Interview with Mat Small, “Millions of Us” PR Director. Interviewer: Ruslan Browa
Ruslan Browa: Mat, the government institutions in Second Life - we believe that this is a quite interesting subject with a poor coverage in media. Please tell us about the current situation in this area. Do you know any examples of such kind of projects? Have your company had any experience in doing them? Do they have something specific? Do you plan to make any training courses for government organizations how to make such projects?
Mat Small: Many governments have been experimenting in Second Life. In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA both have presences. State and local governments have done trial disaster relief projects in Second Life.
The US Congress is increasingly interested in virtual worlds in terms of both capturing revenue (taxing) economic activity and in ensuring security.
Other governments, like those of Sweden and the Maldives, have established “embassies” in Second Life, while some local tourism authorities (I am aware of Galveston, Texas and the Republic of Ireland, among others) are using Second Life to market their locales.
We have received many inquiries from public sector entities around the world looking to familiarize themselves with virtual worlds and we have done some confidential consulting work with governments.
This time I want to talk about rapidly growing popularity of widgets - what they can do now and what they would do in the future.
What is widget? Widget (a.k.a. gadget) is a mini software application designed to always stay at the user’s field of vision. Widgets make certain information or functionality more accessible - so they are always visual. There are two types of widgets: desktop and web (mobile widgets are on the horizon as well, but it is too early to talk about them). They differ from each other considerably. I want to do my homework telling you about both because there are some gaps in the common picture those make me think that there are many interesting things to come.
Now Who’s On [Desk]top?
As it comes from their name these are widgets those reside on your workstation and dealing with its applications and environment. This is not a full-scale application because usually it does only a few functions (may be even only one), such as notifications, monitoring system resources and so on. Historically desktop widgets usually work on the top of widget engine that gives them some general-purpose API and eliminates the need to contact host operating system directly. Thus, widgets are OS-independent, that is great. Widget engines usually come with several pre-installed widgets and supported by a portal where developers can distribute their products. Probably, one of most known widget platforms is Konfabulator, now Yahoo! Widgets. There are also Apple Dashboard (works on Macs as a part of Mac OS) and Windows Sidebar (that is a part of Windows Vista) and Google Desktop. But Konfabulator is strictly dedicated to widgets and available for many platforms.
Of course there are other engines (see here) but the goal of this post is not to compare them. Let’s think about their nature instead.
This is an aggregated list from various sources of most popular widgets by their nature. It tells a lot:
System resources monitoring: memory, disk and CPU load information, Wi-Fi signal strength.
Media player management (remote, album/song info, etc)
50% of widgets are not interactive, they only collect, structure and display information (1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13).
Near 40% of them connected to Internet (5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13).
Why not to use tray icons instead of widgets? They are just too small and require some additional actions and time to display info you need. So widgets are faster.
Widgets panel has something common with airplane or car dashboard. This dashboard is not only for management of your computer, but for many things of your life you want to control.
Usually desktop with widgets looks nice. I am serious - this is something important these days.
All of this sounds great, but I have a strong feeling that something is missed here. I mean - it is great to know how much fuel you have, how fast you go and have a shortcut to breaks, but it still looks like a toy. You can live without it (and you cannot live without the dashboard in your car).
Also, there is something in Internet that is more interesting (and more complex) than news and weather (oh yes, I forgot about dictionary and games). But if we connect widget to an Internet service - will widget remain widget (mini-application)? If yes, why your-favorite-instant messenger-client-name is not a widget? GTalk exists a widget, by the way. I mean, it is not necessary for widget to use widget engine - this is not what makes application widget.
So now, let’s try to go to outer space and try to imagine - what widgets can do else. Whey could “concentrate” vital application functions, so user can operate them apps in a “brief” form, without opening a whole window needlessly. They could be web service clients working without launching (or keeping opened) the web browser. You can control an external device from the widget. A new way of application design, huh? Drag and drop one widget to another, upload it to Internet, buy, sell, connect, and so on.
“The software is changing. I feel it in applications. I feel it in the web. I smell it in the news”. Let’s take a break, next time we will talk about web widgets to see what’s going on there.
Our guest today - Anatoly Bambizo, Director of KsanLab’s “Internet-services”.
Ruslan Browa (RB): What is Amazing UGC Services? What tendencies in behavior of consumers led to appearance of such services?
