The press keeps saying its failed but oddly I'm still in it.

of course its not 2007 anymore, but eh, I think this is more a case of failed expectations on the part of the writer

like they bring up the Newton. Um, clue? Apple just kept trying until it succeeded.

yep, it failed according to a benchmark like Facebook. But all of us who are SLers keep going back. Curious, that.

I suddenly feel really weird having such a happy, multifaceted life in a place that failed years ago. Why did I not get the memo?

I would respond to that with this

...and the Newton opened a door for the Palm, which opened a door for the IPhone, which opened a door for tablets

if the Slate reads another certain "SL is dead" harping blogger's page...

It's not dead yet... I think I'll go for a walk...

the article doesn't really address SL and not anything current. Sloppy research but a good excuse for a virtual hooker video

Yeah, I was just going to say that I love that the punch is a video on how to be a virtual hooker, and what she finds is that 1) it's REALLY

HARD to set up and takes TIME; and that 2) most places are empty and she can't find clients.

The whole problem was the insane hype, some of which LL believed and then spent crazy money implementing...

including business conferencing with avatars.

To use the Milkshake analogy, that's not the kind of Milkshake that SL is.

SL is a moothie. And the media are obsessing about milkshakes and being appalled SL has no milk.

be in the Mermaid this evening enjoying the failure.

The author really seems to have a personal grudge going. "999,990 more than you expected"? Seriously?

<3

I think too many comes with the wrong expectations. They expect the world to come to them, when they have to learn the social rules first.

I don't know bout ya'll but Kelis - Milkshake

Someone had to.

No, it's true, someone had to.

I rather wonder about the rest of the book. The excerpt didn't really explain why SL "failed".

What did business expect from SL, what were they promised, how did those expectations fall short and why?

If it is failed, why did Will Wright bother to join the Board of Directors? He must see something there.

And what does it mean for a company to "fail" to take over the world but still keep operating and keep customers?

And finally -- can we have a moratorium in 2012 for comparing every Internet-based user-focused company to Facebook? Please?

Magz: word. It's not just comparing apples to oranges, but to artichokes or maybe orangutans.

Oh how stupid, they act like that theory is something new. Marketing class in my first year of my MBA program -

I wonder how many people will bother to download their free book, compared to the number of users they sneer at SL having.

"If someone comes into your store and is looking to buy a drill, realize that they don't really want a drill, they want a hole in the wall."

and it's exactly the kind of article that requires me to resist my "but someone's wrong on the internet" tendencies.

So Christensen substituted milkshake for drill. Wow, maybe I can write a brand new theory.

GypsyLynn: It must be nice to know where those "buy our recipe book and succeed!" phonies get their ideas from!

And to go back to the drill idea (which I love, by the way), when I bought mine, I knew it may not be used much, but also that I would

use it in akward positions. So I bought an average quality, cordless with variable angle handle! Knowing what you will use the tool for

the one tick to make sure you get what you need. Same goes for SL. It is not an "instant" social media, but a graphic world social media.

I will be there till they turn out the lights

Same here.

Me too.

And I hope that day never comes.

Well, I wouldn't say "I hope it will never comes"... Within 10 years, someone will come with an even better way of implementing virtual

I hope to be in till the end. So many great people ...

worlds. So my hope is for us to meet up there again when the time comes! (And for LL to work hard so that day stays far away! )

According to an article I read in GQ way back in the day (2006 or 2007) It seemed that companies like Nike expected to go into sl and set up

3D stores for their customers to do their online shopping in.

SL sucks for that. Because people don't have computers that can do the cloth sim that they need to accurately portray their RL goods.

and you cant really tell the fit from an idealized character to your RL self

in many ways, its like the Newton. Tech hasn't caught up with the idea.

eventually it did tho... and we got the iPhone and iPad.

but those couldnt happen until some serious advances happened in hardware.

and the same is the problem, here

One of my favorite stores in-world exists IRL. I can't afford their real clothing; it absolutely delights me to purchase virtual versions.

Oh and another thing from the GQ article was from an SL resident.and that was while doing online shopping it would create the real

experience. Each customer would see who else was shopping and be able to communicate with each other.

Have you seen the other books these guys have written? They seem to be the pop psychologists of the business world ...

You can't download their book in the UK, but it seems to be just cobbled together newspaper columns. I suspect Slate led on the SL one

because they knew it would provoke a reaction.

considering what SL looked like in 2007 (sculpties just came out) I can't imagine anyone doing online shopping for RL products in SL.

Most of the in-world RL businesses were losing interest before sculpties.

In my opinion, SL is first and foremost a platform for socialization (though I wouldn't class it as a social network). Everything else...

... is secondary and depends on the success of that primary role.

By that measure, SL is far more successful. It's also worth noting that (at least for me) the effort and time that I put into maintaing...

... my SL friendships far exceeds that of social network friendships. Given that, it's no wonder that SL has fewer users.

It's far less casual.

You should send that to Rod, dkronfeld.

It really isn't casual "gaming" dkronfeld. It is interesting how the venue forms the nature of the relationships and for me FB isn't as

interesting as SL, nor is it as conversational as Plurk.

The much maligned learning curve in SL has a payoff.

icarusghost: I think that we're in complete agreement. My statement was not meant as a complaint, rather, I was attempting to convey what

you just said more eloquently

Oh I was agreeing with you

Still working on the eloquence here. I think we are losing casual social gamers to Farmville, Glitch, and Words With Friends.

FB has never given me useful social. Just constant spam from people of the belief I want to play some game on FB.

Another difference: FB is easy to peek in on during the day; logging into SL is a bigger effort (startup time, lag for other progs, etc)

I don't think SL could ever be FB-popular (& I don't want it to) but it may inspire the next big thing. We're Usenet, vs the Web.