I was listening to the Daily Source Code the other day for the first time in a while, and apparently Adam has gotten the Second Life bug. Which reminded me that I haven’t been on Second Life in a while myself (FYI – my username is Mike Faulkland; if you happen to see me, feel free to say hi). So I logged in to poke around, see what’s new. But the main difference I noticed since logging in several months ago is that the new client doesn’t work properly on my computer, and lags a lot.
I really like the idea of Second Life..or rather, I like the metaverse concept in Snow Crash, but Second Life is just not realizing its potential. At all!
Second Life is a virtual meeting place. Basically a graphical chat room. But I don’t find that the graphics add much at all to the experience. From what I’ve seen they do very little to enrich the conversation. Mostly it’s corny hacks of cartoonish 3D objects, and online “gambling” executed in a particularly unsuccessful way.
Yet the potential is so much greater. I was chatting with someone on SL last night who was saying they happened to be online becuase they needed to get a SL guitar for their upcoming SL showcase. Oh? What’s a SL guitar I wondered? Perhaps some kind of interface to a midi guitar plugged into your computer? No, in fact all they wanted was an animation for their avatar to use while streaming the pre-recorded audio. Lame.
There are so many companies out there who are horribly served by web sites as their Internet presence. Clothing companies. Car companies. The list goes on. Second Life is potentially a much richer and more satisfying place for these organizations to hang their ‘net shingle.
Why don’t car companies have Second Life dealerships where you can build your dream car, as you can on any manufacturer’s web site, but then take it for a test drive? See how it feels from the inside. How it handles. How it accelerates. Etc.
Or why not have anatomically correct avatars, so that when I walk into a Jos A Bank Second Life store I can really try on the clothing to see how it fits?
But no. That’s not what Second Life is. Instead it’s just a collection of Alice in Wonderland animations, and cheesy animated gogo dancers. What a waste.
Tags: Second Life