Making The Second Life Connection

Chris Kelley hosted what many would recognize as an open house or a grand opening that solution providers regularly attend. He had all of the markings of a great vendor event -- product documentations, expert presentations, case studies and even free t-shirts for all who attended. What made this event different is that it didn't happen in the physical world. Kelley opened a Second Life island for UGS -- a leader in computer-aided design and product life-cycle management software -- making the company one of a growing list of IT vendors establishing a presence in the 3D online virtual world.

"We started to see the natural use of Second Life in 3D by some of our customers, so it's something we thought we'd like to try out," says Kelley, vice president of partner and platform marketing at UGS.

IT vendors aren't necessarily selling products directly through Second Life, although some have the capability. Most are using their Second Life presence to foster relationships, conduct training and nurture their products' user groups. While still a nascent venture for many, most vendors see tremendous potential in using Second Life to training, enable and link their channel partners.

"This is an influence thing, like the two-dimensional Web was in '95, when we didn't make money through the Internet," Kelley says. "We're not going to transfer Linden-dollars into real dollars, but we may be able to drive license renewals through Second Life."

Second Life is the brainchild of Philip Rosedale, CEO and founder of Linden Labs, who launched the virtual world in 1999 as a place for commerce and social networking. It's arguably the largest and most well-known of a dozen or so virtual worlds, boasting nearly 6 million members and host to household name corporations such as Mercedes-Benz, American Apparel and Best Buy's Geek Squad. Even the country of Sweden has opened an embassy in this online universe.

The online world has its own currency -- Linden Dollars -- which is exchangeable for hard currency; Reuters has established an exchange index because the level of Second Life commerce is reaching into the millions monthly. And BusinessWeek has devoted a team to covering Second Life and its ever-increasing number of "islands," or unique environments.

Inc. magazine called Second Life "the world's coolest marketplace," but it's becoming so much more for adventuresome IT companies. UGS, Lenovo, Sun Microsystems, SunBelt Software, AMD, Cisco Systems and Dell each have established a significant Second Life presence. IBM alone has 29 islands and four in development, and will even use it as a platform for presentations at its annual PartnerWorld conference this week.

"We're getting partners to meeting with other partners from around the world without leaving their desks," says Christopher Wong, vice president of strategy and marketing for IBM's Developer Relations. "I've had partners who want to go global and they see Second Life as a means for doing that."

NEXT: The Second Life Experience

Visitors to IBM's main welcome island find themselves on Irving Wladawsky-Berger Boulevard, a long thoroughfare named after the company's technical strategy and innovation evangelist. Immediately, they're presented with a 3D map of Big Blue's various Second Life destinations -- Lotusphere, SOA Hub, PartnerWorld Virtual Ecosystem, and the OpenSource/Open Standards.

Second Life is a lot like a video game -- two or three generations ago. The graphics and movements are hardly the caliber of an Xbox or even the original PlayStation. And users feel like they're going in slow motion, especially those on slow connections or machines without a good graphics card.

Despite the kludginess of the interface, companies like IBM and individuals are gravitating to this virtual world for training, sales meetings and social networking. Rather than becoming the next eBay or Amazon, Second Life may become the next Comdex or regional tech seminar.

"This is an innovative platform for IBM," says Wong. "It's sparked a lot of creative thinking and thought on how to leverage it."

Land in any of IBM's islands and you'll likely find IBM staffers from around the world collaborating on projects, end users looking for information on the latest Series X launch, and partners engaged in a form of "speed dating," in which IBM facilitates meetings and partnerships among its worldwide solution providers.

"What makes it kind of cool is everyone is having fun; they're flying around and talking to one another," says Wong. "They don't have to do anything and they get introduced to new partners."

Many vendors are using Second Life as an alternative for group presentations and seminars for solution providers. Most of the major vendor sites have auditoriums where attendees can sit among their peers while viewing video, PowerPoint or audio presentations.

Why bother with cyberspace when you can view PowerPoints and presentations through Webex or some other conference bridge? The answer is the experience. Second Life attendees have all the rights and privileges of being at a life event except for physically being there. They can chat with their neighbors, peel off for a private meeting, collect collateral materials and even demo products. Best of all, people can randomly make connections with people they never would have met in real life.

"In 11 years, no one has ever bumped into me in the Cisco parking lot and asked me questions about Cisco, but it happens to me three times a day in Second Life," says Christian Renaud, Cisco Systems' chief architect for Network Virtual Environments.

Some may find the entire idea of wandering around a 3D world a little ridiculous, especially for adults and IT professionals. That perception is changing quickly. Cisco CEO John Chambers recently hosted the Linden Lab founders at his annual executives' conference, and IBM has committed more than $10 million to its Second Life effort. Other vendors, including Microsoft and Xerox, and even some solution providers are looking at creating Second Life outposts.

"We say how sad people are going in there, but we used to say the same about people who dated online and now more than 50 percent of the marriages last year were of couples who met over the Internet," Renaud says.

NEXT: Second Life's Third Act

Sun Microsystems launched its Second Life presence last fall, building an island with all the accoutrements people in this virtual universe have come to expect -- meeting places, presentation centers, resource locators and product demonstrations. It's also in the middle of a major renovation.

"Our primary objective was simply to maintain a brand presence in Second Life. There are other objectives on the table now, such as creating a global training center for Sun products," says Don St. Mars, owner of St. Mars Entertainment Design and Marketing, the developer who built Sun's Second Life outpost.

Second Life is vastly different from even the most dynamic Web pages. In a sense, it's more akin to the bulletin boards of the early Internet, but far more interactive in terms of its ability to exchange information and collaborate.

"It's all very open and candid," says Chris Melissinos, Sun's chief gaming officer. "It's about having a direct conversation with the people who are driving the next generation of computer technology."

Vendors venturing into Second Life see tremendous potential for enabling and empowering their solution providers. Solution providers are already forming partnerships with peers they meet in Second Life, and vendors are able to reach a broader group of partners whom they could only previously touch through live events.

The next generation of Second Life will see the advancement of vendors and solution providers working together to develop products, the advent of solution provider contributions to vendor islands, and the use of Second Life to drive new channel sales opportunities through solution provider and end-user interaction.

In time, vendors hope their solution providers use their islands to build solution, showcase success stories and host their own events. The first step is building a content-rich environment that people want to visit.

"You have to do something that's compelling. Why would they come to Second Life when they can just go to the Web site and download the information when that's faster? It's because they want the interactive experience," says Cisco's Renaud.

Second Life is continuing to add capabilities, such as voice interaction (communications today are limited to text) and improving graphics. Each improvement will bring new capabilities for vendor-solution provider-customer interaction.

"Only a fool goes against Moore's Law on bandwidth and processing power," says UGS's Kelley.