Second life presence, real-life money
As with any business investment, money is an issue when contemplating a move to Second Life: while participating as an avatar is free, building your own island costs US$1,675 (A$1,902) for 65,536 square metres (16.1 acres) of "land" and US$295 (A$335) per month for maintenance. Those that want just a little piece of the rock, so to speak, can pay a US$9.95 (A$11.29) monthly membership fee and sliding-scale fees of up to US$5 (A$5.67) per month for 512 square metres of virtual land.
That's equal to 1/128th of an island, and hardly likely to satisfy serious SL business investors. Just as you wouldn't set up a factory on a residential street, most large companies are opting to set up their own complete islands, if only for branding purposes: Playboy's often-mentioned site, for example, is shaped like the company's iconic bunny.
The pricing for full islands is out of reach of most hobbyists, leaving the majority of Second Life's terraforming squarely in the hands of corporations and other organisations with enough cash reserves and open-minded marketers to make a play for the virtual mindshare of the 900,000 or so real people logging into SL every month.
Despite these numbers, traditional demographic analysis -- most importantly that there are fewer than 10,000 Australians in SL -- leaves many companies wondering what all the fuss is about. "Some of the times their eyes roll in their heads and they look at you strange," Treasure says. "They say 'sorry, with 10,000 people in Australia we're not interested'. On a cost per thousand basis, there is no justification for getting involved with it."
Nonetheless, Second Life gained over 500 new islands in July alone -- highlighting just how much potential the world's businesses still see in it. Oft-discussed red-light districts are easily found and best avoided by those easily offended, but a growing number of perfectly legitimate sites -- including major brands launching fledgling e-commerce efforts -- reflects the steadily growing faith that SL is, at least, worth testing.
Just don't expect to recover your investment any time soon: "It is absolutely not a sales channel," says Treasure, adding that for those expecting financial returns "it's a mistake. What they should be very interested in is the fact that SL is a global microeconomy, and there has never been one before. One of the things this is going to do is to change the way people relate to their customers, and change the way people relate to their brands."
SL could also become a focal point for mundanity: as with the early World Wide Web, lack of fresh content in the virtual world could actually be damaging to any organisation's efforts. An unforgiving populace, many of whom are well entrenched inside the blogosphere and all of whom have zero switching costs, can quickly lay waste to half-hearted corporate presences.
This last point is front of mind for Laura Thomas, US-based corporate editor with Dell, which launched its SL presence last year and has used it as a sounding post for a range of customer outreach activities including blogging, in-world launches of real-world products, the recent offer of free and growing SL "trees", and the recent simulcast -- and solicitation of customer questions from all over the world -- of a town-hall styled meeting by Michael Dell. A number of the questions featured in the live Web cast originated in Second Life, including one from Latin America.
It is this kind of global flattening that makes the virtual world so promising, says Thomas. "Dell has been known as a leader in e-commerce, and the executive team is interested in continuing that," she explains.
"We were ready to look at new ways to connect with people. And while looking at the statistics tells us things are levelling off a bit lately, I take that as a challenge to come up with new reasons for people to come and interact with use there. What we've done so far just may not be something that's going to keep people coming back."
Virtual longevity
Aiming to strengthen its in-world presence, Dell will soon open a virtual office that will be staffed by a real person who will be on hand to answer questions from SL members in real time. To suit customers from around the world, the coffee shop-styled site ("even though avatars don't drink coffee," Thomas chuckles) will be staffed during a range of hours that will be decided upon through an in-world popular vote.
This new blend of three-dimensional interactivity, participatory marketing and virtual brand building isn't for everyone. However, it has certainly brought out entrepreneurs keen to see how well real-world models translate into Second Life's world.
As well as running Inside This World -- which is currently engaged with around two dozen non-Australian companies interested in the platform's global reach -- Treasure has co-founded Conference Island, which provides virtual shared workspaces where companies can set up meetings, deliver presentations, and chat using Second Life's built-in voice streaming features.
It's a similar idea to a venture recently launched by real-world hotel chain Intercontinental Hotels Group, and something that IBM has long done through its own site. However, Treasure concedes there has been "not a lot of interest" in the idea of paying for virtual conference space.
"This platform offers people a shared sense of space, and for people who are remotely located it allows for a compelling social experience," he explains. "But mostly if companies are interested in the environment they want to come in and create their own space; larger businesses go straight to Linden Labs and say 'who do we talk to?'"
Griefers or no griefers, the organisations building their own Second Life are steadily finding their feet. While the Internet has offered VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language) 3D worlds for over a decade, SL will prove once and for all whether the world will really respond to immersive user interfaces over the long term.
With its combination of flexible design, global community involvement and integration with audio, video and other content, SL is the best chance at reality that virtual reality has ever had. Just mind the bombs -- and the exploding pigs.
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