Usc Faculty Seminar 2.12.08

Faculty Seminar on Virtual Worlds Episode 2 - Second Life - 2/12/08 cory ondrejka - cory.ondrejka@gmail.com

a quick review

online versus virtual community versus world

millions of reasons Online Game Online Communities Online Worlds crapload many lots a few

some rules of thumb for world-wide numbers: Virtual worlds: 20 million MMOs: 50 million Social networks: 100 million (with lots of overlap)

gold in dem darn (virtual) hills

amateur versus expert

don’t make me use the baby seal slide again

(because I will)

participation Web Wikipedia Sims Open Source Mainstream Media Second Life 65.00 48.75 32.50 16.25 0

any questions lurking?

it’s story time!

the second life story

good thing we’re in la

8 years so far

which isn’t that long

as mitch likes to point out

(who’s been through this)

think about the pc

think about the pc 1976

think about the pc 1976 1990

15 years

so we’re only half way

(maybe 2/3)

but, like all exponentials...

but, like all exponentials... vaguely interesting

but, like all exponentials... very interesting vaguely interesting

plus, sl gives plenty of material

second life’s growth Population Money

2000

compression 2000

compression 2000 grid computing

compression 2000 grid cellular computing automata

“the rig” compression 2000 grid cellular computing automata

“the forest”

2000 scorecard: no users no exchange 5 employees

2000 scorecard: no users people signed up no exchange users trading L$ and US$ Linden Lab employees 5 employees

2001

building 2001

building 2001 avatars

second life was about people

even the most beautiful place

was not as interesting as people

scripting, too

2001 scorecard: no users no exchange 10 employees

2002

2002 was a very good year

2002 was about people!

2002 was about people! Alpha!

and people meant...

creation community collaboration

virtually no screen shots from this era

2002 scorecard: 145(!) users no exchange 20 employees

2003

remember 2002?

2003 had more people

however, since communities are not scale free...

creation community collaboration often drove...

cheating combat boundaries

do good fences make good neighbors?

the jessie wall

this story only survives because of james au

embedded in a virtual world

how to preserve the ephemeral?

Second Life launched on June 23, 2003

June 23rd is now a holiday in Second Life

Second Life launched with less than 400 users

and didn’t grow much

evolve or else

we asked for help

“it’s stupid to ask people to build a world and to not let them own it!”

oops

so we studied

macro economics so we studied

macro economics creative destruction so we studied

macro economics creative destruction so we studied “mystery of capital”

and evolved both the intellectual property approach and the business model

intellectual property

intellectual property Yochai says “$#@%?@!!”

business model

enables two broad lines of study

ip rules in the information economy

entrepreneurship in the information economy

2003 scorecard: 2743 users no exchange 25 employees

2004

entrepreneurship

branding

breaking the magic circle

really breaking

2004 was about the individual using second life

2004 scorecard: 18,876 users $5,000/mo exchange 40 employees

2005

three things happened in 2005

Second Life became free

as in beer

educators discovered SL

in a big way

particularly via GLS and Serious Games

and sl started growing

businesses followed the people

but just a little

though virtually no real-world brands (yet)

government

and music

tringo

broadcasting identity

2005 was a year of building

2005 scorecard: 123,438 users $500,000/mo exchange 60 employees

2006

the knee in the curve

the year of “ﬁrsts”

auto company

hotel chain

clothing company

concert

cc concert

fashion magazines

news organization

harvard class

millionaire

where did this all come from?

despite popular perception it was NOT the Linden uber marketing machine

I wish we had that much power

distributed entrepreneurs

plus everyone else

gladwell would be proud

gartner, too 2006

2006 scorecard: 3,000,000 users $5,000,000/mo exchange 100 employees

and then things got exciting

2007

freedom!

(as in speech)

second life client open sourced

big business arrived

these guys got acquired/funded

csi:ny

fortune 500 bingo

mix of training, marketing, collaboration

lots of questions: efﬁcacy of training? impact of trust? brands and community

and how does voice mix in?

over the top

made more complicated by the rest of the world arriving

and by increasing regulatory interest

gambling adult activities banking

all of cyberlaw’s shortcomings

plus the metaphor

and lack of standards

what does user mean?

2007 scorecard: 11,000,000 users $8,000,000/mo exchange 220 employees

2008

rebounding

hundred of sl developers employing thousands of people from all over the world

sl growth increasing again

5% weekly concurrency growth

emmy-tastic

so, what’s next?

Second Life’s progression has been

community collaboration identity education entrepreneurship marketing business media

innovation

so I’d like to propose diving deeper into:

innovation behavior (with Dmitri’s help) education legal and regulatory issues the big unanswered questions

stop talking now

cory.ondrejka@gmail.com http://ondrejka.net

Usc Faculty Seminar 2.12.08

0 comments

Notes on slide 1

8 Favorites