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Meat Popsicle · 10-21-2009, 11:09 AM

what is the 2nd best virtual world ... is there a 3rd life?

Argent Stonecutter · 10-21-2009, 11:59 AM

"Your Majesty, there is no second."

Meat Popsicle · 10-21-2009, 01:01 PM

That is kindof sad considering that LL has some kind of monoploy thing cooking. Maybe Billy Gates will get off his ass and tell one of his goons to get with the program soon.

Argent Stonecutter · 10-21-2009, 01:25 PM

I hope it doesn't take 132 years this time.

Siggy · 10-21-2009, 03:24 PM

Being 'the best' in your own catagory is like winning the gold in the special olympics.

Argent Stonecutter · 10-21-2009, 03:41 PM

You mean like Microsoft, Siggy? Or IBM in the '60s?

Allana Dion · 10-21-2009, 05:56 PM

"Meat Popsicle"

Argent Stonecutter · 10-21-2009, 06:03 PM

I love that movie.

**Bard Jameson** · 10-21-2009, 07:47 PM

I find that RL is a fair second-best environment to SL

Ariane · 10-22-2009, 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meat Popsicle

what is the 2nd best virtual world ... is there a 3rd life?

IMVU
Population: 40 million registered users
Active: 6 million average monthly unique logins

Second Life
Population: Over 20 million registered accounts
Active: Around 1 million unique logins a month.

Hmm, looks like Second Life is Second Best

Argent Stonecutter · 10-22-2009, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ariane

IMVU
Population: 40 million registered users
Active: 6 million average monthly unique logins

Second Life
Population: Over 20 million registered accounts
Active: Around 1 million unique logins a month.

Hmm, looks like Second Life is Second Best

Very clever, except that IMVU isn't a virtual world.

Rock · 10-24-2009, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Argent Stonecutter

Very clever, except that IMVU isn't a virtual world.

Very clever, to define a 'virtual world' so narrowly, that only SL can fit the bill. Doesn't wash. IMVU is a virtual world, and beats SL easily in terms of residents.

Rock

Argent Stonecutter · 10-24-2009, 10:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rock

Very clever, to define a 'virtual world' so narrowly, that only SL can fit the bill.

You know perfectly well that I have done no such thing, and I've listed other virtual worlds going back to the '80s.

The sad thing is that nobody else in the 3d space is even interested in creating a true 3d world. Even SL has all kinds of unnecessary restrictions, it's merely the best of a bad lot.

Ariane · 10-25-2009, 12:24 AM

I just finished a blog entry on this very topic. The IMVU statistics are from a press release earlier this month. IMVU is celebrating that they are now profitable.

I'll quote the salient points:

Quote:

IMVU is easily the highest populated, thanks to an aggressive advertising campaign. But, the Second Life economy is about 20 times bigger. Oddly the activity and peak traffic statistics are very similar, so there is no clear winner based on popularity.
Then there are many that question whether or not IMVU is even a virtual world or not. By my broad definition it is, but even IMVU calls itself a 3D chat program and social network rather than calling itself a Virtual World. Since you can create your own avatar, build your own home, customize both as you see fit, and visit any room you want, its a virtual world in my book. The only significant difference between IMVU and the more narrow definition of virtual world is navigation. You cannot walk around in rooms, you click on little yellow dots which animate your avatar to a location in the room. You also cannot navigate from room to room.You select an active chat, or create a new one, and you move to a room. Due to the lack of navigation, there is no real estate or vehicles, which explains why its economy is smaller than other virtual worlds.

Quote:

So are these the two biggest? Well most 3DVW services are a bit stingy with their statistics. About the only thing we have to compare is total accounts (Population), which as you can see above is misleading. No matter how you measure, “active” accounts is always significantly lower than total accounts.

