eBuzz - Non-Virtual Marketing in a Virtual World

Non-Virtual Marketing in a Virtual World

Click-Z just reported that Virgin/EMI is exploring doing virtual concerts in Whyville, a virtual space for pre-adolescents; but virtual concerts - and a whole lot more — have already been happening (and since 1999!) in another space, Second Life.

We mentioned Second Life (or SL) in an ebuzz some months ago. Having had some time now to look at it a little more closely, we decided that it warrants more attention ... not from people wishing to play an online game, but from marketers.

SL is an extension of one's "real" life (RL) into the virtual world. Unlike the popular role-playing games that dominate the Net with fantasy scenarios, it enables people to conduct themselves in very "real" scenarios ... Support groups are held in SL. A professor has created a place where his students can experience what it's like to be schizophrenic. Major League Baseball has a presence there, as does Harvard University. John Warner is using Second Life to launch a possible presidential campaign; Suzanne Vega and Duran Duran have performed concerts there; and the Linden Lab virtual world is being used to model everything from the possible layout of an office to a global response to disaster or terrorism.

And, as Toby Sterling of the AP has reported, people are paying real money for things in Second Life, which would have a GDP of $150 million if it were to stop growing today. But it's not: it will probably pass the million-user mark later this year, and many of those users are earning a full-time living there, selling virtual things or offering virtual services.

Marketers who assume that email is going to be around forever and that there's no need to stay connected with any new paradigms do so at their peril. At least, that's what companies such as Toyota, Cola-Cola, the Westin and Sheraton hotels, Sun Microsystems, Sony, Adidas/Reebok, BMG Music, Crayola, Pontiac, and others believe: they're locking to SL to spend good advertising money in a world peopled by avatars. General Motors recently spent $7500 to buy some land in SL, the New York Times has reported on the real money being made (the first SL million has been made) and the Harvard Business Review hosted a panel - the event took place in SL, naturally — discussing how virtual spaces may well be the next real e-commerce sites.

It's not for everybody. Too many new subscribers has recently slowed down the service, along with disabling the all-important Search feature, and Linden Lab programmers are scrambling to meet the challenge. The infancy of any new technology is fraught with problems. But savvy e-marketers should keep their eyes — and perhaps some of their marketing budgets — on Second Life.

And that's our take on the news today!

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