When presenting Second Life to friends or clients, there is always a question which ends up to be raised, and believe it or not, this is always the same one. Guess what ? "Why is there no one here ?" And then maybe you would go hmmm or you would desperately try to find someone there on your friend list to make a demonstration that you are not totally alone in the world...

Strangely, no one would ever ask this question when you are surfing on the web. Unless you are in a chat, on a private logged area or on twitter, there is no ways to know who is visiting a website at the same moment that you. You just know that the internet keeps growing, on and on, bigger and bigger. Same here in Second Life, the world is larger, wilder, and the community, engaged and strong, develops itself worldwide.

Linden Lab's late figures & metrics are here to attest on this, and they are quite impressive.

• In total, users around the world have spent more than one billion hours in Second Life. That's roughly 115,000 years spent doing everything from meeting and socializing with friends; to attending live concerts; to creating, selling, and shopping for virtual goods; to learning a foreign language; to attending business meetings; and much more. User hours grew 33% year-over-year to an all-time high of 126 million in Q2 2009.
• Second Life Residents spend an average of about 100 minutes inworld per visit. This average session time is significantly greater than those seen with popular social networking websites and reveals the uniquely high level of engagement Residents have with Second Life.
• More than 18 billion minutes of voice chat have been used in Second Life since voice was introduced in 2007. Voice minutes grew 44% year-over-year from Q2 2008 to Q2 2009, and more than six billion minutes of voice have been delivered in 2009 alone, making Linden Lab a major VoIP provider.
• Approximately 1,250 text-based messages are sent every second in Second Life, and more than 600 million words are typed on an average day. Roughly 60% of active Second Life Residents based outside of the US, representing more than 200 countries, and the Second Life Viewer available in 10 languages.

That is just about communications.... But if you look at the land it is even more striking.
That was Second Life land in 2002...
.. and this is Second Life in 2009.
The total land area of Second Life is now equivalent to approximately two billion square meters – roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island. Land in Second Life has grown roughly 18% from Q1 of 2009 and approximately 75% since Q1 of 2008. As the creator and original seller of all virtual land in Second Life, Linden Lab is not only the provider of the worlds largest platform for user-generated virtual goods, but also a leading virtual goods vendor itself.

Ok, so if all of those datas are true facts, what is the problem ?
Well, imagine that you open a shop, a hotel, a library, or any commercial place in the middle of nowhere somewhere in France, or England, or anywhere in the world. How would you expect anyone would know about it and arrive there - except in the Bagdad Café movie, you know, as we know, this is all about advertising and marketing.

Setting a presence in Second Life is not only about building the most beautiful headquarters, with great functionnalities, that you can buzz all over the net. It is also and primarily about building a faithful and engaged audience which will fill the place (under control) on a daily base. It starts by working on organic search the way you would work on the SEO of your website, and deploying a real strategy of content, links, conversations, and useful services for the community you target, for a maximum visibility and traffic.

Whether you are a small SL business willing to expand, or a real life corporate company wishing to enter and conquer immersive internet territories, you should definitely establish a presence strategy prior to any other decisions...

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Kennt man doch, wird doch überall in den Stadien gesungen, das Lied. Auf dem Fußballplatz ist damit natürlich was anderes gemeint. »Alone« hat nämlich noch nie Tore geschossen.

Aber darum soll es hier nicht gehen. Wie immer spreche ich von virtuellen Welten und ... von Second Life, denn genau da will man auch nicht alleine sein. Da will man möglichst viele Menschen um sich haben. Immer.

In einer jüngst veröffentlichten Umfrage, die das Verhalten von Second Life Nutzern (von Insidern Residents genannt) untersuchte, kam heraus, dass chatten, spielen und Events besuchen zu den Lieblingsbeschäftigungen in Second Life gehört. Gut, das wundert einen nun nicht so unbedingt.

In der gleichen Studie war aber auch noch etwas anderes zu lesen. Dabei störten sich die meisten SL-Bewohner daran, dass in den meisten Orten, so schön sie auch sein mögen, einfach keiner rumläuft. Will meinen, ähh ... da ist einfach keiner. Es ist sozusagen menschenleer. Niemand da zum spielen, niemand da zum chatten. Insbesondere wenn man bedenkt, wie viel Aufwand Unternehmen betreiben, um einigermaßen ansehnliche Präsenzen in Second Life zu kreieren, wundert es demnach nicht, dass sich immer wieder die eine oder andere Niederlassung aus der virtuellen Welt wieder verabschiedet, die vorher großartig angekündigt wurde. Mercedes Benz, adidas, Sony, TUI, Vodafone – die Liste der Aussteiger ist so lang wie prominent.

Aber woran liegt das eigentlich? Wo sind denn all die vielen Residents, die sich laut letzter Linden Lab Verlautbarung (siehe hier) in Second Life tummeln und im letzten Quartal Waren im Wert von umgerechnet 150.000.000(!!!) US$ (in Worten: einhundertfünfzigmillionen) untereinander gehandelt haben? Immerhin sprechen die SL-Erfinder von mehr als 54.000 Residents, die im 3. Quartal 2009 im Schnitt zeitgleich online waren.

Dazu mal folgendes: Ich glaube , die wenigsten machen sich eine Vorstellung davon, wie groß Second Life mittlerweile ist. Als ich Anfang 2007 mein virtuelles Leben startete, sprach man davon, das Second Life den Umfang des Großraums München hat (wobei ich jetzt nicht darüber diskutieren möchte, ob man München und das Wort GROSSRAUM überhaupt in irgendeine Verbindung bringen kann, smile).

