SL Census

The Earth has 150, 000, 000, 000, 000 m^2 of land. That is a lot of land.

Let's check out SL. According to this graph from the lovely Second Life Economics site:

From my guesstimations, that's about 800, 000, 000 m^2 of land in Second Life. Maybe more, by now. This is just land owned by residents. It might be even more. But on with some math!

Second Life, if it were a planet, would only have 0.000533 % of the land Earth does. For every square meter of land in Second Life, Earth has about 200,000 square meters.

The City of New York has 1, 214, 400, 000 m^2 of land. Second Life makes up about 65.9% of New York. New York has 8,000,000 concurrency. Second Life on its good days gets 50,000 concurrency. Manhattan has 59, 470, 000 square meters. You could fit thirteen and one half islands of Manhattan into Second Life.

Philadelphia has 369, 400, 000 square meters of land. You could fit two entire Philadelphia's into Second Life, with enough room for another fifth of the city. Both Philadelphia and Manhattan have 1, 500, 000 residents, give or take. Second Life has maybe 1,000,000 active residents, with 40,000 online at any given time.

Second Life has a population density of 0.00125 people per square meter. That's 1,250 people per square kilometer. Compare to Philadelphia's (4,201.8 per square kilometer) and Manhattan's (25,846).

What have I learned from these meaningless numbers? One, that Second Life is large on the scale of cities, but not nations or planets. We have enough to maybe cram together a Dallas or a Phoenix. Second, Second Life, while being large, has the population and density of a small city.

While unimpressive on a national scale, SL would be very noticeable on a city-level.

Look Ma, No Hands!

Metavered discusses using campers as a 'positive force'. And my first reaction is, that campers already are used to liven up an area and create a more scenic build. Having a camper 'mop' a floor, for instance, in a 50's diner build.

Then, as if by telepathy, dandellion Kimban comments in the same vein:

"We saw animated campers long ago. They wipe the windows, clean the floors, dig gardens.... what is new about this?"

And of course, the typical dopey reply given is that Kelly services is using campers as actors rather than just window dressing.

But the thing is, that I can't see what Kelly is doing is any better than window dressing. They have a bunch of scenes, a group performing a surgery etc., but in the end, it's just really fancy camping chairs.

Listen, I admire Kelly's heart. It's interesting to watch avatars camp in ways other than cleaning the floors or window washing. But they say it will help campers interact... no, I'm sorry. Campers don't play SL like you and I. They sit in the pose ball and then they leave to watch TV or whatever else they do. A camper gets nothing out of what their avatar is doing. All that matters is the pay out rate for the camping chair. It's a hands off attitude.

And I can't imagine coming and watching avatars camp, even if the scenes are interesting or amusing, would be a big draw. As I said, it is really nothing more than taking the traditional camping animation to the next level, but it's nothing earth shaking or eye opening. I don't think that it will educate SLifers or raise any kind of awareness any more than free pamphlets advertising for charity causes any increase in donations in real life.

And I disagree with some of the commenters who suggest it will liven up sims. It won't. It will add to the creepy factor, and I suppose that will be a big draw with horror fans, but watching lifeless and non-interacting avatars going through the motions over and over again...

Hands never on the keyboard...

CSI : SL

Yesterday was the BIG DAY. The CSI:NY episode showcasing Second Life! Floods and hordes of new people eager to enter the the wonderful world of SL! I think they were expecting something along the lines of 50,000+ concurrency, with millions of new users overall.

They even made a special viewer and special sims for them too! I think the last official count was 416, but some have claimed as many as 450. They were decked out in a Walt Disney version of Brooklyn/Manhattan, with large obnoxious games to 'play'. The call was put out for all mentors to man the stations, prepare for the golden hordes bursting through the gates!

These sims were supposed to showcase and adequately train a whole army of newbies to SL as well as please their CSI loving hearts.


Only it didn't turn out that way. I'm only one person, but even during about an hour and a half during the show's airtime, I didn't notice a whole lot of new people coming through. In fact, most of the CSI sims seemed pretty.... deadish. There were lots of volunteers and mentors and the occasional SLer coming-to-check-out-the-new-thing-on-the-block, but only about five actual new people in that hour and a half.

Maybe people just didn't feel the urge to check out SL even after watching it on TV. My bet is that most probably thought it was created specifically for CSI, or that it's imaginary. Or maybe they just didn't feel the urge.

I was disappointed. Where was everyone? I just couldn't accept the fact that hardly more than a few hundred of the millions of CSI viewers decided to check out Second Life.


Then I went to Orientation Station. It was packed! People were literally coming in on top of each other's heads!

The pictures cannot do it justice. They were taken far after the initial tsunami had passed through. We (the mentors) ended up forming tour groups to orient people and keep the training process somewhat organized.