Anatoly Bambizo (AB): It is Internet multimedia services those enable people to do cool things, such as creating exciting artworks or animations by very simple actions, clear to everyone. Some examples of their implementation are e-card creator, multimedia tests, and so on. We’ve made an interactive e-card creator for Yandex.
The project name is Yandex. Colours: just a few clicks to choose a background, characters from the clipart, titles - and user gets professionally looking animated e-card.
People appreciate personalization, “hand-made things” and at the same time each person is more or less creator inside - we only enable people to unleash their creative skills, even a minimal ones, to make a hand-made things and please themselves and others.
RB: Can we say that Amazing UGC Services is a tool that realizes the modern marketing concept of “consumer involvement”?
AB: Certainly! How, if not through activity, not through interest in action, in new experience, consumers can be involved?
Besides it, they share results of “self-involvement” with other people who, receiving unusual things or unusual experience become involved too and start to use their creativity as well.
RB: Tell us about Amazing UGC Services’ abilities: for solution of what kind of tasks can these services be used? What companies can use them? Please, give us some examples.
AB: First, they are required for users’ involvement in content creation process.
Recalling the Yandex case: initially Yandex has come to us with an order for creation of 100 to 200 e-cards, but after negotiations and conversations we have understood (Yandex people where quite open and innovative here), that strategically it will not solve a problem of filling by e-cards the Cards section at Yandex site – we had to find a different solution.
Thus was born an idea to create a designer of cards that then was developed by KsanLab. It was designed in a way to inspire people to draw e-cards, they like to do this. Among those cards we’ve seen real masterpieces – products of a collective mind, those we just could not imagine when developed this service.
At second, these tools generate a viral wave that brings us new users. It works by the following scheme: service is made to create useful and fun things, which people will want to show their friends, to boast or to please. So the user makes a piece, insert it into the blog or any other personal media and that brings to us his or her friends.
At third, it is simply a pastime, an entertainment for users. Services for rest, and so on.
Amazing UGC Services can be employed by Internet portals to give their users additional useful service, to get more users, to create interesting paid services or as tools for content creation.
They can be used in promo campaigns. The first example that comes to my mind is services where users can upload their photos, e.g. recent Burger King campaign where they have suggested to glue to portraits a cowboy’s moustaches, just a very funny moustaches and have fun with friends.
RB: Building of communities using such services: is it a side-effect? Or such result is planned? What is vitality of communities built by a UGC service?
AB: There are different UGC Services, some can build a community, and some just do not designed to do so. For example, if a service generates the great content like e-cards, it will lead to appearance of card ratings, will emerge leaders and fans that spend a lot of time making e-cards and send ideas about service’s development. Eventually they can form a community to communicate with each other.
RB: What viral potential is incorporated in Amazing UGC Services?
AB: Amazing UGC Services has huge viral potential. It is a distribution of content via blogs, competitions of users, memes born by users and spreading in the Internet.
RB: What else you can say on the subject?
AB: In my opinion, it is important to allow people to use their creative skills where it is possible and appropriate. And it leads to wider use of Amazing UGC Services.
Ruslan Browa (RB): Please present yourself and your service. The representative of what country VCASMO is? :) Have authors of service had an experience of work with modern presentation technologies?
VCASMO is developed by Luar’s Production, a Hong Kong based web and multimedia development and consulting company. The chief developer of VCASMO, Luar Yen, who is also the founder of Luar’s Production. Luar Yen is renowned as Adobe Flash specialist in Greater China region.
VCASMO is a joint project between Luar’s Production and Japan based company System and Management Computer Consultancy Inc. (SAMCC). Currently, all the VCASMO operation and marketing is based in Japan. Therefore, VCASMO is the trade name for this joint project in Japan and worldwide.
Before VCASMO, The team have developed a video presentation solution since February 2005. To serve our clients for putting video and PowerPoint presentation on web. It is an order to build business, we help clients from shooting video, converting PowerPoint and synchronize with video manually, provide hosting and video streaming service. It was a successful and proved solution for clients who want to put the video presentation online.
RB: Why have you chosen this area of service: an Internet-service for creation of multimedia presentations? What tendencies of business life and in which areas have you considered for making such choice?
At May 2007, the team started to study how to expand the business and make it more user-friendly and automatically for the clients. Therefore, the team came out this web-based version of the video presentation solution. This is now called VCASMO. After two month, VCASMO launched at 30 July 2007. VCASMO can expand our existing video presentation solution by providing the clients a self-served method to create their video presentation. As a result, VCASMO can reduce the cost in creating a video presentation. It makes the product more price-competitive to other similar existing solutions in the market.
