Virtual reality service SecondLife must be loving all of the positive press it’s receiving lately. After raising another $11 million in funding earlier this year (bringing their total to $19 million), they celebrated their third birthday and recently announced their 1,000,000th user registration. Putting the recent database hack aside, SecondLife is clearly hitting its stride.
A robust virtual economy has blossomed on SecondLife as well. At least three thousand users make at least $20,000 per year on SecondLife, selling everything from clothes to body parts to real estate. The economy of SecondLife has been estimated to be $64 million per year. Real world businesses are sniffing around the service as well. Wells Fargo, for example, has created its own branded island in Second Life.
SecondLife puts current statistics right up on the home page (stats as on 1:30 pm on Sunday October 22 are to left). Nearly half a million users have logged on in the last 60 days, and $441,948 has been spent in the last 24 hours.
With all of this real money floating around the SecondLife economy, look for more businesses to set up shop. And look for other companies to be selling advice to these new businesses. Crayon is launching later this week, claiming to be the first company to be launched in SecondLife. They will be a virtual consulting firm, facilitating “conversation and transformation above communication. Our value proposition is designed to activate passions, enthusiasm, organic dialogue and no-strings-attached referrals and recommendations.” If Crayon can turn that marketing-speak into understandable advice and guidance to companies looking to leverage SecondLife as a marketing or sales channel, they may find being one of the first to set up shop is a big advantage.
More on this as details emerge. Crayon says they’ll launch this Thursday, October 26.
I personally was not under much of that impression until a colleague convinced me that a concept like that is the future of doing business with each other. I was stunned at the possibilities!
PS: And Michael, it really sucks. that spamfilter hates my blog address, I can’t believe it!
I am a big fan of this team, and think they will do great things. A few points of clarification however.
First, Wells Fargo was one of the first companies to experiment with Second Life, but they were a little early and actually moved their project to the Activeworlds technology. More relevant are companies that have opened up SL presences over the last many months, such as Reuters, Sony BMG, Starwood Hotels, Sun Microsystems, C-Net, Wired, Adidas/Reebok, Text 100, Toyota, Nissan, American Apparel, Jeff Pulver’s team, IBM, the New Media Consortium and many more.
Second, not only are there many many entrepreneurial ventures that have been started selling virtual products within Second Life, there are also quite a few consulting and production companies that are already in existence focused around providing virtual world services. These are companies incorporated in the real world but doing a considerable amount of their work and collaboration virtually. These companies include The Electric Sheep Company (which I am a part of), Rivers Run Red (the first to branch into this space), Millions of Us, Infinite Vision Media, Aimee Weber Studios and more. Every single company I mentioned in the first paragraph, with the exception of IBM, has worked with one of the advisory companies I just mentioned.
I think Crayon has a great team, I welcome them to our growing universe, and I expect great things from them in future.
Great comment Giff.
Now all they need is a profitable business model.
Bust my butt making Second Life products for a measly $20K a year? Bah. I’ll stick to my click fraud ring if I want to make money online.
i went on second life; its rather boringand most people where just running around changing their apperance…i’m not realy going to waste my time and money doing this; expecially since i know they got hacked and all their customer data was compromised.
probably tha main point of contention in this game for me is: i don’t get to kill anyone…it lame in that i have to have clothes and the appearance sucks; and i wanted a chance to start a business/make money…and i couldn’t figure it out…and i’m not going to stay up at night making polygons…so maybe the audience is limited to people who use animation software…not me….i want a game where i can go kill something and steal gold, and then use that to start a business or something.
i was fun walking around though…but if you’ve played online games before, like Arena, etc…its kinda boring.
Here’s details about IBM’s block party in second life:
http://eightbar.../13/bloc-party/
Just talke to one of the team members and said:
“Before this announcement I didn’t GET second life. I get it now”
I always joked, “Man I don’t have time for a first life let alone second”. But all SecondLife is, is another layer to the net. A way to socially interact and organize from all different parts of the globe.
I love it. I love the team, and I’m a crayola crayon kid.
Anyone who thinks SL is boring hasn’t yet realized that SL gives you a chance to create any situation you want, whether that’s a shooting game, a cozy living room to chat with faraway friends, or a board room for your real life employees to have virtual meetings. I’ve been really impressed with the growth I’ve seen in-game and it’s only a matter of time before this gets exponentially more important. Great work, Lindens!
well…i was using it and it crashed…”simulator going down”. i also had to restart to figure out how to change my appearance…and i don’t want to create a shooting game or virtual board-room for my employees…anyone who created a virtual boardroom for their employees on second life is either a complete moron…or doesn’t really run a company…its like…ok, yeah you, old white guy…just log into second life, what you 60, 70, never heard of SL, shit…WTF you invest in company for mo@#$F#$#KER…damn..
also…i think this board s being monitored….its like “yeha dude, totally, SL kicks ass. cooool” now imagine that with an eric cartman voice.
i, mean, i tried it…logged on…went through it…chatted with others…swam to help island…
i guess this is where all the old MYST gamers went
Hmmm… well I have been in SL two and a half years, and I can think of a dozen companies which have set up in SL. This group really need to do their homework before they annoy every developer in SL.
