The question that interests me is “can second life be of any advantage to Business? In order to answer this question to the best of ability I tried out Second life. Logged in as “Divine Obolensky”-my virtual avatar. It took me a while to get the hang of it but eventually I was on my way towards “Sneakers Shop”. I browsed through the store, saw couple of shoes and got an offer as well (if I browse for another 20 minutes I get a free black sneaker).great!! It boosted my energy level and I continued my journey. This time I went to Sun Microsystems store where I was able to check in new products, play with them, talk to there employee and as well give feedback. Next was PA consulting and I decided to know more about job opportunities and their business processes. After spending almost 3 hours I logged off.
My experience was more realistic than other online networking sites. I was communicating directly with people and learning and exchanging talks with them. Second life provides a great source for marketing and business advertising. For instance, technology companies like IBM and Sun Microsystems have launched themselves in second life providing information about their products, organizing leadership seminar, inviting participants to take part in virtual question and answer series. Companies, like Starwood hotel, American apparel are letting participants to test their product and provide feedback and market and advertise about their services. Others are using Second life as a means of exchanging ideas, providing information about job opportunities and testing new product ideas.
The question to ask than is how is second life different than other social networking sites? Well Second life can be viewed as an extension to these sites. Second life is bridging the gap that exists between business and user. Nothing can be more rewarding than a real life experience. Most of the real world business is performed by networking and so is what second life providing, real world –like opportunities to grow your network, list of friends and contacts. Almost every business entity is realizing the importance of second life experience and how it can be exploited to gain business advantages.
However issues related to other social networking site , time consuming and honestly , still remains areas of concern. In my opinion intelligent browsing and sharp decision making can help users to limit these two major pit falls and will enable them to efficiently and effectively utilize the benefits of Second (Virtual) Life.
1 comment:
Interesting to read about your SL experience. Your time spent chatting with Sun Microsystems employees demonstrates SL's viability in creating RL interest in a business's products and services.
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