Second Life: real life marketers leaving |
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In an investigative tour of the marketing islands - private islands are purchasable in-game - in Second Life, LA Times discovered that a lot of shops, like Best Buy Co.'s Geek Squad, Sun Microsystems Inc., Dell Island and American Apparel are either abandoned or empty. Both in most cases.
It's believed that despite the efforts of real life businesses to make their presence known in the virtual world, local residents aren't all that much interested. Most of the popular activities in Second Life tend to focus on things you can't do in the real world. You can always visit a car shop in the real world, why do it when you're inside your 3D skin? It's not like you'll able to savor that new car smell.
Also, it's been pointed out in a recent article by Wagner James AU in GigaOM that while Second Life does have 7.9 million "residents," this does not reflect on the actual number of active players. In reality, the servers of Second Life only peaks at about 40,000 players. That's not a lot of people in marketing terms.
It doesn't work out in the end for marketers because they have to pay not only for their avatars' accounts, but for the islands that their shops will occupy and the design of said shops. The price they pay doesn't balance out with the actual advertising they could accomplish. On average, a real life marketing shop will only get 1,200 to 10,000 visitors in a week. On the other hand, local in-game markets aren't doing bad.
It has also been pointed out in the GigaOM article that Second Life will not be suffering should the corporations totally disappear off the face of the digital world. Corporations only account for about 6% (pointed out to be a generous estimate) of the 8,336 islands Linden Labs have sold. So even if Second Life will experience a void of real life marketing, this virtual world will still turn.
Via LA Times
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