Adver-Whatever

So, what IS the future of virtual worlds?

     +         =    ?   

For all the talk about virtual worlds being the wave of the future, they don't really seem to have the kind of audience that would even begin to suggest that. Most people who register for Second Life once never actually return, and there is only a group of a few thousand that log in on a regular basis. Besides, that group is largely annoyed by the presence of marketers, and wants to be left alone to do... well... the kind of creepy things that people in Second Life do.

Far more popular is World of Warcraft, which is just a virtual world as a game - but because it's a game, it can't be used for any of the same purposes that marketers have been trying to use Second Life for. Then, of course, there is the ever-popular Webkinz, but it's hard to call that a "virtual world" as much as just a kid's game with a built-in chat room. We have seen the potential of virtual worlds, but despite numerous attempts, no one really seems to be able to make one that will appeal to a mass audience as anything other than a game.

After long debates with my boyfriend over whether or not virtual worlds will ever really "work", I attempted to come up with a model that combined them with the popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook. My Second Life meets Facebook mash-up looks like this:

• Everyone starts with an island of their own, which basically serves as their profile page, which they can customize as they choose, and where they can store their personal information. You can also connect your island with friend's islands, to create communities.
• Different parts of your island can be designated "professional", "family", "friends" etc., and only certain people can see these parts of your island, getting rid of the need to keep up several different social networks for different purposes.
• There is no real money exchanged for virtual goods. However, you can obtain virtual money with which to do things like customize your island or your avatar. You'd be able to do this by:
  • Playing games similar to Facebook applications (i.e. getting scrabulous points or turning someone into a vampire earns you money).
  • Advertising revenue. This is how I'd incorporate ads into the world. Besides having their own islands, advertisers could pay individuals virtual money (based on island visitation) to allow them to place games, merchandise, or company representatives on their islands.

It's obviously a work-in-progress, and there are a few problems I keep running into. First of all, I have no idea how to make it easy to check on your friend's status updates easily without turning the whole thing into a social network with a virtual world sadly tacked on to the end. Second of all, while I know that there are lots of people out there who spend hours every day just goofing around on Facebook, I don't know that this kind of thing would appeal to all Facebook users - especially without the aforementioned lack of an easy way to check people's updates. Any and all suggestions on how to make that work would be welcome.

My idea was that virtual worlds would work well as social networking devices, because this is what people seem to be trying to use them as anyway, but I don't know that this is necessarily the best way to go with them. I've also heard it suggested that these kinds of things will never catch on without the invention of a kind of virtual reality that would make it more like actually meeting with people in person. Assuming that Second Life is not the end-all virtual world experience (and I really don't think it is), what direction do you think the next generation of virtual worlds should take?

I am one of the 65%...

...of people in America who spend more time with their computer than with their significant other, according to a study by Kelton Research and Support.com. This struck me as a kind of sad, but completely unsurprising statistic. Rather a lot of us live our entire lives online, and increasingly on various social networking sites. In fact, I can't even keep up with the number of social networking sites out there, and I've joined four or five of them in the last 5 months. A few days ago, Gina Kim of The Sacramento Bee brought up the point that many people are involved in more social networking sites than they can reasonably be expected to maintain. Sure - I check Facebook and Twitter every day, but I've found that I just don't have time to do much with Myspace, LinkedIn, Flickr, Technorati, etc - especially not for the national average of more than 21 minutes per site per day.

I've heard solutions proposed that would enable you to update everything at once, but that only solves half the problem. People don't join these networks on an entirely ego-centric trip (or, maybe they do...), they join to keep up with what is going on with everyone in their lives, and to generally keep themselves entertained. Being able to update everything at the same time doesn't really help you if you still have to go around and check every last one of these networks every day. (I can picture my dad shaking his head right now, and I'm well aware that the obvious solution is to not join so many freaking networks, but we're going to completely bypass that solution in order to maintain our odd obsession with keeping up to date with everyone and everything at all times.)

Recently, David Jacobs gave some interesting insight to the future of these networks on his podcast, The Social Media Morning Show. In his post on 1/22, he talks about the importance of what he terms the "glance-ability"  of a site. Because we are generally checking these social media sites during or instead of doing other, decidedly more important, things, the sites that make themselves more convenient for us to check are going to be the ones that succeed. The example he uses is Twitter. Using a simple program called Snitter, he can have all his Twitter updates show up at the side of his desktop, making them easily "glance-able". This enables him to stay connected and up-to-date, without needing to take 3 hours out his day to do it. When I thought about it, I realized that this is exactly why I check Twitter and Facebook so much more often than anything else. Everything that I need to know is right on the front page, and I can  update and get all the "relevant" information that I'm looking for in about 5 minutes. Sure, there are those out there who really do want to spend 3 hours a day checking social networks, but I think that for a lot of people who frustrated with the number of networks they have to maintain, the sites that make themselves the most convenient will do the best. 

Crazy, Crazy Facebook

I've been using Facebook pretty much since the beginning - it was created for the class one year ahead of me. I have loved it these last 3 years as a way to keep in touch with my friends back home, and make plans with friends at school - and the best thing about it? It wasn't Myspace. That obnoxious social media site that allows people to make their pages sparkle-y, loud, and unreadable, and then heaps so much spam into your inbox that it makes your afraid to even look at what's in there. Add to it the fact that it is hard to find the content of any given Myspace page because it is hidden under the ads, and the fact that anyone can have a page, and that their privacy controls are limited, and you basically have the worst thing to ever happen to the internet.

So back to Facebook. Over the last year, they have slowly added more and more of the things everyone hated about Myspace. It was created for college students. Now, everyone can join - including your boss, your family members, or any number of other people who you'd really rather keep separated from your social life. They have added the infamous news feeds to let you know exactly what every single person on your extended list of friends is doing at every moment of every day. And then, there's the latest disaster, which really just takes the cake.

It's been out now for almost a month, so anyone with a Facebook account knows about it, but I'll describe it briefly for anyone who might not have heard. Their Beacon project has partnered with 44 websites to track things that you are doing outside of Facebook, and post it to your news feed. Heartbreaking stories of ruined Christmases aside, anything that you buy on one of their partner sites is shown to every last one of your friends, which can now include your boss, your family members, and any number of other people who you'd really rather keep separated from your social life. It's a form of word of mouth advertising, and Facebook promises its clients deep integration within the Facebook community. That's all well and good, but they could have warned their community first...

Now, over the course of the last month, over 50,000 users have come together to protest this blatant invasion of privacy, and one group, MoveOn.org, has even circulated a petition to put a stop to it. All this time, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has claimed that people can opt out of this application whenever they choose. But this is extremely difficult to do, as opting out of one site does not opt you out of all of them, and the option to do so is not easy to see.

On Friday, the long awaited announcement came, stating that they will make  sure users agree to be followed around the internet before having all of their activities posted on the News Feed - or at least make it easier to opt out. However, it's still not completely opt-in, so I doubt it will be enough to call off the protesters.

The reason why I felt the need to recount all this history is that I'm actually rather surprised that it took Facebook so long to respond, and I'm even more surprised at the relative weakness of their response. When the News Feed was enacted, there was also a large protest against it, and within a few days, Zuckerberg had apologized for the screw-up, and updated the privacy settings, so that you could pick and choose what showed up on your feed. This time, it took much longer, and there still hasn't been an apology. In fact, nothing at all has been said to the very ticked-off users. They have had to find all of this out in the press. Facebook seems to be forgetting the very people that make these advertising scams possible, and I know at least one person who has begun thinking about canceling their account because of it.

People like you, Facebook - don't screw it up!