Second Life,what went wrong?

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Anonymous

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For those who don't know,about some years back. Second Life was believed to gonna be the future of the internet. And many companies and such were actually putting storefronts in the thing,even IBM had a presence.

But seems after a while,seems the thing has been forgotten and many companies pulled out.

I wonder what went wrong that caused it from not becoming the future of the internet.



 
Sockio

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Honestly, Second Life never really appealed to me when I was a young teen who spent most of her freetime scrolling through the internet.

I guess, what went wrong, was that technology just became too advanced that the developers just couldn't keep up. With equipment that allows people to step into a virtual reality world (Google Cardboard is just one; do an internet search on headsets that provide a virtual world experience and I guarantee that you'll be given a million or more hits), people aren't really needing to sit in front of a computer and create a fictional version of themselves in a virtual world when they have the possibility to immerse themselves into virtual reality via a headset.
 
djbaxter

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I tried it back in the day. I thought it was dumb and boring.
 
KimmiKat

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I tried it for a bit. Mostly to check out the live musicians in the thing.
 
PoetJC

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Second Life,what went wrong?

People just stopped caring?...

J.
 
H-DB

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I never heard of it until now. Why? It was probably not something my age group ever talked about. I was born in the 1950s so do the math.

Since I believe the appeal is and was a much younger crowd of people I think it has lost favor due to the current use and migration to phones rather than computers. Most younger folks live their digital lives on their smartphones these days and their desktops and laptops are secondary to what they require in their digital lives.

This might be related to why other threads on this forum have asked if forums are dying. Forums that can't be used on a smartphone will die IMO. Second Life is not smartphone friendly and I see the same issue.
 
Bigguy

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I never thought it was that big a deal really. I have never played.
 
Paul M

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I have (had) no clue what it is, I had to look it up on google.
 
Anonymous

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H-DB said:
I never heard of it until now. Why? It was probably not something my age group ever talked about. I was born in the 1950s so do the math.

Since I believe the appeal is and was a much younger crowd of people I think it has lost favor due to the current use and migration to phones rather than computers. Most younger folks live their digital lives on their smartphones these days and their desktops and laptops are secondary to what they require in their digital lives.

This might be related to why other threads on this forum have asked if forums are dying. Forums that can't be used on a smartphone will die IMO. Second Life is not smartphone friendly and I see the same issue.
Click to expand...

Yeah,seems tech moved backwards,instead of people using computers,they are using phones. I remember when phones were used only to take and receive calls and none of the internet stuff.
 
djbaxter

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I haven't heard or thought of it in years. Really, it was a boring flash in the pan. I'm not sure it even merits a thread now, to be honest.

And Anonymous, let's face it: The fact that you even remember it means you're an old fogey. The fact that you've started this thread about it and are now complaining about smartphones means you're a grumpy old fogey sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair yelling at kids to get off your lawn and shaking your cane at them. :D
 
BirdOPrey5

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The first time I Googled it to see if it was a real game was after I saw it on The Office (US Version.)



Wasn't sure if it was something they made up for the show. Turns out it wasn't.
 
Anonymous

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BirdOPrey5 said:
The first time I Googled it to see if it was a real game was after I saw it on The Office (US Version.)



Wasn't sure if it was something they made up for the show. Turns out it wasn't.
Click to expand...


Yup.

The bad part is that some sites banned discussion of the thing,like they wanted it to fail or such.
 
KimmiKat

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SL has been around for 15 years. I first heard of it from a friend who was following a live singer in the virtual world. I'm been in it a few times and believe it or not, many in SL are older, like 50 plus. Search Youtube for SL and you'll see some vids posted of the "game."
 
djbaxter

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To my great surprise, a quick Google search told me that Second Life is still alive, although not exactly thriving: Second Life - Wikipedia.

In January 2008, residents spent a total of 28,274,505 hours "inworld" and on average 38,000 residents were logged in at any moment. The maximum concurrency (number of avatars inworld) recorded is 88,200 in the first quarter of 2009[18] .... In May 2009, concurrent users averaged about 62,000.[23] As of May 2010, concurrent users averaged about 54,000.[citation needed] According to Tateru Nino of Engadget, the decline was due to new policies implemented by Linden Lab reducing the number of bots and campers.[24]

In June 2010, Linden Lab announced layoffs of 30% of its workforce.[25]

In November 2010, 21.3 million accounts were registered, although the company has not made public figures for actual long-term consistent usage.[26] However, Wagner James Au, who blogs and writes about Second Life, said in April 2013 that he had it on "good authority" that "Second Life's actual active userbase is about 600,000".[27]
Click to expand...

The other thing I learned from Wikipedia is that Cory Ondrejka, coder, co-founder, and chief technology officer for Second Life, was forced out in late 2007 and by late 2010 had found his way to Facebook, where he is probably making a lot more money. :)
 
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