Second Life: Hype vs. Anti-Hype vs. Anti-Anti-Hype
A fairly decent article that disses discusses the shortcomings of Second Life. One quote that I thought was interesting, particularly as we investigate using SL for library services:
Can they really build a fully streamed world comprised of tens of thousands of servers? That’s way above my paygrade, but I’ll guess that challenge fits under the rubric of Fricking Hard. Can they fix a profoundly unfriendly user interface and thoroughly disorienting first hour user experience, which are aggressively, almost intentionally unwelcoming to the vast majority of interested users? Both shortcomings are at the heart of Second Life’s poor rentention rates, but neither have significantly changed in the three years since its commercial release. You have to wonder, whatever their stated intentions, if Linden’s tech-centric corporate culture simply puts their improvement at a low priority. (I have a dream, and in that dream, Linden Lab developers are locked inside 1100 Sansome with their own mothers, and not let out until they’ve improved the interface sufficiently enough so that their dear moms can easily use it.)