Second Life losing luster as marketing property

Finally the voice of reason on Second Life. Check out this interesting AdWeek article about what Second Life's users really think about the marketing on the site.

Interesting findings:

• More than 70 percent of the site's users say they are disappointed with the marketing that goes on in Second Life
• Second Lifers have become skeptical of marketing on the site
• 42 percent of all respondents doubted companies would actually put much follow-up effort into their site presence beyond putting up a storefront

Another interesting finding - the actual number of Second Life's regular users is far lower than what they had expected. Linden Labs - the site's creators - and the media have made much of the site's 3 million users. However, the number of people who use the site regularly is probably a tenth of that total, according to the tech news service CNet. Curiously - Linden Labs has not responded to questions on the topic.

The spokesman for the independent company that fielded the survey (Komjuniti, a Hamburg, Germany, based research firm) comments:

"Marketers are just following the hype without thinking about the proportion of investments and alternatives in the market." He observed that Second Life's numbers actually pale when compared to those of something like the online game World of Warcraft (which seems to get a lot less media and marketing attention). "If you compare WoW and Second Life, the ratio and effectiveness of marketing communication is way better in WoW than in SL."

According to Komjuniti, WoW has more than 7.5 million people who pay for subscriptions to the site. While Second Life does have more than 40,000 paid subscribers, most users use free accounts. Instead, Linden Labs makes most of its money from companies that lease space on the site.

Reminding clients of this "reality" is probably a good idea. And for clients hell bent on doing something in Second Life, coaching them that push marketing isn't enough, SL's users really expect a lot more.

PS - it isn't just me, people, Greg Verdino shares a similar skeptical view, check it out here.

Comments

[csven]

Hard for me to believe it took this long for the greater Marketing and Advertising to figure out that SL isn't a "marketing property".

In my opinion, Second Life is not now, and may never be, a worthwhile option as a marketing destination; at least not in the same way television or other media venues are. SL's value has always been, imo, as a means to get a sense of what's coming in the future. A way to do some R&D and get some bearings before things really begin to shift. When considered in that way, those who simply dismiss it are either arguably ignorant of the big picture or unwilling to deal with it. The future mediascape is not going to be controlled through traditional means. And there's more to understand than the obvious.

[Amelia Torode]

Finally - the gloss is starting to wear thin!!
Thank god!

[John Young]

http://www.gartner.com/pages/story.php.id.8795.s.8.jsp