Just came across a highly critical post by David Churbuck, VP of Global Web Marketing at Lenovo. I thought it made sense to write a little response because his post represents feelings held by many in the business community who are reading about Second Life and wondering what all the fuss is about.
First read David’s post, then my response below:
Disclaimer: I’m completely biased on the subject. I run a company called Millions of Us that brings real world companies into virtual worlds including Second Life and prior to that I was the Evangelist for Linden Lab.That said, I think it’s interesting that your #1 point is that “1. Linden Labs has the best PR department on the planet. They have suckered the press and marketing communities like no one else I have ever seen.”It’s a completely sensible assumption to make, given the level of press activity around SL recently, but it’s not quite accurate. The PR department at LL is really talented and thoroughly professional (it’s actually just 1 person). Ascribing the media frenzy to their efforts is sort of like watching an ant colony and making the sensible (though incorrect) assumption that the queen must be really really smart.Here’s my point — Second Life does have more PR pound for pound than any company on the planet, but it’s not because they’re misleading people or seeking press. The reason is that because the world is user-created, it is inherently chaotic and therefore interesting for bloggers and reporters to observe and write about. In other words, it a multi-author story being written by a couple of million authors and it will only get more interesting as more people pick up “pens” and begin writing..And it’s this line of thinking that holds the most appeal for corporations as well — the ability to hand pens to their users and allows them to write/create on their behalf.You’re on the money with most of the rest of your complaints — it’s neither polished nor particularly user-friendly. This will, I assume, improve, but the general idea is that what Linden Lab sacrifice in terms of polish by letting the users create the content they make back 100 times over because the world is constantly changing and therefore interesting, if a little daunting and bizarre.
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[...] We continue to see the inevitable anti-SL pendulum swing from all the hype of the last few months. Frankly, I don‚Äôt blame the detractors, and I think the skepticism is really healthy.¬† I know lots of people who ‚Äújust don‚Äôt get it‚Äù and my response is ‚Äúall in good time.‚Äù¬† I don’t expect everyone to have a need that fits the current environment, or to see the promise through some of the current limitations. Reuben responded to a recent post over at Churbuck.com and I thought I would weigh in as well.¬† Below are Churbuck’s bullets (indented) and my commentary: 1. Linden Labs has the best PR department on the planet. They have suckered the press and marketing communities like no one else I have ever seen. [...]
[...] Millions of Us ¬ª Blog Archive ¬ª Response to David Churbuck of Lenovo “Just came across a highly critical post by David Churbuck, VP of Global Web Marketing at Lenovo. I thought it made sense to write a little response because his post represents feelings held by many in the business community who are reading about Second Life and wondering what all the fuss is about.” [...]
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