I’ve been wanting to write an actionable summary view of Second Life for you, and now I did. I’ve kept it brief, with a handful of key references you can take to the bank. Virtual is a long development path, and today the game is for developers and savvy entrepreneurs and marketers, it’s an easy place to waste resources on unwise strategy.
Second Life is important, but it has a lot of people puzzled – should one jump in now rather than miss the next big thing, or should one wait to see if it’s actually a bust? Instinct says it doesn’t seem possible for such a thing to be simply meaningless, yet a lot of corporate money is seeing no return there. Really, though, the answers are quite simple.
For a foundational view of the state of play in the world of virtual goods and services – worth $1.5 billion and rising – read Virtual Goods: the next big business model by Susan Wu, guest author at TechCrunch. It’s well written, concise, and will open your perceptions to the monetary value of virtual objects (the key, she explains, is to understand that virtual objects are services).
There are two more general articles to read, from Wired and Newsweek. Newsweek’s article, Alternate Universe, from July 30, carries the HTML headline, “Why Millions are Living Virtual Lives Online.” Wired’s piece, from July 24, adds the sobering caution, How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life.
For more expert and insider access, back in January we cited the Guide to Doing Business in Second Life, an article by Second Life marketer Deborah Kurfiss. Since then Nick Wilson (of Threadwatch and Performancing fame) has moved inworld, publishing metaversed, which may be all you need.
So there you have the human and the entrepreneurial stories. Coming soon, we go onward to IBM to learn the scale of the revolution.
I was prompted for this summary by a great interview with Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger of IBM, on the subject of virtual worlds. I really wanted to write about it, but I’m having trouble embedding the PodTech video in WordPress, so THAT story will have to wait – maybe tomorrow 
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