Originally published on Patreon here.
Days after I wrote about the controversial Second Life ads A/B testing various messaging using mock-up Gen AI and stock imagery — a program Linden Lab head Brad Oberwager told me was paused last week — some SLers reported still seeing these dummy ads on Facebook.
So today, I asked Oberwager about this.
He insisted to me that the test campaign had indeed been paused, and that if any dummy ads were still visible to people, they were just an artifact of Facebook clearing out the original inventory of the test.
Oberwager then sent along this statement, which I'll quote in full:
Due to the feedback from our community, we have dramatically cut our spend while we try to regroup.
I listened to the creator community and was specifically asked to do more marketing. The only way I know how to do that is online. The days of creating ads and posting them are over.
Advertising has increased in cost over 3x since we last did it. The way you do it now is test hundreds of potential campaigns and figure out the top ten.
The intent was to test a large number of potential campaigns, video, static… and then put real money behind the winners.
It was never our intent to run AI campaigns for long. Unfortunately, we are where we are and we will figure something out.
I was hoping to triple the size of Second Life and 3x what creators made. We will get there!
As of now, I have paused marketing until I gather more information. It will take some time to create videos and ads.
I would love the help of the community, although since we stopped testing, no one really knows what will work.
I welcome feedback and listen intently. We are trying to do the best by our creator community. Clearly we made some very valuable members of that community upset. Some of our favorite artists. I’m deeply sorry for that.
But our heart was in the right place. I promise.
So there you have it.
Personally I think an approach that starts with test messaging, versus messaging built on genres of content that we already know is working and popular, is doing it exactly backwards. ("Why test whether people are interested in boating in Second Life," as I put it to Brad last week, "when we already know there are hit online boating games like World of Warships?"*) But that's a conversation for another post.
And once again, if you've made or seen an SL video you think makes a better ad for Second Life, post in Comments, or send it along to Brad!
*I should have mentioned Sea of Thieves, which is even bigger, reporting 40 million players in 2024! Imagine an SL ad promoting pirate roleplay in a far larger world with much more UGC, targeting Sea of Thieves fans. Don't you think 1% of them (i.e. 400,000) might at least give Second Life a try?
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 
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