The Future of Second Life Should Include Commercial Sims

Second Life is missing the boat by not having commercial sims. Why...

Corps would sponsor SL, generating more revenue. Imagine having an online store in SL.. lets say a Home Depot.. folks could come in buy virtual products.. fit them together, generate a list of supplies.. check colors and so on. They could build a virtual cabin for example, complete with wiring, roofing etc.. and then create an online order. A rep could be on hand to discuss counters, show you some options like cherry wood finish as opposed to white melamine.. Designers could create walk-throughs for their clients etc..

The possibilites are endless. Im sure Pepsi and Coke would pay for the sim.. just to have a couple of billboards up.

Imagine ordering pizza, making travel arrangements with a live agent, handling customer service, ordering flowers, live auctions, corporate sponsored exhibits, browsing a virtual Walmart Toy Dept to find a gift for your kid, checking out SL Gap...

... truly endless.

If you didn't want all the commercial stuff, then simply don't enter the sim. There may even be employment opportunities for Avs to build this stuff.

I like your idea of isolating it to it's own sim. Problem is how would one regulate that? What's to stop the companies in the commercial sim from going to other sims and advertising?

And the reason I like the isolation idea....

Technically given the recent change to Intellectual property rights in SL, a company could join the game buy some land and setup advertisments or services as you sugested and keep rights to their content. So they could do as you suggested without the commercial sim.

Perhaps it's just me but I really would hate for SL to turn into a giant virtual commercial.

Obviously it requires regulations.. put up a billboard outside the sim and get the boot. I think you would find the corporate members are much more considerate to the needs of the community at large.

I'd rather pay extra per month than to have SecondLife become some marketing tool for corporations, isolation or not.

Advertising has so permeated our daily and virtual existence that I'd like at least one oasis where I don't have to deal with it.

The allure of SecondLife is the ability to exercise your creativity, not bump into the latest mile-high billboard 'BROUGHT TO YOU BY....' <insert corp.>.

I'm really not a fan of co-mingling corporate interests. The Lindens have done such a great job so far, what do you think would happen if another company tried to bully them into obtaining SL for their own purposes? (Yes, its complicated, just giving you a worst-case scenario, if it could even happen.)

The future of SL should include the ability to send an electric shock to people who post ridiculous ideas!
Advertising is the practice of lying, deceiving and harassing people into buying things they dont need.
There should be no advertising, ever, at all, period!
Not in RL and certainly not in SL.

On the right day you might be able to approach a huge company like Nike and get them to part with a few dollars. But I dont think that all the people required to make the project go forward at Nike would think it's a good idea. The Lindens have enough to worry about without hiring a sales team that will just burn up more $ than they bring in. SL will need to get a lot bigger and get much more "trendy" press before enough marketing execs perceive it as a good place to advertise.

I use SL to run away from FL. I can do all the above ( from first post) on the web now.

FL is a state called Florida. RL is real life. Stop trying to run away from florida. Its not possible, run all you want but when its time to retire you will be back there. Or maybe San Diego.

FL is a Mickey Mouse state anyway.

Back to the topic. If LL ever has to seek outside sponsors, it would be appreciated if the ads weren't in our faces.

On the other hand, in the DC area, Metro (our local bus and subway authority) wants to fill the subway stations and tunnels with ads, cover entire subway cars with ads, and (maybe) install screens inside of subway trains which would run more ads. This is an example of advertising in our faces. I hope LL never goes that route.

Please for the love of all things holy keep corporations out of SL! If that's what you want, go play There. They would utterly destroy the player economy. If you want a home depot type store, make one yourself. Working in a virtual nike shoe factory is not my idea of a good time. Even the thought of RL corporate commercialism in SL makes me want to go take a shower.

I do not want any corporate anything in my SL, its like a fly in your cheerios.

Corporate sponsoring tends to destroy companies, There and ActiveWorlds being two large examples. While the developing company, Linden Labs, may get alot of money out of it, it also ruines alot of factors about the community and the game. Many times developers will start listening to what the corporate sponsors want, instead of the community, thus turning the end product into a mostly corporate feature filled program. Also alot of user developers who do well now, might get drowned by big corporate developers as it happens in RL. I like the fact that SL is user developed, it gives every item some individual creativity, most of the products made by corporations would just be copy cats of everything you see in RL. Theres really no need for it either, theres no textures or objects a corporation could provide that a user couldn't.