Here are the next five 3DVW’s based on population stats :
PS3 Home 7 million
Free Realms 5 million
Red Light Center 3 million
There 2.5 million
Kaneva 2 million
All others are under 1 million. Of these five, I suspect There has the most robust economy (possibly bigger than IMVU), but Free Realms is the fastest growing (a million new sign ups a month), and likely the most active these days.
Regardless, it is clear by population alone that IMVU and Second Life’s position as #1 and #2 (or #2 and #1 depending on what stats you use) are safely uncontested at this time.

Rock · 10-25-2009, 06:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ariane

I just finished a blog entry on this very topic. The IMVU statistics are from a press release earlier this month. IMVU is celebrating that they are now profitable.

I'll quote the salient points:

Correction needed: IMVU Does call itself a Virtual World. From its home page, IMVU: 3D Chat and Dress Up. Shop in Style, Meet New People, Create Your Own Designs it says:

Quote:

What is IMVU?

IMVU is a social network and 3D virtual world where millions of people meet, chat and have fun in animated 3D scenes.

Club Penguin is also described as a Kiddies 3D Virtual World, and if we do not exclude the Worlds designed for children, then SL would be lucky if it scraped in at #3.

Total number of residents (accounts) are meaningless, including as it does those who sign up, have one look and never return, and the inflation due to the creation of bots and alts. Concurrent user data is the only worthwhile measure of the current popularity of any Virtual World, and even that can be inflated by Worlds that allow bots and alts.

Has anyone seen the concurrent user data for the Chinese-based HiPiHi recently?

Rock

Argent Stonecutter · 10-25-2009, 07:25 AM

To be a world, everyone has to be able to interact with the things around you in ways that you can interact with the real world, as much as the technology affords. A purely text based environment can be MORE like a world than any of the current 3d environments, if it allows you to change the world around you as you move through it. A chat system with 3d wallpaper and 3d paper dolls isn't a world in any meaningful sense, because you can't interact with the environment except in the most limited fashion... even in your own home.

This is unrelated to whether it's popular or not. Virtual worlds have never been as popular as chat systems, all the way back to the MUDs of the early '80s. Virtual worlds are a niche market.

If the topic was "second most popular" that would be different, but it's not. It's "second best".

Ariane · 10-25-2009, 09:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rock

Club Penguin is also described as a Kiddies 3D Virtual World, and if we do not exclude the Worlds designed for children, then SL would be lucky if it scraped in at #3.

Total number of residents (accounts) are meaningless, including as it does those who sign up, have one look and never return, and the inflation due to the creation of bots and alts. Concurrent user data is the only worthwhile measure of the current popularity of any Virtual World, and even that can be inflated by Worlds that allow bots and alts.

Has anyone seen the concurrent user data for the Chinese-based HiPiHi recently?

Club Penguin can call itself 3D but if it doesn't use an actual 3D graphics engine its not 3D. I also don't consider other 2.5D worlds like Smallworlds, sMeet, or Metaplace to be 3D either. They are Virtual Worlds, and there is a big market for non 3D. Habbo Hotel beats them all BTW.

I agree that total number of accounts is meaningless. The Lindens do too as it is difficult to find what that number is for SL anymore (they used to post it when you launched the client).

As I said in my post, most virtual worlds won't release actual use statistics like SL and IMVU does, so number of accounts is all we have available to compare.

Rock · 10-25-2009, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Argent Stonecutter

To be a world, everyone has to be able to interact with the things around you in ways that you can interact with the real world, as much as the technology affords. A purely text based environment can be MORE like a world than any of the current 3d environments, if it allows you to change the world around you as you move through it. A chat system with 3d wallpaper and 3d paper dolls isn't a world in any meaningful sense, because you can't interact with the environment except in the most limited fashion... even in your own home.

This is unrelated to whether it's popular or not. Virtual worlds have never been as popular as chat systems, all the way back to the MUDs of the early '80s. Virtual worlds are a niche market.

If the topic was "second most popular" that would be different, but it's not. It's "second best".

