The results from our visitor poll show that most people (51%) do not use inworld voice.  27% however, do like to use voice when they can.

This is a predicatable result really. 

Predictable because the core of SL users are accustom to inworld activities without voice as many people do not have confidence that it works well. Also the core SL user prefer to maintain some distance between their RL and SL personas--voice is in fact a very personal thing to share. Voice also breaks the immersion more than it adds to the inworld experience.

Maybe there is also a lack of compelling inworld content where voice is needed. Maybe the new open Vivox toolset will be a basis for new voice oriented content?

Finally, skype is a better alternative to inworld voice as there are more contacts possible and better quality. Where inworld chat is essential (and maybe should be improved to add value to inworld experience) voice is not so useful right now.

The team over at Phatcat's is putting the whole area up for auction on eBay. Check info on their site here  Why would they do this and what is it worth to someone else?

The why is easy enough--too much work to maintain a popular site and not enough revenue from running it.

Eventually anyone would get tired and need to move on. But why is running an area in SL so unprofitable?  Answer: costs and complexity are increasing over time, while new users are not growing--so how much is your customer base worth when it is not on aggressive growth. Not enough is what it is.  It's a great deal for Linden Labs to get people to work and make "wonderous" stuff--for less than what you can make stuffing cold cuts into a sub sandwich. We know Linden is making dough (and a lot apparently) but where's the upside for the mainstream content creators and area operators? Is the grid only profitable for porno and land speculators?

 Secondlife CEO Kingdon on current state of SL: "The third wave is now where consumers find the experiences that are most relevant to them, like live music, or participating in groups with common interest. Also, we are seeing businesses re-enter Second Life with a focus on collaboration, learning and product development. We’ve been through substantial expansion as a platform."  Full Venture Beat interview here.

Think he is spinning it or telling it like it is over at LL? What reality is LL rl? Come to London next month and ask him yourself! Kingdon is speaking at the Virtual World conference.  Info on the conference here and get a discount if you really wanna show up irl

I'll be at the conference, so if you have any questions for Kingdon or LL please send them along and I will ask and make video clip maybe. Hmmm what to ask? Hmmm....

related posts: 

LL is reporting more than 2700 new islands on the grid since 01 August. That is more than a 10% increase in land mass on the grid in the last 6 weeks. Now is this a real statistic? Is it conversion of full sims to void sims? Who is buying new islands? Seems like a bunch of new academic islands (they pay lower rates btw than businesses--even though they are not stopped from selling stuff).  With all these new islands, where are the new avatars? With such a boom why isn't LL more visible in claiming some real success?

Really the grid is getting more and more empty. More land with fewer prims per m3. Land mass expanding rapidly as new avatars dribble through.

I was half-asleep watching the random punts offered up on Current TV and caught what they call a "rant" about Second LIfe. Some the stuff on Current is really xlent although I must say that many of the reporters seem oddly suprised about the stories they cover. It is sorta nice in some way to see reporters that are not so hardened and self-important. Anyway, this piece about SL was published in on their site first in Feb 2008 and still they show it in August...so guess they a little low on current stuff on current? Anyway...this vid by CJ Davies  was painfully droll as only the brits can be. For sure a few chuckles and the expense of LL and er...I guess us as SL inmates/residents.  Maybe things even 6 months are the same-ish even though we seem think things are more interesting.

Of course you would like to point to a great vid by SL saying how cool SL really can be...but er..where is that?

Recent Rezzable polls shows that secondlife users are not activley inviting their real world friends to get an avatar and join them inworld. Poll info here.

Word of mouth and recommendations is of course the strongest possible way to revive the SL new user registration, so probably this is part of why the SL user growth has virtually (er...really) stopped.  While LL is still boasting madly about new island growth, added 1,833 new island in August, the SL economy still seems to be very weak. It is especially weak if you pull out the porno and land rental fees. So is there really an economy in SL for business people? There are about 10,000 people making more than $50 per month and about 2,000 making more than $500. This is pretty flat since March.   Net story is that LL is doing ok now, but no one else is seeing any growth in the Secondlife boat.

 Lindens announced SLim the other day:

"SLim significantly lowers the barriers between virtual world and real world communication and ensures that Second Life users will always be able to connect to friends, regardless of location or broadband connection. SLim is also a compelling tool for the Second Life enterprise offering, which will enable employees to communicate and collaborate with colleagues meeting inworld without having the Second Life application running.

It looks also a little like, well we gotta announce something at the conference.  We use Skype mainly for voice and chat these days as a collaboration tool.  It seems that Lindens have reacted to There.com new features announcement and announced this feature at the VW conference in LA.  So is LL chasing the "web community" world or the "virtual world" market--or are they really the same thing now?

It's all quite a big topic these days--yes, Virtual World is hot stuff. Lot of money getting dished out on many new platforms that will hit the market hard in 2009 (see our watch list here) . Makes us all the early lab rats adopters in this exciting space blah blah blah. But, actually there a few events that seems to have some energy and some interesting things going on and there is one even coming to visit us here in London! Yes, VirtualWorldNews.com (is a little hype-overload, but also has lot of good info on stuff and their weekly newspam is ok) is running an event called er...Virtual Worlds London anyway, you probably get the main idea here--it's about virtual worlds and in London. Event runs October 20-21 which is a lovely time of year here as well (some other good London deal promos here).