Facebook has been open to the general public for almost a year and a half now and has seen huge growth. Second Life has been around since 2003. Currently, and these numbers are the official ones from their websites, Facebook has 60 million users of which more than half visit daily. Second Life has nearly 12 million users and, at any particular time, no more than 56,000 signed in at once. Why are so many people more people using Facebook in their daily lives? Here are just a few reasons:
1. I can use my real name:
The whole notion of screen names, aliases, nicks, whatever, is just so Web 1.0. Or, to be more exact, Web 0.98. It's an idea left over from Compuserve and Prodigy--when online activites where foreign and exotic. By now, there is no difference between the me online and the me in real life. My online life is part of my daily life, not a separate fantasy world. I'm not mild mannered Matt Gill by day and Master_CBaoth1995 by internet-night. I'm just Matt all the time. When signing up for Second Life I had to pull out my old AOL name circa 1996. Signing up for Second Life was like stepping back a decade. In 2008, we shouldn't have to be naming ourselves after obscure Jedi.
2. My friends and I don't have to be online at the same time:
I have friends in every time zone. We are all busy with work, family, and hobbies. With Facebook I can stay in touch with friends back in D.C. while making dinner plans with friends here in L.A.--all without having to find a time when we will all be online together.
3. Facebook can be open in the background while I'm working on other things:
It doesn't take up every last ounce of processing power and RAM to work. I don't need any special software; I don't need to upgrade my video card. I can listen to music, work on this blog, charge my MP3 player, and so on and so on.
4. No Orientation Island:
To interact with Facebook you just need to know how to type and click. No video tutorials needed; no visits to any sort of special island required. Facebook enthusiasts don't need to write book-length tutorials on their blogs; they don't need to make countless discussion board posts trying to convince skeptics that it really is quite simple, once you get the hang of it.
Second Life really is a step backwards for the internet. It's a vision of the future as seen from 1995. It has no relation to the nimble and practical way we use it today.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Laptops outsell desktops
From today's L.A. Times, laptops outsold desktops in the U.S. in 2007.
We are moving away from the big, powerful desktop way of using the computer. Our access to the internet is now mobile, small, and fast. Second Life, with its extensive hardware requirements, is designed for the stationary desktop experience. And we are leaving that behind.
I've been saying for years that computers are now more powerful than we could possibly need, and someday I will be right. And we are getting closer to that point. Something like the IPhone or the Nokia N800 provides just about everything we could want out of the casual internet in a handheld, wireless device.
In addition to all this, I think that environmental concerns will eventually lead us away from the ever-more-powerful desktop cycle. Multi-gigahertz processors suck up electricity like mad--and generate massive heat that needs to be expensively cooled. As the number of computer users across the world grows exponentially, this is not good. There is now a market for environmentally-friendly goods, and companies are now realizing that. Within the next year, you will see computer manufactures offering lower-powered, less-expensive hardware marketed as "green" PCs. (There already is one being sold at WalMart,) and there will be a very good-sized demand.
Not only has Linden Labs created an application that demands more power than desired by the casual internet user, Microsoft has made the same mistake with Vista.
Simple, accessible, mobile. The hardware and software designers that understand these words will be the ones who are successful in 2008 and beyond.
We are moving away from the big, powerful desktop way of using the computer. Our access to the internet is now mobile, small, and fast. Second Life, with its extensive hardware requirements, is designed for the stationary desktop experience. And we are leaving that behind.
I've been saying for years that computers are now more powerful than we could possibly need, and someday I will be right. And we are getting closer to that point. Something like the IPhone or the Nokia N800 provides just about everything we could want out of the casual internet in a handheld, wireless device.
In addition to all this, I think that environmental concerns will eventually lead us away from the ever-more-powerful desktop cycle. Multi-gigahertz processors suck up electricity like mad--and generate massive heat that needs to be expensively cooled. As the number of computer users across the world grows exponentially, this is not good. There is now a market for environmentally-friendly goods, and companies are now realizing that. Within the next year, you will see computer manufactures offering lower-powered, less-expensive hardware marketed as "green" PCs. (There already is one being sold at WalMart,) and there will be a very good-sized demand.
Not only has Linden Labs created an application that demands more power than desired by the casual internet user, Microsoft has made the same mistake with Vista.
Simple, accessible, mobile. The hardware and software designers that understand these words will be the ones who are successful in 2008 and beyond.
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