Watching the Detectives

Green dots half hour into the show.

The stars came out tonight in Second Life, it was exciting to watch the green dots blink on, first on one CSINY island, then on a second, a third, a 100th, a 420th. The figure was finally released -- there were said to be 416 sims, although 420 claimed by Sheep insiders.

But the numbers of people on those sims, for the three hours I watched them before, during, and after the CSINY show, couldn't have beat 5,000 concomittant, and no more than 20,000 max total arrivals. In fact, it's probably far lower. Of the 420 islands, there were no more than 2-10 people on any given island in those 3 hours. There were 35-70 people piled up constantly on 3 of the big Orientation Islands, but they weren't getting off.

I was also getting newbies at the regular infohubs, including in Ross, where several furries, dancers, Philip-clones said they were CSI newbies and then began struggling to walk or fly. I redirected them out to the clue sims but they weren't terribly keen to go there -- these were the people that typically like to get OFF an OI they've been forced ON.

So if a million viewers was supposed to make 30,000 log on, it didn't work. I don't know what number they'd use to declare success. There weren't more than 4,000 people on these sims, sorry. I was only rooting for them to succeed, while heavily critical of the Sheep's crippling of the worldview through the browser with SEARCH ALL. Still, like many of us, I'm asking the same thing the detective asked when his partner in CSI on the TV show said that people make businesses in SL. "Why?!"

Green dots one hour after the show was over.

Answer: "It's...fun?"

I tried several dozen people who were CSI newbies on my infohub and others, and on the CSI sims and tried IMing them, talking to them. Most didn't answer, a "Welcome to SL!" or "Are you looking for CSI clues" -- maybe they didn't figure out the interface yet.

A few answered...many sputtered out, logging off and not coming back. A few remained for 2-3 hours and were most interested in putting on their clothes. I sent some to the Fashion island related to the TV show, I heard you could get a dress like the murder victim or something.

I maintain that in fact people watching TV will not be terribly interested in following a preset story line with prefabbed clues and builds. It might work to get them on SL, but the hook from there has to be the hook that always works for SL: finding a friend, a club, a house, something, sex, a job, an interesting meeting or something to learn. You can't vary this menu too far, people are people, their needs are pretty basic.

2 in 10 people stick to SL after joining beyind 30 days. So the Sheep might get this figure up to 4, perhaps. Will that be good for the world? Well, it will surely be good for Fashion Avenue, the dozen or so lucky sweepstakes winners who got to be at ground zero for the CSI invasion. Even I bought a pair of nice canvas shoes for $1400 from JC.

I think there were three things broken, actually:

1. The load balancer -- the piling up on the OIs shouldn't have been happening.
2. The counter of people on sims -- the Lindens may have broken or turned that off deliberately, precisely to prevent the pundits and rubber-neckers from counting the sims and claiming lower numbers than they want to claim
3. The counter on the front page -- it bounced between 42,000 and went DOWN to 39,000, so something had to be "off" -- it's 34,000 as I write now, 2 hours after the end of the show. That's lower than a usual evening night, and I wonder if some regulars feared SL would be laggy and logged off.

SL did work pretty well this evening, but I had a hell of a time as usual, freezing, stopping, asstaching, ruthing.

I got a tip from a Linden that works well -- at least for each individual log-on, it has to be re-set.

Go to the task manager, find SecondLife.exe or whatever, right-click on it, go to process and put "less than normal" (counterintuitive, but works). That lightens the load or something, it runs just that much better to be worth it -- but not truly stellar on a Vista machine with Nvidia.

Comments

[Prokofy Neva]

Some additional factors:

1. The show is still playing on the West coast -- not over yet.

2. Still seeing only 2-6 per sim beyond the big 3-4 piled up.

3. Some people reporting that they can't get the avatar name picked and working, it breaks down, and some don't get the confirmation email.

4. I directly asked the Sheep how many people -- they aren't talking. Nor are Lindens. They say it will be weeks while they check sign-ups and retention.

