Social Media and
Virtual Worlds

A Few Questions
Is Second Life a Social Media, or Merely Sociable?
How do you integrate Second Life with social
media?
Does Second Life help to “ground” social media for
the enterprise?
Do virtual worlds need to be more proactive in
defining metrics?

Is Second Life Social Media, or
Merely Sociable?
Social media is media designed to be disseminated through
social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable
publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need
for social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast
media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues
(many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge
and information, transforming people from content consumers
into content producers.
- Wikipedia

Is Second Life Social Media, or
Merely Sociable?
Social media is media designed to be disseminated through
social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable
publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need
for social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast
media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues
(many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge
and information, transforming people from content consumers
into content producers.
- Wikipedia

We’re Only Part Way There
Social media is media designed to be disseminated through
social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable
publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need
for social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast
media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues
(many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge
and information, transforming people from content consumers
into content producers.
- Wikipedia

Why
Many-to-many is reserved for the Lab (MOTD, main
blog, etc.)
Many-to-many is facilitated by group chat and
messages (how’s it working for you lately?)
Second Life - um, highly accessible? First hour,
viewer, social functions
Keep track of your social networks through your
friends list - again, how’s that working for you?

So.....
We use brilliant hacks. But hey, that’s what
SL was built on right?

All is Not Lost
“MySL” Home Page
New Viewer
Groups - We’re Working on It!
Premium Accounts?

Discussion
Features of SL that ARE social media
What do we need?

How do you integrate SL with
social media?
We blog
We tweet
We plurk
We meet here in RL

Discussion
What social media tools integrate with SL?
Tips?

“Grounding” Social Media in SL
Social media is ephemeral
“Loose connections”
Virtual worlds offer a way to ‘ground’ communities
- A sense of place
- Persistent
- A sense of presence

Social Media “In” Not Just Social
Media “Around”
• Integrated Web/Social Media/In-World streams
(e.g. Twitter integration)
• Desktop sharing
• Cross-platform messaging and promotion

The Challenge of Measurement
Social Media Ad Metrics
Definitions
Released May 2009

IAB Social Media Metrics
(Blogging)
• Conversion size (Conversation relevant sites,
links, reach)
• Site relevance (Conversation density)
• Author credibility (Post relevance, links, earliest
post date, latest post date, duration)
• Content freshness and relevance (By date, mean
time)

A Few Questions
Is Second Life a Social Media, or Merely Sociable?
How do you integrate Second Life with social
media?
Does Second Life help to “ground” social media for
the enterprise?
Do virtual worlds need to be more proactive in
defining metrics?