Social Networks for Virtual Worlds

The needs of those using virtual worlds don’t always map 1 to 1 with the needs of others. This is particularly true when it comes to those who use pseudonyms. For this reason I have compiled a list of social networks that might be useful for those involved in virtual worlds. This list was originally posted as part of this article, and suggestions for additions to this list are always welcome there. If your interest is in communication options for a whole community, you might also want to check out my Digital Community Survival Guide for more helpful hints.

  • SLUniverse: SLUniverse is probably the oldest online forums site dedicated to Second Life and still one of the most active places for virtual world discourse.
  • 2nd Hub: 2nd Hub is a Second Life only avatar social network. I am trying this out, but don’t have much info on this yet. I do recommend using a throw-away password when signing up, as they send it back to you in the clear along with your login name in the signup confirmation email. This makes me a little nervous about their site security, but I am curious to see how this site shapes up.
  • Koinup: Koinup is a social network built around sharing original art and machinima from Virtual Worlds. It is particularly well suited to artists and fans of virtual art.
  • Flickr: The photo-sharing community Flickr doesn’t really need an introduction, but it is worth noting that there is a large community sharing art and caps from Second Life.
  • Twitter: Twitter has a lot of users in the Second Life/Open SImulator community. Unlike Facebook they still seem to get the value of anonymity. Pseudonymous luminaries abound on the site including parodies of many real and fictional characters.
  • Plurk: Plurk is a micro-blogging service similar to twitter which has a relaively high adoption in the Second Life/Open Sim community.
  • Facebook*: It is against the Facebook Terms of Service to associate a profile with a false identity, and they have shown on multiple occasions that they will enforce this. However, it is possible to set up a fan page for fictional characters, such as avatars. You can set up a new page by going to Their account creation page, clicking on the “artist, band or public figure” option, then selecting “fictional character”. It would be nice if Linden Lab altered their own profiles to support links to fan pages rather than/in addition to profile pages, since this is the only legitimate location on FaceBook for a pseudonymous identity.
  • Google Plus*: Google Plus is technologically impressive, but unfortunately they adopted the same anti-pseudonym TOS that Facebook did. If you are not bothered by tying your real life identity to your online personae there are options to list your other names in your profile, but there is no way to have a profile under your avatar name, gamer tag or screen name, even if that name is the name that most people online would know you by.
  • Reddit: Reddit is a pseudonymous community focused on link sharing and questions. The Second Life subreddit, /r/secondlife/, is one of the subreddits that may be of particular interest.
  • My.secondlife.com: If you are in Second Life you have access to this SL avatar social network. The features are evolving and the feature list is growing to become a fairly feature rich experience, albeit one that you can only share with other SL avatars.

* I thought these were worth mentioning, but I can’t fully recommend them in this context.