Logging into Facebook today was like logging into a virtual funeral. I watched connections drop ten at a time until I lost roughly 70. Yes, Facebook deleted 70 of my connections, but sadly thousands of accounts have actually been deleted. About three and a half years ago I heard a rumor that Facebook was going to begin sifting through accounts and start deleting Second Life avatar profiles. Well over three years later they have kept that promise leaving many of my connections baffled as to where their Second Life friends have gone.
I personally understand why Facebook wants to do this, but is it really harming anything? If anything Facebook should want to be more accepting to Second Life profiles and users.
1. Second Life users do and would continue to advertise their virtual goods meaning they spend money on Facebook.
2. Linden Labs advertises on Facebook already, but with the thousands of avatars booted they may rethink where their advertiser dollars end up.
3. Second Life avatars are real people too. Think of it as a pen name. Facebook, are you going to delete everyone that uses a nickname or pen name?
What are your thoughts?
Follow up post:
Is it really the end of the road for Second Life avatar accounts?
Now that they have beaten MySpace at much of that market, suddenly the usage term that forced Facebook identities to represent real life individuals is being enforced, with instant deletions? What about… other Facebook accounts that also aren’t specific real life individuals? Like bands. Can I expect http://www.facebook.com/TheFollow to be removed? Facebook pages representing television shows?
This is a slippery slope they are on, rejecting users. Choosing revenue over user satisfaction is always a short-term misguided and ill-conceived strategy.
Jim Tarber�´s last [type] ..InWorldz Featured on Tonight Live With Paisley Beebe
[...] this is funny. It is being reported here and here that Facebook appears to be doing a mass sweep and deleting the accounts of Second Life avatars. [...]
[...] Facebook made a decision, to me a tad crazy, to delete thousands of Second Life avatar accounts. I personally have never had a Facebook account for Sadie Pippita, my Second Life avatar, only [...]
I wonder what they’ll do in my case. My name us ny brand name. I am few months away from having the name ‘Khannea’, and very eventually likely ‘Khannea Suntzu’ in my passport. I use the name in my everyday life and Linden Lab is aware of the name change. It’s even more grotesque – years ago a wikipedia clung to my name and never got deleted.
I would pose a tricky precedent for Facebook. Delete me, why exactly?
Allow my continued presence, and then why delete zillions of others?
My sense is that Facebook doesn’t want “fake” identities… because they can’t spend “real” money…
But if an avatar is serious enough to have their own Facebook and other accounts, they’re probably serious enough to spend “real” money. I’m confident I spend more than the average Facebook user on “virtual / online goods”
I think the old distinctions of “Real” vs “Fake” or to use the online word “anonymous”… are bankrupt…
You might not want to tie to a specific physical person — as an avatar, because you’re exploring an alternate persona… as a journalist because you don’t want to be arrested… etc…
I think the new currency (which Facebook is oblivious to) is PERSISTENCE.
Who cares if your substrate is atoms or bits!? What matters is if you are persistent enough to develop credibility, relationships, and yes spend money. If you are, then you are “real” and should have rights.
Vaneeesa Blaylock�´s last [type] ..Cave of Forgotten Dreams
There is something in common between SL and FB: they give us a place where we put content and where we connect with friends, wich is how LL and FB earns money. But when what we do is not consistent with the very narrow idea they have for their tools, they go against us, and we lose ours friends and all our contents with with no appeal !
And that sucks !
DD RaÃ�´s last [type] ..Newzoo fournit des statistiques très précieuses sur le marché du jeu en ligne MarketingVirtuelfr
Vaneeesa,
I worked in Second Life for a real life company for roughly 3 years and people (especially those in SL) spend money on a virtual item usually with little or no hesitation. Facebook should understand this because they have Farmville, CafeWorld and all of those games that people (especially gamers) play.
The biggest mistake they are making is trying to make people fit into their site when they should be scaling it to make those that have made them such a success.
To paraphrase, Facebook beauty is only skin-deep, but Facebook stupidity goes all the way to the bone.
Tara Yeats�´s last [type] ..Titanic deck-chairs or SLurban renewal
I think the point is actually a little more subtle and a little more sinister: Facebook want to be the arbiter of identity on the internet. It’s not that they are interested in selling to their users, they want to sell their users to the advertisers. When you advertise on Facebook and you get ten “likes” that’s ten hits from ten REAL people. When you advertise on the web and get ten hits, that’s five bots, three spiders, a Nigerian scammer and a partridge in a pear tree…
Facebook are not “talking” to us here, they are sending a message to the advertisers.
[...] least Johnny’s account seems to have survived Facebook’s latest purge of avatar profiles; being under the radar does have some advantages I guess. The site’s continuing hostility to [...]
Mine is still there, but if they look around, I’m using my SL name in many RL applications. What if I decide to change my name? Do they still delete me since I use the same name? Seems like the SL people make very good advertisers for FB. I don’t understand what they’re trying to accomplish.
@Khannea, I think that Facebook’s stance on that is irrelevant. My own name is trademarked and registered with several organisations protecting literate pseudonyms; since the last change on Facebook’s policies, if you can’t provide a government-emitted ID card with the name you registered with Facebook, you’re out. There will be no “precedent” in your case or mine, sorry. Just cross your fingers and hope that nobody flags your profile for violating Facebook’s policies like it happened in my case.
@Jenelle, you can change your Facebook name after having registered (there is an option somewhere on the preferences for that). They just warn you that you have to change it to something “similar” to the name on your ID card. So if you’re actually called Jenelle but wish to be known as Jenny in Facebook, they’ll probably allow it.
Gwyneth Llewelyn�´s last [type] ..Gwyneth Llewelyn & Pip Torok Flickr
[...] couple of months ago Facebook followed through with their promise to delete accounts that were not using their real life …. Sadly, most of the affected accounts belonged to thousands of Second Life avatars (residents). [...]