People and owners of brands are beginning to wonder if they really should place their brand in an online virtual world. Many others, even their competitors, have already done it. My own personal advice is not to place your brand right next to a bondage toy store. I mean, its like real life. Remember: Location, Location, Location. I wouldn’t imagine seeing a John Edwards headquarters in the “live entertainment” strip of Montreal. One of the first things I learned about business anyway.

Also, people placing brands in SL may want to control island privacy settings in order for residents not to “screw with” their brands. As WOM tells me, brands fear getting picked on or toyed with while in SL because of its open source scripting. Since it is open source, you can make plenty of settings so random virtual punks don’t mess with your “store front” lets call it.

In a survey of 200 participants conducted by the agency Komjuniti, Second Life users were questioned about their perceptions, their satisfaction with the products on offer and the brand content in the online community.

The first thing to stood out is that 72% of respondents expressed themselves as being disappointed with the activities of the companies in Second Life. Over a third of them were unaware of the branded presence and 42% said they thought it constituted nothing more than a short-term trend, lacking durable commitment from the companies. What commitment are people looking for? Stuff to do? They are right though, many are treating it as a short-term trend. Because trend ideas are not progressing forward. I think there exist SO MANY options in SL that scripter’s for the company are just overwhelmed perhaps?

SL can be your tool. Just like your website. Trust me, if I could actually sit down and utilize the more scripting in SL, I would have a Sprout island showing my work. This is what freelancer or already successful designers do. Making real dollars. Fo instance, I believe that MTV is doing a great job using a virtual medium to retain brand awareness. Check it out here: V MTV

The brand sites on Second Life look like an element of the advertising campaigns. They are placed with the hope of getting high visitor frequency and good PR scores. I think SL sites should be used as they would be in RL. Event marketing. This is how much of there.com’s success if unfolding. Even though, I don’t like there.com. They still have the idea. Brands using SL should remember this and use MTV’s example as a foundation for building in virtual worlds. Engagement. Engagement. Engagement.

A private beta program on a test-grid for 1,000 users will be launched early in March before a Grid-wide beta trial. This will give current Second Life Residents the opportunity to explore the benefits of voice-enabled communication. A formal launch is scheduled for Q2, 2007.

During the beta program Residents will be able to test the use of voice under three scenarios:

Scenario 1 – Residents can teleport to voice-enabled land and automatically start speaking. The volume of speech is then modified according to their spatial relationship with others. Up to 100 users can be present in the same audio channel at once.

Scenario 2 – Group conference calls for two or more Residents, enabling large groups to communicate across geographical boundaries (e.g. concert setting, or between pockets of land etc).

Scenario 3 – Two Residents can privately share a conversation, initiated by an Instant Message. Residents don’t have to be on voice-enabled land to do this.