Second Life - moving gently to the mainstream?
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Second Life is definitely becoming a ‘hot topic’ around here in the BusComms part of the blogosphere/podosphere, as Neville commented in the latest FIR. Neville’s recent post about Second Life - Reality or Escapism? - has generated a plethora of comments, both positive and negative about SL. So too has my recent post about it; for my blog it is the second largest commented-on blog apart from my PR calendar post.
Shel has recently conducted an email interview with Hunter Glass, the founder of Second Life Business Magazine (and which has a ’staff’ based in Afghanistan, China, Canada and the USA). The magazine itself is exceptionally well designed and covers business in many spheres — programming (of course), investing, copyright law, music, fashion, photography, start ups, and some of the amazing number of jobs (earn income!) in SL: security bouncer (L$100/hr), photographic model (L$300+ per shoot), host at a casino (tips only, possibly up to L$500/hr), photographer (L$1000 per job), writer (L$up to 2,000/piece), DJ (L$250/hr) and more.
Then ‘Text100′, a PR agency, opens a permanent office in Second Life. Starwood Hotels now launch a hotel in Second Life. Business is moving to it — and so far no one has yet figured out how to tax any income in it, as Allan and I discussed in a recent chat of ours (mp3).
There’s also Channel 4’s mini series on it…
And of course there is the potential for a ‘goldrush’ similar to 1999/2000, wherein loads of people were buying up the domain names of famous celebrities and companies in the hope that they could sell them to the ‘real’ person/company for a considerable profit (and some did). If I set up my own Second Life disco under the name ‘Madonna’s Hideaway’, and pretended to be Madge herself, would she pay me to sign over the disco to her?
Let’s not get carried away, it is not something that must take over our business life straight away. It is still a very early development and mid-priority compared to other channels for business and marketing communicators. BUT the oxygen of publicity is definitely trending upward, and quite rapidly.
As Neville said,
And that’s the opportunity for PR pros - figure it out alongside the experimenters and early adopters in a joint learning path that will produce business opportunities for mutual benefit
Visit Allan and my Second Life presence.
Technorati Tags: neville hobson, shel holtz, channel 4, second life, sl business magazine
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