Ouch…Clay Shirky pricks the 2ndLife Bubble
Oh man just when I thought this Web 2 OH thing was taking off, in comes Clay Shirky to bring in a dose of reality:
I suspect Second Life is largely a “Try Me” virus, where reports of a strange and wonderful new thing draw the masses to log in and try it, but whose ability to retain anything but a fraction of those users is limited. The pattern of a Try Me virus is a rapid spread of first time users, most of whom drop out quickly, with most of the dropouts becoming immune to later use. Pointcast was a Try Me virus, as was LambdaMOO, the experiment that Second Life most closely resembles.
Comparing it to Pointcast is devastating. Read more about it here.