Can Second Life Become Mainstream?

In 2007 Second Life was the darling of the social media landscape.  After IBM purchasing property in the online world and American Apparel opening the first Second Life shop newspapers and blogs devoted numerous columns to it’s current and future success.  In this year the number of people joining the site jumped from 450 000 to 4 million with many new shops from real world brands opening, however since then the interest has been steadily declining and if you visit the American Apparel store now within Second Life there is a big closed sign on the front window (Hansen 2009).

American Apparel in Second Life

Closed for business after just a year

What happened?  And why does marketing seem to be unsuccessful inside this social platform as opposed to Facebook and Twitter, which have become marketing mega giants?

According to Tateru Nino, one of the world’s leading experts on Second Life, the media built the platform up as something it wasn’t and was never meant to be (Marshall 2011).  Then when it failed to become this it was either savaged or shunned by the same channels who had built it up.  While it remains today the largest virtual world it cannot come close to rivalling Facebook and Twitter which boast 800 million and 175 million users respectively.

But let’s look more closely at Second Life itself.  While many experts claim the learning curve of setting up and understanding how to operate within Second Life is a turn off with numerous accounts being setup and very quickly abandoned.  Perhaps though there is a deeper problem here and rather than not understanding Second Life the general population (gamers excluded) don’t understand or accept sims.  Just have a look at fellow blogger Lisa Dooley’s post on the issue.  

While Facebook and Twitter are an extension of the user, creating a sim in these types of world is creating an alternate version of yourself.  People have been doing this for years, through dating sites and other websites, but unlike dating sites, it is not yet considered mainstream.  To make Second Life mainstream Tateru Nino says “Mainstream doesn’t mean most people use it.  It means most people don’t think it’s weird… iTunes? We thought that was weird. Now we don’t” (Marshall 2011).

So is it possible to make a world in which users create avatars and live a virtual life away from reality not weird to the mainstream? 

Society shunned the internet when it was first invented, Parisians shunned the eiffel tower when it was first built, even Melbourniourns have only accepted Federation Square inside the last few years.. So perhaps all Second Life needs is more time.  Then again, perhaps not everything is meant to be accepted and one life may be enough for most of us.

Hansen, L 2009, ‘What Happened To Second Life’, BBC News Magazine, 20 November, viewed 29 January 2013, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8367957.stm>.

Marshall, G 2011, ‘Whatever Happened To Second Life?’, Techradar, 30 September, viewed 29 January 2013, <http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/whatever-happened-to-second-life-1030314>.