Oben sehen wir die Generalkarte (Map) von Second Life. Diese kleinen grünen Dots, die da wie wahllos hingeworfen aussehen, sind jeweils 65.000 qm. Das Blaue dazwischen ist einfach nur Platz, Speicher um genau zu sein. Und jetzt stellen wir uns einmal vor, hier, irgendwo verteilen sich 54.000 Einwohner.

Nun? Genau. Es verwundert wohl kaum, dass es schon mit dem Teufel zugehen muss, wenn man dort jemanden antrifft. Was natürlich trotzdem passiert. Soviel mal dazu.

Und diese kleine Betrachtung zeigt uns dann auch gleich noch etwas anderes: Es bringt sozusagen überhaupt nichts, sich besonders viel Mühe zu geben, um eine wundervolle Landschaft oder Unternehmenspräsenz zu kreieren, wenn man nicht dafür sorgt, dass die Einwohner davon erfahren. Das heißt, man muss in Second Life dafür werben, dass die Leute kommen, konsumieren und kaufen. Wie im richtigen Leben auch. Und obwohl Second Life wirklich alle Techniken für marketingrelevante Aktionen bietet, scheinen Unternehmen immer wieder zu vergessen, was genau sie tun müssen, um die Bewohner von Second Life auf sich aufmerksam zu machen. Schade eigentlich.

Das es auch anders geht, zeigt die Präsenz von EnBW in Second Life. Auf insgesamt 4 SIMS (vier Inseln á 65.000 qm) zeigt das Energieunternehmen, wie man in Second Life mit der Zielgruppe kommuniziert. Da wird Technologie erklärt, Energiesparmaßnahmen aufgezeigt und ein Quiz mit leckeren Gewinnen für die Residents sorgt für den nötigen Traffic dort. Und am besten kommt wohl an, dass Bewohner sich hier Ihr eigenes »Kraftwerk for free« besorgen können. Damit auf deren eigenen Inseln nicht das Licht ausgeht. Respekt. So muss man es machen. Mehr Infos findet man auf der EnBW SL-Website.

So, das musste mal gesagt werden. Und nun hier noch ein kleiner Film, der zeigt, dass Second Life auch schön sein kann, wenn man nicht überall Schlange stehen muss. Einfach ansehen und genießen.

Ich freu mich! Wie immer ...

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I wish I could write more. The making of our makemyworlds website plus the creation of our own island in Second Life, plus regular work, new clients into Second Life, kept me so busy, it just was too much... So in almost 2 Months, a lot is to say, and one post would not be enough...

Maybe I will just start to tell you about my frame of mind, this morning, writing from a small city of the Norman coast in France, eyes watching the long white beach all way across to the Pacific Coast where my S.L. community is holding its annual meeting and that I could not attend for the fist time since I am a Second Life resident.

I miss being there, with you, just gathering with you and sharing experiences and much more... The feeling of belonging to a community of creatives, entrepreneurs, dreamers, imaginers, artists, scientists, genius developpers, hobos .... from all over the world. I miss sharing the breakfast with you, guys, before attending the first meeting, I miss looking at the faces, giving some flesh and corps to an avatar name, I miss to know what happened this year with you Ben from Holland, Carol from Australia, Pikes from Malaisia, Gabriel from Boston, Ab from Seattle, Kigh from Germany, Pahtudee from Chicago...

I miss not being on the picture - which is really a great picture, M. Linden - Not for the picture itself, but to be able to hold this feeling during a whole year after the SLCC, that I am also part of this world, in real.

See, for once, I am not talking about figures, statistics, or social medias, theorizing on an idea of collaborative web 3.0, or buzzing on SL in a social network... No, I am just talking about love... maybe not a romantic love, but a deep emotion that give sense to all of you there to be able to share your Second Life passion.

So next year, why not to come to Europe and give the Old Word an idea of what is SLCC...

I have put the slides of my last year conference at SLCC. Any questions, just ask, I'll be happy to share ....

Towards Marketing 3.0 : 7 rules for a better use of Second Life in WebMarketing strategies

View more documents from Helene Zuili.

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One of the first question companies ask about the use of virtual worlds in their marketing strategy has to do with R.O.I. Last december, Forrester research, published a study which highlighted the power of virtual worlds.

Forrester’s Key Findings on virtual worlds are as follows:

# Unprecedented depth of engagement with consumers.

# Access to an audience that is difficult to reach via other channels

# Newer worlds offer better opportunities for cross-channel tracking and more targeted audiences.

# Virtual merchandising resonates with youth — and can be very cost-effective.

In any kind of relationship, engagement is the key, and in social media, this should be a must, unless you plan a philantropic action only... With Linden Lab announcing a new user interface by the end of the year, we should be able to get over one of the major restriction which now leads to evict a lot of people who naturally would engage if they could have a better user experience.

In the meantime, we have to work at training people, but once they are familiar with the Second Life viewer, they manage pretty well and engage rather quickly.

In any case, I believe corporates & education entities should not wait until all conditions are filled to include virtual worlds in their development. Authenticity in brand communication and operationnal marketing into virtual worlds are right now a fantastic way to reach an early adopters community, experiment and grow with it.

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