Second Life History
The virtual whirl: a brief history of Second Life from 1999 to 2010 by @TateruNino; http://j.mp/SLhistory
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Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Credits: Soon
Zuckerberg: Facebook Credits will soon role out to the whole network; http://j.mp/99tn5R
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Gerrit Eicker
VB: “New details emerged today on Facebook Credits, a long-awaited virtual currency on the social network that will likely have a lot of impact on how much money is made by Facebook’s ecosystem partners. – The discussion at a session at the f8 developer conference focused on how Facebook Credits can be used as a virtual currency in games, which you play for free but pay for specific virtual items with the virtual currency, which you buy with real money. … Still, this complaint is not stopping the app publishers from trying it out, particularly as a secondary form of currency, in addition to a virtual currency that is unique to a game or app. Almost all of Facebook’s major game companies, as well as some small ones, are trying the credits out. … Facebook wants to launch formally in June and that there are more than 100 apps testing it already. Crowdstar co-founder Jeff Tseng talked about how the test has worked out so well with his company’s games that he has expanded the beta test of Facebook Credits to the company’s top four hit games. … Users can still use a variety of payment methods when buying Facebook Credits. They can use a credit card, PayPal, mobile payments such as Zong, and special advertising offers (via TrialPay, where users can earn credits by purchasing flowers or sign up for a subscription).”
VB: “Zuckerberg: ‘You may not believe me when I say this. We are doing it for developers. But it’s not a revenue opportunity anytime soon. Ads are a very good business. We are doing this for developers. With credits, it becomes easier for people to buy things across apps. Rather than being locked into one app that has their credit card, they can buy in any app. This is a canonical economics example where it makes sense to have a standard and have just one, or a few, and that ends up being better for everyone.‘”
RWW: “When Facebook released their revenue figures in February, the Credits program accounted less than 2% of revenue – only $10 million out of $700 million. The consolidation of virtual transactions on Facebook into one currency means that these figures are likely to change substantially. Liu said today that there were around 800 million unique social gaming experiences on Facebook each month. Clearly there is potential for phenomenal growth in virtual currency – for developers and for Facebook – lies with users who are willing to pay for virtual goods to help them in their social gaming.”
TC: “Other future plans: Facebook will be seeding non-paying users with credits (to help get them in the habit of using them) and will also have a way to seed inactive users in the hopes of getting them to interact with apps again. There are also plans to offer bulk discounting on Credits, which will be paid for using some of the 30% fee that Facebook charges developers to use Credits. There will also be a feature for ‘auto top-up’, which can automatically refill a user’s account with 50 credits whenever they have fewer than five.”
Gerrit Eicker
Second Life 2009
Second Life economy wrap up 2009: strong overall growth but continued decline in user hours; http://j.mp/7T0tFY
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Ton Zijlstra
Decline in user hours for Q4 compared to Q3, but still growth as compared to Q4 2008. Overall growth in user hours in 2009 still above 20%. Linden writes the user hours declined most for their most heavy users. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the current 12 months. Might be a blip, might become something else.
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Gerrit Eicker
Indeed. Still, the trend (Q2-Q4 2009) doesn’t look healthy to me. And the growth year-over-year (Q4) is marginal (< 1%).
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Gerrit Eicker
Virtual Goods
PlaySpan survey: The most popular virtual goods are virtual money, weapons, gifts; http://j.mp/oJkbz
Gerrit Eicker 05:41 on 11. July 2010 Permalink |
Massively: “Second Life has just seen its seventh anniversary (called its seventh birthday, only it technically isn’t — the original birthday is in March, but the anniversary is in June. There’s history there). It’s also traditionally a time when Linden Lab and Second Life users most often treat each other as enemies and obstacles; and it is a time for retrospectives and for considering the future.”
– 1999-2002: Linden World, and ‘the rig’
– 2002-2003: Beta, taxes, layoffs and the road to economy
– 2004: Features, bugs and Tringo
– 2005: Video, the Lindex, verbing the GOM, a gold rush, and griefers
– 2006: More gold rushes, less griefing and the Second Life Liberation Army
– 2007: Scams, bans and friction
– 2008: A mixed bag
– 2009: The bull in the china shop
– 2010 and beyond