Second Life is a virtual world on the Internet. Unlike multi-player games like World of Warcraft, Second Life has no rules, quests, or goals - people just do what they want. Whilst Second Life has some fantasy users and some SF users, the vast majority of users have avatars that represent "normal" people (well OK, slightly extreme normal people), and the architecture is also pretty much C21.
With nearly 2m users, typically aged in their 30s, a 25:75 male/female split (but with females spending twice as long on-line as males) and over 50% of new users coming from outside the US, Second Life is not to be dismissed lightly. Add in the fact that brands like the BBC, CNET, Adidas, Toyota and IBM are buying in to Second Life can you afford not to at least have a look at what all the fuss is about?
For a start, download our briefing note on Second Life (PDF), and read on....
Why Second Life
We are interested in Second Life (SL) for four reasons.
First, in its own right it is the most developed and flexible virtual world, and we are already seeing the beginnings of virtual commerce v-commerce), both in terms of an in-world economy and an SL-RL (Real Life) economy. By learning on SL we, and you, will be better able to capitalise on this and other v-worlds and v-commerce systems as they develop. Companies like the BBC are already using the world, who will follow? |  |
Second, SL provides a wonderful 3D environment in which to look at data in a different way. There are already examples of companies building copies of RL environments - or planned RL environments - and getting potential customers to try them on for size in SL. We can also use SL to display more abstract information in a 3D way - why not look at stocks and share data as a set of palm trees - or even as a micro-ecology. IBM has bought an island in Second Life just to experiment with the concepts and technologies. |  |
Third, SL is rapidly becoming the place for leading edge marketeers. Toyota has already run one campaign in SL, a hotel chain has used it for PR, and an American clothing store is now selling virtual copies of its clothes. Could you market your business through Second Life? |  |
Finally SL is a real test-bed for the future. In SL we can create almost anything in software. Want to know what personal robots might be like, or smart paper, or swarm-bots. Just create them in SL and see how they work - and use that knowledge to inform your RL planning. |  |
Daden and Second Life
To us Second Life is useful because it has a web interface which lets us pass data between SL and RL. So for instance:
- we can create smart newspapers in-world which when touched call on an RSS feed in the real world to provide them with the latest news headlines
- we can interface our chatbots into SL, so that the same chatbot can answer queries both within SL and RL - providing a consistent customer experience
- we can take real world data and use it to manipulate (and even create) objects in SL which vary with the data
We first started using Second Life in 2004, less than a year after it opened. We are ideally placed to help you:
- understand Second Life, and what it might mean for your business
- build your own in-world presence
- gain maximum PR and marketing benefit from SL
- move information between SL and RL (product data in, customer data out!)
- use Second Life to help your business succeed
If you would like a copy of our Second Life white paper then please contact us, or else visit us in Second Life at Nari <48, 170, 134> and IM/talk to Corro Moseley, our in-world representative.
