University web marketing and usability

News media have been on the lookout for the next buzzword after even technology-averse people have begun to admit that YouTube and MySpace are not just things that weirdos use. A few months ago, they found one, and they threw themselves at it with the desperation that only news media can display. However, in Australia, the news show with probably the highest reputation, “Four Corners” has now committed a whole special edition on Monday night prime time to this virtual world. 

Watch the Four Corners special edition You only live twice online! The show was nicely balanced, and even I as a Second Life user learned something new (usually I don’t get around meeting all these CEOs hehe). If you don’t know much about Second Life, I would strongly suggest to watch this. 

Anyway, the next day I was inundated by text messages, emails, and even colleagues coming to my desk and asking me all sorts of things. It seems as if finally Second Life is showing up on the radar! What does that mean for Australian universities? How could we utilize this online environment in marketing terms? Everybody in “the business” knows that the best ideas are the ones that you can copy Therefore, with a very helpful post from the SLOz blog (a blog dedicated to Australian activities in Second Life), I donned the three Australian universities a visit that have established a presence in Second Life. I won’t follow my catchy headline for this post, but instead talk about the bad one first, then the restricted one, and then the good one, to keep the suspense up, hehe! And here is my verdict: 

AFTRS - most likely how NOT to do it

AFTRS stands for “Australian Film, TV and Radio School“. I don’t want to be too harsh - the Second Life presence is not that bad… but it completely failed to catch my attention. Visitors who teleport to their area (this is the normal way of traveling to a place) find themselves in a little entrance area that leads into a huge dome made of glass. At the bottom, in the concert pit, visitors can use several different instruments, and there are also a few magazines that can be leafed through, and a video screen. It’s a little too simple to impress, so I walk outside and see what else there is. A few more buildings, somewhat hanging in the air, made of glass (because that’s a pretty fancy thing in SL, as you can see the inside without having to go there). These glass towers and bubbles showcase screenshots of student projects, but after walking around between these wallpapers for a few minutes, I get very bored. AFTRS is offering quite a bit of information about the capabilities of their students, but the inconvenience of having to snake my way through the buildings just puts me off after a while. 

Overall, although it’s a relaxed place to simply hang out, I doubt that AFTRS experienced a huge surge in enrolment numbers, or even in visitors to their area. And it’s certainly not something where I would return to check out what’s happening. 

RMIT - Hello? Anybody at home?

With high hopes, I teleport to RMIT university’s island (yes, they have a whole island, not just an area). For all non-Aussies, RMIT is located in Melbourne in First Life A huge video screen hangs in the air, with a comfy couch in front of it. For some reason, I fail to operate the TV, and as you can imagine, my short attention span forces me to lift off and fly to what seems to be the centre of the island - bump! My Sardionerak Sungsoo (that’s me in SL) hits an invisible barrier! It’s restricted access, NOOOOOO! All I can do is fly around the island and look at the constructs from afar How disappointing! The island itself is only occupied to about half its capacity. The “full” half shows a huge variety of different and pretty whacky constructs with no apparent purpose. My wild guess would be that RMIT offers this space as a trial run for some of their students. And that seems to be all RMIT has to offer. I wonder why. I use my 5 minutes of frustration to give my avatar a new look, and off I go to my last destination. 

USQ - Finally! It’s beautiful!

USQ stands for the University of Southern Queensland. My Sardionerak Sungsoo pops up in the welcome area, and right from the start I can see that this environment has been constructed with love! A little sign tells me that the island is in fact a PhD project of the Faculty of Education, by Lindy McKeown (I couldn’t track her down on their web site). Again, the presence is a full island, and this time, it is bursting with details, fun games, handy ideas, information, facilities, and much more. I walk around for over an hour, hanging out on a little boat at the “surf club”, listening to music on a lovely little plaza, walking around the shops (possibly student-generated content on sale), and so much more that this post would be blown completely out of proportion. 

Apart from the many group activities like arm- and mud-wrestling, paddling, swimming, and much more, there are two components that impress me deeply. 

The Shop: While wondering around the plaza, I stumble upon university information almost by accident. It’s a nicely unobtrusive shop that displays information about lecturers, courses, campus life and more. The atmosphere is really leisurely, making it a nice window-shopping experience. The products on the shelves are the links to course web pages, and the shop itself has sections for internationals, undergraduates and postgraduates. There is also a bell on the counter, but currently, there is no help available (I did visit at 1am, so I guess that wasn’t surprising). 

The Learning Facility: On the top of a little mountain, I find a pavillion-like structure with five comfy seating areas and some kind of podium in the middle. Upon closer inspection, signs tell me that this is an online teaching and learning facility! It can take up to 35 and a lecturer, and it can be split into smaller sections for group work. How fancy! The underlying message is that this institute seems to be on the forefront of new learning environment, a very powerful statement. 

SL users visit places all the time, often dozens per session. Places become popular by offering environments that are fun to hang out in, that offer activities that are worth returning for. An “in your face” marketing approach, like the AFTRS one is counter-productive, as it renders the place boring and uneventful. The other end of the spectrum is obviously USQ with its myriads of nice distractions. It enticed me to stay and play, and try out everything that I could see. And because I was so much at ease, walking into a small shop with the courses as a showcase wasn’t a break in my experience at all! All thumbs up for USQ! Lindy seems to have understood what Second Life is all about - entertainment spaces! 

The big question that university marketing departments in Australia have to ask themselves: even if you succeed to attract many users, will they ever convert into the magical “bums on seats”? So far, I would doubt it. It still seems to be too far-fetched for me to imagine a person logging into SL and looking for university information. And the overall tiny number of Australians in the environment makes it quite unlikely to attract the attention of significant numbers of school-leavers. However, the prestige that a good online presence in Second Life brings is not to be discarded lightly. And as USQ has shown, the main focus doesn’t have to be marketing, it can also be online learning and facilitation. And then for marketing to slip in a stand with information is the easiest thing  

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 2:18 am and is filed under good ideas in higher ed marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.