5. Meanwhile, we are stuck with their cooked numbers, as the front page counter appears broken, and the hover-text function that counts people per island was broken or turned of 2-3 days ago, perhaps in anticipation of this.

[Prokofy Neva]

Cocoanut took to counting all the sims exactly and came up with only 742 for the entire set of 420 or so.

[Maxx Something]

I'm wondering if the sheep will bloviate and somehow annonce that this was some sort of fantastic success. Granted, I was sound asleep, thankfully so, by the time CSI aired last night, but from all accounts this seems a dismal failure and probably an utter waist of $7 million dollars of CBSs money (don't know if thats accurate, just a figure i heard somewhere)

[Prokofy Neva]

I don't believe it was an utter waste but it will be a slower uptake than planned. But since it will run 6-8 weeks I think until Feb. there is still a lot that could be done with it.

[Perestroika Zelmanov]

The OI sims that were filled up were crowded with SL regular rubber - neckers who were choosing to TP to the most crowded CSI sims to see what was up. The newbs were fairly well spread out amongst the sims. Greeters from the Sheep and many who seemed to be from Betatech as well, or meybe they work for both, were present but sometimes fairly clueless about what it actually took to run through the quests. For example, it is entirely possible to do the investigative quests using the Sheeps' toolbar and not with their viewer, but you do not get audio and you have to sleep through a very slow rezzing text window in their HUD. I "solved" their first Furry Murder crime in about 15 mins. The only folks that I saw running through the quests without problems were SL regulars who also have done a MMO quest or two in the past, otherwise some SL folks and ALL the newbs were stuck and in need of help to some degree. I am betting that the number of avs who finish all the available quests is going to be very small and that these sims will be ghost towns soon.

[Prokofy Neva]

I can't believe they killed a furry. That's so...hateful. I hope somebody AR'd this.

Do you get points or Lindens or prizes or something when the quests are done?

[Cocoanut Koala]

My field report:

At 11:30 SL time last night I counted the people on the CSI sims: 742.

coco

[Cocoanut Koala]

P.S. The breakdown (with 4 sims per cluster):

Clusters 2-10: 202*

Clusters 11-21: 77

Clusters 22-31: 143

Clusters 32-41: 70

Clusters 42-41: 48

Clusters 52-61: 24

Clusters 62-71: 16

Clusters 72-81: 11

Clusters 82-91: 34

Clusters 92-101: 34

Clusters 102-105: 73

*This was 202, not 212; for a total of 732, rather than 742.

Forty-one of these 105 sims had 0 people on them.

coco

[Cocoanut Koala]

P.S. Could not find sim #1.

[Cocoanut Koala]

P.S. The hover-text - which I first told you wasn't working, or was only part of the time working, that was me, apparently, being too jerky with my mouse or something.

I finally got it to show up every time I hovered.

[Prokofy Neva]

Wow, just...wow. This says it all:

http://dusanwriter.wordpress.com/2007/10/25/csi-in-second-life-ok-tired-of-disneyland-yet/

[Prokofy Neva]

Wow, just...wow. This says it all:

http://dusanwriter.wordpress.com/2007/10/25/csi-in-second-life-ok-tired-of-disneyland-yet/

[Daiyo Taov]

I think those numbers may be even more skewed than you suggest. As Pere above noted, a good number of sims had about half of its population made out of Sheep, Mentors, and various other volunteers hanging about waiting for the expected flood.

The particular CSI sims I went to, group #2 I think, had about 20 people on it when I teleported over there, only to find that 19 were SL regulars (rezz dates all from 2004-2005) and basically throwing a party while the lone CSI newbie wandered about and edited appearance.

