In this entry, I'm going to be talking about barriers to entry into Second Life, and some ways we can get around them. As observed by a variety of blogs, we seem to have leveled off at about 42,000 concurrent users, and we have a very high (90%) attrition rate of new users to Second Life. Judging by the raw account numbers, it seems signups have slowed down from their break-neck 20% per month pace, as well.
It would seem obvious to me that there are some barriers to usage in place that are preventing even more people from accessing and enjoying Second Life. These are things we need to address if we want Second Life to become a ubiquitous Metaworld platform.
But first, something really cool.
Finger Mouse
Thanks to Mark Wallace at 3pointD for alerting me to this:
3-D input device created as small as a ring
Nice!
The reasons I love this:
- It's student-made.
- The device is lightweight and fits on your finger
- This is the first thing I've seen that has a potential to be inexpensive 3-D input device that isn't clunky.
Also, the students are going to have to miniaturize the receiver device. I can imagine something like the Wii's IR-bar clipping to the edge of a monitor.
More images.
This sort of device could pave the way to doing much more elaborate 3-D interfaces in ways that are still intuitive for user navigation. Case in point: Amazon.
What I'd Do With Amazon.com
During Virtual Worlds 2007, Millions of Us CEO and former Linden Labber, Reuben Steiger, stated, to paraphrase, that 2-D interfaces will never be replaced by 3-D in some cases. While I agree on principle, I disagree with his example: Amazon.com
I shop Amazon for stuff like books or DVDs, and it's useful for when I know what I'm looking for, or at least the artist / author I'm looking for. However, I just can't browse Amazon worth a dang. Where Reuben can't imagine Amazon.com in 3-D, to me it's obvious that just because we may not be able to visualize technology, doesn't mean it won't exist. That to me is a signal that we're getting closer to a technological singularity, not that we're saturating our interface technology to a point of perfection.
First and foremost, Amazon in 3-D will likely try and recreate a real shopping experience. I say this for a few reasons:
- It's easy to imagine
- People are going to malls less, but missing the experience of shopping at stores
- There has been hundreds of years of experience and research into how shoppers shop in 3-D meatspace. That knowledge will transfer (though not 1:1) to 3-D Virtual space.
- Think about X-Y-Z. (in SL coordinates, where X is forward, Z is up, Y is lateral) Perhaps the Y-axis is books by the same author. Perhaps the Z-Axis is books similar in topic / genre. The X-Axis could be older versions of the book, or other languages, or different formats. (Audio, large-text, paperback, hardcover, etc).
- Keep book covers as thumbnails, but think 3-D "book covers". As you hover your mouse / click on book covers, they could expand into 3-D dioramas, using basic holo-rezzer technology. (Reminds me, tonight I need to document my Mutable Spaces holo-rezzer and open source it.)
- Allow users to customize their own portal using a dynamic HUD device to have access to the traditional website, 3-D, 2-D and text based information, and sort their 3-D visualization in any number of ways.
- Populating a local shopping cart and then pushing all data to a web-interface all at once. Once SL gets HTML, this becomes seamless.
What makes Second Life popular?
It's a combination of a 3-D immersive environment, protection of individuals' IP rights and ability to assert them through a virtual, yet stable in-world economy, and interfaces to real-world applications and data. 4 things: 3-D, money, IP, connections. Got that?
I mention this because while Second Life has a lot of the right stuff to be a popular platform, it has barriers to entry. And this is precisely how topic #1 relates to topic #2.
One major barrier to entry is the interface, and the associated learning curve. Lightweight, intuitive controllers like the prototype 3-D ring mouse will make new users able to more quickly jump into a 3-D environment. This is really important because while 3-D is a very intuitive space to reside in and understand from a conceptual, human point of view, it isn't necessarily an easy space to navigate. New users literally have to be taught how to walk, talk, and fly.
Playing with better hardware interfaces are part of a solution, but only one side of the equation. At the same time, we need to work on improving our software interface, i.e. the SL browser.
