People have been digging Second Life’s grave for so long they must be to China or at least really deep. They will have to keep on digging since they still have no corpse.
This is yet another article that again asks the question Is SL A Dying Fad?
I don’t think so. We had the fad and I had to go for a bit. Everyone thinking they can make bank creates less a social feel and more of a “what can I sell them” feel. Now you have a lot more of the group thing and people can still do their thing if they want to hustle some Ls.
One point the article does make that I’ve heard before and makes since is Linden could give a rat’s ass about those of us who bother with a premium account paying both a membership fee and tier. The real money it says is in the islands, servers, etc. I can see that but I have to wonder how much is chosen.
While I would never advocate a WOW membership model where you require a fee (that would kill SL), I would like to see them get enough premium accounts that it can be worth their effort. To do that however, they need to make premium more premium. Having someone pay for the privilege to pay you tier is pretty damn big balled. That is why so many rent. How about setting aside some locations, abilities, or even something symbolic like titles or enhanced profiles that make people want to go premium?
While you are at it, customer support that was once a great premium perk has seen better days. Tickets used to move in one day and it’s often closer to three now with no reply.
People can hate them all they want, but the mass of people who are new that don’t stay is too large a money leak. Engage them, show them how to build things, how to have fun, etc – make them stay and spend all their noob riches.
Oh yeah. For the love of FSM, quit chasing the edu crowd. If anyone will go OpenSim, it’s them. They have Unix servers siting around and the open source hate of you. The individuals on the other hand want what you have and OpenSim lacks such as a common currency, a huge army of merchandise, XStreet, and no matter how you deny it – the nasty. Maybe your figure of 15% is on target for dealers, but if you add in consumers….. Not sure on the business crowd. Part of me thinks people in business want to have meetings where their secretary’s tits are many times larger.
Update: The article after this would suggest “no” as well.
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