Second Life Stories

Another round of articles on Second Life.

NPR:

"For those of you immersed in "first lives," a virtual world is an interactive Internet environment which can be accessed by multiple users. Not all of these worlds are games. In Second Life, some people have businesses that generate thousands of dollars in real money, some socialize, and some attend events that blur the line with the real world."

BBC:

"IBM used to talk about taking bricks and mortar companies and turning them into e-businesses. Mr Reynolds (eightbar) now talks to them about the possibility of becoming v-businesses.

"It's not a comparison between doing it in real life and online," said Mr Reynolds. "But not everyone can afford to go to Wimbledon, but what they might be able to do is share some online experience in a virtual world."

IBM is already hosting meetings in Second Life, although because it does not own the servers that it runs on, attendees cannot discuss sensitive company information, such as patents."

NYT Travel Guide:

"It may have been virtual, but it sure felt like a Friday night. Except that I woke up at home, in my own bed. The great thing about weekending in Second Life is that you don’t need a place to crash — you just log off. Neither did I have a hangover — a surprise since Urge Gainsbourg had fallen off his barstool after drinking too much Duff."

The Street:

"To Jaffe, entering SL is not just watching a civilization birthed. "You're actually a part of it," he says. "I tell marketers it's not a reach-play. Second Life is about a very special group of people that are opinion leaders, innovators and early adopters. These people are pioneers just by being, as opposed to by doing."
The Street 2:

"On the whole, a majority are accepting commercial businesses like Nissan," said Giff Constable, vice president of business development with Electric Sheep, the company hired to construct Nissan's virtual home. "A handful of people are worried about what brands are coming into Second Life. It's all about whether the company is providing something fun to the community, like the Nissan driving course does."

Eric Rice:

"This is Second Life’s problem (and many others’ worlds). No one is there to show you. This is also a similar problem of the YouTubes of the world. EVERYthing is there. Who can show you the best? Is a filter better than a network?

In Second Life, regardless of field of industry, I see a much higher retention of people and an easier grasp and understanding of the world when a guided hand is there. When I see the negative experiences, I’m almost confident in my speculation that they went at it alone."

Nussbaum On Design:

"3- Mining intentionality has to be a big part of your reason for going to Second Life. Finding out what people really want when given opportunities is a key factor for entering."

Business Week:

"Opening a virtual office, selling and market-testing digital replicas of products, and asking employees to create 3D online personas or "avatars" are quickly becoming action items at companies seeking to brand themselves as hip, or simply wanting to reach Second Life users, nearly half of whom are female and whose median age is 32.

This has made the online world a hot advertising outlet for brands ranging from Warner Bros. (TWX) to Adidas (ADDYY) to Microsoft (MSFT). While advertising's traditional media seem to be losing eyeballs, the population of Second Life is growing at 35% per month and its economy at 15% per month. Or in terms of annual growth rates, the population is growing at 978% and the economy at 270% to date for 2006."

Second Life Insider:

"Some of the marketing agencies and businesses will deal with Second Life at arm's length, still fumbling one handed with your bra, trying to get it off while you sigh and look through the foggy windshield at the moon. Others, well - your friend since Beta may work for a large marketing agency that's looking for ways to leverage Second Life.

Personally, I think I'd rather have the latter than the former. A virtual world's sense of 'presence' certainly helps to function as an effective leveler for everyone who comes to experience and study that world. We're all better informed, at least insofar as we want to be. We can only hope that we'll see fewer of the same mistakes repeated."