Newbies have been the roadkill of Second Life. This picture comes from an ill-fated short-lived experiment in user retention, where the Lindens had newbies first learn to climb in and drive vehicles, then had them kill and crush rats on the road as a game. Neither of these activities requiring fine-motor skills helped keep newbies in Second Life.
...you will find out if you can retain more newbies in Second Life.
This is Desmond's offer made on SLUniverse.com and he then offers to have further payments tied to performance. Gosh, so generous of him!
Desmond always hastens to tell you that he has multiple revenue streams (that's different than the "jobs" that we ordinary mortals must "work") and doesn't rely on Second Life. That's, of course, why he is so often on the forums...
In any event, Desmond probably really does know a thing or two about customer retention. And Carl Metropolitan, who ran the main residents' newbies help center for years and then went to work for Oxbridge Caledon, which was Desmond's newbie operation, knows even more, having done much more hands-on work. The Lindens should hire Carl, he probably charges lest.
I'm not interested in writing about this in detail anymore, as I've written until I'm blue in the face for 10 years. I charge $25/hour if someone wants to hire me, but it's boring because most of the time, people don't really want to listen to what they have to do, least of all the Lindens.
The Lindens need to do one big thing in their newbie/welcome/tutorial sims: allow advertising. Once they enable the profit motive, they will have more interest in businesses willing to help get themselves customers.
I just had a new idea today -- the Lindens should allow produce demos, talks, business seminars, et. in space you can buy on those sims on a rotating basis like a 3D ad or a spot on an events calendar.
So somebody demonstrates their dresses or their vehicles or their rental homes for money -- $500 on Monday at 9 pm or $1000 on Friday at 9 pm or $100 on Monday at 9:00 am or whatever --- and instantly the Lindens have a revenue stream or a Linden dollar sink, and the Events list is instantly decluttered without a single ban.
The Lindens need to understand their prosumers need to get paid, allow advertising, and get out of the way. When they do that, more retention will occur.
Product demos that yield real business and customers also creates jobs. Just as at the turn-of-the century in the 20th century through about the 1950s before television -- product demos were in every department store and were a source of entry-level employment either for young uneducated women or educated or skilled men out of work or retired people. They were vital for sales and a vital part of shopping culture. So they could be for newbies in SL.
The Lindens fret terribly about content like this in their surgical space and never see their way clear to doing this for ideological reasons (technocommunism) or greed and unwillingness to share (technolibertarianism) or just unreasonable fear that this will take staff time to clear.
Stick an automatic abuse report kiosk on it and it doesn't need to be watched 24/7 and the merchants who use the system will make their own internal security to keep the system viable.
If you don't get how the concern here has to be motivating people to show up and deal with newbies -- which is through the profit motive -- and you are concerned about crass commercialization or mass culture or some other geeky concern, then you don't get it and you will keep losing 9 out of 10 newbies.
Jobs are a big thing, and camping is no longer allowed. See this poll:
HOW CAN THE NEWBIE EXPERIENCE BE IMPROVED?
Object-Name: VoteMaster 5000
Region: Baileya (258304, 259840)
Local-Position: (121, 67, 21)
Total Voters: 3174
Total Ballots: 3173
1510,Provide Jobs to Newbies
697,Suggest Places to Visit
424,Have a Buddy System
341,Simplify Orientation Island
201,Have Paid Help-Desk 24/7
That is the largest number of people openly polled without Linden tampering you are likely to ever to see on this subject. It has been in operation for about 4 years and has slowly added up, never changing its trends -- jobs, jobs, jobs.
People want to earn money when they immigrate to a new country; they don't want to spend their savings.
The next thing is destinations, things to do, and the Lindens have tried to do some of that, but without triggering partnership with the profit motive, it will never happen.
A solution to the nervous nellies and net nannies who hate capitalism is maybe to give them a nonprofit sim where they can hear about nonprofit projects. Or nothing.
Other thoughts from AnneMarie OToole, who seems to be back, and the awful Eboni Khan can be read here as well.