Improve your first life before second life

Ann Haneley's article this week on Second Life which really just covers an article from Greg Verdino (Digitas VP of Emerging channels) has prompted me to put my two cents in on the 'new channel'.

First, let me start off with saying that, in general, I encourage brands to experiment with these channels. When Forrester and others came out against podcasting, this blog called them out. I started this blog last year when many friends and business associates laughed saying blogging was a fad and that only 'idiots blog'.

When it comes to Second Life, however, I'd don't recommend that a clients dive in. As Greg said in his article, there are only about two million people who have registered for Second Life. One thing that Greg didn't point out was that, on average, there are at most tens of thousands of people connected at any given moment. Also, of the two million people who have registered, less than half have logged in in the last sixty days.

The other problem that Greg's article points out is that it's a little resource intensive. Greg visited a lot of the islands built by brands and found out that, although they're beautifully designed, they're is no one there. This has the potential for having a negative effect on the brand, probably more negative than not having anything at all.

If you want to experiment with virtual environments, start with in-game advertising. You get better reporting, can advertise across games. - Paul Herring

Update: I received this email from Lance Callaghan at Double Fusion. They handle in game ads as well, and have some pretty cool titles.