Wired editor turns on Second Life
July 30th, 2007 • Gaming, Social
Wired’s esteemed editor Chris Anderson has lost faith in Second Life, having thrown himself in a presence in the hyped virtual world - including a book signing, and the production of an SL ‘travel guide‘. Why?
Well, partly it was the whole “there’s nobody there” problem, which is of course just anecdotal. Like everyone else, I had fun exploring the concept and marveling at all the creativity. Then I got bored, and I started marveling at something else: all the empty corporate edifices. By day I’d speak at marketing conferences that usually had someone pitching SL services, complete with staged demonstrations (the “inhabitants” invariably paid employees). By night I’d go back to the same places, which had reverted to ghost towns once the demonstration was over. I couldn’t understand why companies kept throwing money at in-world presences. Were they seeing something I wasn’t?
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