What is the difference between Facebook and Second Life? No, certainly not the Yankee Group's "revelation", that Facebook users spend some 180 minutes a month on this extremely sucessful platform while Second Life is a loser with an average monthly usage of only 12 minutes.
The main difference is, that Facebook is perfect for asynchronous, casual interaction with a large network of people. (My fellow SL resident Forseti Svarog calls that "the 95% percent".) Second Life and other virtual worlds are good for synchronous, intense interaction with a limited number of people.
The two kinds of platforms are intended for different purposes and it really doesn't seem that clever to me, to compare them with the same key performance indicators. That - and not the hilarious 12 minute figure - is maybe the biggest fault in the Yankee Groups report "Wither Second Life?" (no direct link, because it is not online anymore).
After a flood of critical remarks, The Yankee Group pulled this report, where Second Life was used as an example for a social platform that is failing because of inherent defiencies, which lead - among others - to a very low user involvement of only 12 minutes a month. As the actual usage numbers for Second Life are more in the ballpark of 20 - 40 HOURS it was no wonder, that the report was pulled quickly. Following the Yankee Groups line of reasoning one might actually ask "Is Facebook doomed?"
Funny enough, this back-padeling and all the corrections will not change the effect, that many other websites and magazines still report that "The Yankee Group reveals that Second Life is a complete loser product, where the average user spends only 12 minutes a month" as a proven fact. :) The latter is an interesting phenomenon. SL Bogger Hamlet Au calls it "The Rimm effect", named after an study from 1994, that some 83% of all pictures on the early internet were pornographic. This was complete nonsense, of course, but it was published widely in the early 90s and even resulted in a TIME magazine cover story. I am fairly certain that something similar will happen with the Yankee Groups revelations ...
As a serious professional, the author of the report, a Mr. Collins, couldn't help but argue, that - while his numbers are completely wrong - the underlying thesis is still valid. ;) Awww, whatever happened to the old tradition of simply saying "Sorry, I f***ed up and promise to never do that again"?
Let's look at this thesis, because it is an interesting one - and not without merit. At the heart of the Yankee Groups "Anywhere Access" mantra seems to be the assumpion that a successful product in the "social software" market has to have a mobile component so that people can stay connected to their buddies from everywhere and in any situation. This theory is not a bad one. I actually believe, that Second Life (and Facebook) would profit from more functionalities which make it easier to stay connected while not at the PC. There are already some tools available for this purpose. And I am certain that we will see many more in the very near future. At least with a certain clientele this will greatly enhence the stickyness of any such social platform.
Btw: It is possible, of course, to directly combine the different purposes of social network sites and virtual worlds. Kaneva certainly tries to do so. Google's rumored new product might try the same. But that is a different topic all together.
The main problem - as far as the "Anywhere Access" mantra relates to Second Life - with this theory is, that The Yankee Groups tries to use the monthly usage numbers as proof for it. ("See, Facebook has all these deeply involved users spending 186 minutes there and SL is a loser where people only spend 12 minutes a month inworld - because it has no mobile component, of course!") This line of reasoning is so utterly wrong, that I wonder, if those analysts did much research with virtual worlds at all. Because in EVERY virtual world known to me the monthly usage numbers are much higher than the 3 hours quoted for Facebook.
This is not a result of virtual worlds being "better" but of the simple fact that virtual worlds and profile sites are two different application categories.
Technorati Tags: 3d web, second life, virtual worlds, web 3.d
Nice post Markus.
Posted by: Giff / Forseti | October 09, 2007 at 05:02 PM