Please enable flash to view this

« Previous Entry | Future of Media Summit Blog | Next Entry »

Future of Media Summit Blog

Should Companies Go Second Life

The Future of Media summit has kicked off in Australia and will shortly connect with Silicon Valley. This is a neat initiative led by Ross Dawson working to connect global viewpoints. The starting point is the Future of Media Report.

First speaker in SF is Cindy Gordon and John Jainschigg in a presentation from within Second Life. "Title Publishing Implication from the Second Life Experiences". The connection is via Skype. By showing the slides inside Second Life they load very slowly. The slide or billboard appears in Second life. Subscription sales from online works rose to 526 million in North America in 2006. Claims that wit will reach over 40 million US users. (I think these numbers are way over inflated). World of War Craft dominates.

What are the new ways to reach customers using a Second Life type environment. Why should you have a branded site in Second Life? At the moment it is just a learning opportunity. It may provide some awareness for your brand. In the end it is experimenting with a new channel. No one has figured this out.

What they have been learning.... Conclusions.

  • technology complex
  • build costs high
  • engagement hard to control
  • traffic microscopic <6000 uniques per month
  • communities hard to aggregate and qualify
  • benefit soft and hard to measure
  • ROI NIL save for first mover' PR which is fading).

I cannot help thinking that the examples of big brands and Fortune 1000 companies jumping into Second Life are just applying a Brand 1.0 type of model. Corporations are still trying to use the medium in a traditional fashion. The exception may be that "news" sites bringing the real world in may be both easier to execute and provide a welcome bridge to reality. So far we are missing the two-way conversation that is emerging within Social Media.