Second Life Snags HUGE Clients to Their 3-D World

SECOND LIFE IS NOW 7.2 MILLION STRONG
The on-line virtual world website called "Second Life" has grown in leaps and bounds over the past several years to such a huge level that major companies are fighting over themselves in their quest to rent the most beneficial ad space that they can acquire in the 3-D world of Second Life. IBM alone has a staff of over 11,000 workers whose main purpose is to generate the best possible digital convergence that IBM can come up with to ensure IBM does not become obsolete with their current state of the art technology.

The 3-D world that is Second Life enables anyone to sign up for their service so that they can create an avatar of their own choice and start creating their own alter ego and walk, fly, or teleport to any region that is in the massive Second Life world. Linden dollars are what you can accumulate in Second Life that you will need to use to buy items such as clothes, houses and cars for your alter ego use in the virtual world.

VIRTUAL SHOWROOMS ARE THE ADVERTISING BILLBOARDS OF TOMORROW
Nissan, Intel and Reebok are just a handful of the new major players that are coming on board to Second Life that are willing to lay out hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy advertising from Second Life so they can place virtual showrooms on the 3-D site's main site levels. For instance, Reebok has a virtual store where you can create your own customized sneaker to wear throughout the massive Second Life world and in the real world as well.

Most of these major companies do not feel that Second Life contains enough potential customers that will buy the various items that these companies need to sell to the Second Life subscribers, for now at least. That will change in the future possibly, but the emphasis right now is on allowing every Second Life subscriber to see exactly what the new product line coming from companies like Nissan and Intel will look like a few months from now by showcasing them in their individual showrooms.

ADVERTISING ON SECOND LIFE
A major percentage of the new companies coming to Second Life looking to lure in millions of the youth audience that they desperately need for future company growth recognize the fact that there will not be an immediate payoff when creating a web presence on Second Life. it just helps lay the groundwork today for huge sales revenue in the future. The Weather Channel, for instance, has created a spot where your avatar can ski or ride mountain bikes where the only advertisements for the Weather Channel can be seen on billboards that are around the areas where you can ski in.

Cisco systems have taken the virtual leap by building a virtual protoype of a system that allows patients to get remote medical diagnoses from medical doctors at locations throughout America. This will actually allow you to enter the Cisco area and chat with a "live" doctor who happens to be signed in when you approach the virtual doctor's office and ask him what he believes is the best medication to take of whatever ails you.

FUTURE ADVERTISING POTENTIAL FOR SECOND LIFE
IBM currently owns fifty "virtual islands" on Second life. IBM intends to continually experiment with different types of subliminal advertising on their islands that will allow them to see what works on the youth audience and what doesn't. This type of experimentation with advertising programs has been very popular for smaller companies as well.

Even non-profit organizations are getting in on the Second Life action. The Global Water Foundation has a virtual office set up at one of the ad spaces rented out by the Raleigh public relations agency called French/West, whereby they are informing Second Life subscribers of the dangers of drinking unsanitary local water in various developing third world countries.

The future does indeed look bright for Second Life, as well as their future competitor, "Home" for the Playstation 3. "Home" will be a 3-D world that PS3 owners will have free access to that includes high-def CGI graphics and the ability to their own self-generated avatars to visit concerts, movie theaters and sports events that should be free of charge to all PS3 online subscribers.