...heh heh. I'm still amused by my own title. Well, the cultural phenomenon known as Second Life certainly has not taken the world by storm just yet, now has it? What was supposed to represent the "next level" in terms of interactive marketing and branding has not exactly set the world on fire, as examples such as American Apparel literally closing down their Second Life store can attest to. Seems as if the software needed to play Second Life is a bit too meddlesome to install and continually update (a barrier to entry faced by Joost - web TV provider - as well), and in the face of other virtual community options sprouting up seemingly by the day, Second Life has seen monthly unique visitors in the U.S. taper off to just half a million. And like many of the technologies we've studied this term, calculating ROI is a hazy science at best.
But if anyone can reverse the fortunes for this Linden Lab-produced posterboy for virtual communities, it's Mark Kingdon, formerly CEO of interactive agency Organic. As the story broke today (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-industry-moves-second-life-parent-appoints-former-organic-ceo-as-its-ne/), this veteran of the online marketing space is being tapped for his expertise with the user experience, which, if executed properly, could really make the product stand out against a proliferation of "me too" sites. What I'm really excited about is the potential for innovation: as the guy who was at the helm of the #7 Digital Agency (by Advertising Age), he guided Organic to 40+% revenue growth in 2006, so he's clearly at the forefront of this space. He's had a history of making a company like Daimler Chrysler envision digital gold; can he show the world that Second Life is truly a gold-rush opportunity?
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