Second Life... Are you going to meet your clients there..?
Let's discuss your Second Life Strategy:
http://opennetworkers.blogspot.com/2007/03/review-second-life.html
Question: Are you going to meet your clients there..?
Good Answers (26)
Roger P
President, Phelps Research Services
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (1), Advertising (1), Public Relations (1)
Its easy for a lot of people to criticize and dismiss Second Life as a passing fancy based on the irrational concept of paying real money for virtual objects, land, and other tangibles.
But the successful ventures, in my opinion, are taking the approach to not replicate real life business transactions but instead trying to do things in Second Life that they cannot do in Real Life.
One of the most consistently "successful" of these concepts is collaboration. From distance learning or virtual business conferences and many others, this is where the essence of Second Life exists. The ability to communicate virtually and make it feel real.
With IBM spending $100m in second life projects, this is something that some people tends to take seriously. However, I do not see any business model that might sustain this - where the revenues will come from? I'd rather wait, I would not like to be an early entrant.
cheers!
Jeroen F
Virtual World Specialist at The Vesuvius Group, LLC
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I think you should only meet your clients in Second Life, aslong as it makes sense. If you want to show them possibilties with virtual worlds or discus designs, etc. But i wouldn't meet in SL just to meet, for now atleast, unless the client is very hip with new media. I think the learning curve is still a bit to high to drag in anyone without a particular reason.
For me i meet all my clients in Second Life, but that is because i develop for them in Second Life. ;)
Vasco Phillip D
at P.T.A.R.A. dba
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I hear a major Bank in Holland is putting a lot of money into second Life. Why on earth does anyone think a virtual tulip will be worth any more than a real one? I guess we forget history pretty quickly.
In a cost analysis, I've found second life to be very wasteful when compared to traditional website advertising. So you won't see me wasting my money there.
My second life strategy: play chess instead. Or golf (if I can ever get used to the silly hat).
Ton W
Senior strategy consultant - Online Dialogue. Interim manager, IAB board and webanalisten.nl publisher
Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (2)
I don't think second life is a place to directly meet and communicate with your customers. I think it's a place where you can communicate with professionals and do some prototype testing. It's a way of knowledge sharing and with that you can improve your business (but this can also ben done through other channels). Precense in SL can also be a change for brand positioning, leading to better employees and partenerships within the internet (marketing) area. But if that's worth millions of dollars?
In my humble opinion Second Life is highly overrated by companies world-wide. Sure, it's an impressive technology and it shows clearly where we are heading with virtual worlds, but as said: IBM investing 100 million dollar just for SL projects? I really don't believe they'll ever see only 10% of that investment in return.
1. For B2C businesses whose product's assets are to a large extend "intangible" (e.g. fashionware, interior design, architecture...) SL might be a nice playground, to test products that might ultimately generate cash flow in real life.
2. For B2B, I believe only SL's distance learning and e-conferencing facilities might become interesting in the long run. In the long run, because today, you're gonna have a tough time convincing a senior manager to play with a digital doll. We will need to wait until virtually reality is mature to go there.
3. Full-SL businesses that sell services to 1 and 2 will probably be the only ones making some money in SL right now.
Clarification added March 2, 2007:
Of course, as lots of people roam around in SL, it has become an alternative location to put billboards with commercial messages in, to promote your products.
Second Life is not terribly user friendly, even to the avid gamer. It requires huge amounts of bandwidth to even be remotely functional and latency for countries outside of the US is a major issue.
The graphics would do nothing for any designer trying to pitch a product to a potential investor, if they could work out how to find you without glitching into a building that hadn't loaded or been distracted by the large amount of pornographic material related properties.
With web based conferencing companies like Webex and Tixeo around, you would be much better off creating a software presentation and using a web cam in a conference setting. Video conferencing technology is a lot better now than what it used to be with many companies around offering video conferencing software.
If I was given the choice between investing money in Second Life, or in companies like the examples above, or Radvision, I'd take the latter option.
If you are desperately keen to pursue the Second Life solution, look at Project Entropia that is the same thing except has much more experience and a more interesting platform. The user isn't limited to just flying around and looking at bland landscapes and dropping down somewhere to chat. They can also run around and shot things and earn transferable virtual currency for there efforts. And at the end of the day, isn't that what we would all prefer to be doing anyway ;)
Links:
We actually opened an office in SecondLife (SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Emerce%20Een/93/90/23/ )...if you are interested to meet us there, please make an appointment (just like in Real Life...). On our website you will also find an interesting article on 'Getting started in SecondLife'...(in Dutch). http://www.leads2business.biz/Nieuws/Nieuws/Leads2Business_in_Second_Life/
Looking forward to meeting you in Real or SecondLife!
