Companies Continue to Get a Second Life

PreacherTom writes "Reuters and CNET aren't the only players staking online claims in the virtual world of Second Life. Yesterday, Wired magazine opened their 1-acre digitized headquarters, complete with neon-pink sliding doors and a nouveau 50 person conference room. Businessweek takes a look at the new virtual offerings from Adidas, Toyota, Lego, and even Major League Baseball in their pictoral spread. 'We are this canvas that allows companies to do what they want to do in Second Life,' says David Fleck, Linden's vice-president of marketing. 'It mimics real life much more accurately.'"

Re:Tried this out...several times...not worth it.

[Andrew Kismet]

Sigh. Sadly reflective of 95% of the game world, but the other 5% is good. It's just hard to find, like on the internet itself - what is the internet if not filled with porn and idiots trying to earn a pittance of cash?
The social aspect is good once you find the right kinda people. At that point it becomes a 3D chatroom. Now learn to build and collaborate. Now learn to script and mess with inworld behaviours - maybe go to your desktop, make animations and sell them inworld? There's a lot of possibilities. You've scratched the surface and not even attempted to dig into it. It's no fun and easy game, it's a world and a time investment. There's a lot to see and do, albeit a lot of it shallow.
With more and more businesses setting up shop proper, hopefully it'll drive the world in a new direction.

Although honestly I'd wait before jumping back in - the world has been damn near unusable recently due to mass-griefing. Tighter security is a different issue, albeit an important one.

Linden Lab advertising?

[Cthefuture]

Is it just me or do you guys think Linden Lab is sponsering all these stories?

There have been at least a couple in a last few days on Slashdot and I have seen a few more other places. Feels like a giant marketing plan. I mean this is a hell of a lot of press for something with such a small online community. I think the general consensus about Second Life is "meh, kinda slow, kinda outdated, nothing to do, it has no point, boring".

I have tried it myself, it felt and looked pretty clunky.

Second Life is a Vanity Press

[spun]

Wow, how very conceited. Virtual crap is still crap, and people want entertainment, not crap. If making crap is entertaining to you, well and good. Just don't expect us all to look in your toilet and applaud. The difference between "content creators" like you, and the people at, say, Blizzard is that the people at Blizzard are getting paid while you are paying for the privilege of creating crap. Making crap on 2nd life no more makes you creative than paying to have a book published by a vanity press makes you a good writer.

If you were any good, people would be paying you, not the other way around. Second Life is for people who have no first life, not for "creative" people. Real creative people get paid for their creativity in this world, where it actually matters.