It's a Browser, Not a Game
Most centrally, I think the crux of what needs to improve with the SL interface is that SL, right now, works like a game interface. You act always through an avatar proxy who walks, flies, touches, rides vehicles, etc. This is great for an immersive SL, but the Metaverse is something more. Since SL derives so much from connecting to the real Internet, and since SL is eventually supposed to supplement the Internet, it seems appropriate that our interface ought to behave much more like an Internet browser.
This has a variety of facets, which off the top of my head, I'd include HTML, a customizable interface, built-in Jabber compatible chat, etc. Many of these things are in works, so I'd like to touch upon one aspect that I have not yet in my blog: Passive Browsing.
Passive Browsing as Emergent Behavior
Also known as "ghost mode", Passive Browsing would let SL browsers (clients) access content in Second Life without rendering any avatars. "Ghost Mode" is a misnomer, really, because it assumes that "You can see other people, and they can't see you". This is not what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting is catering to emergent behavior of the real Internet and incorporate those aspects into SL.
Interaction with avatars is something I focus on with my professional builds, but at the same time, not everything requires having an avatar. Going back to the Amazon.com idea, I really don't need an avatar to browse through Amazon's wares. Having it in 3-D would be a boon, as I've pointed out, but the avatar only gets in the way.
So the point is this - we have this huge Internet with billions of pages, and we have a way that people like to surf it. While there are definitely new ways to explore data that Second Life is providing, why would we force the public to abandon all of that existing behavior? We've spent over 15 years figuring out just how to best tailor the Internet to make usage easy. Why would we throw away that wisdom?
It seems obvious to me that we should be able to incorporate that knowledge into Second Life, and make our 3-D platform a much more robust, comprehensive tool.
Barrier Lowered: Easier Learning Curve
Why not, instead, let people set to avatarless, Passive Browsing mode? Suddenly, there's no inventory, no instant message window, no friend list, no build tool. What remains is a much simpler, intuitive interface. New users intimidated by all the features of Second Life now have much less to deal with, starting off, and have a much lower technological barrier of entry.
Barrier Lowered: Easier on Network and Graphics Requirements
Better yet, a Passive Browsing mode would mean much lighter hardware and bandwidth requirements, since avatars add both a significant amount of network lag as well as complexity to render. Without having to worry about what avatars are showing up to their land, owners would have complete control over all things on their parcel, and could tailor content to be much less graphics and network intensive.
While computers have dropped in price since SL has started, there graphics and CPU requirements of SL are still above a great deal of computer users. This becomes an even larger issue as we leave the Western world and into countries with less wealth. Bandwidth has the same issue, and is a problem in the US, as well, where rural areas have trouble getting high-speed Internet access. Alleviating both of these by lowering requirements means a far greater number of people will have access to Second Life.
(Thanks celebrity for reminding me about this part.) Remember Network is also about load on the servers. If a server isn't having to manage all of the cross-connects between users to see one another, then we're also looking at an increase in the number of people who can simultaneously view content. I couldn't guess to the amount this will be true, but even a 2-fold increase would be beneficial.
Barrier Lowered: Psychological Resistance, aka "I don't play online games!"
Another significant barrier to entry is the fact that many, if not most people consider virtual worlds to be games. People won't touch Second Life because when they think of it, the closest thing in their mind that they understand would be World of Warcraft. To them, Second Life is silly, trivial, and/or just not interesting. Instead, having the SL be able to act more like a browser, people could come in, not feel super intimidated, and when they are ready, then go ahead and start up their avatar.
Barrier Lowered: "I don't want my kid interacting with people online unsupervised."
Along the lines of the last advantage, there will be responsible parents who may feel their child is too young to interact with strangers over the Internet. While age verification is one good step, we have to realize that the real Internet isn't PG-13, it's intended for everyone. So while an 8-year old in Second Life would definitely need to be restricted to G-Rated content, they additionally may need to have their avatars turned off. This is a concern I've heard raised by many people, who are interested in providing virtual world content for young people as a rich learning environment, but who don't want to expose them to the risks of interacting with people on the Internet.
Concerns
Passive Browsing, or "Ghost Mode" raises red flags with people. Many people I've discussed this with are highly resistant to the idea because they see it as a privacy issue. I think the easiest and most obvious way to assuage these concerns are adding a parcel flag that could restrict users by whether they have avatar mode on or off.
