I had heard a week ago from the blog of Shel Holtz (of For Immediate Release fame) that a PR agency called Text100 had set up an office island in SecondLife (surl), and my immediate reaction was somewhat ambivalent. With Adidas, American Apparel, and the starwood hotel opening i really just ignored it as a sort of “me too” thing. That was until I saw their introductory video on YouTube that was entirely filmed in SecondLife and provides a great introduction as to why SecondLife is a communication tool of growing importance.
Apart from the fact that this supports the message that Text100 can serve as a guide to companies around the communication opportunities in SecondLife, it demonstrates a wonderful way use SecondLife for corporate videos. Think about virtual tours of facilities, product launches, even testing product concepts. It seems to me that SecondLife is a great opportunity to help customers experience aspects of your company, your products, your ideas, in ways that are more visceral and tangible.
UPDATE: My friend Gif Constable from the ElectricSheep Company pointed out that I should really be reading his blog 
Text100 is an ElectricSheep client, and of course Gif blogged about this PR Machinima over 10 days ago! A lifetime in the blogosphere.
Here’s another introductory machinima video from SecondLife that is extremely interesting and goes beyond some of the communicaiton issues and get’s into marketing, product development, product testing and consumer generated media.
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I got through half that video and was intrigued by the animation but totally don’t understand the product. It was too abstract. What is it? How do *I* use it? I finally turned it off.. frustrated as I was when I sat through my first Amway pitch and nobody would say what we would be selling.
Great comment nalts, and a fantastic analogy for the Amway pitch
In the end SecondLife is as ephemeral a concept as the internet itself, and I think SecondLife will be a similar roller coaster ride as people and businesses figure out different uses for it. I think secondLife is rather like a 3d internet, where you can experience other peoples environments and creations, and create your own environments. It’s early days in many ways, so the next 5 years will be extremely interesting. IMHO it is something like secondLife that will be the platform for the either the next version or the extension of myspace, youtube, the blogosphere, and the podosphere.
K
I can’t disagree with Nalts — trying to explain Second Life is the hardest “elevator pitch” of my career and especially hard if someone is totally new to all of this. It’s so difficult to do in a short period of time, but of course it has to be done. Three other videos to check out:
Radio Open Source intro set to images:
http://blip.tv/file/get/Becarella-RadioOpenSourceLivingInGameSpace283.mov
Lip Flap — a wonderful machinima which is like a snippet in SL time
http://alt-zoom.com/movies/julytake5/Lip_Flap.mov
Better World — the liberating potential of virtual worlds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6D9K9xTmt0
Regarding how to explain Second Life to those who’ve never used it, I tend to begin with a Nemo analogy. Everyone knows what the Nemo movie is and recognizes that it was generated totally by a computer. “Imagine if you were Nemo and you were stuck in a whale…”.
Great animation although what message are you trying to get across?
Peace people
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