An official announcement was posted on the There.com website that they will be closing their doors on March 9, 2010. We knew this would happen to a few more worlds, although I admit to being surprised at There.com’s departure. It looks like 2010 will be the year the wheat is separated from the chaff.
The document reads like a bit of a eulogy, filled with memories of the golden years and happy thoughts of their achievements. This, I can accept – they’re going down and aren’t funded by anyone, so there are no stock holders to give solid explanations to. What I’m not so sure about is the blame they cast upon the “economic downturn”.
This was a world whose primary source of revenue was virtual goods, an industry that saw $1.38 Billion in investment last year. What happened?
As business began to slide, they started tinkering with the toy:
Throughout the last year and this quarter, we have fought the good fight by churning out new features and revisions as fast as we possibly could. [...] introduced a whole new suite of casual games, a completely new foundation for our user interface, improved internal efficiencies for the product, real estate, a whole new level of Community Involvement, etc, etc. On top of that, we’ve revised our first user experience several times [...]
This is a little disconcerting. While the move to get the “first user experience” right was a positive one, it should have been perfected back when they opened the world in 2003. The rest of these tweaks are just that – tweaks. Ask Blizzard what effect applying patches to World of Warcraft has on customer loyalty and new user generation.
What it comes down to is this: you can’t be a computer geek or Web 2.0 guru after the initial build of a .com. Instead, you have to be a business geek and entrepreneurial guru. Specialists built the enterprise, and now new specialists are needed to run it.
To put it another way: architects and engineers who build skyscrapers don’t busy themselves making sure the offices are leased out and a maintenance crew is taking care of the place. The reverse is also true: most landlords can’t manage a construction project.
Sure, every once in awhile these two specialties are combined in one person, but this is why there’s only one Steve Jobs and one Bill Gates. Its a very rare individual that can handle both roles.
There needs to be an understanding, now that we’ve seen the dot-com boom and bust and we’ve seen so many of these worlds rise and fall, that there’s a difference between building a company and running it. This needs to be a common understanding, out there in the open, not as a criticism of anyone’s skill but as a way of placing value on specialization.
I think I’ll have to start doing these general “Stuff You May Have Missed” news roundups on a regular basis again. There’s just too much good stuff out there!
Disclaimer: As with everything on my blog, the opinions expressed here are mine and do not reflect on Clever Zebra, the vBusiness Expo, my friends, my family, my blip channel, any of the other “Jack of All Strange” stuff that I do, etc etc etc… k here we go:
UPCOMING: Monday, March 1st at 2pm Pacific – Anders Grondstedt, President of The Gronstedt Group, as he tells us how Schneider Electric and IBM have found a strategic planning solution in Second Life. Attend the live event here.
China’s perverse blanket censorship of the Internet was one thing – if the Chinese people want their thoughts to be controlled by a bureaucracy that’s their business. Public opinion influence and control by political entities is old news. But this is something startlingly new. This is them saying: “keep your filthy stinking money!”
Are they honestly that rich already?
Apparently China’s online games were worth over $900M in Q2 alone. So sure, maybe that’s enough… if there is such a thing as “enough” in modern economies. Still, can anyone really afford to slow down when things are moving so fast these days? Won’t this make foreign investors from a variety of industries flinch a little?
Morality (however you define it) is expensive, and it looks like they’re willing to pay the price. While I’m not entirely certain I agree with their particular philosophies, I have to admit: xenophobia in the digital age takes guts.
It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out five years from now.
I *almost* linked one of those philosophical “trends in virtual worlds” articles this week telling is “what it all means”, but then my senses returned to me just in time. Close call!
Important links:
Archive page of past weeks of Business in Virtual Worlds News
Disclaimer: As with everything on my blog, the opinions expressed here are mine and do not reflect on Clever Zebra, the vBusiness Expo, my friends, my family, my blip channel, any of the other “Jack of All Strange” stuff that I do, etc etc etc… k here we go:
WB.com Goes 3D With ExitReality
Good score by ExitReality. They’re very promising, and just need to do something to make the experience a little bit smoother to take it to the next level.
Eco Gamers: Manage Energy in a Virtual World with Shaspa
While I believe I’ve linked to this energy-management software before, I just wanted to link another article to point out that the past two weeks have shown quite a bit more press about it. There’s good buzz!
Calling All Evangelists
In every company there’s one person willing to bring the big ideas forward. This is the visionary, the thought-leader that wants to bring the latest technology and business practices to their stakeholders. We call these people Corporate Evangelists. Ever think this could be you?
Events
Want to Hold a Virtual Event of Your Own?
Clever Zebra offers event support and white-label services for anyone interested in a branded gathering in a virtual space. Everything from venue setup and hosting to VIP orientation to speaker coordination.
Could Sadville break the internet with nakedness?
Alright look. All anybody can write about for the past solid month is LL’s new policy on adult content. I’ve had enough of it, all right? It’s not that important! Alright? Alright… let’s call this the end of it then.
Did I miss an important story? Got feedback? Leave a comment below, or email me at info [at] calebbooker.com
Just how far will virtual goods go? How much influence on the real world economy are they really going to have?
(Answer in the comments!)
What’s really struck me this week is how good the Linden Lab company blogs are. Honestly these are real quality things, philosophy-free and entirely focused on practical examples that really show what can be done. Companies from all industries could learn a thing or two here.
Oh, in other news: I killed the Marketing category for now. It was too prone to idle philosophy and advertorials.
Important links:
Archive page of past weeks of Business in Virtual Worlds News
Disclaimer: As with everything on my blog, the opinions expressed here are mine and do not reflect on Clever Zebra, the vBusiness Expo, my friends, my family, my blip channel, any of the other “Jack of All Strange” stuff that I do, etc etc etc… k here we go:
Sony Pictures loots Home virtual world
Despite Sony’s best efforts, a skunkworks project inside the company has conspired to put something in Home that’s actually worth doing.
Musician creates stunning, information-rich virtual world
Very much worth reading; a great example of how virtual spaces help organize large amounts of data. (Shockingly this is from itbusiness.ca… thought they had a strict “virtual worlds are prolly ungood” policy!)
Events
Want to Hold a Virtual Event of Your Own?
Clever Zebra offers event support and white-label services for anyone interested in a branded gathering in a virtual space. Everything from venue setup and hosting to VIP orientation to speaker coordination.
OpenSim reaches 95% compatibility with Second Life
OpenSim is getting there, but the real news will be when we start seeing the creative community putting down roots here. That’s when you’ll know it’s going to stick.
1) World of Warcraft (46.7%)
2) Second Life (3.2%)
3) Dark Messiah of Might & Magic (3.0%)
4) Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword (2.7%)
5) Bookworm (2.3%)
6) Half-Life 2 (2.2%)
7) Civilization IV (2.1%)
8 ) Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (1.7%)
9) Chessmaster Challenge (1.7%)
10) Starcraft (1.7%)
Well you know statistics, they don’t always mean anything. Still, perhaps between this and Mitch’s article above we’ve identified something here: that all of these people we’ve been finding every week that say “Second Life is dead” have been suffering from some kind of sociological disorder. What’s been going on here?
Did I miss an important story? Got feedback? Leave a comment below, or email me at info [at] calebbooker.com