Links:
If you're a new media company with clients interested in SL, then of course you will meet them there. That would be one of the few reasons I can think of where it would be a positive exercise.
As an SL user myself I would never suggest to a client that we meet in-game if I had any intention of achieving certain business goals from the meeting. As a social extension of a business relationship, then maybe but only if I discovered they were also an SL user and even then I may well use an alt (Alternative Avatar).
I did attend one of the VON keynotes via their in-game conference centre and this was certainly of value. I was a virtual attendee at an RL conference happening over 5000 miles away. I can see value in this type of exercise but I was an existing user familiar with the game.
I would say that, for the near future at least, inviting a client to any kind of business orientated meeting/event as a "stone-cold" user is asking for trouble.
Personally, I feel Second Life is to immature a platform to be much more than a curiosity for most people. I have personally tried SL and still have an active account but the bandwidth and resources needed are prohibitive and the predominant membership seems to have only "one" thing in mind.
Until the platform and technology matures, it is an interesting place to visit, but that is it for me.
I can't see any real benefit over more traditional channels at this point.
So for the forseeable future, the answer is no.
Chris G
► Creative Director / Art Director / Design Director ►►► Digital Marketing Strategist
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If I understand correctly, they plan to set their code free... in two years, right?
I've done a lot of business with Ogilvy, IBM's agency of record, so I've been around a lot of people who have drank the Kool-Aid.
Clients (technology brands, consumer brands, automotive brands) are interested, and want to be there. It is in my interest to be involved. I've commented on this here before, but I'll say it again- SecondLife is not a game, it is a platform. Right now it has the appearance of a game, and I think they need to partner more, and get away from the perception of "gaming."
The other incentive to be there is, that this type of virtual environment is going to be a HUGE part of the future of the internet, and whether SecondLife turns out to be that platform, or some other successor, it behooves marketers and advertisers such as myself to be there. Either way, it is learning for what is to come. Being there encourages one to contemplate the potential of what immersive virtual environments can and will become as they evolve.
If SecondLife does prove to win out as the virtual-environment OS/platform of choice, those who engage now will have a big head start.
Also, I keep beating this drum, but one very significant step that they need to take in order to open their world to the professional development market, is to create (or encourage third-party developers to create) import/export filters to allow mainstream 3D Software apps to be employed to build SecondLife content. This one step will cause an exponential jump in both the quantity and quality of in-world content by engaging real world professionals to participate, who would otherwise not bother to learn SecondLife's proprietary modeling tools. The prospect of gaining a new revenue stream from dormant content (un-built projects, etc.) alone will be too great a lure for many to resist. Content will explode, which will in turn drive membership, which will lure more content in a feedback loop. Right now there is a lot of hype about SecondLife, but it has not yet truly reached critical mass.
I'm not certain that SecondLife will be "the" virtual platform, but right now it's their market to loose, and the upside is as large as the web itself.
-Chris
http://www.ChrisGrayson.com
http://www.GigantiCo.com
Chris G also suggests this expert on this topic:
Clarification added March 3, 2007:
.
NOTE:
Ray has corrected me. They have apparently already opened their code.
I work for an archive and I see that some colleagues are test-driving SL to see if it's a useful medium to communicate with our customers (such as genealogists and historians). The results have been interesting. SL seems to be especially useful for teaching research methods and exchanging ideas with people in the same field internationally.
For any company that works with atoms (ie: sells physical products), there is a potentially valuable use for SL. The technology exists to Simulcast product announcements and trade show keynotes in SL as well as real life with relatively little investment. The advantage is obvious: many prospective clients cannot always attend such shows and speakers but would be willing to go online and listen. REMEMBER: If you have a compelling product, *voluntary* ears and eyes are valuable. Someone who wants to watch and listen to your spiel is receptive and it is folly not to cater to that.
At this point in time, however, many people are not aware and/or interested in SL, so the first step is to identify what kind of media your customers engage with.
Finally, in answer to your actual question: no, I'm not *yet* meeting clients in SL because at this point, I don't have any that are there. I will be closely monitoring this, however, and change my strategy as the situation warrants.
Those who brush off any new interactive medium as a "game" or only for "entertainment" take note: EVERYTHING will become interactive in some regard in the near future, so you should plan on it.
Phil B
Senior Partner - Pamil Visions PR and Consulting
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Hello Ray!
I guess since I have some exposure to the life in question, I should throw in my two cents worth.
Following the money is perhaps one of the most effective ways of determining the success or intentions of a trend, as some have pointed out. I Beta tested Second Life back in January and was pretty impressed with the application of technology I admit.