RB: What is the mission of service? If it is a commercial project, tell us about its business-model; do you plan to charge for work with VCASMO?
Seminar and conference is the focus of VCASMO, we will help them archive the speakers presentation online, provide the seminar organizer another media to expose extra income and get more future attendance. Academic is also another focus of VCASMO, we will work with universities to help them transform the classroom teaching to an online e-learning presentation. Professors can broadcast their lectures in VCASMO. Students can present the homework to the tutors with a simple video explanation.
For normal users, we will provide paid account soon. We will keep all features free to use, but for paid account users, they can get more. For example, increased upload bandwidth limit and more storage space, same features but with enhanced work flow or functionality.
RB: What advantages have VCASMO got in comparison with other software for presentations’ authoring?
For presentation authoring software, some of them are act as plug-in in PowerPoint for recording sound and create a presentation. Most of them are not free. We are web-based, we are free, we can create presentation not only from PowerPoint, we can use any images, photo and PDF. Most important, we simplify the process of create a presentation, users can easily create a presentation.
Moreover, VCASMO is a web 2.0 site, it means users can share video-photo-slide with public or their own social network.
RB: What advantages and benefits VCASMO’s clients get when using Internet service for creation of presentations?
A web-based service mean users can use it anywhere, anytime. Users do not need to buy and install extra software. Moreover, there are some presentation recording hardwares in the market and they are expensive. If user use VCASMO, they do not need to invest money in hardware (except a webcam and microphone).
RB: VCASMO offers its clients an opportunity to create a complex multimedia product. What kind of advantages this kind of presentation provides? What results we achieve with multimedition?
VCASMO is created a new experience of multimedia delivery solution. Dual-screens is the killing feature of VCASMO. In the past, when you recording a presentation, you always have to switch the camera between presenter and slides. So, finally, the video is mainly focus on slides, seldom see the presenter. We think a successful presentation, the expressiveness of presenter in the important factor, so with VCASMO, we can make audience look at presenter. Moreover, using video to present slide, due to compression problem, the text is not clear enough in video.
You can always see using some silent captions to increase the expressiveness of video. With dual-screen, you can put the captions side by side with the video. http://vcasmo.com/video/bobboynton/743
RB: Now the basic VCASMO’s components are video and slides. Do you plan to add to your service any other features in the future?
RB: If yes, what is your plan for the site functionality? Do you plan to add to VCASMO an ability to use interactive functions (animation, etc.)?
For paid account users, they can add Flash in the slide side. For example, a static chart in a slide can be replaced as an animated Flash chart.
RB: Tell us something about VCASMO work process. What should a client have “in hands” to start creating a presentation?
They should take video by digital video recorder or webcam, when they shoot the video, please take some shot on the slide screen, it is more easy for them to mark the cue point time in the editor. Otherwise, they need another people to mark down the slide changing time of the presenter.
When VCASMO live recording feature launch, the process will be more easily.
VCASMO convert all video to Flash video (FLV) in 432×320, so if the video is already in FLV format, when it is uploaded to VCASMO, user can more faster to get the asset ready to use.
RB: Tell us please, about VCASMO’s clients. Who they are - large corporations, usual Internet users or medium-size business? Who is a potential user of your service?
We find large percentage of VCASMO active users are coming academic.
RB: What each group of clients can use at VCASMO? What tasks they are able to solve using VCASMO-presentations?
The usages of VCASMO is very wide. Apart from traditional presentation. I love to see user share their travel photo here, if they can record some audio to introduce their photo and share the experience in the journey.
Business users is our mainly focus area. Firstly, VCASMO can expand our existing video presentation solution by providing the clients a self-served method to create their video presentation. As a result, VCASMO can reduce the cost in creating a video presentation. It makes the product more price-competitive to other similar existing solutions in the market.
RB: Do you know how your clients use the final product? VCASMO allows to embed the presentations into sites and blogs - are there any opportunity to receive a paper copy of presentation for off-line use? For example, to burn it on a disc, or distribute at conferences?
I am also curious about how users use our product. Sometime, I never think about they use VCASMO in some way, for example, create some flipped animations. http://vcasmo.com/video/sim_irv/144
Offline version is planned in our roadmap.
