CycleIT, thanks for the pointer. Naturally I don’t agree with Chris. Or rather, his generalizations. I’ll add some opinion on that with the new post I mentioned.

The first and biggest is the ethics. Quite simply I am not comfortable doing business when I have a false name and the people I am dealing with have false names. It isn’t just that one of the values of social media is transparency but is more fundamental than that. I don’t lie and don’t ever hide my identity in real life and can see little value in doing so in Second Life.

That’s why I find Cyworld so exciting because it not only encourages real names, it forces you to use them (I think and stand to be corrected on that). Even if Second Life starts to let you use your own name (for no charge, I know you can do it now by paying) it will still allow and be populated by people who don’t.

The second problem I have with Second Life is that the learning curve is too steep. I am a very tech savvy person, yet it took (and is still taking) me a while to get to grips with using it. Most social media has a very low barrier to entry - it is free or low cost, needs simple, low cost technology and is very easy to use. Second Life is none of these. It is hard to learn, requires a powerful PC and most of the most interesting things cost money.

I can imagine how most people I know in real life could benefit from social media - blogs, photo/video sharing etc. I can’t see most people I know getting anything from Second Life. And unless lots of people can participate it is an echo chamber. Blogs started out that way, but have moved mainstream. The very small number of participants and high barriers of entry mean that Second Life will remain an echo chamber for a good long while yet.

Second Life reminds me of Web 1.0 - lots of promise, but the world just wasn’t ready. Sometime in the future there will definitely be a place for the likes of Second Life, but at the moment we just don’t have the infrastructure in place (cultural, economic and technological).