/by Heidi Ballinger
UPDATE: This is getting out of control. In the news we see a priest bury SL, and the journalist say “Second Life IS dead” – they only became 5 years old).
Just when I thought the prejudice was over with Second Life, I read an article from the Danish media, DR.
They compare Second Life with FaceBook which would be like comparing milk with cola. These are two very different things.
The editor in chief from ComeOn (Jens Nielsen) says:
“Second Life is dead because it can’t be used for anything””
An interesting observation… Especially since Second Life has experienced great success lately. For example the joint project with IBM and Linden Labs called OpenSim.
And those experts who claim that Second Life is dead predict Lively as the next big thing.
Actually they didn’t contacted the biggst experts within Virtual Worlds and Second Life (makes me wonder).
I’m quite open-minded and follow most of the virtual world platforms and Second Life is simply on a much higher level to its competitors. But I guess you have to experience it first hand before writing an article like this.
Robert Bloomfield/Beyer Sellers has translated this article to English – you can read it here.
GHOST-PARTY
PowerMatch and Wonderful Denmark invite you to “GHOST-party” in Second Life at SL time 1:00 PM. Danish time 22:00.
Come as a ghost! You can win 15.000 L$ for the best ghost outfit
The media claim that Second Life is dead, because it can’t be in use for anything, and that Lively is the life after Second Life
- so we guess all the 60.000 online users are ghosts! lol
I have invited the journalist who wrote the article about “Second Life is Dead”.
Join us at this ghost-party – follow this SLURL
I don’t understand why they compare Second Life with Lively – I see Lively as a 3D-chat (like IMVU etc.)
Hvis second life skulle være død, så har jeg ikke opdaget det endnu.
Hvis lively.com skulle være bare en tilnærmelig konkurent til SL, så er det noget forfærdelig sludder for det er langt fra det samme. Sammenligningen er som at stille småbørns tegninger sammen med profecionelle maleres værker.
facebook er udmærket til at se mennesket bag figurene i SL, derfor synes jeg de passer godt sammen og er gode til de mennesker der ikke har noget at gemme sig for.
Man kan da udmærket identificere sig med den verden der er i SL, der er næsten lige så mange intriger der som i RL, så der er ingen forskel, der er også schrank paver der gerne vil bestemme hvad man må sige og gøre og sim ejerne bestemmer jo alt hvad der kan foregå på deres øer, så der har vi regeringerne, bare som enkelt personer, fordi de har penge nok til at købe og financerer en ø, så det er så som så med frihed i secondlife, det er som en kopi af den virkelige verden, med masser af mennesker der ikke vil vise deres sande ansigt.
Venlig hilsen
Valter
Når Danmarks Radio er døde laver vi en virtuel verden om dem.. :-p
http://sorenholmberg.wordpress.com/2007/10/22/nar-politiken-og-ekstra-bladet-er-doede-vil-jeg-lave-en-virtuel-verden-om-dendem/
Heidi, sounds like the writer is very ill informed and likely doesnt really understand Second Life. One would just need to look at the great advances education has taken in Second Life as an example.
Sounds like this media group is just trying to use SL’s name in a way to draw attention to it self, but without any sort of quality content.
Second Life er ikke død!
Men det tager tid at lære denne verden at kende og de mange muligheden den giver. Det største problem er at SL er en tidrøver og kan være en slem konkurrent til den reelle verden. Mange forlader SL af den grund.
Men fængslende er det – så længe man er med og mange venskaber etableres.
Jeg har nydt den tid jeg har været med.
Its the same to often- Papers have nothing to write about – there are to many lazy journalists (if they can have that title at all?) – and dont use time to investigate facts..
We have same type of ”journalism” in Sweden.. and I see it often in other countries as well… sadly most people belive a printed word… a scentense.. that are printed or at television..
Second life are not dead.. and if you travel other ”worlds” you vill find that Second Life are the most alive one… but most people cant take care of themself… and seek the ordinary chasing of levels..
In Second Life you and ONLY YOU must do things – you dont get feeded by the software..
/Tina – Swede in Second Life for over 3.5 years… http://tinasuniversum.blogspot.com/
I have just send a mail to the journalist with a long list of activities, that is conducted everyday in Second Life.
I have also suggested the journalist to contact some real SL experts (ie. people that actually uses SL) if he ever feels like writing about SL again.
Btw: For those of you who don´t understand danish, the text in the article below the screenshot from Google Lively reads:
“This is what life after Second Life looks like. It´s called Google Lively”.
Sic!
