Is there business life in Second Life?

.. or are companies just wasting money?

Is Second Life just one of those hypes that suddenly attract business attention? With the enormous amount of users or players Second Life seems like another interesting platform for marketing people. When there are people around put up some form of advertising and you can get rich. Even when the people are only virtual. You can get virtually rich, maybe.

Is it just a hype?

I just wonder if all the money put into it by governments, banks, insurance companies and what not will ever pay off. Clever companies are offering to create a presence for your company. They might be the only one benefitting from the entire hype. Good for them.

Recent reports have made it very clear that although there are many members of Second Life but only a small portion of them are regularly active. And only a portion of them is very active.

For example, recently the city of Amsterdam was for sale on Second Life. Well, at least a very nice representation of the city. But no buyers were found.

A virtual bubble

To me it's another version of an Internet Bubble. Companies and even local governments are running away with it. Investing lots of money into it and calculating huge benefits. When apporached with some doubt, they repost with the unmeasurable value of showing how much they are front runners. To me they show how gullible they are in an unmeasurable way.

Is it me?

Then again, it could be me, who's teh problem. I might be getting old and not seeing oppurtunities when they hit me in the face.

But still, I think Second Life can be fun for the players (it is a game in my perception). I am not buying virtual drinks in a virtual bar to virtually try and pick a virtually huge breasteed blonde (who probably is a pathethic middle aged unmarried unshaven bolding male from Wessex) for some virtual fooling around. Nor would I get virtual insurance for any virtual damage that might give me.