You keep missing out the important phrase, 'in my opinion', and stating things as if they are fact, when they are not.

I strongly suggest you read the Terra Nova blog, which has contributions from respected professorial academics and authors in the Virtual World arena (Bartle, Castronova, Lastowka, et al). You might also want to look at the partial list of Virtual Worlds which they give to get an idea of what they consider to be Virtual Worlds. You might also want to read the definition of 'Virtual Worlds' as given by Lastowka in his paper on 'User-Generated Content & Virtual Worlds', (Lastowka, Greg, User-Generated Content & Virtual Worlds. Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, 2008. Available at SSRN: SSRN-User-Generated Content & Virtual Worlds by Greg Lastowka) and note he describes World of Warcraft, ToonTown Online, Eve Online, There.com and Club Penguin as all being Virtual Worlds. It has a substantial reference list.

The main thrust of the paper is a side-by-side comparison of two Virtual Worlds: World of Warcraft (without user-generated content [narrowly defined]) and Second Life (which embraces user-generated content).

Cory Ondrejka, former CTO of Linden Lab, is a well-known proponent of the union of user-generated content and Virtual Worlds (see:
Escaping the Gilded Cage: User Created Content and Building the Metaverse', downloadable from: SSRN-Escaping the Gilded Cage: User Created Content and Building the Metaverse by Cory Ondrejka). Of course, he had a vested interest in his assertions (which have an uncanny echo in your writings on this subject), but he is largely alone in his views, which are not shared by the majority of those in academia and industry (which focus on Virtual Worlds).

Rock

Argent Stonecutter · 10-25-2009, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rock

You keep missing out the important phrase, 'in my opinion'

Don't be a jerk, Rock. Everything here is "in my opinion". This is a fucking web forum, not a refereed scientific journal.

If Cory is the only guy who actually understands that to be a "virtual world" you have to be a "world", that would explain why Second Life is the closest thing to a real 3d virtual world yet. Videogames are not "virtual worlds". Environments that you can't actually *work* in aren't "virtual worlds".

Camille Serpentine · 10-25-2009, 10:07 PM

I don't think of IMVU as a vitual world. I found it to be very limiting and to do anything cost real $$. It is very easy to generate your own content in SL w/o using real $$.

SL has an advantage that you can move around and explore, last time I used IMVU, you were limited to specific poses, no real movement.

Lordfly Digeridoo · 10-25-2009, 10:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rock

You keep missing out the important phrase, 'in my opinion', and stating things as if they are fact, when they are not.

I strongly suggest you read the Terra Nova blog, which has contributions from respected professorial academics and authors in the Virtual World arena (Bartle, Castronova, Lastowka, et al). You might also want to look at the partial list of Virtual Worlds which they give to get an idea of what they consider to be Virtual Worlds. You might also want to read the definition of 'Virtual Worlds' as given by Lastowka in his paper on 'User-Generated Content & Virtual Worlds', (Lastowka, Greg, User-Generated Content & Virtual Worlds. Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, 2008. Available at SSRN: SSRN-User-Generated Content & Virtual Worlds by Greg Lastowka) and note he describes World of Warcraft, ToonTown Online, Eve Online, There.com and Club Penguin as all being Virtual Worlds. It has a substantial reference list.

The main thrust of the paper is a side-by-side comparison of two Virtual Worlds: World of Warcraft (without user-generated content [narrowly defined]) and Second Life (which embraces user-generated content).

Cory Ondrejka, former CTO of Linden Lab, is a well-known proponent of the union of user-generated content and Virtual Worlds (see:
Escaping the Gilded Cage: User Created Content and Building the Metaverse', downloadable from: SSRN-Escaping the Gilded Cage: User Created Content and Building the Metaverse by Cory Ondrejka). Of course, he had a vested interest in his assertions (which have an uncanny echo in your writings on this subject), but he is largely alone in his views, which are not shared by the majority of those in academia and industry (which focus on Virtual Worlds).