I don't want to reiterate too much of what I already said in my review of this site, you guys can see inside (if you have not) or read the post for yourselves if you wish. The whole premise of Second Life is a migration of thinking from the traditional (or Web 1.0) revenue model, towards the Web 2.0 version. Traditional business compared to its Web 2.0 counterpart, was (and is) an expensive and tired platform for revenue gathering in a business sense.
Advertising, manufacturing, retail and entertainment are particularly leveraged into an almost "have to" scenario in regard to emergence in to the Internet community.
I always call the Net "air" because of its digital and unreal nature, but the fact is it is a more efficient means of distributing many of the product and services that are what is now considered "traditional" business. Without going into too much detail, consider the daily newspaper.
Besides the wasted trees and old dish rags needed to produce print media, think of the production and distribution costs! You all can see this, and easily impose that relative inefficiency onto most businesses.
Second life, in my opinion, is a test case for the efficacy of online virtual stores. The idea is sound and the platform will work, but not until a larger proportion of users have the hardware, bandwidth and PC knowledge to inhabit the new virtual community.
I have perhaps 40,000 hours on the Internet, and my computer is on the low end of the speed scale for most people (1.1 GHQ). I was so frustrated after about an hour goofing around with the UI at Second Life, that I ahem never been back! As several have already suggested, Second Life is not really a viable platform in its current configuration!
According to PWC, Internet advertising revenue has doubled since 2001, or since Web 1.0! Traditional advertising feigns worry over these numbers but is going all out to get the edge in the new game. One in every two users online make purchases regularly now! Traditional merchandising WANTS to go WEB!
So, are you going to meet your clients at Second life? Well, not unless you are selling game systems, cell phones, video, or music because the 30 something crowd has too much work to do to have their screen freeze while buying a washer and dryer at Sears.
Will your future customers meet you in a café on main street 3D? Probably, but in about the length of time it took for half of online users to start buying regularly online. Ad spending in 2008 will probably exceed $25 billion on the Web. E-commerce sales this year should exceed $200 billion, but more conventional methodologies will account for the lion's share of that. Web 2.0 is exploding and we are all in for a ride, but there are some twists and turns that technology and innovation cannot control.
As I pointed out in the post about this cool site, the most interesting aspect of many Web 2.0 trends is: "Who is leading whom?" I think that we will be buying our goods at Third Life because that is where traditional business wants us to buy. I don't have a problem with this except for the subterfuge. Intentions say a great deal about people and entities, and old guys like me don't like to be manipulated.
The 35 and under people have a lot more energy to be thrilled changing virtual clothes and playing grab butt on Second Life, so the will go to Sears or Quicksilver and be thrilled that it took them 2 hours to buy a surf shirt. I will go to the main site and be thrilled to have it shipped overnight for free!
:----D
Always ...Phil
Links:
- http://www.profy.com/2007/01/14/web20-secondlife/
- http://www.pwc.com/
- http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1004418
Phil B also suggests this expert on this topic:
John W
Professor at School of Computing and Informatics at Nottingham Trent University
I work in the field of Cyber Security, and comment from this position. I feel that Second Life, or for that matter any other Virtual World holds challenges in respect of Governance and Security. Law enforcement and Agencies have their work cut out to deal with eCrime, and eFraud in the scope of conventional and tangible worlds, and this is not to mention combating the spread of very extreme and inappropriate material relating to 'young' subjects.
The second area of concern I have here is, for those with criminal intent, the Virtual World is yet another environment in which to operate under the cover of an formed identify, and here this may relate to anything from the every day common criminal, to sophisticated crime, on to supporting activities which evolve out of the worlds of terrorism – just another channel to work through!
I understand that within the Virtual Worlds, there are people trading themselves as virtual hookers providing services across that channel – so this new world also has the same issues to deal with as the real world. Does this suggest that, the Virtual World should have a Virtual Police Station, and Virtual Policemen to enforce law and order, and above all to protect ther VW Residents?
The last challenge as I see for the security of companies is, there is a possibility that they themselves are exposed, and could have staff operating from within their organization communicating via the port 80 out to the Internet, and communicating a host of information, and sharing controlled information with their Virtual Contacts, and maybe if this was of concern to an organization, consideration to block such access may be an effective route – even here the possibility of VW Social Engineering may be one risk which needs to be considered.
John
Ed D
Professional Coach, Trainer and Consultant
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Ray,
In a word, the answer to your question is 'no'.
This is wonderful technology, very innovative. But 99.9% of business people will not consider doing business this way for quite a long time, if ever. Despite all of the technology that exists today, most business is still done the old fashioned way, f2f in the real world.
However, I'd meet a client there in a heartbeat if my client was a new media company or otherwise directly related to SL, To most others, it would be a distraction.
Good luck!
I spent many hours in Second Life, partly to see what it was about from the perspective of an avid gamer and partly to see what the attraction for the "blue-chips" appeared to be.