My company, Nemesis Content Creation, went into the developers’ directory in August this year, but has been working for well over a year in SL.
If they are claiming to be the first real-world company to migrate they have demonstrated pretty comprehensively that they have NO idea what’s going on in Second Life.
Way to prove you’re already out of touch, Crayon.
Second Life (SL) and World of Warcraft (WoW) are early-stage examples of “2.0″ renditions of the “1.0″ metaverse of Worlds, Inc.
Let’s be honest: Sticking to SL (i.e., not considering WoW), it’s still way too hard to use. This sentiment has been echoed by many others. Yeah, it’s fun, but the user experience kind of sucks. Let me rephrase: It could be a helluva lot better.
I live in China, home to the world’s worst designed web sites, where there is often negative white space on a web page. But SL needs a lot of help, too. Whether you like SIGCHI per se or not, the Linden development team(s) should be spending a lot more time there (and elsewhere, at related conferences).
When I launch my Interactions 2.0 blog in a month or so, I’ll be devoting a lot of ink to the latest and greatest in all things “user experience” — with a unique perspective coming from the campus of China’s MIT, i.e., the Tsinghua (University) Science Park.
http://www.startechglobal.com (Tsinghua’s outsourcing hub)
http://www.interactions20.com
“Crayon is launching later this week, claiming to be the first company to be launched in SecondLife.”
Humm, maybe they also were the first to walk on the moon? Maybe they also invented Second Life?
Giff, a great thread.
Rivers Run Red actually came in Second Life in December 2003, we introduced the first brand into the world in Jan 2004. The purchased the first island, and caused quite a stir when they arrived.
We also created the first brand created and developed specifically within a virtual world – avalon.
Since then, the world has seen other excellent examples of great brand and innovation marketing activity. Most notably from Rivers Run Red, eSheep, Millions of US and Aimee Weber (although I could mention a lot more names.)
On the more established side, I would hazhard a guess that the agency BBH and Leo Burnett would also be up there and ahead of the queue too.
Crayon is a company that will be using Second Life as their office. Unlike the hundereds of other people making money in SL, Crayon will NOT be making their money within SL.
Don’t confuse “First Second Life company” with “First company lauched within Second Life”.
I think it’s interesting that Second Life exists and has done well. American Apparel opened up a store there not long ago and is selling tshirts and what not – it’s a really cool way to cross channel market. I think if you buy a tee on second life, you get a discount in the store – it’s a rad idea.
>>Crayon is a company that will be using Second Life as their office.
This seems to me like a “kid” thing to do… You still talk to others by IMing…why would you want to make all your employess run a massive,graphic intensive game on their computer at the same time as they try to do real work?…i guess they’re not compiling/building anything…
just IMing
you know they’re a lot of retards in this world.
>>Crayon is a company that will be using Second Life as their office.
This seems to me like a “kid” thing to do… You still talk to others by IMing…why would you want to make all your employess run a massive,graphic intensive game on their computer at the same time as they try to do real work?…i guess they’re not compiling/building anything…
just IMing
you know they’re a lot of retards in this world.
I adore these conversations. Heh.
second life wont last unless they find a way to protect the integrity of virtual property. linden labs is not held accountable for loss of data (i.e. virtual property and virtual currency) from their servers. the only way for second life to become a true economy is if they guarantee the existence of both virtual property and virtual currency. if linden labs does not have the ability to protect the integrity of virtual property in terms of data storage then they need to develop a way for people to safeguard transactions and investments. maybe a third party virtual notary would sufice.
Not wishing to piss on people I hold as friends but don’t you think they’ve lost the plot somewhat with statements like:
“What we are is whatever you want or need us to be.”
Ok – brain surgeons this week, bridge designers next and I’ll have fries to go with my burger order.
And then:
“Our client is not the consumer: our client is the truth.”
Wow – I believe, I believe, I believe you’s trying to kid me.
Sorry – doesn’t make a blind bit of sense to me but says a lot for Kool-Aid sucking. But hey – I want that dope they’re smoking over there.
I love Second Life but I have to say I think Crayon missed the point a bit.
I’ve been in Second Life for just over a year now and make a tidy second income running a software company inworld. So I’m a fan of the world and the experience; but I think Crayon seem just a bit too bouncy keen. They’ll calm down when reality hits
Good day! zerit