[Economic Mip]

Well I hopped around as much as possible. Cocoanut is right of course, the load balancer was not in top shape. However it was a shame that she could not find 1 (Which is very far away, and hard to find) because those two orientation islands were at 90(!) for the West one and 80(!) for the East one. Also there is one set of four islands for the sheep to test bugs and get ready for the next murder in a few weeks, so that would be why the 416 or 420 question exists. It should be down to 208 now, as they are planning to scale back. And yes on Wednesday night there were problems on every level for someone, I apologize.

DISCLAIMER: greeters are not employed by CBS, the ESC, or actually anyone. We just magically get paid. (Had to say this to keep the Sheep from emailing me in a huff.)

[Cocoanut Koala]

OK, so that would make the total at the time of my count probably 902, or around 900.

Yes, it is a good idea for them to scale back the islands. It can't be good to come in and find yourself the only person there, or one of only a couple, and think gee, out of the whole United States, I'm the only person who came to do this?

coco

[none]

Are the numbers that important? We're spoiled by the highest traffic areas in SL, where we expect them to be crammed full with avatars, 24h/day — like, well, having 50 or so, at least. That will give us the notion that the location is, indeed, popular.

However, if we see an island with just 2-3 people all the time, sometimes with zero, then perhaps peaking at 5... we deem it a failure.

Do the maths. A sim that has every minute 2-3 people, even if they only stay a minute there... is th equivalent of a website with 150,000 unique visitors a month.

Our perception is completely skewed in SL because we're not used to visualising what it *means* when "only" 2-3 people are online *all the time*.

On the other hand, if I tell someone that my site had 150,000 unique visitors in a month, everybody goes *wow* (a comparison: my humble blog has 15,000 unique visitors per *year*. A parcel that gets visited by just two avatars *per hour* has *more* visitors than my blog!).

So... based from what I have seen, the CSI:NY have, per set of 4 islands (there are 104 sets), about 20-30 avatars at all times I've cared to look at the map. But lets assume the number is lower — an average of 10 avatars per hour per 4-island-set. So, a thousand avatars total, at all times. That's perhaps the equivalent of a website with 1.5 million unique visitors *per day*.

Now I'm pretty sure that's pretty impressive. Sure, millions of sites have millions of unique visitors per day — but that's not *so* easy to accomplish. Sure, the CSI:NY episode was seen by 100 million Americans in just a few days, so the equivalent of 5 million unique visitors on a site is not really much.

It's still impressive, though! Any good marketeer will tell you that things like web-based ads just have 1% of all people viewing them clicking on them, so one would predict a million users registering on SL from watching the CSI:NY episode. Well, we're up to about 150,000 new users in three days, and the weekend is just starting. We might see those million users log in — eventually. But what we have *already* noticed is that close to 5% — and not merely 1%! — of CSI:NY viewers have visited the CSI:NY islands *already*. Sure, *most* of them were established SL residents, but... we have to be fair, the existing SL residents are *way* more prone to visit something in SL than *new* residents that logged in just for that!

Just take care when doing your maths, folks. When applying conventional wisdom to statistics, they fail, as Levitt & Dubner so well put on their "Freakonomics" bestselling book...

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Wow, I have no idea how the above comment came out anonymous :( Sorry, Prokofy, that should have been signed by me... which I thought I did...

[Maxx Something]

I fail to see how impressive it is compared to the cost spent to set up all those sims. A web site takes a few bucks to set up and run. This appears to have been a seven million dollar investment on CBSs part. Seems failure enough to me.

[Prokofy Neva]

Gwyn, your ability to turn yourself into a pretzel to suit the prevailing powers-that-be never ceases to amaze me.

Oh, no, *we* aren't such ninnies as to think that "high traffic" ever "means something" as we poor folk get along with traffic of 250 or 1500 or 4500 on our parcels with various projects or tenants' projects and we pronounce it "success" because they are either engrossed and having fun or they are indeed selling something. I find that once a parcel has about 1500 traffic, that's about all it needs to justify its tier as usually what is on it *is* selling. But even 200 can be enough sometimes. Depends on what you're selling.

