[sldev] Re: More plugin / platform harping..

[Matthew Dowd]

Mmmm, i personally think that this is a red herring.

"A steep learning curve has led a large percentage of new users — as many as 90 percent, according to Linden Lab’s own estimates — to abandon the service within a few months of thier arrival in-world."

I'm not convinced that many of this 90% who leave are because of UI issues - in any case anyone having trouble with the viewer UI would likely give up after a few hours, not months!

Some of the 90% give up becaause they can't work out what they are supposed to do in SL or how to meet people - that is no different from RL, the feeling during the first few days is similar to when you start a new job, a new school, move to a new town/country where you aren't sure what you are doing, how things work, don't know people to talk to etc. This is a social problem requiring social solutions not technical ones, and the changes to the welcome programme would address this (whether the particular direction LL are currently taking is the correct one or not is a different debate)

Some will just get bored when the novelty wears off - this is inevitable...

The majority of the 90% who give up do so due to the various problems which cause them loss of time, effort and/or money. The most common one will be inventory loss. Regardless of what the TOS claim items in the inventory do have a value to their owner (either monetary, or time/effort in finding/building it). An inventory loss feels like a kick in the stomach, and the initial reaction is to want to never touch SL again - some get through it and return. Many do not. However, the other issues such as Lindex failing, search failing, asset server problems, are impacting on people either selling or creating, and even long timers are giving up that the return and frustration isn't worth the effort.

This isn't meant to be a rant - but a steer that at the moment, in terms of improving the retention rate, effort would be better spent on dealing with the relability problems, particular those around inventory, then plugin or extensible API architectures.

Matthew


----------------------------------------
> Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 14:36:27 -0700
> From: tshephard at gmail.com
> To: sldev at lists.secondlife.com
> Subject: [sldev] Re: More plugin / platform harping..
> 
> "Open source Second Life add-ons still months away"
> 
> http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/06/14/open-source-second-life-add-ons-still-months-away/
> 
> 
> Interesting reading...  No mention of the license though, which is the
> only thing that interests me.
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