a-res.info

Second Life names are complex. Unlike the real world, an SL name is more than just a label, it's unique to you and it makes you contactable. It's almost as if it's your email address or phone number is floating above your head whenever you're out and about. Yet if someone wants to keep a record of it, there needs to be a mutually agreed upon friendship in place. It's kind of like trying to write down contact details in an address book only to find the ink magically disappearing because the other person hasn't simultaneously recorded yours. It's kind of odd if you think about.

So why doesn't Second Life have an address book? To be honest I just can't work it out. Take a look at another medium for staying in touch with others - Twitter. You have the option of following whoever you want, and they have the option of following you back. You get a stream of contextual information, sometimes even location - and there's not a single instance of 'Will you be my friend?' in sight. Even real-life doesn't have these problems - you don't end a meeting offering a business card only if the other person hands you their's back. And they certainly wouldn't turn it down by smacking it out of your hand yelling 'YOUR FRIENDSHIP REQUEST HAS BEEN DENIED' and then suddenly disappearing.

My point here, is that the kinds of contacts you can make in Second Life are limited by the way the contact system is designed. Unless you're friends by mutual agreement - you're nothing. I bet most people have been in the situation where they've been wondering if it would be appropriate to ask for friendship. Do you ask your SL landlord for friendship? How about clients, event organisers, or the person who wrote a custom script for you? Maybe even the person offering customer support for a product you use regularly, an in-world therapist, or ummm... a purveyor of adult pleasures that you happen to be fond of? Even more confusing are calling cards. I've been in Second Life for around a year, and I've never once received a calling card that wasn't automatically exchanged. In fact, I'm pretty sure most people don't even know that they're there - it's just one of those default inventory folders that you skim past and don't look in because it's probably full of noob junk.

Calling cards could offer some sort of solution if they were treated more prominently. I bet if there was a calling card tab alongside the friends and groups lists, people would use them. Actually, why don't we have two? Treat it similarly to Twitter and have a list of calling cards you own, and a list of people who have yours. Let anyone take your calling card from your profile, but have the option to revoke it via your 'followers' list. Maybe this would work, maybe it wouldn't. I'm not sure people would be too keen on the idea that their name (which is also their most valuable SL contact detail) could be jotted down by whoever feels like it. Perhaps a set of permissions would be needed - take freely, ask for permission, or by transfer only. Of course, the more you restrict who can have your details - the less useful these extra lists become - but I guess even in real life the person who's details you want to record also has to volunteer them first.

So would this be useful to you? Personally I reckon there would be quite a few people on my 'following' list that wouldn't be on my friends list - so I'd argue that it would definitely be useful to me. What do other people think?

(Hopefully) Related posts:

1. Second Life and Poor User Centered Design Yes­ter­day I wrote a post about how copy­bot­ting can essen­tially be seen as the con­sequence of bad design, I spoke about how the design...