18.10.06

10. Random thoughts on Second Life

1. A place for 'forward thinking, innovative ad agencies' to show us how forward thinking & innovative ad agencies they are. (Dad in school disco) 2. Chatted to David Reuters from Reuters in SL a great deal of interest about their venture at least they have an interesting idea - the intersection between virtual and real news. 3. A place for Americans to come and make money and for others they come to find out about the rest of the world. 4. You can watch a stripper and run a spreadsheet on the same desktop neither sheet is worth getting underneath. 5. Brands are trying to exploit it while its users are trying to enjoy it. 6. There is nothing really new in Second Life pretty much everything in it is already in Real Life ... its just the way you do it is different. 7. People in Second Life have really weird alter egos (flaming wings anyone?) wonder what they look like in real life (bloke with a beard from bexley heath?). 8. SL is clunky techy geeky but when it becomes more like real life that's when it will really be an interesting proposition for example VOIP will enable you to have multiple voice conversations live. Ultimately Second Life - I humbly predict - is on a trajectory to become as close to real life as possible...but 9. Second Life is a metaphor for fantasy and that has always been with us not just now. So will it loose its fantasy? 10. It's all about people people. Technology may give us new ways to connect and make clans but it is still about people and always was always will be.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This got me thinking. Maybe what brands should be doing on SL is live a fantasy existence too. Maybe they should be creating alternative products, see how far they can push product development. If, as you say, people are there to enjoy themselves, then brands have to add to that enjoyment and if someone is walking around with flaming wings then maybe Nike, or Gap or whoever should be creating products for them, or at the very least redesigning existing products for them. Just a thought. What do you think?

speed said...

Absolutly Simon exactly they need to go beyond 'here is our store in SL' This is just copy and pasting from RL but what has the brand added to the experience than just telling people what they have already heard / seen in RL. Not that I think Starwood hotels cracked it but at least it is a little bit better than just building and existing hotel They have built a new hotel and they are asking the opinion of SL's about it if they like it they will build it in RL so they are using it for npd. I think though that your point about brands creating or redesigning products that suit / stand out in SL life is much better. I mean Nike did Nike Free, which is all about emulating nature now if Nike comes up with new trainers in SL it will emulate the virtues of the environment. For example you can fly in second life maybe Nike should give you cool wings not trainers -:)