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. With What is it about Second Life?
Posted Under: Virtual Whatever-ness
I thought I’d pass along this Washington Post story about Second Life. It mentions Suzanne Vega’s performance in that virtual world, and U2’s as well, and Regina Spektor’s. Duran Duran is coming soon, etc.
Marketing and record label executives say Web sites that put users into video-game-like virtual worlds are a unique way to reach out to audiences, who are increasingly spending their time and money on the computer instead of at concerts and music stores.
What is it about Second Life? Why is everybody suddenly interested in it? Every marketer, I mean. Aside from all the music-related stuff, there’s the previously mentioned American Apparel store, and Starwood hotels has something going on, and Second Life has been written about in Business Week and the Harvard Business Review, and various marketing blogs, it just seems to be a big marketer pile-on right now. Again: What is it about Second Life? Is it that, as a virtual world, it’s easier to sort of grasp than the more fantasy-oriented World of Warcraft-ish alternatives? Is it that the internal culture of Second Life seems more entrepreneurial? Something else?
Meanwhile, here’s an interesting interview with Second Life Creator Philip Rosedale, conducted by Andrew Keen, who seems pretty interesting himself. But check out some of Rosedale’s comments, where he hints at just how big a deal he thinks Second Life could be:
I think that when you talk about Second Life and you think about what’s making Second Life work today I think you actually can look back at eBay you know as an example of the community and the commerce aspects that are — and then the Internet itself, you know — that are so key to getting things like this to take off.
Partial answer to the question of whether Second Life is “a game,” per se:
It is always the nature of new mediums–instant messaging, the Internet itself, electronic mail–those new mediums are always used initially for play.
Partial answer to a question comparing the numbers of people registered to use Second Life vs. the number of people who visit certain Web sites:
Second Life is a much more significant–requires a more significant commitment of time right now to understand. Again this is exactly like using Mosaic in 1994.
Those are all pretty aggressive comparison points. Is this what’s going on, marketers agree with this stuff? Or are they just trying to impress their clients by knowing about yet another non Tivo-able platform?
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Reader Comments
I think part of what’s going on is that advertising interests see SL as a fundamentally different (and potentially much better) user experience for them to penetrate than other online mediums. I just don’t know if I buy the assumption that might be at the heart of it – that people in a totally immersive, near-VR environment are/will be more susceptible to commercial appeals. I think the online:meatspace metaphor here works something like
banner/BlogAds:SL advertising::newspaper ads/circulars:getting accosted on the street by a shill/pamphelteer
and I really don’t think that if I were an advertiser I’d be putting all that much faith in people being really hip to that phenomenon migrating its way across new digital boundaries.
I think Second Life might just be way easier for a lot of ad/marketing people to grasp conceptually than the real deal internet. To understand how to effectively market in the realm of blogs, MySpace and social networks requires a real understanding of a completely different set of dynamics tham what these people are used too. It’s pretty abstract and not too sexy. Second Life on the other hand is pretty graspable instantly and by design it’s rather easy to map real work marketing tactics into it. You can show it to an exec, and they’ll get it, get ideas, and start doing the same crap they do in the physical work up in SL. You can’t really do that with a blog, can you?
jkd, i’m still digesting that equation. But, I tend to agree that if they’re thinking virtual world inhabitants will be more susceptible to advertising pitches, they’re probably wrong. Of course i have no data to back that up, just a hunch.
Abe: I think it’s right that there’s just something about the whole thing that’s easy-to-grasp and kind of seductive … for/to marketers and their clients. And you’re certainly right that so far “in world” marketing seems awfully familiar…
I’m still kind of puzzled as to why SL has generated so much heat so fast, but maybe the combination of these two points is it…
I’m the CEO of a company working in this space — I think lots of these points are well-made and really interesting. Abe contextualizes the phenomenon really well — marketing in Second Life is intrinsically related to blogs, Myspace and social networks in that their all inherently social media. Campaigns that use Second Life should not be doing so in a vacuum, we believe — the volume, even at 550,000 residents is not quite there yet. Instead, we like to think of Second Life as a the most immersive end of a spectrum that includes Myspace, blogs, et al.
And that’s a great way of framing it’s weaknesses and strengths. While there’s no effective way of reaching ALL users of Second Life with the equivalent of a “run of site” banner campaign, companies can create experiences within Second Life targetted at specific communities that engage those people in a much deeper and more interesting way than conventional marketing. This means levels of engagement that are hard for most marketers to imagine — literally hours and sometimes days of use per person. And if those people being engaged are an important set of users — let’s say the influencers within your market, then that is a particularly leveraged approach.
You’re probably right that SL is easier to sell to execs than more abstract online campaigns, But that’s not just at the client level — it’s also true for the way in which it engages users, which is ultimately a good things. Most of all, it’s just a good environment to gather communities and allow them to speak to eachother — an unconventional move for some large companies but ultimately a powerful one.
Pretty exciting to see the lowly murketing.com attract a comment from the CEO of Millions of Us, which as far as I can tell is one of the handful of top firms in this space. (I, or rather my avatard, Murk Story, even attended an event organized by Millions of Us.) Thanks for the feedback! Definitely interesting to have a point of view from the front lines. . .
i’m just really surprised (and this goes to abe’s point) that so many marketers/marketing people want to create a replica of their first life in second life. hello! it’s called second life! you’re supposed to do something different! (or maybe not supposed to, but it’s certainly possible…) i think marketers realize that SL allows something different, a new and unfettered economy, perhaps, but then aren’t really prepared to act differently. we all know about American Apparel opening their shop, and similar things…but why doesn’t AA create an avatar that travels around SL spreading the AA gospel in unique ways? Has any brand/company created a character yet? A character that IS the brand as opposed to a representative? What if instead of a dumb vacant AA store there was an AA avatar that traveled around and looked like an elf or something and could wave a magic wand and make clothing appear? Maybe that’s too Warcraft… Point is this is a space that allows for creativity and (as usual) we see more creativity from the users than from the commercial interests. the thing about gamespace is that users recognize it as a game. i think brands should too. SL should be a place where commercial interests can let down their guard. reuben- does the immersive environment you describe work both ways? do brands openly immerse themselves in user created experiences in the way they would like users to immerse themselve in brand experiences?? or do they just send in spies (as opposed to brand avatars) to suss the activity out? transparency in SL, as in all social media, is a big issue.
Thanks owen, interesting thoughts.
I have to say, though, that I’m getting a little worried about my avatard after reading a (throughly entertaining) dispatch (“Consultant gunned down,” etc.) by Pixaleen Mistral on Second Life Herald. An excerpt:
“We were all having a fine time, until Alcazanar took offense at PSFK trend analyst Brighton Giugiaro’s arrival and issues with getting through the front door. After complaining that the store had a door, Mr. Giugiaro was standing between Alcazanar and the exit. In my experience, one generally ought to leave a clear path out of the room to people with guns, but Brighton seemed to be suffering from a slightly toxic immersion in his own critique of the store layout and questions about security/police. Perhaps overexposure to Powerpoint and an unfamiliarity with gunpoint was to blame.”
Well! Anyway, Murk Story is going to lay off the explorations of SL marketing culture for a while, and focus on the arts. Please remember: My avatard and I are not marketers, consultants, or trend analysts. Don’t shoot!