Second life failed, in the sense that it never gained mass popularity in the same way that social networking did, for a variety of reasons. i) It's mostly dese

Second life failed, in the sense that it never gained mass popularity in the same way that social networking did, for a variety of reasons. i) It's mostly deserted ii) It's not easy to find your friends, or people who you might want to become friends with. There are no friend suggestions or other mechanisms to encourage network effects. iii) Commercial barriers are everywhere. If you want to do anything of significance, such as build a virtual house, you have to pay real money up front - and often not insignificant amounts either. iv) The default avatars are unattractive, with poor animation. This might seem like a minor point, but I bet many new users have turned away from SL because of this. v) New users are often subject to derrision or "griefing". The initial experience is typically not very enticing. I can attest to this personally. vi) The user interface is awful. Recent version have improved, but SL still needs someone to redesign the UI to make it easier and more intuitive to use.