Looking Into The Future of Internet Marketing

Web 2.0 is hot, whether you are doing online or offline business, these Web 2.0 sites are great pool of potential customers.

Besides YouTube, MySpace, you might like to take a look at SecondLife.com.

Lets see what are companies doing in SecondLife right now …………….

Regardless of the lack of economies of scale, some companies are pushing hard to make Second Life a real life marketing venue

a) IBM
IBM owns about 24 virtual islands in Second Life, using this virtual land to help companies like Circuit City build their own virtual retail stores, as well as hold IBM’s own internal conferences.

b) Sears
Sears launched a “Sears Virtual Home” showroom prototype, where potential customers can browse Sears products, play with product colors and even create a whole garage.

Their eventual plan is to allow users to re-create their living rooms and such and furnish them with Sears products, seeing how they would look in real life. Steve Rubel speculates that the next logical step for Sears is actually allowing customers to order directly from Second Life and have the delivery done in the real world.

c) Nissan
Nissan is giving away virtual models of their cars and allowing the virtual world’s users to drive them on a virtual race track.

GM and Toyota on the other hand are selling virtual models of their cars for a few $, of course in the Second Life currency Linden Dollars.

d) Ogilvy
Ogilvy, a full service marketing agency, and many others, are using Second Life to recruit employees –> people with real-life experience in Second Life, to work on client projects for the virtual world.

e) Music artists
A folk singer Suzanne Vega performed live in Second Life, to a virtual audience, with a virtual avatar.

And here’s an even better one from myadsl.co.za:
“On February 3, comedian Jimmy Carr will perform a live show simultaneously in real life in London and in the virtual world of Second Life. His onstage movements will be replicated in near real-time through his avatar.”

f) CNET
… and other media are conducting interviews within Second Life.

g) Starwood Hotels
The owner of the Westin, Sheraton, and W chains set-up a new hotel in Second Life, prior to doing it in the real-world. Their aim is to observe how people use the hotel, and then try to use that knowledge when building the real thing.
[source: BusinessWeek]

They are actually hoping that the virtual world residents will be able to save them money, by preventing them from making mistakes when building the real thing.

h) American Apparel
This real-life clothes company is selling virtual clothes to the residents of Second Life, for about $1 or less per item. They’re hoping this will boost their sales in their real retail stores.
[source: BusinessWeek]

i) Philips Design
Philips wants to get feedback from Second Life users on new innovative projects and involve them in creating new products.
[source: Shaping Thoughts]

j) ABN AMRO
This Dutch financial services company will use Second Life to offer information on financial products, allow their customers to interact with each other and even host virtual seminars for their target audiences.
[source: Shaping Thoughts]

l) Cisco Systems
Cisco is using Second Life for both their customers and their employees, even offering virtual classes to the virtual community. Their goal is to use Second Life as communications tool for their customers, answering their questions and feedback about their various products. Yes, they are paying their tech-support staff to work in the virtual world.
[source: Technology Review]

k) Sun Microsystems
Sun held a press conference within Second Life, followed by the launch of an interactive pavilion where consumers can watch videos of Sun technology.
[source: NetworkWorld]

m) Adidas
Adidas jumped on the bandwagon by doing a store featuring their latest shoe. But, they went beyond just offering the product as a simple virtual item, actually adding features that demonstrate the product to the consumers –> when wearing the shoes, users can jump and even use a test trampoline within the store.
[source: Future Lab]

n) Autodesk
The software maker is building a virtual place to interact with a community of architects, designers, engineers and others. [see their invitation]

o) Vodafone
This European mobile operator started out the same way as most other companies, with an island, offering various information. But now they’re planning to expand that with virtual handsets that will enable users to better communicate with eachother in the virtual world, as well as an SMS service.
[source: BusinessWeek]

p) Richard Minsky
Richard Minsky, the real-life founder of Center for Book Arts, is launching a Second Life magazine, to discuss various art issues.
[source: artnet]

To find out more about these various examples, just click on the source links below them.

Certainly, many companies are exploring practically unlimited opportunities within the virtual world, hoping it may pay off some day. 

Tags: Web2.0, Social Networks, Social Bookmarking

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 28th, 2007 at 8:13 pm and is filed under Web2.0, Social Networks, Social Bookmarking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.