I have been aggressively posting event listings for The World Club in Second Life. These are free of charge, and I am posting around games I'll be watching anyway. This week and last Friday were World Cup qualifying matches, so I was posting "events" at the club like USA vs Panama, Ukraine vs Poland etc. These seemed to get some traction; I had about 15 people stop by in about half as many days. So, the event listings do bring in foot traffic. But the club isn't "sticky" enough. Far fewer stay for even a few minutes than show up. I'm not sure if folks are disappointed with the club, aren't sure what to expect, or are looking for a crowd (hasn't happened yet). I certainly don't blame anyone. I do understand that SL requires a very specific set of circumstances to be comfortable and actually be social (at least for me it does). So I plow onward.
I have had a few people stop by and chat, which is the whole point. There was the fellow from Uruguay, a Canadian woman, a few others. Its very fun to hang around with people who stay for a while. I have a landmark giver now in the club, a group inviter and a classified ad. The World Club group has gotten some traction, mainly from me trolling peoples' profiles on soccer and futbol. I think the biggest hurdle will be getting over the fact that we can't really watch too many games in the club (US Open Cup was an exception), because that's what you do in a real pub. So we are limited to soccer chat and other activities.
However, the point of the club and club space is to aggregate soccer fans of all stripes and colors. I suppose the final frontier will be to start socializing also on Facebook and Twitter. Sadly the Major League Soccer season is nearing its end; however there are some months to go in other leagues.
Network Art and Social Media | Media Archaeology and Cultural Studies | Postal History and Intermedia | Virtual Worlds and Media Theory
