Don’t waste your time with Second Life

Published by Martin De Saulles | Filed under Web 2.0

This is something that came out of some research a colleague did on what our new undergraduate students do on the Web. 96% of them have a Facebook profile while less than 1% of them regularly use Second Life. In the context of marketing to young people or trying to reach them electronically for any other pupose such as offering library services, forget Second Life - they are not using it. I have heard that a similar picture can be found at other colleges. Of course, there is much to be learned by playing with new technologies such as Second Life but if you do don’t be surprised when nobody visits your virtual island or library. Within the context of library and information services, understanding what tools your customers are using is essential and has been said by far more experienced bloggers/practitioners than me including Michael Casey and Meredith Farkas.

I did a quick bit of research last week to see how many mentions Facebook and Second Life were getting in the British quality press and a range of academic journals on a monthly basis going back to January 2006. The results can be seen above. I know it does not really prove a lot but it is interesting to see a decline in mentions of Second Life and a dramatic rise in Facebook.