Doctor Asp
Manager
Wonderful Denmark
http://doctorasp.wordpress.com
Det tager åbenbart ikke det helt store at blive journalist hos DR. At de så tilmed quoter ComeOn (Stavet forkert og IT’s svar på Se og Hør) er da helt til grin.
Jeg kan specielt godt lide de her to linjer:
“Altså, man kunne jo flyve rundt og så videre, men i hvor lang tid er dét sjovt? Det er for tegneserie-agtigt”
“Sådan ser livet efter Second Life ud. Det hedder Google Lively”.
Det er næsten til at græde over at jeg gennem min licens betaler manden for at skrive den slags plader journalistik.
I have just invited the journalist to a “GHOST-party” in Second Life tonight. I’ll create a ghost-outfit to you all, lol
Because, if Second Life is dead, what does it makes us, and the other 60.000 users who are online right now?
Let’s meet in Second Life tonight – I’ll inform you about time and place.
Hello. Just read ur article with interest. SL is not dead. Its very much active, and I, for one………thinks that the SL programme has everything for everyone. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been here for 4 years. So I really dont know where u recieved ur information. I guess its a publicity stunt, using the SL name to get attention to this new venture. I know I wont be using the new venture, as I am perfectly happy where I am. Thanks. Love Till
Join us for this Ghost-Party in Second Life today:
http://heidiballinger.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/ghost-party-in-second-life-today-at-100-pm-slt/
I’ll bet that journalist is regretting to have written this with every SL’er jumping on him/her.
Today’s traditional media is becoming more shallow then ever before, they’re seeking headline after headline,creating hypes when there is non and wonder why their subscriptions fail.
If ‘professionals’ want to write stories about a subject, they have the obligation to investigate their subject and they’d found out that SecondLife is booming, it’s just rather big so not every sim’s that crowded (fortunately).
But if (s)he’s content with a Lively room, i wish him/her all the best in their closed room with their prefab avatar, prefab furniture, google video’s and their Coca cola sponsored virtual drink
J.
There is simply no comparison between Lively and SecondLife/OpenSim. Perhaps down the road Lively will attempt to close the gap but for now we have zero interest in Lively as it is on the level of “virtual world lite” apps which are glorified chatrooms. Development firm G2 http://www.siliconreef.net and http://www.reactiongrid.com is firmly committed to Second Life development and OpenSim development http://www.opensimulator.org .
G2 Proto
Reading the article from DR got me confused and made me wonder if the journalist has done any research on the topic at all. I consider the article as very close to misinformation.
Second Life can hardly be seen as dead. In the latest reports (see reference 1) the usage is the largest ever, although premium accounts don’t seem to increase. These are the numeric facts.
I think most institutions and companies have ignored or not been aware of the possibilities in Second Life. They write in the article that institutions that came into Second Life didn’t have anything to offer. I don’t see this as a failure of Second Life itself, but the institutions in question.
One institution they mention is the Danish national gallery who apparently didn’t have anything to offer. With regard to art, many artists (including established artists) do have plenty to offer, one example is Adam Ramona’s (reference 2).
In the article they also mention a project idea by Jørn Utzon. The idea was to build a museum with “floating” paintings by Asger Jorn for visitors to walk among. This kind of project would be reasonable easy to realise in Second Life. But, a bit cryptically, they write it is a Second Life problem.
To get back to why I got confused then I read the article by DR. It is so much in contrast to what is happening with and in Second Life.
Another side of it is that Second Life is not a regular game. It has no goal as such. The person who enters Second Life decides what the goal should be.
1) http://secondlife.reuters.com/
2) http://yamanakanash.net/projects.html
p.s. Just relised, I am very late with my comment. Wonder if it’s old news already
I posted this on Metanomics, along with an english-language translation, from Google. What does it mean to say “and chefredaktøren continues”?
http://www.metanomics.net/11-jul-2008/second-life-dead
Thank you very much Robert!
That means: “And the The editor in chief continues his speak”
– something like that.
Fandt lige den her: http://www.business.dk/article/20070627/medier/70627041/
Et år siden at business.dk mente at second life var dødt. Dengang udkårede de blandt andet active worlds og there.com som arvetagere.
Siden da, er peak users steget med over 30%
Does that journalist have a avatar? Does he know what SL is? I think not…
Dengang i 2007 hvor SL efter min opfattelse var hypet allermest, var der ca. 35- 40.000 brugere logget ind ad gangen.
På samme tid, hvor jeg læste DR´s “nekrolog” var der knapt 48.000 logget på.
Måske har det skuffet flere, at gambling blev forbudt, og udsigten til lynhurtig profit blev væsentligt indskrænket, givetvis også for SKAT. Hvis man kunne skrive en nekrolog i denne sammenhæng, kan det kun være over Jes Højen Nielsen´s troværdighed som IT-journalist.