Interviewer: Ruslan Browa
2. P.S. 28.03.08
authorSTREAM is a powerful online presentation sharing engine that not only allows you to upload your PowerPoint presentations online for free, but also assists you to share them with your friends, students or co-workers located across the globe. You can find exciting presentations on just about any topic, rate them, post a comment and even embed them in your blog or YouTube.
1. P.S. 22.10.07
In directory of web 2.0 applications and services “Go2Web20.net”, under tag Presentation you can find a lot of web 2.0 on-line services for making cool presentations.
There is a plenty of news about web applications doing all the PC tricks in the browser. First time I faced a “page loading-free” web app at Gmail and it is still the best example of Web e-mail client and active web site interface. The power of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) approach is obvious and I do believe all sites are going to work like this some day. Actually it is not a new thing - first time I heard about this technique in 2002 at CeBit and it was called X Internet (Executable Internet). But now sites become so complex and number of Internet users is so big so the way people access information in Web has to be changed.
Although I do not believe that all software should to be moved to web (why I have to load it each time I want to use it?), I think that the next generation of software will employ web installation and smart caching technologies to use the best of two worlds - ease of software updates and accessibility of web applications and benefits of speed, persistence and hardware access of local applications.
It’s all sounds like a natural way of progress, but I want to notice another tendency. Traditionally software development (including web design) was for specialists. Now people can make Internet mash-ups having no special knowledge at all. Look at the Microsoft Popfly - you just connect application blocks (e.g. user input to search to image roll and you have your own image search engine. Add blogs and maps to your taste). Look at Wikipedia - you do not need to know HTML to write articles there.
There are two web technologies I want to talk about in this post - Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe AIR (former Apollo). These technologies are targeted to help people develop the next generation of Web applications.
Both projects are intervention to each other’s land. Microsoft Silverlight is an interactive multimedia browser plug-in (just like Flash) and AIR is a set of technologies to make rich multimedia client applications (looks like Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation). Both technologies blur the edge between PC and web app. Silverlight demo looks quite like a desktop app but runs in a browser. AIR demo shows how to connect desktop application to the internet and work both in offline and on-line mode. Both technologies are cross-platform and allow to make amazing user interfaces.
Let’s start from Adobe. AIR is a cross-platform runtime environment for building rich internet applications using Flash, Flex, HTML and AJAX and those can be deployed as a desktop application. AIR uses Flex that was developed to build business applications with Flash. A very cool demo of site using Flex is Sony Ericsson product catalogue.
See what AIR is about:
Here is the demo of E-bay application:
Microsoft Silverlight (former Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere) is a runtime for browser-based rich internet applications development, providing a subset of the animation, vector graphics, and video playback capabilities of Windows Presentation Foundation. In turn, WPF was the implementation of idea to split application code development and user interface design. These tasks could be done in parallel and the result should look and work just great.
See the Silverlight announcement:
And here is the video editing demo:
What can I say? Adobe has an army of Flash guys those would be happy to harness the power of Flash, AJAX and Flex. In turn, Microsoft has a strong community of developers and powered Silverlight with .NET. Let’s see who will be more popular. But already now the future of web application is something very spectacular, convenient and juicy.
Ruslan Browa (RB): Our traditional first question: please describe the business and services of This Second Marketing LLC. Say a couple of words about your team and its skills.
Joni West (JW):This Second Marketing LLC is a marketing agency specializing in introducing major consumer brands into the virtual world of Second Life. We help guide brands on how to effectively and properly enter SL and help them create a brand presence and brand awareness in the second life community. We insist that our clients bring real value to SL by providing free virtual items, promotions that link to real world items, contests, events and sponsorships.
We help our clients build passion and community around their products and brands. We have been very successful with our buzz agent teams who go out and interact one-on-one with residents of SL and give away freebies and landmarks to fun events.
RB: This is my favorite question: What is your favorite project of This Second Marketing LLC? What kind of project you dream of?
JW: Each project is like a child…you can’t say which one you love best! We put our hearts into each proposal and project and we truly treat each one like it is our favorite. Currently, we have promotions in-world for Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix in imax 3d and for careerbuilder.com that are both really great and exciting!
RB: What do you think - why Second Life is so attractive platform for businesses? What kind of opportunities it provides?
JW: Second Life represents what the entire web will be like in 5 or so years… 3d! Getting in now and learning how to do business and market to this audience positions the early adopter for success when the 3d web is the standard.
