Presentation to USC Annenberg faculty on history of Second Life

1. Faculty Seminar on
Virtual Worlds
Episode 2 - Second Life - 2/12/08
cory ondrejka - cory.ondrejka@gmail.com

2. a quick review

3. online versus virtual
community versus world

4. millions of reasons
Online Game Online Communities Online Worlds
crapload
many
lots
a few

5. some rules of thumb for
world-wide numbers:
Virtual worlds: 20 million
MMOs: 50 million
Social networks: 100 million
(with lots of overlap)

6. gold in dem darn (virtual) hills

7. amateur versus expert

8. don’t make me use
the baby seal slide again

9. (because I will)

11. participation
Web Wikipedia Sims Open Source
Mainstream Media Second Life
65.00
48.75
32.50
16.25
0

12. any questions lurking?

13. it’s story time!

14. the second life story

15. good thing we’re in la

16. 8 years so far

17. which isn’t that long

18. as mitch likes to point out

19. (who’s been through this)

20. think about the pc

21. think about the pc

22. think about the pc
1976

23. think about the pc
1976

24. think about the pc
1976
1990

25. 15 years

26. so we’re only half way

27. (maybe 2/3)

28. but, like all exponentials...

29. but, like all exponentials...

30. but, like all exponentials...
vaguely interesting

31. but, like all exponentials...
very
interesting
vaguely interesting

32. plus, sl gives plenty of material

33. second life’s growth
Population Money

34. second life’s growth
Population Money

35. 2000

36. compression
2000

37. compression
2000
grid
computing

38. compression
2000
grid
cellular
computing
automata

39. “the rig”
compression
2000
grid
cellular
computing
automata

40. “the forest”

41. 2000 scorecard:
no users
no exchange
5 employees

42. 2000 scorecard:
no users people signed up
no exchange users trading L$ and US$
Linden Lab employees
5 employees

43. second life’s growth
Population Money

44. second life’s growth
Population Money

45. 2001

46. building
2001

47. building
2001
avatars

48. second life was about people

49. even the most beautiful place

50. was not as interesting as people

51. scripting, too

52. 2001 scorecard:
no users
no exchange
10 employees

53. second life’s growth
Population Money

54. second life’s growth
Population Money

55. 2002

56. 2002 was a very good year

57. 2002 was about people!

58. 2002 was about people!

59. 2002 was about people!
Alpha!

60. and people meant...

61. creation
community
collaboration

62. virtually no screen
shots from this era

63. 2002 scorecard:
145(!) users
no exchange
20 employees

64. second life’s growth
Population Money

65. second life’s growth
Population Money

66. 2003

67. remember 2002?

68. creation
community
collaboration

69. 2003 had more people

70. creation
community
collaboration

71. however, since
communities
are not scale free...

72. creation
community
collaboration
often drove...

73. cheating
combat
boundaries

74. do good fences
make
good neighbors?

75. the jessie wall

76. the jessie wall

77. the jessie wall

78. this story only survives because
of
james au

79. embedded in a virtual world

80. how to preserve the ephemeral?

81. Second Life launched on
June 23, 2003

82. June 23rd is now a
holiday
in Second Life

83. Second Life launched with
less than
400
users

84. and didn’t grow much

85. evolve or else

86. we asked for help

87. we asked for help

88. we asked for help

89. we asked for help

90. “it’s stupid to ask
people to build a
world
and to not let them
own it!”

91. oops

92. so we studied

93. macro economics
so we studied

94. macro economics
creative destruction
so we studied

95. macro economics
creative destruction
so we studied
“mystery of capital”

96. and evolved both the
intellectual property approach
and
the business model

97. intellectual property

98. intellectual property
Yochai says “$#@%?@!!”

99. business model

100. enables two broad lines of study

101. ip rules
in the information economy

102. entrepreneurship
in the information economy

103. 2003 scorecard:
2743 users
no exchange
25 employees

104. second life’s growth
Population Money

105. second life’s growth
Population Money

106. 2004

107. entrepreneurship

108. entrepreneurship

109. branding

110. breaking the magic circle

111. really breaking

112. 2004 was about the
individual
using second life

113. 2004 scorecard:
18,876 users
$5,000/mo exchange
40 employees

114. second life’s growth
Population Money

115. second life’s growth
Population Money

116. 2005

117. three things happened in 2005

118. Second Life became free

119. as in beer

120. educators discovered SL

121. in a big way

122. particularly via
GLS and
Serious Games

123. and sl started growing

124. businesses
followed
the people

125. but just a little

126. though virtually no
real-world brands
(yet)

127. government

128. and music

129. tringo

130. broadcasting identity

131. 2005 was a year of building

132. 2005 scorecard:
123,438 users
$500,000/mo exchange
60 employees

133. second life’s growth
Population Money

134. second life’s growth
Population Money

135. 2006

136. the knee in the curve

137. the year of “firsts”

138. auto company

139. hotel chain

140. clothing company

141. concert

142. cc concert

143. fashion magazines

144. news organization

145. harvard class

146. millionaire

147. where did this all come from?

148. despite popular perception
it was
NOT
the Linden
uber marketing machine

149. I wish we had that much power

150. distributed entrepreneurs

151. plus everyone else

152. gladwell would be proud

153. gartner, too
2006

154. 2006 scorecard:
3,000,000 users
$5,000,000/mo exchange
100 employees

155. second life’s growth
Population Money

156. second life’s growth
Population Money

157. and then things got
exciting

158. 2007

159. freedom!

160. (as in speech)

161. second life client
open sourced

162. big business arrived

163. these guys got acquired/funded

164. csi:ny

165. fortune 500 bingo

166. mix of training,
marketing, collaboration

167. lots of questions:
efficacy of training?
impact of trust?
brands and community

168. and how does voice mix in?

169. over the top

170. made more complicated by
the rest of the world arriving

171. and by increasing
regulatory interest

172. gambling
adult activities
banking

173. all of cyberlaw’s shortcomings

174. plus the metaphor

175. and lack of standards

176. what does user mean?

177. 2007 scorecard:
11,000,000 users
$8,000,000/mo exchange
220 employees

178. second life’s growth
Population Money

179. second life’s growth
Population Money

180. 2008

181. rebounding

182. hundred of sl developers
employing
thousands of people
from all over the world

183. sl growth increasing again

184. 5% weekly concurrency growth

185. emmy-tastic

186. so, what’s next?

187. Second Life’s
progression has been

188. community
collaboration
identity
education
entrepreneurship
marketing
business
media

189. innovation

190. so I’d like to propose diving
deeper into:

191. innovation
behavior (with Dmitri’s help)
education
legal and regulatory issues
the big unanswered questions

192. stop talking now

193. cory.ondrejka@gmail.com
http://ondrejka.net