Extending Reach – Facebook and Other Options

Hamlet, over at New World Notes, is on a Facebook offensive, as opposed to Ciaran, over here, who is on an offensive Facebook campaign.  I do agree with Hamlet with regard to Facebook having the potential to extend reach, which it clearly does have.  Indeed I have no issue at all with Linden Lab or any other Second Life residents promoting Second Life on Facebook, where I do have a problem is with Linden Lab promoting Facebook on Second Life, as they did again recently on the spring break blog post.

I fully believe LL are doing this all arse about face, they should be offering Facebook exclusive promotions, on Facebook, to Facebook users (as opposed to Second Life users, although some clearly fall in both categories). People may well moan about promotions on Facebook, but the idea is surely to extend Second Life’s reach into Facebook territory, not extend Facebook into Second Life territory, which is more akin to driving the wrong way up a one way street.

However Facebook isn’t the only way to extend reach and Facebook simply does not welcome Second Life users, to use their Second Life names, full stop. Facebook doesn’t like pseudonyms, beyond the rich and famous and those whose cause Robert Scoble takes up.Facebook’s terms of service have the following criteria:

“Facebook users provide their real names and information, and we need your help to keep it that way”

So right away there’s a conflict for Second Life users who want to use their Second Life name, even though a Second Life name is technically a pseudonym, which are extremely popular in the music and authoring world, I’m sure famous singers and authors can ignore that part of the Facebook terms. However, if you’re not quite so famous you may get away with it if Robert Scoble comes to your rescue, as he did back in November 2007 for a political blogger, as reported here.

What’s interesting about this incident however is the original blog post from the political blogger, in the comments we find Second Life resident Gwyneth Llewelyn defending the right for people to use a pseudonym and pointing out how many people use pseudonyms, there’s also a comment from then Linden Lab employee Erica Linden pointing out that Second Life welcomes fake names.

So the rules can be bent, when it suits Facebook, or saves Facebook face. There are of course many people on Facebook using pseudonyms and Second Life names and they’ll get away with it until it comes to the attention of Facebook, but personally I’d rather not try and circumvent their rules just to extend reach, and anyway, Facebook’s terms aren’t that keen on personal accounts seeking commercial gain:

“You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser).”

So Facebook simply isn’t a place that welcomes Second Life users who use their Second Life names and that’s their rules, which I respect, even though I think they’re missing a trick by having said rules because Second Life users could social network there if welcomed and the terms were right. Advertisers do not need to know your name. What’s useful to advertisers is your gender, age group, location and interests, your name is not really that relevant in terms of targetted advertising on a social network.

However extending reach can be done beyond Second Life on platforms other than Facebook and these other platforms don’t have such a hangup about you using your Second Life name.

The Second Lifers Community on Livejournal has over 4,000 posts and has over 1,200 members, with 900 still watching it. Livejournal isn’t what it once was but for collaboration, networking and sharing information, it can still do the job.

Spruz allows you to create your own community, you can have 250 members on the free version and this is again useful for collaboration, I know the residents on one of my islands use Spruz for discussion, story writing, communities within communities having their own section …such as vampire clans! This allows you to tailor things the way you want with themed customisation. The paid version provides more options including video and your own domain.

Ning is more well known than Spruz, but moved to paid only, which is why people moved to Spruz, but again we’re talking building your own social network how you see fit (within the terms and conditions of course).

Having your own website! Whether you pay for hosting, have a kindly friend who gives you hosting space or find a free hosting provider you can build your own website to extend reach. This is a popular solution for extending reach and you can happily blog away or advertise your store inventory, upcoming events or whatever you pretty much like (within the terms of service).

Twitter … how could I forget Twitter! There’s a very active Second Life community on Twitter and whereas you can only use 140 characters per update, a combination of restricting words and using URL shorteners allows you to send out information about your stores, sims, events, blog posts, website updates or just tweet away about Second Life and beyond.

Plurk – I don’t use Plurk myself, I remember looking at it once and it looked very pink, but plenty of Second Life users do use Plurk and talk to each and send updates etc. via that platform.

So there are options out there, it’s a shame some of these options aren’t available via the Second Life platform or website, maybe that’s where we’re headed with web profiles, who knows right now, but there are ways and means of extending your reach beyond Second Life and beyond Facebook, but if you’re happy to use Facebook, fill your boots, just don’t be surprised to see me wearing a tinfoil hat if you’re in my vicinity!