I think this goes to prove a point. People don't want to be condescended to. The CBS website portal, the 'special' CSI viewer, the goofy CSI sims... people didn't want to camp around the show. They wanted to explore what they saw in the show. They saw the gladiators and furries and what not, and they wanted to get into the Second Life proper, not some goofy CSI knock off.

Look at it this way: If I ran a commercial for jetskis during a SL presentation, you wouldn't run to my jetski store expecting me to sell SL memorabilia or SL lectures. You'd come expecting jetskis. On the same note, the CSI trippers weren't coming for CSI, they were coming to see SL. Why go through the CBS junk when you can have the official SL viewer? It's like the age old debate between generic and brand name!

For their part, the mentors at Orientation station performed admirably. They let the newbies proceed along at their own pace, didn't force anything on anyone. The ones at CSI... well, I guess I could criticize them for goofing around and messing with their pals, but when there's no one coming through, I can't really blame them.

Like gas station attendants in the middle of Arizona.

I Guess I Am Too Stupid To Understand Journalism

As a follow up to yesterday's post on the Herald and its descent into catalog for SL business, I will reproduce (entirely without permission) some comments from one of the ads posted.

"I see that Tenshi’s new career change (the 10th in nine months) as the SLH Advertising Manager started with the most appropriate manner. With a titanic flop of titanic proportions!

Tenshi dear, before you post you had to decide if this is a news piece or an advertisement. If it is the former, don’t tell us who to contact for rental details, thus turning the news piece to a blatant advertisement. If it’s the latter, I guess you know how to present it… or are we asking too much?

Of course, there is always time for you to go back reporting fake fashion stories. Or even better, stick to your college classes!" - Maki Kaourismaki

"Maki: Contact Morphius Barbosa. Or are you too stupid to read instead of running your mouth?" - Tenshi Vielle

Was Maki perhaps a bit harsh? Certainly. However, she brings up a relevant point: News should be news, and it shouldn't devolve into advertising. Throw ads into the banners on the side where they belong. You don't pick up the New York Times and see the headline as "MASSIVE PRICE CUT AT MACY'S. HURRY AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUR LOW LOW PRICES!!"

And frankly, Tenshi could have handled herself better. I love how instead of politely refuting Maki, she's met with yet another ad (contact Morphius Barbosa! Of course! That solves everything!), and a snarky comment that doesn't deal with the matter at hand.

Also, two days later, and the Herald has added two articles, one news piece on the impending CSI wave, and one ad flogging the Herald's new book. Penned by the writers of the Herald no less.

Before anyone accuse me of misunderstanding the Herald, here is an excerpt from its mission statement:

"to observe, record and study "the legal, social, and economic implications" of life in the virtual world"

"to take a good, close, often snarky look at the online worlds that are becoming a more and more important part of everyone's offline lives"

Gee, I guess I'm wrong! Somehow, running ads as news is studying life in the virtual world! Nunchuck, I'm an idiot! (That is sarcasm)

Paid For By Tsiolkovsky Industrial Designs, Inc.

There's something wrong over at the Herald, in my opinion. There has been three entire articles devoted to advertising. Two with actual ads, and the most recent being one detailing the exact cost of running an ad article.

I understand that it is costly running a blog and that it isn't a charity. But couldn't we hold it to banner ads, please?

One of the reasons I used to somewhat enjoy reading the Herald is the information content it used to provide. I used to always go there and KNOW what was happening. Sure, some articles would be Prok flying off the handle, but at least Prok managed to keep his articles relevant and left the insane rantings on his personal site. On the whole, it seemed like an actual newspaper.

The articles were more interesting than dryer reads at the Insider and less oblivious to reality than New World Notes (home of the infamous 'only 5% of SL is about sex'. HA). It's also free and has no subscription, and doesn't require me to log into SL or download bulky PDFs. Like the Avastar. Back copies are free, but usually out of date. Plus, I read the 'interview' with Marc Bragg, which made me vomit. Bragg paints himself to be a saint wrongfully deprived of his SL property. Yeah, and I'm sure Genghis Khan was just road tripping his way across Europe and Asia.

The interview was so powderpuff, so sugar coated. There were additional columns on the 'ethics' of the matter. What ethics? Bragg turned around and used an exploit to essentially steal land. Where is the debate? Am I missing something here? Anyways, the interview was so sterilized I could hear Bragg's laughs in my house. Honestly. He lies directly to their faces about what he did and the morals and ethics behind his actions, and the reporter just swallows it all, never deviating from the script it seems. When asked if he thought his actions were morally wrong, he says no. I'd follow up with "Okay, since griefing isn't stealing, murder, or lying does that make it okay for me to lag up your sim with lulz cubes and ninja turtles?" among other things.

