adthropology

Big Increases in Older Second Life Population

"Here’s a cool little piece of information that comes to us by way of Hitwise regarding Second Life: Interest in Second Life is increasing primarily among people over 45. Hitwise has been tracking visits to Secondlife.com, which acts as a central portal and community site for the gaming world. Apparently, not only has the amount of hits received within the two weeks ending on Oct. 21 more than doubled since the two weeks ending on Oct. 7, but traffic to the site has increased 219% since 2005."

The rest of the article here.

via The Future of Media

Second Life For Business - Do's and Don'ts

"Businesses are rushing to get involved in web-based 'virtual worlds' such as Second Life, to take advantage of the marketing opportunities they offer.

Catherine Smith of Linden Lab, the creators of the hugely popular Second Life community, spoke to us about the pros and cons of launching these campaigns.

Interest from businesses and advertisers seems to be growing rapidly – what opportunities are on offer?

 

As both the number of Second Life residents and the amount of unique content grows, the overall experience will become increasingly rich for businesses and individuals alike.

In Second Life there are virtually no boundaries or limits to what you can do or create, and it will ultimately be up to companies to develop unique ways of interacting with their respective communities.

What are the main things companies should consider before getting involved?

 

If you are not authentic and do not offer anything to the community, you are likely to be ignored, at best. But those firms who commit to a long-term presence in Second Life have an opportunity to interact with their community in new and innovative ways.

We recommend that people join, learn and really feel things out before jumping in."

 

The rest of the interview here, via Twopointouch

                                                                                                                                                                                    

Marketers Will Not Destroy Second Life

"Much negativity has surrounded the launch of a new marketing company called Crayon. The company chose to make their launch announcement within Second Life where they established an island outpost. Some seem to think it's the end of Second Life because Crayon, along with all kinds of other marketers, will enter Second Life with no respect for the world's current residents. To coin a Second Lifers anti-marketing sentiment, it's all a gallery of lies. Second Life will be just fine with or without marketers."

The rest of the article here.

via Adrants

Second Life, Myspace, YouTube-It's All About Mining Intentionality.

"People in SL are expressing what they would LIKE to do in reality. For example, it's easy to pimp your car in second life and clearly lots of people want to customize their transport there. All the major auto companies are piling into SL to learn about this--and build their big after-market customizing business in the real world.

Ditto for hotels. Starwood is designing a new brand of hotel--Aloft--in SL by letting people mess around inside their virtual hotel concept, showing what they like, what they don't.

    It's about intention, what people intend to do if given the possibility."

Get the rest of the story here.

via Business Week Online

Crayon to Launch in Second Life

"Virtual reality service SecondLife must be loving all of the positive press it’s receiving lately. After raising another $11 million in funding earlier this year (bringing their total to $19 million), they celebrated their third birthday and recently announced their 1,000,000th user registration. Putting the recent database hack aside, SecondLife is clearly hitting its stride.

A robust virtual economy has blossomed on SecondLife as well. At least three thousand users make at least $20,000 per year on SecondLife, selling everything from clothes to body parts to real estate. The economy of SecondLife has been estimated to be $64 million per year. Real world businesses are sniffing around the service as well. Wells Fargo, for example, has created its own branded island in Second Life.

SecondLife puts current statistics right up on the home page (stats as on 1:30 pm on Sunday October 22 are to left). Nearly half a million users have logged on in the last 60 days, and $441,948 has been spent in the last 24 hours.

With all of this real money floating around the SecondLife economy, look for more businesses to set up shop. And look for other companies to be selling advice to these new businesses. Crayon is launching later this week, claiming to be the first company to be launched in SecondLife. They will be a virtual consulting firm, facilitating “conversation and transformation above communication. Our value proposition is designed to activate passions, enthusiasm, organic dialogue and no-strings-attached referrals and recommendations.” If Crayon can turn that marketing-speak into understandable advice and guidance to companies looking to leverage SecondLife as a marketing or sales channel, they may find being one of the first to set up shop is a big advantage.

More on this as details emerge. Crayon says they’ll launch this Thursday, October 26."

via Techcrunch

Two Ad Agencies Announce Second Life Branches

"Following hot on the heels of Adidas, which recently became one of the first global brands to create a presence in the online virtual reality world, Leo Burnett has now set up shop in Second Life with a virtual agency - the Leo Ideas Hub. The idea is to create a global creative community where creative ideas can be shared and briefs honed. It's a neat alternative to the usual company intranet and gives Burnett the option to leverage any commercial opportunities that might come out of the Second Life economy."

Catch the rest of the article here.  And click here to get a glimpse of Bartle Bogle Hegarty's SL office  .

Via MIT Advertising Lab

Scion in Second Life

"According to a captivating article in The Economist on MMORPGS (“Massively multi-player online role-playing games” – pronounced “morpegs”), Toyota is the first automaker to enter the arena, giving cars away to avatars living in Second Life, a virtual world with over 800,000 users.

The point of the giveaway? Marketing and PR, what else. Apparently, the freebees are a warm-up, as Toyota plans on selling the Scions in Second Life later this month. According to the article, “Toyota really hopes that an ‘aftermarket’ develops as avatars customize their cars and sell them on, thus spreading the brand ‘virally.’ Toyota will be able to observe how avatars use the cars and might, conceivably, even get ideas for engineering modification in the real world…”

And Toyota isn’t the only company that sees big money in MMORPGS. Some publishing houses are now promoting book launches and author readings in Second Life. “The BBC has rented an island, where it holds music festivals and parties. Sun Microsystems is preparing to hold in-world press conferences, featuring avatars of its top executives.”

The list goes on! Real world bank and hotel chains are buying property, billboards are going up, and property developers are moving in. Clearly MMORPGS are the Internet of the future. 800,000 Geeks served today, the rest of the world tomorrow… the same way the original Internet blossomed from the early 90s.

Only this time, advertisers are getting in early."

via Mental Floss

Yankees to Play Sox in Second Life

"The Electric Sheep Company is excited to announce an unprecedented event to take place inside the virtual world of Second Life. In association with mlb.com, the Sheep have organized real-time, virtual world enactments of two real world baseball games: Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees, to take place on Friday (Sept 15th, 4:05 PM PST start) and Sunday (Sept 17th, 5:05 PM PST start)!"

American Apparel Store in SL (Second Life) Taken Hostage in Fight for Voting Rights

Second Life gets weirder and weirder.  I love it.

"Following the lack of any progress towards introducting citizens voting rights to Second Life the SLLA began in-world military operations.

The SLLA selected as its first target the American Apparel Store in SL. Volunteers from the SLLA have been posted to the store and are preventing SL residents from buying any goods from this vendor."

Slices of Life in a Parallel Universe

"Cory Ondrejka, vice-president of product development at Linden Lab, which owns Second Life, claims it has 330,000 users and is growing at 12% a month without any marketing. The demographics are fascinating: the average age is 33, half of users are women and a very large number haven't played online games before."

Read the full article here.

Brands Living Second Life to the Fullest

More and more companies are opening shop in Second Life.

via MITAdvertising Lab

Duran Duran to Give Virtual Gigs

"British band Duran Duran are to create a virtual island within online game Second Life, on which they will perform actual live concerts. The band is the first major group to announce a virtual world presence in the game."

via BBC News