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Millions of Us » Blog Archive » Response to David Churbuck of Lenovo

“Just came across a highly critical post by David Churbuck, VP of Global Web Marketing at Lenovo. I thought it made sense to write a little response because his post represents feelings held by many in the business community who are reading about Second Life and wondering what all the fuss is about.”

I don’t want to become the poster-boy for a counter-Second Life backlash. I’ll let Clay Shirky assume that mantle over at Valleywag, but I am heartened to see two extremely qualified experts — both ex-Linden Labs executives — respond to my post from earlier in the month about why I, as a marketer, should or shouldn’t care about Second Life as a venue for building my brand or serving my customers and prospective customers.

For starters, no one responding to my post has gone shrill and started tossing flames my way, for which I am grateful. I should amend that first post with my follow-on thought about my perception that Second Life is too much of a walled-garden at present to justify the expense and difficulty of developing a presence there. I continue to be convinced of the common sense behind the wish that some latter-day Berners-Lee would create an open metaverse structure that was not dependent on a centralized server model but which permit the IBMs and Levi-Strausses, as well as individuals to build and own their own presence on their own terms, conforming to an open standard for interoperability. I am convinced such an open metaverse will come, and that in time, the hardware and bandwidth needed to make such a virtual world truly compelling will emerge. If the right standard is put in place, and if the construction tools are as simple as say FrontPage was in 1994, then the immersive web will be a fact of life within 5 years.

I am concerned that as companies like IBM begin to bless Second Life as a virtual briefing center, that more pressure will be brought to bear on me and others like me to open a Second Life beachhead as a 3D version of WebEx or someother collaborative tool. This may be the case, but there seems to be little opportunity for timeshifting in Second Life — one must arrive and participate in real-time — and just as WebEx and other real-time apps seem cumbersome to me as a participant to enter and configure, I fear Second Life will make it doubly hard for an organization to efficiently lure customers and partners into an environment with a fairly steep set up process.

I am not so concerned with the use of Second Life as a marketing medium — I am surprised that someone hasn’t started selling ad space to drive traffic to the often deserted marketing islands — as I am with its use as a communications and collaboration tool. Once the novel wears off and infatuation with one’s avatar appearance wanes, comes the big question of what to tangible do with it. That remains unanswered.

Oh, and for the commenter who told me I was wrong-headed in hailing World of Warcraft as an alternative — wait a sec, WoW is insanely popular for its own reasons, most of which come down to a decent graphical experience, a strong sense of communications and community, and a plot or story line built around quests and goal attainment. While WoW could, in theory, be used as a collaboration tool, I would never propose it as one. I think Blizzard Entertainment are true geniuses who know how to deliver an addictively compelling experience. Linden has provided a decent blank slate, and turned the experience over to the inhabitants with little more than a development protocol and a currency to glue them together. Good for them and good for those who find the experience to be a compelling one.

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