Should businesses get a Second Life?

After conducting a research study about Second Life, I believe that the answer for this question (mainly for the North-American businesses) is YES!

Check this Knowledge Management Review article (Mar/Apr 2007) by Hobson, Neville:

Should businesses get a Second Life?

What do you think?

Second Life for Knowledge Transfer and Collaboration

"Latest industry estimates are that between 30 and 40 million Americans currently participate in persistent immersive synthetic environments. For comparison, only 26 million Americans golf. "

Very interesting blog post by Eric Mack:

Second Life for Knowledge Transfer and Collaboration

Teen Second Life

Only reserved for teenagers, Teen Second Life is a separate subset of Second Life, exclusively for people aged 13- 17 (and approved adults and Linden employees). It was officially released to the public on February 14th, 2005, in order to let teens participate in the Second Life world (reserved for adults only) without entering false identity information.

Teen Second Life provides “a base for several innovative middle school and secondary school education projects trailblazing the use of Second Life with teens.”(SL Blog) Some of these are accessible to all residents of Teen Second Life (public projects); others are closed, designed only for their own students and staff.

For more details, check the Wikipedia article about Teen Second Life and its Educational Projects.

SUN Microsystems Virtual Press Conference in Second Life

And here's another interesting video, this time about Sun Microsystems...

NASA CoLab's Second Life Mission

Interesting video about NASA in Second Life! Check it!!

How Organizations Use SL?

The Second Life Grid platform enables organizations to create a public or private space using the leading 3D online virtual world technology behind Second Life™. An organization can create its own space for communication, collaboration and community engagement:

* Hold in-person meetings without leaving the office, using real-time 3D collaboration
* Construct product simulations enabling customers from all over the world to test out new designs and concepts
* Conduct employee training
* Meet with global partners at your virtual headquarters
* Receive product feedback from clients
* As a nonprofit, engage and raise funds
* Build community around your brand

Source: http://secondlifegrid.net/about

To learn more about the Second Life Grid and read about the companies using it, here’s the link: http://secondlifegrid.net/

Presentation in SL about SL!

A presentation (organized by NASA and JPL) about the use of Second Life for Knowledge Management and collaboration was given from inside the Second Life world.

Check this article: Presentation on Using SL for Knowledge Management and Collaboration