The old model of advertising no longer works. The main ingredient of an advertising or marketing campaign used to be 95% about the 30-second commercial on tv. That is not nearly as effective as it used to be and will become less and less effective as digital communication grows even more.
Marketers are going to where the people are going. Consumers are going to the web and all forms of digital media in larger and larger percentages every day. Second life has a real economy of over $1,000,000 being transacted on a daily basis. Marketers are intrigued by this.
Second Life and the 3d web platform are in the equivalent stage that the web was in 1993. Companies know they need to get a web site but don’t really know why. They have come to see that a web site is not an advertisement, it is a communication tool and that brands must have 2 way conversations with their consumers in today’s marketplace.
Second life provided a unique opportunity for real one-on-one conversations with consumers and target audiences.
RB: What strategy will you recommend for small and medium businesses for opening of representative office in Second Life?
JW: It depends on what the business is and what they are trying to accomplish. I believe it will be a few years before a real world company will be able to make money with e-commerce in Second Life. That is not the reason to get in now.
Building community and learning how to market in this space is the reason to get in now. The people who wait on the sidelines will have to launch a 3d web presence at some point, and they while they can launch a site or presence, it takes time to build community and relationships. It doesn’t cost a lot to start that process now and be positioned as the clear leader later, when every one of your competitors is in Second Life.
RB: Please tell us about brand marketing in a virtual world. What are its differences from a real world brand marketing?
JW: In many ways, it is the same but it also opens up possibilities for programs that cannot be accomplished in the real world.
The biggest mistake that I see big companies make is to build an expensive brand island and then expect people to come visit. “Build it and they will come” is a popular movie line here in the us, but it does not work this way in Second Life.
RB: How to calculate ROI of Second Life marketing?
JW: We are able to give our clients an exact count on how many individual one-on-one transactions that our buzz agent teams have in Second Life as well as their avatar names. The buzz agents ask the residents if they would like the free promotional items and whether they would like to be contacted in the future about new promotions. We reach tens of thousands of individual avatars with a one week buzz team promotion. We also can count traffic to a specific venue. Some companies like to see how many media mentions they get and where. These are the ways we demonstrate ROI.
RB: Give us a couple of examples of projects where the Second Life platform was integrated with other client’s marketing media.
JW: We introduced 1-800-flowers, a large usa brand, into Second Life with a virtual flower show and distribution of virtual flowers bouquets that our buzz teams presented to residents and that those residents could then pass on to their friends in SL in unlimited quantities. The client intergrated the Second Life effort with special web links to their online web promotions. Imax integrated the Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix promotion in Second Life with a special online promotion which gave access to free imax tickets to see the movie.
RB: Is it necessary for businesses those plan to enter Second Life to possess any special skills? Which ones, if yes?
JW: Guts! I tell my clients that if you want to live on the cutting edge, sometimes you will bleed!
The fact is that Second Life is a new digital platform and is growing at an incredible rate. When I first signed up for SL in april 2006, there were about 150,000 residents. Today, there are over 8 million! Linden lab is using its resources to grow the platform and keep it stable however this is still all new and moving fast with a million moving parts to think about. If you recall, back in the early 1990’s, there was no Google and you would buy books with lists of web sites to try to find what you wanted. Web sites were buggy. Second life is in that very early stage of development and if clients’ expectations are not properly managed, they will walk away from a test campaign in SL very dissappointed.
As far as specific skills, it depends again on what the business is and what it is trying to achieve. My opinion is that brands are not always getting the best advice from their developers because their developers don’t necessarily have the marketing experience to bring to the table for their clients’ projects. A lot of developers are focused on building virtual things but don’t have a clue how to build a brand or create a relationship with a target audience.
That is why I launched This Second Marketing LLC to begin with. It was painfully obvious to me that the early brands were being sold “sims” (term for island or build in Second Life) but not being guided in how to leverage and apply Second Life to their marketing objectives.
We are laser focused on the marketing power of Second Life and how to help our clients achieve their objectives for their brands. We also spend time with the client analyzing what they are trying to accomplish and explain what can and can’t be achieved in Second Life at this time. We talk with our clients about what success would look like so we are all on the same page as we implement our plans.
