Why Second Life is Largely Irrelevant, (and how we can fix that).

My SL alter ego would kill me for saying this, but Second Life is largely irrelevant. Why? Because it doesnt integrate into my life.

I have an island in Second life called "Tree Estates IV". I pay $299 every month to keep it there, but I'm only there 1-2 times a week for up to an hour for the past 6 months.

Its important to me and my business, and it still pays for itself in ways I cant begin to calculate, but those are intangible things as yet, and dont currently translate into cash. So for me, that is the first way SL is irrelevant. Only a slim minority of participants can do business with it.

Its not like Im off the computer much. I spend most of my online time either doing work or in facebook, various ning.com sites, googling things, digging things, checking CNN.com and more.

Second life doesnt integrate with any of those things, at least not in useful ways. In fact, my SL character's blogger page and facebook page gets more attention than his actual SL avatar gets.

I bet, seriously, im not alone in this situation. Even when I actually hang out in second life, my window fills with chats, popups, messages, notices so I cant really even see the virtual 3dness of the world. Last night I was in a televised in world gameshow called "the second question" and I found the 3dness almost irritating as I tried to get the audio all set up. I could have easily participated without even having a 3d world as it operated mostly like a big conference call. (we all "phoned it in" as it were)

Its not all bad though. I will say that in spite of all this, the true value is by looking like I do in second life, and by having my island, I can "tell a thousand words" about my skills, my asthetic, my personality. As a calling card, it beats everything else combined, and that is easily the primary reason I keep the island going.

But that still isnt relevant, and while it works for me as a 3d modeller / enthusiast, it doesnt work for most people who just have the default avatar or buy everything they wear, beyond showing their taste.

That still means that Sl is only relevant for the first 1-2 seconds of first impression you have with someone. What about the ongoing, continued relationships? Well, they quickly evolve past the look you established, and become simple chat sessions.

How do we make it relevant then?

Well one way is this. I used the windlight simulator technology to enhance a logo on my website. Now average joes who dont care about 3d technology or virtual whatsits can experience some of the benefit without having to sign on, get an avatar etc.

One could argue that Machinima movies do the same thing, but lets be honest, unless you are already a gamer those generally do look creepy and silly, the sheer magnitude of belief suspension required to view those make them practically unwatchable by the mass audiences. No question it will improve but for now, not practical.

Another way would be making SL content viewable without having to log in. People could see part of the world, say, as the background of a website, or have an in world camera that could see a little spinning logo inside SL and thats just the header. A widget that allowed people to replace all the blogger, facebook, and other profile pics with their current in world face, preferably as an interactive 3d model instead of just a static photo.

You could build simulations of various things and allow non logged in people to interact with them from web pages, like a car, or a ball on a stick. Basically opening up the simulator technology to be embeddable anywhere and everywhere. The simulator is the key value of SL, and it just needs to get more portable.

Conversely, users need to be able to "digg" things in SL, or have their facebook status update their SL status, or even have their avatar pull data from facebook, linkedin or whatever.

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