A recent real-life encounter with Second Life turned out to be a big disappointment. For an academic research project, my co-author and I were looking for a list of real-life brands that have a presence in SL. The natural point of contact seemed to be SL’s press inquiries: Lewis PR. Being a geek, I tried email first. More than a week (or a year by Internet standard) went by, and no response. So I digressed to the more traditional way of telephone. Luckily, I reached a lady named Christen from Lewis PR. After explaining the situation to her, she said she would send me something related to what we were looking for. I was reaching the point of happiness and almost convinced myself that telephone is the tool to use when you really want to get things done. But not so fast! A few days later, I still did not receive anything from Christen. I called again, afraid that she might have written down the wrong email address. I only got her voicemail and left her a message with my email address and multiple phone numbers. After another few days, it’s still dead silence from the other end. Repeated calls to the contact number resulted in nothing but her voicemail (this is the curse of Caller ID technology).

It makes me wonder: is an academic project too ivory-towerish to deserve proper attention from SL or Linden Lab (the company behind SL) or Lewis PR? I did mention to the lady that the project will eventually turn into a journal publication. Is that not worth the same efforts as compared to, say, a prominent article in New York Times? I teach Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC). One of the main principles of IMC is that no matter whom a firm is communicating with, whether it is customers, internal employees, or the general public, the firm should always keep a consistent brand image. The fun and cutting-edge image of SL in my mind certainly does not match up with the disappointment and ill-will I felt during the recent encounter.

Ironically, the following quote from the SL marketing team was featured prominently on Lewis PR’s front page:

“It really does feel like our marketing team has four more members — I sometimes almost forgot that the LEWIS team isn’t actually part of the Linden Lab.” — Catherine smith, director of marketing and brand strategy, Linden Lab

Maybe that is the reason why we did not hear anything from Lewis PR. They are spending too much time functioning as Linden Lab internal employees and not giving enough attention to real-life external audiences…PUBLIC relations. Alas!

A little while ago, I wrote a two-part post on Microsoft’s irrational obsession with Google. Over the weekend, I watched a Science Channel program that detailed the background of Netscape and how it lost its battle against Microsoft. It was very interesting to observe the same kind of obsession and vengeance that Microsoft showed in that battle as it does today toward Google. That made me think: why was Microsoft able to defeat Netscape but not Google? Although Google does have plenty of Ph.D.’s as employees, it seems implausible that Microsoft simply doesn’t have employees smart enough to catch up.

There may be many reasons to explain this historical difference. For example, one may argue that Microsoft was distracted by its anti-trust case when Google was quietly gaining its strength. In my mind, however, one crucial reason was the fundamental difference between Google’s business model and that of Netscape.

As a traditional software business, Netscape relied on making money off its software. Therefore, when Microsoft offered its Internet Explorer for free, it immediately crushed Netscape’s fundamental business model. Google, on the other hand, offered its service to the average consumer for free and instead drew its revenue from businesses/advertisers. By doing so, it defeated the advantage Microsoft had: the deeper pocket. No longer can Microsoft use its free bundling and distribution power against Google. As its service is accessible over the Internet at no cost, Google was able to start on the same footing as Microsoft, and the deeper pocket Microsoft had could not help the company in this case.

The lesson learned from this is that, when businesses face a formidable rival, too often it’s easy to focus on what the competitor has that one does not have. But as Google’s luck shows, the best way to take down a larger rival is by rendering whatever advantages the larger rival has useless. Of course, this is built on the assumption that the company can still find sources of competitive advantage in an alternative area. What essentially happened in Google’s case was that they changed the rule of the game, and by doing so, it diminished Microsoft’s market power.

When a technology innovation appears on the horizon, one would stereotypically expect that the younger generation will sign on to it faster than older adults. This was the same expectation I had with Second Life. Like many people, I thought of Second Life as a playground for mostly Gen Y’s and the occasional Gen X’s. As I am about to reach 33, I thought I would be “old” in SL. But my two recent encounters in SL made me rethink this issue.

The two avatars that I encountered in these situations were both in their mid-fifties. They were very adept at creating their own images and environments within Second Life, much better than a newbie like me is able to. Entering into the interaction, I never intended to find out about their real-life age, but it somehow just came out during the conversation. Both avatars were very kind and helpful, both were happy with their real life, and both expressed a newly found youthfulness in Second Life, as if they were taken back to that time when they were much younger.

These conversations made me rethink the value of SL to different age groups and the real-life demographics of SL participants. If we were to look at three generations of people: the baby boomers and above, the Gen X, and the Gen Y and younger groups, it is actually not that difficult to see the appeal of SL to the first group. As the idea of living a second life allows someone to create an ideal self that s/he cannot fulfill in real life, Second Life allows the older generation to either relive or recreate their life. Now that most of their kids have grown up, they also have much more time to enjoy the virtual world, once they master the technology needed to use it. For Gen Xers like me, in contrast, we are so busy dealing with our real-life responsibilities at home or at work that it is hard to find the time to truly escape to the wonderland. The even younger text-messaging generation may have more time but may not have the patience for the amount of time it takes for 3D worlds to load and function.

Of course, these thoughts came from only two recent encounters, and they are very likely to be biased. I do not have concrete data to support my argument. Digging around on the Internet only landed me on an older set of statistics on Second Life’s real-life demographics in early 2006, which showed a median age of 36. But I truly believe in the power of Second Life for the older generation. The sweeping Internet revolution has already brought this generation to be more on par with the rest of the population in terms of technology use, and it has prepared them for the even newer 3D Web. Once the technology barrier has been removed, these virtual worlds could mean great additions to their life that cannot be found anywhere else in real world. This may explain the findings I posted in a previous blog on how SL enhances individuals’ happiness in real life.