Reuters has announced that it has opened an office in the virtual world that is Second Life. They've put a journalist in there, Adam Reuters, who will report on Second Life goings on (crime, war, commerce, whatever) and share them with the real world, whilst sharing real world news in the virtual via Reuters virtual office. There's more about it here too from New World Notes.The Second Life statistics are impressive... it's been inhabited by 380k users in the last 60 days with a total of nearly 950k registered. There's about US$3.2m of real money within
the game and about US$70k is traded daily on its currency exchange. Big brands are taking it seriously too with Reebok, American Apparel and Sony all in there touting for business.And since I don't know enough about this Second Life mullarkey, I'm heaing to NMK's event "My So-Called Second Life" on 24th October. I think it'll be *really* interesting to get the lowdown.
There's also a good article here about Second Life which you might find useful.
And yes, I realise this *isn't* mobile but what if it were? What if you could live a parallel Second Life via your mobile? And isn't it just a matter of time before this happens? Comments on a virtual postcard please...
Helen
ReplyDeleteThe key is the bit about real world news (and products) into 2nd Life - every marketeer trying to be hip now wants to put billboards up in games and virtual worlds like 2nd Life. (Did you know that Radio One ran a concert off there a few months ago)
There is a great Business Week article on 2nd Life from May.
What is far from clear of course is whether the 2nd Liers want the advertising, or whether they will want to blank it out (what does a 2nd Life TiVo look like). I sure as hell wouldn't want all those marketing hucksters in my paradise
Hi Alan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link to the Business Week article - well worth a read. And I agree, it is yet to be worked out how much (or not) advertising and marketing will be effective or even tolerated in SL. I think the current talks on tax implications are also very interesting. How on earth do you legislate in what is essentially a game?
I'll report back any insights from the NMK 'My So-Called Second Life' event next week.
Thanks for the input.