I have turned away many companies who want to measure ROI solely on the amount of money they will generate as a result of a link to a Second Life presence. We cannot deliver ROI in those terms until more development is done in Second Life and that will probably take a few years. We can generate excitement and community around your product and brand in SL right now and help you build on that and convert those relationships to profits over time.
RB: What metrics/indices do you use to measure an advertising campaign success in a virtual world?
I believe i already answered that. We count buzz agent one-on-one interactions, We count venue traffic, We count media coverage.
RB: On your site I’ve read this quote: “Once I started exploring around Second Life, I realized that this was the start of something far greater than I had previously thought” - Maybe you can add something to this today?
JW: The more time I spend in Second Life, the more Ii discover and the more I love it. If you were to blow up the Second Life “grid” (term for the real estate that is in Second Life), it would be larger than New York city! It is impossible to cover all the streets and alleys and by the time you do, there are new ones!
I know that there are a lot of people who feel that being on a computer is not a social activity and feel that it inhibits one’s social life but I feel very much the opposite. I have been able to make great friends from all over the world by traveling around and explaoring Second Life. These are interesting people in parts of the world I have never been who I would never meet were it not for Second Life.
People have finally grasped the idea of chat rooms on the 2d web, but SL gives you so much more! You can see a physical presence and you can explore places in 3d together. You can meet people very easily. I have read stories about people who are very shy or have some sort of physical challenge who don’t have an easy time meeting new people or making friends. They shine in Second Life! Some are even considered SL celebrities! The playing field is equal for everyone in SL in the social sense and it can expand your social world to places you never imagined.
RB: Tell us about your art project in SL. Is it a business project or you do it just for yourself? I’ve seen your art on www.joniwest.com It’s really fantastic! Very beautiful!
JW: Thank you for the compliment! I am an established fine artist here in San Francisco. I work in mixed media epoxy resin and high end mosaic. I have gallery representation and my work does sell though it is not my main source of income, it also beyond a hobby. My partner Roy van Zijl, in This Second Marketing LLC is a well-known and respected art gallery owner in Second Life (avatar Roy Irwin and owner of the art tower in SL). That is how we met! I wanted to open a gallery in Second Life! He is the most amazing builder i have seen in Second Life!
RB: If consider Second Life as a giant social experiment, what results can We expect in nearest future?
JW: As a social experiment, Second Life represents how we can connect with all kinds of people from all over the world in a unique environment without the pressures of societies and borders.
As more people hear about Second Life and the system requirements for running it are not as high as the current ones (most people can’t run SL on their computers yet because of the high graphics capabilities needed), people who have not had access to social functions and educational programs will become more and more empowered through their Second Lives.
Edcational venues and programs are a large part of SL and people can have a far richer distance learning experience in sl than on the 2d web or mail.
RB: At the end of our talk, tell us about your vision of future. Maybe about the future of your company, Internet, Second Life or communication technologies.
JW: I believe that Second Life will continue to grow and will remain the main social spot of the 3d web of the future. I believe that every major company will have a consumer-facing 3d presence as well as a 3d intra-net (don’t know that they will call that) for internal communications and training. I believe that Second Life will remain the virtual world, or metavers, of choice for a large portion of people who use digital communications for soicalizing and learning. Linden lab puts no restrictions on the content that any resident can put in SL as long as it is legal.
A brand marketer can enter and do whatever they like. I don’t foresee a time when a 3d world created by a public or private corporation is going to allow that kind of freedom. By necessity, they will have to block access for competitive brands and monitor content for things that their investors may find offensive. Linden lab doesn’t do that and has no desire to. I am sure it has something to do with the fact that Linden lab and Second Life started here in San Francisco where diversity and tolerance are part of the fabric of the city. So yes, there will be lots and lots of 3d web spaces but i don’t see any taking the Second Life niche away from Linden lab.
It is also important to realize that the people who are residents of Second Life have built and bought an identity and home there. It isn’t as easy to move your SL as it is to sign up for a new account on a website. It is much more like moving your real life and dealing with the fact that your stuff doesn’t work in the new neighborhood and you don’t know anyone and you can’t look like you used to. People who live in Second Life tend to have deep roots that are not easy to move.
As for This Second Marketing LLC, we have already entered into some international partnerships in countries that are just starting to get into Second Life and we hope to have an international network of representatives within the year. Our goal is to have the happiest second life clients in the world!
Interviewer: Ruslan Browa
“Dear readers, you can post your questions in comments, they will be transferred to “This Second Marketing LLC”
