook - its trying to be the one-stop-shop of all your social needs. Nothing wrong with that; I just feel that the new web will evolve into a more personal, more targeted and more ‘no-frills’ place.
Clicking a link is always less OR more than a normal contact with an advertisement, but that’s not what it’s all about.
The whole idea is not to make the user click your banner/ad, but make him aware of it, without knowing that he is being indirectly influenced into buying that product.
I’m currently studying a very interesting effect of web marketing. From what I’ve seen, a user is more prone to the idea of clicking an ad if that ad makes him play, relax.
To be more specific, think about a blog post which has a hidden ad somewhere, maybe a small icon or something. The visitor reads your post and maybe he gets intrigued by that icon, which is placed in a very unusual place. He will then click it just for the sake of it. If the info he finds on the merchant’s site is cool… you get the picture.
What I’m trying to say is that a user will always come back for more if the place he goes to will relax him.
Facebook may disappear a few years from now, but it’s extremely hard to do a prediction like that. The bad thing about social networks is that once they start to fall, they fall big time.
From my experience, there are 2 keys of success:
1. KISS -> Keep It Simple Stupid (once it gets too complex - for the user, not the behind-the-scene hardcore programming, it’s gone…)
2. Smart, NOT annoying ad placement