The Virtual Citizen
If you haven’t followed the latest discussion about Second Life [SL] you can thank Henry Jenkins for his clear summary and remarkable contribution in his blog. Probably the most important trait of the conversation is that it took the debate about SL outside of SL and into the realm of virtual worlds or multiverses [term coined by Neal Stephenson]. What might be surprising is that in the discussions, the multiverse is isolated from its interactions with other media, and in the process the debate left out MTV’s Virtual Hills and Laguna Beach, which can offer some answers to the key questions asked during the conversation.
It is impossible to make any accurate predictions about the evolution of multiverses as isolated communication channels; however, it can be feasible to think of them as extensions and parts of more complex multimedia experiences like the one that MTV is developing. The size of the audience is completely irrelevant at this point and, as the focus of discussion, it pales in the light of all the cultural happenings that are emerging around these spaces.
Some brands like Cingular, Secret [P&G], and Pepsi already began experimenting in the Virtual Laguna Beach, which according to MTV already has an audience of 300,000 users. The experimentation that is happening throughout the few multiverses available can be interpreted as an inexpensive way of participating in the conversation with their users at the same time that it helps professionals in the whole spectrum of communications gather valuable [qualitative] learnings about people’s interaction with the virtual persona of [mostly] well-known brands.
It is very likely that no multiverse will ever get the amount of users that some of the pundits questioned in the discussion [again, for details go here], but if we think about it, that might be the equivalent of expecting that a single website would capitalize all the traffic on the internet cannibalizing all other players. After all, the internet is likely to remain the platform that will support most multiverses in the foreseeable future, and we could expect that more virtual worlds will join the landscape as tastes and mindsets will group and regroup users according to their interests. It is possible to consider a future in which thousands of multiverses coexist as support to real-world experiences that can vary from TV shows like the MTV example to an actual representation of the Real Estate market [imagine going shopping for your next condo in a 3D Century 21 multiverse].
Coming back to the present, it can be useful to take a look at the multiple uses of the virtual world by the people that actually live the experience. This is essential to evaluate [beyond the numbers] whether or not these spaces offer a truly engaging medium to its users. While it is true that some of it reflects the dark early beginnings of the web [tons of porn, gambling, etc], there are several users remixing the content, byproduct, and even the original purpose of the multiverse and bringing their own experiences into more “traditional” venues, here are a few examples:
Another interesting manifestation of community engagement can be found at the heart of the business community in SL through BMW’s Munich Express [Achim Muellers, Head of Brand Relations and Cooperation] conversation with a crew from Second Life Business Communicators Group. The conversation was rather deep and happened in-world on January, for a complete transcript visit the group’s site.