I might add that with the open source client, it's inevitable that people will develop ways to go around this anyway, so this is a larger security issue that will have to be addressed regardless of whether there is Passive Browsing mode, or not.
Others don't like how this breaks the immersive element of Second Life. This is the same stubborn rejection of Second Life interacting with the Internet. This should not be seen as restricting ability in SL; instead, this is adding new functionality to use SL in new ways. It should be viewed as augmenting SL's capabilities for people who would use it other than specifically in an immersive way. (Going back to the Amazon example to prove there are major, legit ways where this can be true.)
Passive Browsing Summary
So we have a list of reasons why passive browsing would be beneficial:
- Lighter hardware and bandwidth requirements for some users
- Removing some psychological barriers for some potential users
- Adding abilities to better control your 3-D environment
- Simplifying the interface for instances that don't need a full avatar browser
- Extending Second Life to younger audiences
Posts
6 comments:
One potential benefit that you've perhaps overlooked is the resource constraint on the number of agents that can reside in any single simulator at the same time.
If "ghost mode" were a reality, then perhaps it would be possible to really have thousands of viewers watching the same content in Second Life.
To me that possibility outweighs all of the other benefits you list.
Absolutely, celebrity. These long blog posts are sometimes tough to remember to include everything; thanks for pointing that out. Let me add this in-line.
How weird to read your blog today, Hiro, after coming from a three-day academic & research workshop/conference on SL, where around a dozen local researchers have been presenting their ongoing work on SL — coming from all areas of knowledge, from architecture to education, from pedagogy to sociology, and marginally from a few computer science areas as well.
The overall conclusion drawn by most researchers placed a very strong focus on some of the key aspects of SL: the collaborative environment where people can informally work together in a collaborative, immersive environment unlike any other.
Most of these researchers are familiar with e-Learning tools for almost a decade (some are that old!) and even during some of the informal between-the-sessions talk a small group tried out things like OpenCroquet and Kaneva — for much amusement as people struggled to get it to work and pointed out how these tools are completely missing the point.
These researchers are aware of the limitation of them all (including, as well, the limitations of SL, obviously). An avatar-less SL would be the contemporary equivalent of a VRML-based environment, where you can access 3D content easily (and, as you said, without avatars and human interaction [IMs, chat, etc.], the interface could be much easier to master, and could run on lower-ended hardware.
But the major points of SL would be lost on an avatar-less world — no human interaction. No true "collaborative" environment in the sense that the avatar-enabled users would certainly collaborate and communicate, but the avatar-less users would be mere spectators (even if the avatar-less SL would allow interaction with objects to provide a shopping experience). I'm pretty sure that the overall mood at this workshop would be shocked at knowing that someone would be propoing to "cut down" SL to wind the clock back half a decade to the point where VRML was (and failed to deliver).
More than ever now — and it's a warm feeling to know that scientific research now backs me up when claiming this — the key aspects of SL are (and will be) indeed having humans collaboratively interact on a virtual 3D environment. The avatar is the key that unlocks the environment; and the ability to shape and transform the environment through the avatar is what makes SL worthy of academic research as a tool, a platform, and a work/research environment.
Thus, while I understand the reasons why you're proposing "Ghost Mode" — namely, making SL more user-friendly, running in a low-end machine, simplifying the process of viewing data, and also to reduce lag — what you're effectively proposing is to VRMLise SL, by getting rid of the avatars and their whole interaction. I don't see how I can agree with that; I wouldn't agree on Tuesday, but would have no arguments to disagree; but now I can point you to about a dozen scientific studies that would very strongly support the notion that this "Ghost Mode" would be a very bad idea.
On the issue of "privacy", however, I don't antecipate a problem. People in "Ghost Mode" would simply get their regular avatar in-world, perhaps just flagged as "ghost" (say, with 50% transparency) and show up on non-ghost-mode enabled minimaps and avatar radars. So, the avatarless rendering would be like disabling that option from the Client menu (yes, you can live in an avatar-less world today if you wish) — you wouldn't see anyone, and not get chat nor IMs, but others with a full-featured SL client would still see something. I don't foresee any problem here. In fact, you could just take the current open source client, disable all the avatar rendering options and the IM/chat system, and your work for an avatar-less SL client would be pretty much finished. Other people in-world would still see your avatar running around, just be unable to communicate and interact with them.
