SecondLife - How To Make Money In Second Life

Filed under: Stories, Mixed Reality

Now they’ve gone public I guess I can talk about Honeywell coming to Second Life. In the interests of disclosure I helped deliver the project Adrian refers to for Beta Technologies.

Honeywell have taken a cautious approach compared to many large companies, with a couple of small builds to see how things work in Second Life, and what is possible. It is interesting to see companies starting to take this measured approach. Honeywell proved to be lovely to work with - they had ideas they bought to the table, but they also treated us as the experts on this medium and would listen to what we had to say. Sometimes they took our advice, sometimes we thrashed out a compromise, sometimes they insisted and we worked out how to deliver it best, but this is the nature of any good partnership.

Whilst I have a personal interest in Honeywell continuing to develop their presence in Second Life, it is interesting to see this new (at least to me) approach, and perhaps a different indicator of things to come - with companies spending the time and the money to work out how to use Second Life to their benefit, and then committing their energies. IBM have done it by a different route, but still seem to be going from strength to strength whereas (as reported in Business Week and summarised by our glorious leader) many others have come with a bang and are leaving with a whimper.

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Filed under: LSL, News, Events

Run for the hills! The hills of Intel’s island, I mean, where the chip manufacturer will be hosting a series of webcasts, training events, and meet-the-experts shindigs as part of their continued commitment to developing along with SL.

But best of all is the upcoming ‘Brainiac Warbots contest, where residents will build their own combat robots with LSL, and compete for, presumably, cash and/or prizes. Watch this space for more details!

(Via itnews.com.au)

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Filed under: Linden Dollars, Business

Yesterday in Second Life we:

• Spent US$1,460,000 at an exchange rate of L$267.9 to US$1
• Exchanged US$224,000 at an average of US$9,300.0 per hour.
• Market buys were US$163,000
• Market sales were US$59,000
• Limit-limit buys were US$1,700
• The busiest time was at 8am when about US$19,000 was exchanged.
• The quietest time was 3am when about US$5,000 was exchanged.
• On WSE US$3,800 of stock changed hand. The WSE1000 was L$1172, down L$529

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Filed under: Odds and Ends

Today in Second Life we had:

• 33,542 new signups bringing us to 6,831,486 signups total.
• A peak concurrency of 44,272 at 1:56PM, and a minimum concurrency of 22,576 at 1:20AM. Average concurrency for the day was 31,772.
• Concurrencies were high, and the grid was operating fairly smoothly. Signup rates are also good, and the seven millionth signup is expected on about monday or tuesday at current rates.
• Dazzle’s having a week long clearance sale.

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Filed under: Odds and Ends, Mixed Reality, Great Builds

The Daily Telegraph has recreated its garden in virtual form for SLers to enjoy, though the real plot it’s based on has gone the way of its host, the Chelsea Flower Show.

I’m not sure whether the Telegraph will be investing much more in this space, but this is a lovely change from seeing a RL company’s brand on top of everything. Indeed, the Telegraph’s name is so unobtrusive, you’d think it was an afterthought! This is better viewed in person, so go check it out!

(Via techdigest.tv)

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Filed under: Odds and Ends

This news post on Business Week is all about the companies that have been present in SL and are now leaving it, some to focus on developing their own spaces, others simply to go back to doing what they were before. Starwood is mentioned, as are Wells Fargo and Coke, each with their own reasons for not making SL their flagship virtual presence.

I’ve come to think of advertising in SL as somewhat equivalent to advertising for the Macintosh platform. Both are regarded as niche markets, both have a rabid fan base, both have leaders of vision and uncompromising values. One could say that both platforms feature a userbase that’s a mere fraction of the worldwide population, therefore it’s a waste of effort to engage their respective audiences. However, one thing that both communities have in common that more advertisers should pay attention to is that they’re vocal. They vote with their time and money, and they tell the world what they think. The best advertising is word of mouth, and many technologies that began as tiny concerns grew to gargantuan proportions by the simple application of positive word of mouth by its fans.

I believe that SL is such a technology, and that companies who bear with it in its halting, stumbling baby steps toward its bright future will reap the benefits of having been there early and growing along with it. We’ll make this thing a success simply because we want it to be.

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