Rock

If WoW is a virtual world, then Disneyworld is an accurate simulation of reality.

WoW is a game. At best, it's a guided theme park. It has a world constructed, for sure... for the game, for the plot. It exists on rails, much like the paths at Cedar Point or Disneyland.

IMVU is IRC with Bratz dolls.

10-21-2009, 11:09 AM	#1 (permalink)
Meat Popsicle \m/ Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 19	2nd Best what is the 2nd best virtual world ... is there a 3rd life?

10-21-2009, 03:24 PM	#5 (permalink)
Siggy Now with 40% more Awesome Racin' the griefers Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 2,047 My Mood: SLShopper Ads: 31	Being 'the best' in your own catagory is like winning the gold in the special olympics. __________________ And as it was in the beginning, so too shall it be in the end. That bullshit is bullshit, it just goes by different names.

10-21-2009, 05:56 PM	#7 (permalink)
Allana Dion engage @ ur own risk is "especially unfriendly and rude" Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: California Posts: 2,961 My Mood: Pinboliada (Zuma) Champion!	"Meat Popsicle" __________________ blergh thing Trout Rated! Playful, yet sultry and smoky. I am giving you a 6.8 on the Trout Recreant Rating Scale of Sluttiness. Congratulations! You are not a slut, but given the right situation, you certainly have the potential.

10-21-2009, 07:47 PM	#9 (permalink)
Bard Jameson Situationally Obtuse SLU Supporter Cliqueless Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 6,530 My Mood: SL Join Date: 1/27/2008 Blog Entries: 1 Awards: 1	I find that RL is a fair second-best environment to SL __________________ Photogenix Flickr Stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34885797@N08/ Photogenix Blog - http://photogenixstudios.blogspot.com/

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10-21-2009, 11:59 AM	#2 (permalink)
Argent Stonecutter Emergency Mustelid Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 1,084	"Your Majesty, there is no second."

10-21-2009, 01:01 PM	#3 (permalink)
Meat Popsicle \m/ Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 19	That is kindof sad considering that LL has some kind of monoploy thing cooking. Maybe Billy Gates will get off his ass and tell one of his goons to get with the program soon.

10-21-2009, 01:25 PM	#4 (permalink)
Argent Stonecutter Emergency Mustelid Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 1,084	I hope it doesn't take 132 years this time.

10-21-2009, 03:41 PM	#6 (permalink)
Argent Stonecutter Emergency Mustelid Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 1,084	You mean like Microsoft, Siggy? Or IBM in the '60s?

10-21-2009, 06:03 PM	#8 (permalink)
Argent Stonecutter Emergency Mustelid Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 1,084	I love that movie.

10-25-2009, 07:25 AM	#16 (permalink)
Argent Stonecutter Emergency Mustelid Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 1,084	To be a world, everyone has to be able to interact with the things around you in ways that you can interact with the real world, as much as the technology affords. A purely text based environment can be MORE like a world than any of the current 3d environments, if it allows you to change the world around you as you move through it. A chat system with 3d wallpaper and 3d paper dolls isn't a world in any meaningful sense, because you can't interact with the environment except in the most limited fashion... even in your own home. This is unrelated to whether it's popular or not. Virtual worlds have never been as popular as chat systems, all the way back to the MUDs of the early '80s. Virtual worlds are a niche market. If the topic was "second most popular" that would be different, but it's not. It's "second best".

10-25-2009, 10:07 PM	#20 (permalink)
Camille Serpentine Reaming your prims Screwing your scripts Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 579 My Mood: Farm Hustle Champion! Fast Food Fiasco Champion! SL Join Date: October 2003 Blog Entries: 1	I don't think of IMVU as a vitual world. I found it to be very limiting and to do anything cost real $$. It is very easy to generate your own content in SL w/o using real $$. SL has an advantage that you can move around and explore, last time I used IMVU, you were limited to specific poses, no real movement.

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