I like the idea of ghost mode. Actually, I don't see having that possibility as ruining the immerivenes of virtual world. On contrary.
In real life we all have moments when we are not aware of our bodies or people around us. We read, we daydream, we are simply AFK. It is a step towards "realism" to have an option to swetch to similar state in-world.
One example that going through my mind is reading in SL. There are books and in-world magazines that are supposed to be red in second life, not in your flatworld browser. And it is not most convenient thing to attach them to the HUD though it is the only way so far.
Other thing is that we could need a simple text editor (but not simple as writin new notecard). All those things asks for better integration of other applications which is impossible at the moment and which will benefit from temporar removing of avatars.
That train of thoughts driven me on side track: http://metaverse.acidzen.org/2007/being-around-without-avatar
Gwyn, thanks for stopping by!
>> "what you're effectively proposing is to VRMLise SL, by getting rid of the avatars and their whole interaction"
No, I've thought of this. There's a few key differences:
1. First and foremost, realize the whole scope of my suggestion is in the context of a "learning curve" solution. I don't propose users should stay in a Passive Browsing stage forever. Instead, I see it as more of getting users in SL, make it easier for them to learn, and eventually they will be ready for the full-blown interface.
This will be especially true given that a majority of experiences are and will remain designed for avatars, and it will be a natural transition. "Oh, there are buildings here, maybe I should try avatar mode sometime."
2. Extending access to mobile users. At least in the short to mid-term, mobile devices don't have the power or bandwidth to do SL with any decent performance.
3. While community is one of the biggest benefits to SL, as you point out
4. Last, and very significantly, VRML (now x3d) is a web add-on to the Internet. Avatarless Passive Browsing would be the other way around - it would be the Internet as an add-on to a virtual world. The focus would still be on immersion rather than "here's a nifty 3-D doodad on my web page." and I believe that is a world of difference.
>> "you could just take the current open source client, disable all the avatar rendering options and the IM/chat system, and your work for an avatar-less SL client would be pretty much finished."
I disagree. We're talking about lightening the load on servers, as well. Removing avatar rendering from the client only improves your performance a small amount. It doesn't remove the interfaces with SL's asset server or back-end interactions with other avatars. And it certainly doesn't remove your avatar for other people to see.
No, you miss the point somewhat. Ghost mode isn't about just the ghost's client being lighter, it is about the person not showing up to others, other than perhaps a different colored circle on the map. This would demand that a land option to allow/disallow ghosts be included, and I'm assuming most private residents would consider opting for this.
...
So, envision if you will, you're a ghost, lots of SL is blocked off, but major attractions are open. Its design is very different in purpose from the existing SL. It's not meant to go to residential areas. It's meant to be tailored for corporate sims, educational, etc. It's meant as an introduction to SL, not to be part of SL totally.
Wow! What a post! With a raft of some great ideas and thinking!
I love the idea of Ghost Mode/Passive Browsing. This is an issue that has to be dealt with sooner or later, especially if you believe in the inevitability of a 3D internet, as I do.
There are times when I want to check something out in world and don't want to respond to chat from people around me or to IMs from friends.
And as more services like Amazon go 3D as you suggest it will become more of an issue. I just want to browse 3D content, and not have to worry about interacting with others.
This would also solve the embarrassing problem of forgetting one is in SL and returning to find your avatar has fallen asleep in some really embarrassing spot or that you have offended someone by not responding to their invitations to chat or IM. :-)
Obviously there are some privacy issues that have to be worked out... being an anonymous ghost av that indicates someone is present may be one solution... but I'm sure there will be plenty of others.
Gwyneth... I don't think it's a case of either/or, but a matter of choices. Hiro isn't talking about an "avatar-less SL" here. There are still times when I will want to take advantage of the unique qualities of 3D worlds like SL - the immersion, the collaboration, the sociality... just not always. And could you please point to these scientific studies that say that ghost mode would be a very bad idea.
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