My conclusion? It has a very long way to go to become a real alternative to established conferencing systems. Grab a web-cam and Skype or MSN and you've got a better system right there.
I understand why the likes of IBM would want to explore an 'avatar mediated metaverse' as it does provide interesting perspectives on what a 'real' solution might look like. But Second Life isn't it, hey and that's OK by the way, it all starts somewhere.
Tateru N
Thinker, writer, programmer, manager, researcher, consultant, accidental virtual celebrity.
I do all my work in or involving Second Life, so 100% of my meetings and clients are there. Occasionally AIM or GoogleTalk for quick one-on-one's but anything substantial takes place through SL. For me it's a darn sight more convenient than the phone - everything that gets discussed is conveniently logged.
Of course, I must confess to being biased. Second Life is what we're talking about so it makes sense to be in it when we're talking about it.
There are definately opportunities to meet clients there as long as you know how to utilise SL. Whether you can make money out of it is questionable.
SL being community driven, companies like Nike, Philips & Sony have lots of opportunities to drive brand & product awareness plus providing that virtual experience. Whether it makes cents & dollars in RL, I'm skeptical until there is a clear and easy way to track RL sales driven by SL.
First of all, I think the answer to your question is 'no'. In a virtual world, you never know, who you're going to meet, and what looks like a client could turn out to be a competitor.
Having said that I am guessing that one of the reasons why IBM and the likes are investing heavily in SL is not because they're betting on SL as such but because they're using it as a live prototype to pave way for their own solution to the virtual internet. If SL is the way to go in the future, there's no way that big business will let Linden Lab own the infrastructure...
Sean P
Sales Professional - LiON - spower_uk@yahoo.com - 5,600 first line connections
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I think the relevancy or otherwise of SL depends upon the typical status of your business contacts. If you work in new media, I would consider it as a avenue to be different to others; however, this will only last for a short time. Outside of new media, I do not see it in any way relevant to me or my clients.
The question posed is: "Are you going to meet yur clients there?" The answer is (of course) depends on your clients. In the interest of brevity I will only say this: Once they incorporate the ability to upload / download video (login for private videos) and U-tube-like functionality in key areas... SL will become viable. Until then, it is what we knew back in '90 as a MUDD.
Patrick A
Segment Manager, Marketing Consultant, Experience Consultant, [marketingpassionately@yahoo.com]
Best Answers in: Guerrilla Marketing (1)
Coming from both consumer marketing and agency background, a lot depends on what you want to do with SL - you may or may not meet your clients / customers there.
From a consumer marketing view, SL is a platform to communicate virtually to avatars who are consumers in RL. There can be a lot of opportunities & potential especially when videos can be played in SL for CE companies to build unique online experience. As of now, most CE companies are still grappling with the changing internet landscape and only a few have the resources and the will to do things right. So, with the current efforts some CE players are making in SL, I'm not sure whether it will actually make RL $ for them.
From a service agency view, SL can be a platform to showcase your services and work especially if you like to earn Linden$. But I'm highly sceptical about earning RL money unless a great amount of trust is build with your customer relationships such that they source you for RL work.
David K
Management Consultant for Publishers and Marketers
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I'm keeping my eye on the intersection/collision of Second Life and Google Earth, which would virtualize the real world. Already, Google Earth providest the literal bird's eye view, from which you can drill down to exterior building models. Imagine having the ability to go inside those buildings to interact with real people, real companies, coworkers, friends, etc. As a platform, that would enable effective telepresence, workforce collaboration, etc., etc. I think that's more exciting that interacting in a fictional world.
More Answers (7)
For me personally, I doubt it!
Regards, Ian MacMillan
Specialist at rescuing mission-critical change programmes for financial institutions
Byron M
Information Technology Guru & Entreprenuer
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No way. Business isn't a game and when I have time to play, it most certainly isn't by entertaining the idea of Second Life. Its hard enough to manage my first one :)
Clarification added March 2, 2007:
Second Life is a game - its a game of chance. Some people like it because of the marketing bandwagon and the potential to hop on it, but it is a game. Your not dealing with people or businesses, your dealling with impersionations of people.
you can make money off anything.. i know people who make money on Wow, but does that mean its worth my time to walk around Wow and ask people if they need to by my real world services? The game afterall isn't where the transaction will take place but how you interface that to reality. Can you really build trust, relationships and meaning from something that ISN'T REALITY?
Why is it each time a hype comes up that everybody immediately asks if "this" will become the ultimate platform?
Second life is nice from a technical point of view but in my humble opinion, doing business is all about people and products. If I want to assess the success rate of my presentation, I still prefer to look my customer in the "first life" eyes rather than having a virtual meeting with a virtual puppet.
No Chance!
Sorry