If I had a chance to interview anyone, not just Bragg but really anyone, I'd make sure to make the interviewee uncomfortable. Because we don't the crap you've been spouting all along. We've all heard the same old, same old. We want the details, the things you're trying to hide. I'm interviewing you because there are open questions that are difficult to answer and I want answers. I don't believe this is an interview. I believe this is more like a free Bragg advertisement. He comes, does a few speeches, and suddenly we're all supposed to think 'that horrid horrid Linden Labs'. Not that I think LL is blameless, but doesn't anyone think we should just take a closer look at Bragg before we all embrace him as the next coming of Christ?

So, in a nutshell, that's why I hate the Avastar. Back on topic.

I used to read the Herald because of what it offered that the aforementioned others did not. It had interviews that, while not as harsh as I might have liked, weren't the candy coated cellulite that others tried to pass off on us. In short, it had news.

And then we get to today.

From the current (as of Oct 23 2007, at 6 pm) front page, we have from bottom to top:

-a 'sports' post on an avatar whose user died

-a poem

-an ad for Octoberville

-Post 6

-Jimbo's 'Presidential' campaign

-News that Light Waves is Starax

-News that Orientation Islands are inescapable

-Jimbo discovers the inflatable breast fetish

-Editorial on fanatic fans and free stuff that will likely be slapped with a lawsuit

-Ad for a charity

-Editorial on SL drama

-Blatant Ad

-Post 6

-News on Ginko

-Stupid Comment Awards (in more ways than one)

-Complaint that the writer can't use the survey provided

-Blatant ad

-Blatant ad

-Ad for selling Blatant ads.

Let's total. Of the past 19 posts from October 10th to October 22nd, we have:

Five ads.
One ad for a charity.
Two Post 6 porn articles.
One poem.
Three entertainment 'Jimbo' type articles.
Three editorials.
One personal post (for sports?)
And three actual news articles.

3/19 is 15.79%. Over the last twelve days, almost two weeks, only sixteen percent of the articles have been on actual news. I'll be generous: Let's assume maybe this week is an anomaly, and the actual figure is twice that. In which case, only 32% of the content is actual news. The rest is editorials, post 6 'interviews' (arrrggggh, makes my teeth stand on edge), a bunch of ads, and Jimbo.

The Second Life Herald just doesn't attempt to report or investigate anymore, it seems. Was it really that large of an expose that Light Waves is Starax? Wasn't that already revealed, I dunno, a few months earlier? And known even before that, to his close friends and sponsors? Using that example, I can 'report' on my blog here that CSI is coming to SL and that Plastic Duck has been banned and SL Version 1.05 was released... years ago! Breaking News!

I think the most telling statistic is the times I have checked the Herald. A few months ago, it used to be the first SL blog I turned to. Now, I usually read the Official SL blog and after that log in and talk to friends and people inworld. I usually check the Herald nowadays every few weeks or so. It's just not worth my time anymore, the gems are becoming increasingly rare. Jimbo isn't that funny to keep me coming back. The Editorials are increasingly on inane things (LOL FAN FICTION IN SL? I NEVER KNEW!) and less on anything relevant or edgy today. Ads are for sale for an entire article!

Let's do a thought experiment: what would you think if Action News offered to sell ads within their own show? Not just commercials, something along the lines of "Today, a fire broke out at Market and Broad; but you can still buy Sony Blu-ray players for low low prices at Walmart!". Chances are, you'd get angry, you'd feel your news was compromised by commercialization. Ads have their time and their place. Front page news isn't their place.

When I Hear The Word 'Culture' I Reach For The Revolver

We are going to come to a massive cultural conflict in Second Life, one that has been brewing for quite some time now, and only recently has it come this close to the surface.


For on October 24, 2007, Second Life will witness an (expected and not yet realized) mass immigration of people who are in it for sightseeing. Tourists. Weekenders. Why? CSI is going to air an episode in which SL plays a pivotal role, and SL and the Electric Sheep Company are teaming up to tie it into an actual SL experience, even making a client that will cater to someone who doesn't want to deal with the daunting and intimidating SL interface.

Now, for the culture clash: It will between those coming in viewing SL as just a game and those who've been in SL for some time who see it as something more. And the former will win.

The simple problem is that community building in SL is a pain in the ass. Almost everyone I have met thinks their neighbors are assholes. It is a draining experience to deal with people who think they have a royal right to lord their will over entire sims or people who bombard you with nasty IMs asking that "you remove this penguin because I HATE PENGUINS" and when you take more than seven seconds to find it you're dealt a line of insults that would make a hardened sailor blush.

The problem in so many words is that everyone thinks everyone else is dead wrong, and due to this SL is inherently scattered into millions of fractured groups, each of which thinks it is divinely right and everyone else is destined to hell.

