Here are my notes from Jeska’s presentation at community 2.0. In other words, these are my interpretations of her words (not my words), and she talks pretty fast, so I might have some typos or other errors.
To successfully build your community:
- know your audience
- create an engaging experience
- iterate, learn & iterate some more
- realize the value of the feature set & its potential
- remember, behind every avatar is a real person
- commit to the long term
Success Stories in Second Life:
- Training / simulation (Harvard, Stanford)
- Non-profits – American Cancer Society does a relay for life in second life that raises real money with interesting places for the walk (underwater, etc.)
- Branding. Pontiac bought a bunch of islands and they let people build cars along with contests, races, customization of the car. Vodafone did a water cooler where people can solve puzzles over the virtual water cool with the focus on interacting with other people, not a focus on pushing their brand, but people see it.
SL is like RL and not
- Behavior – engaged, but not constrained (less inhibited and behaviors are different)
- Interaction – All objects can be scripted. Low / No material costs