Second Life: The Legitimization of Online Activity

There is nothing revolutionary about Second Life. The technology to build such a system has existed for a while now, the concept of an online market place for fake goods has existed since the early days of 2000 and the people who would frequent these places has always existed. Gaia Online is a perfect example of such a phenomena.

Communities like Second Life are unique in the sense that they are far from private. The users of Second Life are not embarrassed or quiet about the fact that they participate in a fake online world. What has changed and can this mean that online communities can have a legitimate use for business?

There was an article a while back asking if World of Warcraft was the new golf (aka a place for businessmen to interact and strike deals) for web startups. And so we have the same situation here with Second Life. Is it a viable business solution? The people in charge of web/technology startups are the mostly likely to participate in these communities so I would have to say yes.

Word of Mouth Marketing Limitations

A company doesn't need to have a large advertising firm to "sell" a product to a specialized demographic of people. Software is used by people who use computers a lot. And people who use the computer a lot frequent areas of the internet that are essential for mass mouth marketing campaigns.

Webmasters or regulars in area were primarily responsible for the extravagant growth of programs used in the book. Firefox, ICQ and Skype , if you read into the history, were all valuable tools for webmasters thus motivating them to promote the product through their websites.

The book Naked Conversations talks about passion and motivation as a determining factor when promoting a word of mouth software. Webmasters who ran smaller enthusiast sites on the web were frustrated with the Microsoft browser because it hindered them from building their own sites without purchasing expensive Microsoft Software.

Because of this frustration, webmasters built their sites around the new browser firefox and promoted the software on their sites. Like this one.



Web regulars visited their favorite community sites and upgraded their browsers accordingly. But because Firefox only initially appealed to the webmaster demographic, the browser was adopted by a closed community of people.

Several years later, most students at this University did not hear of Firefox until their IT department encouraged them to make the upgrade. Cross community fertilization is this case, is the limiting factor to mass adoption of a product.

Joe Khedouri

Check out Joe's blog. I highly recommend it. And Mike's blog is not too shabby. Read every single word.

Will All Companies Adopt Blogs in the Same Way?

Employees at technical corporations, like Microsoft, were the first to adopt blogging practices. Many years later, web companies like Technorati have blogs and in recent times, news corporations like the NY Times have allow column like blogs to roam out there in the wild.

The problem with corporations and weblogs is that the term weblog is very vague and while corporations would do to follow the rules of conduct, (Being polite, responding to comments and being honest.) that does not mean that all corporations will use blogs to the same end.

In Robert Scoble's/Shel Israel's book, Naked Coversation, the authors postulate that blogs will be used in the future by corporations to enter conversations with their conversation as a way of extending PR. In the example of Microsoft's Channel 9 weblog was used as a genuine tool to communicate with experts in the field. (If you watch the videos and posts, it's pretty technical stuff.)

But let's look at the Comedy Central Insider Blog for the Sarah Silverman Program and we can soon see that the style of blogging is very different from that of a blogger like Scoble and his camera.

The blogs main purpose isn't to enter a conversation with customers but rather to promote future shows and provide bonus materials to the viewer. I also suspect that such sites are used to provoke/attract an audience. Users can make comments and link to blog content but the Sarah Silverman doesn't even appear in the comments. (Probably a smart P.R. move.)

The NY Times has a whole slew of column blogs like this one, the Screen and Arts blog by Virginia Heffernan. The blog doesn't represent the company but rather serves as a way to increase traffic and attract reader attention. More commenting means more user interaction and more hits. The blog doesn't in any way resemble Microsoft's Channel 9 nor Comedy Centrals Silverman (hilarious comic btw) blog.

• Microsoft (Control public image, put a human face on a hugely successful company.)
• Comedy Central (Promote content, provide fan extras, invite negative comments. Stir up the pot. Aka be provocative.)
• NY Times (Use comments in blogs to better engage reader, blog as a source of revenue, not used as a form of PR in any way.)
  

Not all corporate blog scenarios are like Microsoft and I doubt that all companies will react to constructive criticism in the same way. Nor do companies use blogs to the same objective.

A Network of Mistrust: Decision Makers Interact With Peers But Trust Themselves

Karen Stephenson, in a lecture for IT Conversations, refers to a network as a group of people who she can trust enough to talk about her "crazy" ideas that she came up with in the shower. Groups of people who think, talk and walk the same.




[source - Creating Passionate Users Blog]

All inclusive groups, according to Kathy Sierra, are responsible for poor decision making when the group does not value an individual's point of view. Social networks aka cliques are different and do not necessarily responsible for actual decision making.

Let's use Karen's shower idea as an example. When she walks out of that shower, her mind is made up and only she can see her own thoughts. Thinking is a private affair. Another thing to consider is that social cliques are rarely based on hierarchy so if a person in the group disagrees, that member will rarely force a compromise.

When Karen does eventually bring her idea to the All Inclusive Table (aka department meeting) people who are part of this decision making process have the power and the will to force a compromise or if the idea is completely successful, actually implement the plan.

So you see in this situation, a social network did nothing to affect the outcome of the greater plan. It was probably entertaining. What do you think? Are social networks insignificant when it comes to decision making.

The Accademic Paper on The Six Myths on Information Networks

The focus of the two readings, myths and people by Robert Cross, Nitin Nohria, Andrew Parker and Andrew Parker focused mainly on the social aspects surrounding the workplace. Team building, the distribution of information, social patterns and how to properly identify what works and what doesn't work.

The paper took a very academic approach to the subject but was nonetheless useful. What however does surprise me is that the this sort of information is the sort of thing that you find out on your own. Or rather that the information gathered in this study is something that anyone, who runs any sort of competitive organization, would gather.

Let me give you an example. In the business social structure, there are people called "central people". Okay so we don't always call them that but that is the name that was given to them by the people in this study.

These are people who are key decision makers in any social business setting. The person who can make these critical decisions is usually in that position because he or she has built important relationships with other people in other departments.

However, since that person is critical for decision making and contacts, if you give that person unnecessary contact and busywork, then the decision making end of the work process is bottlenecked.

Anyway, point being that this is a no brainier if you've worked in a situation like this. Social connections are very essential in getting information, tips because frankly you trust them more. People work like this and the smart adept people catch on to this stuff and it makes them successful businesspeople.

The Academia Confirmation and Businesses are Already One Step Ahead:

Business is like real life. If you don't keep up with the trend you tend not to be competitive. In fact this paper: "The Six Myths on Information Networks" is probably designed to up to speed people in the business world who did not have the keen insight to discover these business trends earlier. People in academic circles research successful firms and then write about them while the hot businesses are already on to the newest next thing.

I think I once heard it referred to as corporate culture and it is surprisingly similar to regular popular culture. I have someone I know who works for Corporate Hollister and he says that they make him do a lot of weird things like wear certain cloths when they go to work in the office.

I'm not a marketing/PR major but apparently it has something to do with promoting your own brand within the corporate structure. Weird? Outlandish? Maybe but it may be the next great thing that businesses at the bottom struggle to adapt to and someone in the academic world will have to write a piece entitled: "Six Myths on Promoting From Within".