Ok, fine, I know when I’m beat. I can’t argue against fun. But hey, everyone has a different definition of fun; for me, it’s shopping at Banana Republic. =P

You know why we have that SL store? Because it’s fun. Someone proposed it, it was cheap, and we thought, Why not? Now my avatar, Weronika Skronski, has made friends with a virtual chicken who talks. And when she took off her virtual panties and sat down, this Weronika discovered that that the standard issue avatars lack pubic hair and had an idea for a new American Apparel product…. A surpise. Virtual exclusive, coming soon to the Lerappa American Apparel.

I agree that many of the things happening in SL have been done before in similar fashions elsewhere, but I don’t think it’s ever been done in a system with a built in currency system that allows cashing out and a very open environment that allows people to make it what they want. Those two pieces together I have not seen anywhere else.

And you are correct that we seem to have similar interests. Thats why I subscribed to your blog this morning after reading the post.

SL has value, I don’t argue that. However, there’s nothing that’s come out of it that hasn’t been done before within say, a year. Building a brand presence (ie store) in a game? Neopets has done it. Having meetings/conferences/lessons in games? MMORPGs have done it. Promoting music/book/whatnot? Do I need to list the example on this one? I guess no one has done it with the ability to fly around an island, I’ll have to chew on that one.

SL participants feel like futurists but I’ve been an MMO gamer for over a decade and I can tell you that nothing there is new. Find me something truly out of the box and maybe I’ll buy it. Until then, it’s all an esoteric exercise that looks great conceptually and catches PR like flies to crap. (had to take a jab)

Speaking of “crap”, thanks for the visit. It appears our interests are similar, maybe one day we’ll agree on a topic. =)

Ok, now let’s look at the RL value of a presence in SL.

– if you’ve read a blog in the last 2 weeks, you know that Lego is doing some stuff in SL.

– if you’ve read a blog in the last month, you know that American Apparel has a store in SL.

– this afternoon the president of our agency is being interviewed by the Business Journal about our virtual agency.

so, although I think that working in SL does great things to build brands to avatars in SL, it also serves to provide some RL branding.

so will SL be the next big thing? who knows. but something like it probably will be. let’s face it, after visiting SL, surfing the Web for fun isn’t as fun as flying around an island.

I really can’t get my head around people who assume they understand everything inside and out well enough to dismiss something that other people find so interesting and important. Not only do I find it a bit silly, I find it insulting. Maybe, just maybe, 300k people might know what they’re doing! What a concept!

Firstly, even if podcasting isn’t a fad and blogging does catch on, it doesn’t follow that Second Life is therefore not pointless. More seriously, marketing 101 should not tell you that where people gather you can market to them, that’s old and discredited and the source of my personal problem of seeing Second Life as a marketer’s bonanza. It can only be a bonanza if the people in Second Life want to be marketed to and my intutiion is that they go there to escape just that sort of real world intrusion. Time will tell if I am right. In the meantime, here’s a related piece from yesterday’s Sunday Times which is indicative of the growing noise around the subject even if it’s tone is somewhat sceptical.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19509-2267041.html