But we're not the ones who claimed *a million people* would be burning down the servers. We're not even the ones who claimed oh, 27,000 would come in the door and strain the servers. Heck, I'm even someone who generously said it was 4,000. So for it to be counted and show 900 soaking wet is a big come-down.

Uh...guess what! We're able, without any mental exertion, to stretch and translate 50,000 online into...*drum roll* 350,000 people who spent more than a dollar that month.

Wow, Gwyn! Now how are we able to make that huge mental leap! By looking at the Lindens' own number! 50,000 logged on at any one time. They used to say 4 hours a session.

That's probably not correct,someone could work out the algorithms and use the other data too. But only 300,000 or something -- let's even say 350,000 spend more than a dollar a month -- again, look at the Lindens own numbers.

Sure, you can try to turn that into 150,000 "page views" or something like a web page, unique visitors. However, how can it be that if only 350,000 spend more than a dollar a month, that only one island gets "150,000 unique visitors".

Please. Don't tell me that tens of thousands of people come into SL and never spend not even one single dollar in a month. That's just not the case. Even the most rank newbie camps or gets a dollar from a dollar tree or even a premium stipend or gets a few bucks off the OI and spends it on a t-shirt or something.

It seems to me that until you can isolate how many hours are on line, and look at other factors, you cannot issue these fake monkey math numbers Gwyn.

The 2-3 people could be existing SLers, or the alts of existing SLers, and spending longer times on line as a result.

No, Gwyn, you're statistics are failing. Because you've extrapolated from even the 2-3 people on an island, and claimed that they may "only stay a minute" and that there is this HUGE STREAM of people coming in from the TV.

But the 2-3 may stay on 4 hours. If the figures of 300,000 spending more than a dollar are any indication, people stay on line longer and spend more.

Let's say you're right, and those 150,000 uniques spend a minute. But...they never come back to SL. They never spend a thing. They churn out and are replaced by other churners. What good is that? Few of them stick. Let's say the Sheep get to double the retention rate of Linden, from 1 out of 10 staying to 2 out of 10 staying. That's still not enough to fix a number that has been growing terribly slowly: 300,000 spending more than a dollar inworld (and the premium figures which have bumped around 100,000 and have flowed in growth).

If a TV show can *only* get one million people to try and leave SL, they cannot likely justify the cost (although the $7 million is for all CBS projects, not just this one surely). The cost in time and labour of Lindens alone, not to mention the dev company, can't be justified if the page hits of 150,000 don't even click on an ad, and don't spend a dollar.

If by next month, the 300,000 figure increases to 350,000 and we suddenly see a huge jump in the sales of magnifying classes and soft-soled shoes, ok, perhaps I can be persuaded!

[Cocoanut Koala]

Gwyneth, really - face it. The sims were far from full. Far, far, FAR from full, at any given time.

Now, it was a good idea to have enough sims so that everyone who wanted to could log in. It would have been terrible if they couldn't have.

But now that it was clear the sims were far from filled, even in the first night, it's an equally good idea to cut them back so that they will seem like a more happening place to anyone who logs in.

Not a good idea to have people logging in to find themselves alone. Not good buzz there.

It is disappointing that they weren't filled, yes. I'm sure everyone was disappointed in that regard.

But you know - I really don't think it's a good idea for you to pretend it wasn't this way. Better to look at it realistically and proceed from there.

Doesn't mean it won't get better - these things sometimes take a while to catch on, and they have till February, after all.

Just means it wasn't maybe all we had expected or hoped. No sense in your trying to pretend otherwise.

Kind of Pollyannaish to an annoying extreme, I think, and not at all helpful, really.

coco

[Prokofy Neva]

Yes, I agree, Pollyanish -- and sycophantish to the Lindens and the Sheep.

Nothing is gained by doing that. Cocoanut is right about the buzz.

You can only hope they fix the load balancer so that people won't be pitched off to lonely sims until the existing ones are filled up.

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