There has been much written about virtual worlds (VW’s) and Second Life in particular.  As there is with anything new, many of the articles deal with what is easy to understand or what is wrong, thereby not really providing a full and useful picture of the opportunity.  This is not to say that what these articles said was false, we are pretty sure that they had all of their facts straight—it’s just that none of them really got it fully right.

There are two points to make here.  First is that no matter what the press is saying the reality is that, people, i.e. consumers, are logging in, having a life, spending money and experiencing brands in over 40 virtual environments as we speak.  Whether they are at more traditional gaming sites like World of Warcraft, social networking sites like Cyworld or Habbo Hotel or free-form VW’s like Second Life or Home, people are adopting this new experience as fast, if not faster, than the internet was adopted starting with its public creation a mere 16 years ago. 

And this parallel is one that should be at least acknowledged—the internet was started as an academic tool, leaping to business and then the populations at large in short order.  If fact, the internet became the fastest growing mass medium in history, taking it only 4 years to achieve a worldwide usage (50 million) that it took  radio 38 years, television 13 years and the PC 16 years to reach. VW’s, or 3D Web, is a logical outgrowth of what the internet has become to the consuming population (whether information or product) and the fast adoption rate from traditional games to that of free form commerce and community shouldn’t be so surprising to people–especially in light of the continuous growth of consumer engagement in all levels and facets of commerce.

The parallel applies to the press we started with:  Just as the internet faced issues relating to accuracy and the legal use of the written word, of being named as the source for the fall of humanity for the sake of technology and expediency and more in the early years, VW’s are being questioned as well.  The thing is—questions should be raised and discussed, but we would prefer them to be wider in scope—dealing with issues of community, commerce, new media, geography, responsibility, accountability and more.  These questions are ones that will prove beneficial to the current and future applications in the end—and these are the questions we’ve been asking ourselves.

The second point is that as per usual, we are making this a lot harder than it needs to be–it is as simple as following the old adage..if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again…well in this case you might need to try a few more than twice, but that’s the beauty of it.  These worlds and quite frankly, the consumer attention span, make it easy to experiment with your consumer-brand experience with very little down side.  In fact, about the only people who will take any lasting issue with ‘failed’ experiments are the industry monday morning quarterbacks who are always eager to act out their Lord of the Flies fantasies with anything they don’t understand or wouldn’t have done themselves.

 In any case, and for the sake of experimenting ourselves, here is what we’ve learned and our rules of engagement in the hope that we’ll get some good feedback, applicable critique, etc.  And, we are sure they will change as the worlds themselves change, and more importantly, as the communities that are building themselves force change upon us.

What is Right

1.     VW’s are the only space that allows for the consumer to truly interact with multi-dimensional offerings.

2.     VW’s are an economically feasible way to bring a brands higher calling, or what we call Purpose, to life experientially without worrying about taking time and attention away from those marketing approaches that offer more concrete business returns.

3.     VW’s offer an effective way to actively collaborate with consumers—whether it be on current product design or usage or a way to explore innovation, the 3D Web can be extraordinarily useful.

4.     Current VW’s are, in essence, a lab for the future reality of the web.  If you follow the adoption curve theory for the 3D Web there is a lot of support for those who say that the entire internet will eventually be one that is multi-dimensional and managed by your own personal avatar(s).  Those that are experimenting in this community now will be that much farther ahead in their ability to take advantage of the new economic structure, as well as providing a brand experience that works for the consumer.

5.     VW participants are pioneers, early adopters and avid content seekers.  Early engagement with this audience puts brands in the place of building long-term loyalty with an influential audience.

6.     VW’s have ROI built into the system.  With the ability to your customer in any number of ways, you can not only learn quite a bit about both their needs and behaviors—you can apply the learning very rapidly, continuously building a better, more effective brand experience.

What Can Still be Workd On

1.     With only 30,000-40,000 avatars in-world at any one site daily, VW’s cannot be used as a high exposure medium at this point. It is currently more of a relationship-building and learning experience.  NOTE:  This is not “wrong’, rather it’s more about managing expectations of what it ’should’ be able to provide according to some marketers.

2.     The link from VW’s to real world sales or intent to pursue more information has not yet been established. While it does have the components to eventually address this (tracking of avatars visits/dwell), it has not been regularly employed across many islands/experiences to know how this would deliver. 

3.     Because VW’s are still so new and still developing, best practices on what makes an engaging location in-world is still forming. It’s still in the trial and error stage.  

4.     VW’s still needs to optimize user experience and this may be limiting how much people engage with them. Lag issues continue to be a problem in many worlds with only approximately 50 avatars being able to be in one location at a time. 

5.     SL, in particular, is an open-source virtual world where people are free to develop and do whatever they want. This can result in less control over what brands have happening at their locations (e.g., demonstrations). SL is working to better define community rules and enforcement in-world, but it is still early in the process of adoption across SL. 

Rules to Live Buy

·         Pick the right world for you and your brand.  Not every world is the same—do your homework and make sure that you pick the world—or worlds– that offers the best chance for a relationship with your key customers.

·         Have a VW Communication Strategy—and be in it for the long haul. Remember, try, try again.

·         Realize that Second Life and other VW’s are about the individual people within the world—this is a way to practice CRM truly on a one to one basis.

·         Participation goes both ways:  understand the community so that you can participate in it as well as invite participation from the community.  If you do this, both your and their experience will be the better for it.

·         Offer content that fuels fantasy—it is not only more fun, but fantasy is one of the first steps of true innovation.

·         Nurture discussion—about their experience, themselves, their world and your product.  This allows you to test ideas in their purest form, with feedback that is organically real and useful

·         Experiment often—and always with the knowledge that some experiments will fail.

·         Engage the audience, don’t advertise to them.  You want them to leave with a positive and holistic experience under their belt, not a static message.

So, ditch digging. It’s important to do right, but don’t take it too seriously. Keep plugging away, but step back once in a while to get a good view of where you are going so that you can course correct, experiement, learn before you get back into it.

And, if anyone is interested, we’ll be open-source publishing the findings from a really big, collaborative in-world research study in the near future.  It should be helpful for all of us.