The debate in the Second Life® music community about sustainable business models has us all banging our heads together to come up with an answer before the next venue vanishes from the grid.
When I first experienced live music in Second Life in 2006, it knocked me off my seat, literally. I mentioned this story in our book. It describes the moment SL won me over and why we work so hard to raise the music scene in Second Life to mainstream acceptance.
A Second Life venue is a virtual concert hall that you go to, not tune in to, like radio or television. Though, similarly, logging on to the grid and teleporting to a location for culture and entertainment is very much like turning on your 1000-channel cable box and HDTV for the same. Cable television viewers use the guide on the remote control to find programs to their liking. On the 3D grid, the internal search engine, group notices and online friends direct you to programs and events that interest you. Instead of kicking back on the sofa with the television remote, you are tapping away at your laptop or desktop keyboard. You find a program or event to attend and you go, in digital form. Your avatar arrives at your online destination, as a participant, not a faceless viewer. Very often, an event host will acknowledge your arrival and personally welcome you in type chat. The live performer will speak directly to the audience, dozens, perhaps hundreds in attendance on location. Its truly remarkable, and yet, only a small percentage of people online today know about this incredible, interactive online music community.
I had the great fortune of speaking with some of the foremost experts of business, technology and virtual worlds when writing The Unofficial Guide to Building Your Business in the Second Life Virtual World. I gained tremendous insight to the big picture of things. You may say I have seen the future, and it is very exciting. Essentially, interactive virtual worlds will one day move from our computer screens to our television screens. Imagine sitting in your living room in front of your HDTV. You go to the guide on screen with your remote control, seeing regular television programs AND interactive programs. Think of how we have Miis with Wii well, imagine your Second Life avatar is controlled the same way on your television screen. It makes what were doing online now, with our desktops and laptops seem, well, archaic.
Since we are not living in the future, we have to deal with the here and now. Linden Lab® has made it very clear that they built the engine (the virtual world platform) for us all to use as we see fit, but it is up to the driver to build the car and the road. Ok. So, venue owners in Second Life built their cars, or venues with SL physics, textures, layout and ergonomic design. They built the roads leading to their venues with groups, outside social networks, the audio/visual streams, talented musicians and generated traffic to their sites. Okay, we got that far. We can produce shows online that people are interested in participating in or attending, but no one is profiting from it. So, why do we do it? And how do we justify it? I wonder if these questions ever came up for MTV or VH1 back in the day.
The music community in Second Life is like none most have ever known. We are geographically located on most every continent on Earth, gathering in a 3D online space recurrently attending live music concerts and special events. That is mind-boggling. The Music Community of Second Life includes musicians, fans, comedians, venue owners and friends. Many of us have met in the real world at SLCC, Montreal Music, Euro Meet Ups and tons of living room concerts. We are diverse people bonded by music and friends that may never have met any other way. Its a special group with a deep respect for one another. We produce shows if we are able. We depend on each other. We represent a community. We do it for pride. We do it because were mapping out our future.
Planning the future usually is best done with reference to the past. For Second Life, the reference was the Internet. In this case, the music community in Second Life may consider the history of cable television and radio.
So, we got an engine from the SL manufacturer, we built the car and connected the roads. Now theres talk of adding tollbooths. The highly criticized pay to listen idea presented by Mankind Tracer has touched a sore spot. I personally feel that system is not the solution because its on a per-show basis. Its an honest suggestion; just bold enough to be put out there. It has become the point of reference of this entire debate. What we need to do is continue raising the community as a whole. Strength in numbers, as they say. Look at the bigger picture.
Ticketed events are a good idea. Im all for that. But, thats usually reserved for special events and programming, not the concerts that are produced daily or weekly. Ticked events in SL are more closely compared to special Pay per View events found on cable.
Using cable television and satellite radio for that matter, as a reference to developing the future of Music in SL is a pretty safe bet. So lets review how they did it. Going back to 1985, or so, many people had cable television. Remember your first experience with cable television in your home? You were privy to special PBS performance, cooking channels, MTV for Gods sake! You bought subscription packages allowing you access to certain channels. Premium channels were usually a high grade of programming. But not everyone had a premium subscription, which included movies and more. The fact that you could watch HBO® with PG and R rated movies and programs was astounding. It changed society, in a way. It was so popular that soon most people had a cable TV subscription with premium channels, like HBO and Cinemax and countless others that followed. Cable subscribers were happy because it was fairly affordable and the programming got better, plus, there were far fewer commercials pestering us. You got what you paid for, specialty programs. I dont think a large population of people would regret their cable subscriptions. No one ever willingly went back to television antennas, in fact that is now obsolete! So, maybe we should think of SL venues as interactive cable television stations. Theyre just as quirky now as cable programming in the 1980s! Residents of SL can site-surf to premium venues the way cable television subscribers would channel surf. The only problem is, there IS no premium subscription to Entertainment in Second Life®! ~ Hmmm
perhaps there should be.
Lets check out the flow of things interpreting SL from cable TV and see how it works: The consumer pays the cable TV company a tiered fee, based on select package, and the cable company provides access to programs. Ok, got it. Production companies make programs. Advertisers sponsor productions and production companies pay cable companies for airtime. Then, no, wait. My head is already hurting and Ive lost sight of the immediate needs of the SL music community. See how easily that can happen? Ok, back on track. How do the venues, musicians and the fans figure out a subscription plan of some sort? Is that possible without LL intervention? Yes.
Molaskey's Pub is a free venue, open to all. We'd like to keep it that way. We will NOT force anyone to pay to stay. That stated, We are considering other options. What about group fees? Venue owners can figure out what they pay to maintain their venue each month. Perhaps we should use that to figure out an entertainment premium for group members. The more members, the lower the fee. Sounds good. Members would pay a monthly fee to the group and be privy to the live music scene. Real estate in SL has been quite successful. Owners develop land and collect rent. Is it the same for music in SL in the form of membership dues? Group members can still bring guests, tips still appreciated, of course. Could it be as simple as that? Of course not someone has to do the bookkeeping and scripting on that (sigh). Also, the group would have to be centralized within the music community so people don't have to choose which venue to join. Nonetheless, its an idea where the musicians would still get paid, venues can cover their costs and fans and their guests are valued subscribers.
Live entertainment in Second Life has tremendous potential and value. We have to tap in to that. Venues in Second Life are dying off due to evolution. Sad fact. The Second Life® music community debate about a sustainable business models is happening at a critical time. We have to take action, before the next heartbreaking venue closing is announced.
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