“People aren’t logging in to share personal details, they’re logging in to play these games when they are at work (that’s my personal opinion based upon what I see every day).”

Good thing you qualified your statement with the personal opinion part, because Facebook services millions of folks who don’t have a clue what SL is and who in fact DO SHARE loads of RL info and personal updates to their network of friends and associates, as well as play the gaming aspects – but then again, there’s plenty that don’t do the Farmville and Mafia Wars as well, or those that have but became bored with it in short order. Don’t underestimate the power of social networking via the Book with your clouded view of reality, tainted by cartoon delusions and blog-o-sphere arrogance.

Take the blinders off please – oh om·nip·o·tent one!

“i had to send them passport + utility bills before they’d allow me to register an account in my own name”

Holy crap! I wouldn’t personally tell Facebook ANYTHING! I don’t personally feel that a Facebook page is worth proving who I am!

And yes, you’ve missed something here. You’re trying to compare apples and oranges, comparing Facebook and Second Life as if they are competitors in the same game when they are not.

One of the reasons why Facebook has continued to grow is the inclusion of metagames like Island Life and Mafia Wars. People aren’t logging in to share personal details, they’re logging in to play these games when they are at work (that’s my personal opinion based upon what I see every day). Second Life could actually learn a little from that point, by creating a variety of formal games/sports on the grid that people will log in to play and which they will want to follow via user-created videos and forums.

facebook states quite plainly that it is primarily for people to keep in online contact with real life friends and family, and this is how most of the people i know use it — and they’re strict on the name thing — i had to send them passport + utility bills before they’d allow me to register an account in my own name

whereas sl discourages members from using their own names, which leaves them free to pursue their sex fantasies with strangers

and IMHO this is why Facebook is hugely popular all over the world (about 65,000,000 users online at any one time) and growing like crazy, while the number of sl residents online (as displayed on my login screen) seems, if anything, to have slowly decreased over the last two or three years to about 60,000

or have i missed something?

Just trying to do my best Prokofy impersonation. I practice in the mirror daily. <3

“There is something fundamentally flawed with a system that allows a handful of technoelites to have the power of life and death over millions of virtual individuals. It is extremely disturbing that companies like Linden Lab and Facebook are so willing to pull the trigger on virtual identities with complete disregard for the RL typist. Any attempt to curb this behavior has unresistingly resulted in responses such as “They are a business, they can do whatever they please” as if this somehow makes it ethically more okay to systematically assassinate an avatar.”

Let me summarize my response as such: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

It completely boggles the mind that there are people in the world who actually live like this–no, wait, strike that. I’ve seen enough of the Internet to know that it IS possible, and people can actually florish as such.