Real hits in the virtual world
By Andrew Dubber,
Why is Second Life such a success? It’s the economy, stupid
[Music]
The business of music online is just so complicated these days. It’s not just the promotional website and the email address any more—there’s the blog, the mandatory MySpace account, the download store, the new online taste makers to send promos to, not to mention making sure that your songs are up on YouTube and sites like Mog.com and Last.fm. While it’s tempting to throw your hands in the air and simplify your life, the fact is if you want to make money out of music (particularly niche, independent music) then you need to be where the people are. Fortunately, the architecture of many of these new online places favours niches. They are places where like-minded people congregate in bunches.
One such place—an increasingly popular one at that—is an immersive three-dimensional online environment called Second Life. Second Life looks like your typical computer game. However, there are no objectives, no bad guys to kill and no points to score. Second Life is purely and simply a social space. And here’s what makes it interesting for our purposes:
It’s a real economy. The money that changes hands within the Second Life environment is freely convertible to real money at a set exchange rate. This makes Second Life a genuine, thriving, real-time set of markets that are clearly grouped in terms of communities of interest, rather than communities of geography.
Anybody can build anything within Second Life. Through the simple manipulation of geographical shapes and the application of properties using some very simple programming techniques (find a helpful teenager), not only can you build the most impressive retail outlet, listening room or performance space for your music, but you can also create and sell any kind of merchandise you can imagine, or even pretty much invent your own music format.
I bet you look good on the dancefloor … Andrew Dubber’s avatar inspects his shoes at a Jeb Spicoli gig in Second Life’s Muse Isle
For example, it would be entirely possible to make a stylish hat that when worn, would play highlights from your latest release. The characters within the game—avatars representing real human beings sitting at computers somewhere on the planet, let’s not forget—could each be the proud owner of the first ever single released on virtual hat.
Any item that you make within Second Life can be exchanged for the game’s currency, the Linden dollar. With a very small financial outlay, you can buy your own plot of land, build whatever you like on it—from nightclubs and stadiums to drop-in centres and folk clubs—and then start engaging with the community in a very real and fiscal kind of way.
My own experience as a music consumer in Second Life was to attend a concert in a small club on Muse Isle by a singer-songwriter called Jeb Spicoli. Jeb has a residency there. In reality, he sits in his living room playing and singing live and responding to the people he sees on his screen. The people attending the gig see his avatar up on a stage playing the guitar, and while they dance, they make spontaneous, generous donations as they enjoy his music. Every time they do, he thanks them.
Of course, this is not some underground phenomenon we’ve discovered here. Duran Duran has played a concert in Second Life. The BBC has staged festivals there. There are concerts, seminars and workshops all the time in Second Life. But it’s a long way from critical mass. There’s plenty of room for you to make your mark and plenty of people there who would have no other occasion to intersect with your music. Make the most of it.
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