Linden Lab’s invite for people to send suggestions to them via a new feedback process is gaining some interesting commentary outside the suggestion box. Indigo Mertel has gone for greater web functionality for Groups and communications whereas Hamlet Au over at New World Notes goes for achievements. Neither of these are new territory but they are good discussion territory.
I’m very much onboard with Indigo’s suggestions as they are largely suggestions I’ve made myself in the past. The benefits of web based groups are many but some key areas would mean that you wouldn’t have to receive a notecard, landmark and texture advertising events. The idea would be you’d get a notification pointing to the group web page. This allows communication channels to do what they do best and web pages to do what they do best.
Indigo has added some depth to the broad based group web page idea suggesting that they could have a forum, a wiki, an option for people to subscribe to notifications and the ability to make the group page viewable on the world wide web or not.
In short Indigo is thinking along the lines of the functionality that Facebook and Google + offer. Now you may think that if Facebook and Google + already offer this added functionality then why not go with them for Groups? Many people do, I get event invites sent to me on Google +. However not everyone has or wants an account on Facebook or Google + whereas people who are members of Second Life groups are already happy to be members of Second Life …. one would hope!
Now obviously this isn’t easy to achieve but going forward, I think there might be a pointer or two on how to try and manage groups in the future. Groups are a social experience and they require greater resources than the inworld Second Life experience can provide. Groups are essentially a social media tool and they really need a social media solution but one that can link into the inworld experience.
Continue reading “Indigo Goes With Web Groups Whilst Hamlet Looks To Achieve”
