Reach smeech... Second Life won't cut it with Nielsen yet, but it is POWERFUL in other ways

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

I was Twittering just now, and up came a twitter from a favorite follow of mine, Chimera Cosmos (aka @LDinSTL_Chimera), that read: "Yes! RT @metaMeerkat: inSL: @cybergrrloh says if one does not talk Second Life® when talking socialmedia, one misses an opportunity for REACH."

While I didn't attend @cybergrrloh's presentation - and I'm sure she provided many compelling ideas - I don't think for a nanosecond that Second Life is a tool worthy of consideration for advertising and marketing, not even exponentially... yet. However, I do believe in the power of the platform. Let me give you an excellent and very recent example:

DB Bailey (aka David Denton, AIA, in Real Life) is an architect in both worlds. I've blogged about his very virtual, very Not Possible IRL buildings many times here.


DB Bailey in front of a building he created for Stanford University

Not long ago, DB teleported me to a shopping mall he had created in Second Life. Given that I focus primarily on quality content in virtual worlds that would Not be Possible in Real Life, this was unusual, but it turned out to be a worthwhile trip. It seems that DB had been working with a potential Egyptian client, and the two had gone back and forth for two years... but DB had not been able to secure that client's buy-in on the project. One day, out of frustration or a creative burst... who knows, DB logged into Second Life and recreated his proposed shopping mall down to the plants. "I'm surprised how fast I did it," he shared with me.


Photo courtesy of The Arch Network

What happened next will underscore the point I am trying to make. The virtual platform of Second Life - where user-created content is possible - is mostly untapped and extremely powerful: DB showed the virtual and three-dimensional shopping mall to his client, and within three days he was on his way to Egypt to work on the Real Life project. He's there now. You can read about it here.

My Twitter handle is: @Bettinatizzy