RSSS: Really Simple Second Life Syndication
You gotta check out SecondView. This is a syndication tool that gives you a window into your own chosen RSS feeds out on the general Web from within Second Life. It’s a great example of how the Web and virtual worlds are now evolving in tandem. The creators have designed a revenue model involving Linden dollar micropayments, which they describe as follows: “SecondView is configurable to show justthe content you want to see. SecondView comes with a collection of free channels. You can easily add your own RSS channels. The cost of other channels is shared by all subscribers: the more popular the channel, the cheaper it is. In the future you will be able to create SecondView pages from within Second Life as well.”
If you want to subscribe to this blog via SecondView, you won’t be required to shell out any Linden dollars - Millions of Us is underwriting its distribution.
September 6th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Here’s what’s wrong with this model, Reuben. Let’s say you have an online newspaper like the SL Herald, that has its own advertisers and works hard to get its traffic so that theoretically readers can view these ads on the web. Then SecondView grabs the RSS feed, which they pay some small amount for, and turns around and provides your content for free — but now without your ads, and with its *own* ads. What chump will sign up for that?
There’s also questions about what avatar information is snagged and harvested and stored in the process of providing and operating these HUDS. It’s a gold mine of shopping and user information, as per usual with these data-scraping devices. So they also get that proprietary info, along with your eyeballs, which they now sell their advertising to.
Add to that the annoyance of having a HUD up in front of your view as you fly around. It’s easier to tab out of SL and view that blog on the web — where you can also effortlessly comment, too, or cut and paste or share on Facebook or delicious or whatever.
Second Life is a world, not a browser.
September 6th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Prok –
I think your initial points are true of ALL RSS readers, whether in SL or not. It’s a fact of this crazy mashed up world we live in. The only consolation is a belief that content begets more content. As for the avatar info harvesting — I don’t believe this to be the case here.
I agree that SL is a world but I think that imbuing that world with better browsing benefits all of us.
R