Hm, seems like everyone thinks they are an expert in Second Life these days. Here’s an article from Adotas (one of my favorite pubs by the way) in which I have to seriously doubt that the writer knows much about this environment. Specifically, here are the points I have a problem with:

“For a Second Life marketing campaign to be a success, it has to generate word-of-mouth spillover into the Internet at-large.”

What? Did I miss something? Since when does PR from a campaign dictate the success of that campaign? Sure, the population of Second Life is not yet that large but not everyone is going for massive awareness with their campaigns. The ability to have someone interact and experience your brand on a level that is otherwise not possible can be extremely powerful. Let’s not have the tail wag the dog on this one just yet.

“Still, there is no surefire guarantee that a campaign will resonate with the blogosphere or garner mainstream attention.”

Right, as opposed to all the other marketing campaigns that DO guarantee mainstream attention. Great point, duly noted.

“There is also no way to measure a direct correlation between a marketing campaign in Second Life and sales.”

Really? You mean there’s no way to track that someone came from within Second Life to your website to make a purchase? Might want to check your facts on that one, it’s very possible.

And this is my favorite - “Aside from extra publicity, Linden Labs actually has little to gain from marketers in Second Life.”

So Linden Labs doesn’t get any benefit from marketers entering Second Life?  Let’s put aside the amount of land that marketers are buying from them (and the hosting fees every month on top of that), the amount of designers and developers that are now trained in coding for Second Life and even the PR that marketers use to push people TO Second Life.  What about the fact that marketers are showing businesses how they can enter into and possibly benefit from being in Second Life?  They’re trying to prove that Linden Labs’ creation is viable for commerce!  How can this do anything BUT help Linden Labs?

I’m not saying that Second Life is the next frontier or even that it will still exist six months from now.  But if you wanted to be one of the first people to enlighten us all about how Second Life is going to plummet without saying anything intelligent whatsoever, well you missed that boat by about six months.  If you’re focused on joining the increasing number of critics, at least bring some game.