LewisPR Killed Second Life

IBM might not be so happy about its $100 million investment in Second Life. Aloft, a brand of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc, is packing up and leaving the virtual world: "There's not a compelling reason to stay," said Brian McGuinness, Aloft VP.

Aloft is not alone: The Best Buy Co.'s Geek Squad Island is deserted, along with the Dell Island, Sun Microsystem's schedule of events is blank and the American Apparel store has closed down. Is the fourth dimension collapsing onto itself? Or is Second Life genetically anti-corporate?

Duncan Riley brings up a good point on why Second Life is not such a juicy money-maker for some companies: First of all SL has 8 million created accounts, but only a mere 40 000 users at peak times. The virtual land is not the great venue LewisPR describes.

Duncan Riley does a quick math on SL's profitability for corporations: The visitor rate to corporate installations on Second Life (0.8-2%) does better than the standard web advertisement rate (0.5-1%). However, the CPM rate goes up to $21.20 (top) and approx $180 (bottom), a high cost that increases chances of failure (in terms of profitability).

Peter Ludlow, a philosophy professor at the University of Toronto, once wrote in the Strumpette his point of view: He criticized companies of setting up reality-fashioned stores and facilities in a land that offers way more. Despite some creative efforts to spice up their presence (Nissan's amusement park), it is clear to Ludlow that most companies have set a foot in the game to "brand themselves as being leading-edge".

The man has a good point here: Any time Lewis PR was communicating a new million users to the SL community, they advertised about how corporations were making their way into the new promised land. We've all seen the pictures of the Circuit City store, right? Who actually visited it? Is Cicuit City interested in making you shop on SL, or do they just want to let you know that Circuit City is a hip shop to shop in?

So who's to blame if between May and June, the population of active avatars declined 2.5%, and the volume of U.S. money exchanged within the world fell from a high of $7.3 million in March to $6.8 million in June? Well competition, obviously, with new alternatives like There or Entropia Universe. Comcast is to blame too for their slow cable connection that turn the game into a stromboscopic hell for most of their users.

I would rather turn to their PR agency, LewisPR, the "enthusiastic and passionate team that has the work rate we need to maintain a strong brand for Second Life and Linden Labs". The agency joined forces with SL in mid-october 2006, right when the game hit one million residents.

The goal of LewisPR is two-fold 1. Create excitement around the growth of the game, and 2. hire brands to participate to the hype to get a synergical good publicity. Unluckily, we see today how a money-driven and soulless PR strategy can turn its client down: Numbers were manipulated to bubblize an hype, a not so good publicity after all, and companies are now leaving the ship, a shameful way to show that the island is not as profitable as it has been publicized.

Lies and sellouts. The company's energy has been sucked up and nothing remains but a weakened Lab which strategy turnarounds (SL open-source since january 2007) resembles a fish's last contraction movements against the hard-wood floor of a fishing boat.