It is interesting, that various media keep writing the death certificate of SL over and over again. It may very well happen, and Second Life could surely die, but I doubt that its is relevant to arrange the burial right now. And it seems, that not everyone would be attending the wake – IBM for instance is at the moment working with Linden Lab in order to try to establish standards for teleporting (http://www.computerworld.dk/art/46971?a=fp_3&i=4)
There are still a lot of fields within 3D-communities that needs to be investigated – immersive learning and e-learning in general being some of them. And Second Life is still the best place to do it. ActiveWorlds and There both seem to have other goals, and/or fewer possibilites for the individual avatars.
Lately I have also been wondering, if the persistent rumour about the death of SL could derive from a “digital generation gap”? Only a few days ago, the Danish it-newspaper Computerworld mentioned, that avatar no. 100 mio. was born to the preferred virtual community of teens, Habbo Hotel (http://www.computerworld.dk/art/46831?cid=4&q=habbo&sm=search&a=cid&i=4&o=0&pos=1).
What happens when the Habbo-generations grow older? It is not unlikely, that they will percieve 3-D communities in a different way than the “older generations” who are using SL now. To them, it may be as natural to use and further develop such communities, as it is to us to use the web itself.
Hvad kan jeg næsten sige…
Hvis jeg er et spøgelse, så vil jeg aldrig være i live igen.. Livet efter døden styrer!
Men det er jo ikke første gang af vi har besøg af journalister. At de ikke føler det er nødvendigt at undersøge tingene til bunds, tale med brugerne af SL og tilsyneladende kommer med en forudfattet mening… ja det er jo meget meget trist:(
You are embarassingly uninformed.
Second life er da ikke død,han må da ha været de forkerte steder…Haaaaaa
) *GG*
der er da altid mange på SL..
Så det forstår jeg da ikke han skriver
Hvordan kan SL være dødt- når antallet af brugere er stigende ???
( I denne skrivende stund er der logget 58.774 ind )
Og ja- der har jo før været besøg af journalister, som åbenbart ikke kontakter os, der har forstået/formået at nyde og fornøje os med denne meget kreative virtuelle verden – hvor mon denne journalist har befundet sig ?
Hmm….
Hvis han har befundet sig et sted lignende “Skat”- så er det da
( ligesom i RL ) et DØD-sygt sted at befinde sig *hehe*
Mon sagen ikke er den, at mange virksomheder ikke forstår at udnytte de virtuelle muligheder, der findes, så VI BRUGERE synes, at de har noget interesant at byde på ?
At f.eks en “institution” som Statens Museum for Kunst ikke engang formår at forny sig i en CyberVerden med så mange muliger for at præsentere deres kunst på en ny måde- det er da direkte mangel på kreativitet !!!!!
Vi kommer jo nok ikke alle i SL, for at det skal ligne RL som snydt uf af næsen, vel ?
For så kunne vi jo lige så godt lade være være med at logge ind….og bare forblive ude i RL !!!!
Og deuden er SL et perfekt sted at skabe sig gode venner og et godt nætværk.
*I WILL KEEP LOGGING IN *
[...] to the 2 other post about this news Pictures from the ghost party Second Life is dead Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Second Life is dead… the headline in Danish [...]
we ran some analysis on the latest SL data here http://rezzable.com/blog/rightasrain-rimbaud/looking-linden-sl-data-and-trying-be-excited-about-sl5b
SL is far from dead…but a lot of serious challenges ahead, especially in the hotter, more competitive market– http://rezzable.com/poll/which-virtual-world-platforms-will-have-most-active-users-over-18yrs-old-june-2009#comments for some voting and comment about the future
Hi Rightasrain
Thank you very much for these analysis!
looool I read this on the avastar, and also here. This people on this paper really don’t know what they are talking about. Compare a chat room pre build to a second life that residents create their content and they world??? No comparison…
I’ve just saw huge lies and wondering what kind of weed they smoke, really good, they get high and so much that they say crap.
omg never saw so much ignorance.
Pour guys…… bad journalist they are, really the worst.
Hello Naima
The scary thing is, that “DR” is Denmarks only fully licence-funded radio-and TV-station (the one media you normally take very seriously)… They normally makes good news-coverage.
But this nonsens are spoiling our business in Denmark.
Unfortunately I can already tell about several Danish companies in Second Life withdraw their projects this week.
I still think it’s illegal to bring an obituary like this, and right now I’m looking forward to hear the result from the Press appeals committee.
And, what a great blog you have
Awesome initiative!!