In The News!

Here's a look at how the News views Facebook and Second Life.

Ever wondered why you get jumps in traffic on websites and programs? Well, look no further cause IT'S IN THE NEWS! It's true!

Take for instance the New York Times. They created an article back in May 27, 2009 giving the good and the bad of Facebook. “Like other social networks, the site allows its users to create a profile page and forge online links with friends and acquaintances. It has distinguished itself from rivals, partly by imposing a spartan design ethos and limiting how users can change the appearance of their profile pages. That has cut down on visual clutter and threats like spam, which plague rival social networks.” So it's like other social networks? Have you guys taken a look at Myspace lately? At least it isn't cluttered with ads and have a navigation that's all over the place. Artists would probably go into a spaz attack at Myspace's appearance though perhaps not too much at Facebook's layout. Their layout appears clean, modern, and uses space quite effectively so it does not strain a viewer's eyes.

In the same article, they explained that while Facebook has come so far, it wasn't without it's own conflicts. “Three other Harvard students maintain that they came up with the original idea and that Mr. Zuckerberg, whom they had hired to write code for the site, stole the idea and surreptitiously created a rival company.” Is it true? Who knows. This was just one of their trials they had to face.

Now in PC Magazine's online website, this one user's comment drew attention. Information Workshop said, "The part that sucks is that they haven't told us what is different, what you do and don't get with each option. Is one a superset of the other? Why do we not have the changes explained to us. I couldn't find where to go except Google News to find out what is happening. That is the biggest boneheaded thing anyone can do -- make changes and then force even smart people to scratch their heads and do research. WTF?" Think perhaps Facebook needs to take a look at what users are saying instead of ignoring them based upon all the comments on this article.

So you have the pro and the mostly cons of what the news thinks of Facebook, what about Second Life? Well, we have a couple videos on what the news thought from BBC and Fox News.

BBC News Video on Second Life

Fox News Interview

Did you know that businesses from our real world actually have begun to drift into Second Life? It has! Cnet.com's news showcases one business's decision to move to the virtual world. Then if you look in Second Life's showcase, you can see sims created from Universities from around the globe to even NASA and WWF. How cool is that?

Now the unfortunate part of the news. Not everything about Second Life is happy joy joy like how people seem to think. The latest news Linden Lab (owners of Second Life) have spoken is their latest roadmap of the popular item sharing site (quite like Ebay) called XStreet.com. Basically, they are now considering free items as promotional items. What does this mean? It means that each free item a merchant lists, costs then 99L. So say you had 5 free items. This would mean it would cost you 495 linden at least a month to have those items listed on the website. Is that fair? Nope. There is a huge argument and petitions circulating around for Linden labs to stop but will they? More likely no. So what can users do but to go to other websites which are more user friendly?

Linden Lab on the other hand in their blog stated "We've received feedback from our users that the volume of free, cheap (L$ 10 and under) & stale listings in the Xstreet SL Marketplace did not make for an optimal experience for shoppers or merchants." Linden Lab believes that since xstreet.com was not to replace in-world purchasing and spending, that it did not make a good experience for users purchasing the freebies and having to sift through hundreds, if not thousands, of items at a time which bogged down the system. "Since it is clear that the increasing quantities of free, cheap and stale goods are hindering that experience for shoppers and merchants alike, we will take action to counteract and balance them within the marketplace, for the benefit of all. To be clear: we believe in a free marketplace and will not implement price controls on what merchants can charge for their goods." This basically states that Linden Lab will not tell merchants what prices they should be charging for their items but are aiming to help increase the quality customers are looking for and to have merchants remove items which are not selling. You can read the article on their blog for more details.

This wasn't the only bad news for Second Life. There was also a lawsuit filed over virtual land that was sold without the owner's permission. Based on Wired.com's article, "In what might be a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, a Pennsylvania lawyer is suing the publisher of the rapidly growing online world Second Life, alleging the company unfairly confiscated tens of thousands of dollars worth of his virtual land and other property." Farther in the article, other sim owners think that the case does not amount to much, if anything. In other words, "a leg to stand on."

Even with all the bad, there were good news articles that showcased both Second Life and Facebook. People will still flock to these sites and communities curiously and want to know more about them specially after reading all these articles. Some may be deterred while others will not.