Dell in Second Life

Wed, Nov 15, 2006 Posted By:Eric Friedman

Advertising, Advertising Agency, Interactive Advertising, Internet, Marketing, Marketing 2.0, Marketing.fm, Technology

Who isn’t in Second Life these days?

Dell is the latest company to setup shop in the virtual metaverse of Second Life

What is Second Life?

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 1,391,717 people from around the globe.

Taken 11/14/06 – so this data will be outdated by about a million a year from now.

Its also the latest and greatest place you can find marketers spending their dollars. As with any other new media idea or medium there will be those who jump aboard because others are doing it. In Dell’s case it seems a perfect fit. A virtual computer world office handing out virtual Dell computers. Residents are happy and Dell is happy. Who knows if this will actual work but the dollars spent behind this initiative have already paid off due to the press coverage to date. As they say, “you cant buy this kind of publicity”.

Cynical as I may sound, I am actually a firm believer of Second Life as a marketing medium. I believe it to be a positive outlet for virtual developers and have so far seen some great virtual executions come together.

Here are just a few companies and agencies that have opened within Second Life.

Crayon
Sun
BBH

If you haven’t already I highly recommend checking it out.

Need some help figuring Second Life out? Send me an email or leave a message here and I am happy to help.

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This post was written by:

Eric Friedman - who has written 647 posts on Eric Friedman – Marketing.fm.

Analyst at Union Square Ventures, blogger at www.marketing.fm and operating experience within SEM, SEO, and Social Media. You should follow me on twitter @EricFriedman

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  • I'll be very curious to see how this whole Second Life thing pans out. It represents a certain future of communication and commerce, though I'm not sure the folks at Linden Labs know how to manage its recent, rapid growth (the one million registrants they tallied in October should double by year end). As a relative new-comer to SL (I've been a resident since the end of October) I know how challenging it can be to get your bearings there and, unless they have guidance from residents already on the ground in-world, companies making forays into this virtual environment are going to miss the boat.
  • Hi Taran,

    I guess I didnt clarify. - I meant that if residents are getting free things than usually they are happy - if Dell is distributing the computers then they are also happy in turn. I thought the flow of the article explained that but maybe not.

    I havnt had a chance to check it out yet myself - but I will soon enough.
  • Residents are happy about it - I don't know if that is true. The opening was a closed affair, and speaking for myself - I haven't been to their island. I tried yesterday, but it was closed.

    Marketers and PR have quite a bit to learn about SecondLife.
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