I hope theres never any companies that come into SL, I feel it would take away many great things that I love about SL. I would hate to see a McDonald sim on the map.

But how do you guys REALLY feel about it? Tell me, the clothes your wearing right now.. are they generic?

WAY too much emotion happening there about a SIM... If you don't want it then don't go there. Same thing goes with the mature sims. If people want to watch virtual strippers from their parents basements, then so be it. But if this is the sum of SL, then count me out.. along with the rest of the folks that have quit already.

P.S. For sale, one planetary exhibit Taber 44,4.. cheap.

I think it would develop into something more than "JUST" a sim, for the same reason you're saying to have it, people could avoid it, whats the purpose of Pepsi having a sim if everyone is going to avoid it? How would Pepsi prosper from it? How would we as users even gain any benifit?

One of the major reasons I'm against it is because I don't think theres any real NEED for it, everything that Pepsi could do, a user could do. I also think companies would be putting out too much money and not getting any real benefit from it, its just one more infiltration of advertisement, people aren't fond of billboards as it is in SL.

Mature sims also have other purposes other than just for nudity also, where as a comercial one most probably wouldn't have any other purpose than being a giant comercial.

http://www.cokemusic.com <---- Virtual Enviornment Comercial... bleah. Lol.

PowerJack

Sorry you had to be the brunt of personal attacks for your post. That is really not the spirit of SL, and I would have hoped that people on these forums would have learned better by now.

Not all advertising is evil, dishonest or abusive. I see many ads for products that I do need, and that provide a basis for making choices. As a matter of fact, I see ads in SL all the time - for stores and items available only in SL. I would never call those purveyors liars, cheaters or harassers.

I do agree with Jack in that the slice of society represented in SL is too small for major advertisers to expend money and/or effort to expand into this domain. I do fear that any effort to allow corporate advertising would also allow much smaller businesses to advertise here (can you say Spam?)

However, I must admit that I would not visit a sim filled with Golden Arches and Nike swoops. I imagine this would be a common enough sentiment among SLers that it would not be effective for corporate advertisers to enter this space.

We HATE it! We all want to get together and lynch you as an event, just for thinking up something like this
And yeah I dont wear silly brand name clothes that cost a million dollars and I usually live off of house brand food, detergents, etc. I havent even been to mcdonalds or pizza hut in quite some time. There are much better, cheaper alternatives

People do get emotional about this concept, but I don't think they are directing that emotion at you Power.

Also, this is a lot to think about, we are struggling to just get the basic Game in place. I'm sure corporatisation will come up at a later point and probably be struck down then.

Probably not by the players though.

If you were a corporation, would you advertise on a television channel that showed commercials all day every day?

No, because you'd know noone would watch that channel.

Same for a commercial Sim.

Oneironaut, alas, you are not 100% correct. Home Shopping Network is little more than a 24/7 commercial, and 1/2 hour infomercials must get watchers or they would not be on late night TV.

Everyone else; maybe the Lindens could license the technology for virtual malls? NOT on SL, but available throught a separate interface?

Heh. a Virtual Nike factory. Would they also have virtual slave labor as well

--
This post has added absolutely no useful content.

I'd have no problem with Linden Labs sponsoring/running another seperate world that is nothing but shopping from actual brick-and-mortar stores. Maybe there will be a service like this in the distant future. Just don't put in here with us, is all I ask.

I don't get too emotional about advertising, I just view it as unecessary clutter. Advertising in general usually doesn't inform me. If I want something, I research it and then make a purchase. I don't use advertising as a guide. Although, I realize I'm a minority since advertising in the RL works quite well. But that's for another topic, I guess.

LOL thank you for making me laugh out loud Ama

I hope you didn't take anything I said personal, I didn't mean it that way at all.

A seperate mall or shopping area would have to be really well done in order to work, if you think about it though, alot of websites already have things where you make an avatar that looks like yourself and then you try on clothes and such. I imagine it would be something like that, and it would take alot of processing to have avatars look realistic enough and also have them all walking around.