With All the buzz about Second Life in marketing circles and whether or not brands should take the virtual plunge, I took Greg Verdino's advice and decided that if I was going to talk about Second Life with my clients that I really needed to understand the dynamics of this universe. Taking the opportunity over this break, I created an alter-ego, Blake Burks, and jumped in. Let me say first that my initial feeling was one of dirtiness, that I was doing something in parallel to walking through a red light district or something worse. It just didn't feel right. There were people walking around naked, people kissing parrots and multiple islands for people into bondage. Is it any surprise that the sin world has latched onto this world first? That strip clubs, night clubs and other mature content are first to leverage this world? The big elephant of the internet for the past 10 years is that the porn industry is always out in front of big brands with web marketing innovation - streaming media, affiliate marketing etc. It felt to me that they are first movers here too.
The overall experience is clunky and weird. People flying around, dancing around fire pits naked, meditating and big brands are evaluating this world? Of course you can teleport to the Reuter bureau of a variety of other above board places. Greg also talked about how this could be phase 1.0 of 3D web browsing which makes sense to me. Virtual interaction with people around the world makes sense too. However, now it feels more like a place where people don't have to be themselves and escape the real world. Kinda like the Sims on Steroids.
Blake Burks over and out.
[wire] stone is uniquely ranked on both Top 50 lists for BtoB and Advertising Age's Integrated Marketing and Interactive Agencies. We're also in the top 2% of marketing services agencies in the United States ranked by billings. 
