An interesting post on Social Media Explorer‘Deconstructing Second Life’ questions the value of Second Life based on a review of the virtual world’s demographics:
The demographics show 8.5 million users, but only 561,000 of those are “active.” While nearly 40 percent of the active ones are age 25-34, only 26 percent are from the United States (with Brazil a distant second a 8.5). The numbers show 57 percent of active users are male…
Hmmm…If 15,000 or so bloggers who are taking part in this day of “mass participation” represent a pathetically small percentage of the total number of bloggers who regularly publish then the 15 million or so readers who could be potentially reached should not be overlooked. For some reason the cynic in me thinks it won’t be.
For my part I don’t want to create more waste in the blogging ecosphere by writing about something simply because everyone else is doing it, not really having anything to say except to note my wariness of anything that smacks of groupthink.
Besides, there will be so much to choose from that it seems the best I could do is find those posts I like best and comment on them, list them here perhaps. That and suggest you stop wasting energy too.
The sweet irony of unrequited love for my efforts to understand the recursive nature of blogs has not reached the point at which I realize my efforts might be better spent researching something else.
One of the benefits of chasing your tail is that in the process there is so much interesting stuff to discover and think about, all wonderful distractions from the bitter irony that if I am ever successful in my quest I’ll finish up kissing my ass good-bye.
And so I discovered Dr. Richard Barbrook who recently published what looks like a smashing book, Imaginary Futures. I am setting this aside to study more closely because the thesis is fascinating and there is something about the overall feel of the thing that resonates with me, something retro maybe?
I came across a new social network called projectstars, yet another killer startup. The site touts “blog for stock in the largest enterprise business blogging network” as if to suggest the potential payoff for participation might be worth the absolutely mind-numbing prospect of having to fill out yet another blessed profile first.