To be sure, there are a few communities, towns, and groups. But most of these tend to either be small, friend-centric, or a rental / role play community where a land lord or sim host dictates the behavior. In short, to be successful on a large scale in SL you need to have an overlord to enforce the rules and that everyone can equally hate.

For the most part, the only unified SL culture is one that is impressed upon SL from the Lindens and that which we draw from SL related blogs. The Lindens are the ultimate fall guys in SL culture, because as I mentioned above SL is really only in agreement when there is an overlord for everyone to hate. And dear Nunchuck, when you own the game itself, do you attract a large amount of disdain.

I won't go too far into this. Here is my point: If someone who is brand spanking new enters SL encounters this attitude (and they most certainly will), and upon seeing so much anger and drama generated in a virtual world, what will they think?

Will they join in the riots? Real life is full of enough drama. A good friend of mine once wrote that she came to SL to relax from stress, not engage in it. And lo and behold, guess which direction they will take.

It will be far easier for them to poke fun at SL, to laugh at the silly nerds taking a game so seriously. It will be a coping mechanism for them, because of the intense stress they witness from people they will likely never ever meet. They will see no point in engaging in SL in any capacity beyond a spectacle or a zoo. Look at the silly monkeys! Typing and arguing as if anything they do makes a difference! LOL!

No, it's much easier to disengage.

And over the past year, this disengagement has spread as more people make free accounts and get turned off by the unnecessary drama and debate and obsessions they see in SL. And the network effect is beginning to come into play as well.

The network effect is simple, and states that whatever is popular will continue to become increasingly popular, and whatever is marginal will stay in the margins. Everyone uses Windows because everyone uses windows. Everyone has a cell phone because everyone has a cell phone. It sounds like a circular argument, but it's an actual observed effect.

We have just seen it is much easier (and increasingly common) to treat SL as a silly game full of freaks. Old hands in SL wish for the opposite to occur, that people see SL as the next world. But network effect dictates that the former opinion will dominate and continue to, while the diehards become marginalized and ignored.

This is the cultural shift we will see. We have people who take Second Life as serious as night competing and conflicting with those who see it as Online Barbie dolls.

In order for the native SL culture to 'win', it needs to be attractive or addicting. Unfortunately, it's neither. It's annoying, stress inducing, and usually full of drama and ulcers. And it's really not much of a culture at all. It's more a hierarchy of 'who do I hate more than the others'. When I hear people talk about SL's culture, I groan and usually leave the discussion. It's nonexistent as an entity as culture is commonly defined in real life.

Whatever 'culture' SL may have had is disintegrating around us. Real life big business is moving in and attempting to press real life rules and views on us. The masses come in, become disgusted or amused by what they see and leave.

The best corollary I can think of is the Spartans in ancient Greece. They really didn't have much of a culture at all, it was all based heavily on might and military. This was all well and good, but as others increasingly encroached upon Sparta, they were reduced to a sideshow. The more democratic Athenian attitude held more gravity with the newer developing cultures like Rome, and Sparta's culture became a freak show.

SL is Sparta. Our culture is only tenuously defined, and exists but for the fact that the Lindens polarize it into being. Network effect is working against those supporters of SL-Next World, and working with those of the SL-stupid-video-game crowd.

So what will happen? Undeniably, with the way things are proceeding, SL will devolve into stupid video game. The immigrants, and those sending them our way, hold the belief that SL is a game and nothing more. The current cultural adherents are disorganized, and in accordance with their culture will never unify long enough or in enough time to reverse the tide. It's an uphill battle, and one that the natives will lose. The force in the other direction is just too great, and building every day.

I do believe that before the end, we will witness some spectacular fireworks. We may see measures and policies forced on the populace by the Lindens in an attempt to calm the very vocal and angry SL mob, perhaps stricter community standards (HA!) or an actual SL police force (unlike the role play ones that run about today). We'll get discrimination against day trippers as lesser beings in SL, even though they may pay more for land (not unheard of, there are large tracts of abandoned land from those who played for a month and left). It'll get very interesting, in this coming year.

And I fully believe it will be decided within the next year. In the next year, SL will be cemented in one direction or the other. Anyone wishing to change SL to their liking will have as long and probably less to do so.

Personally, I could care less either way. I suppose that puts me in a grey area, where I want SL to be something besides a video game, but I don't think we should take it to the point of missing the original (entertainment) point of it.

However, I certainly do derive entertainment from watching things like this.

No Worries

There has been a dramatic decrease in the number of posts on this blog.

In the unlikely event anyone was worried, this is due to real life, and nothing bad. I like posting this blog, but if I don't divert 100% of my attention to my work, then my life is going to get extremely unpleasant and even less likely to allocate time for SL.

But the good news is that very soon I may be able to pick up the pace.

So no worries at all.