1. I have to say, lines like this make me laugh till it hurts "Firms find that avatars created by participants in the online society aren't avid shoppers." They so clearly have not met the right avatars.

The problem these sorts of firms have is not that we're not shoppers, but that they offer nothing of any relevance whatsoever - a hotel room? uninspired plain tee shirts? a... a... what is it Sun Microsystems was offering inworld again? Don't even get me started on lines like this: "Best Buy Co.'s Geek Squad Island was devoid of visitors and the virtual staff that was supposed to be online." - if they're going to depend on their own staff to engage and entertain us, how can they be surprised at our disinterest when said staff isn't even around?

These companies have now hit the advertising wall that many old media will soon face - they no longer have us over a barrel, forcing people to ingest their ads along with television shows, magazine articles or the local landscape as we drive along. We have a choice inworld to avoid their attempts at capturing our attention and surprise, we choose to do exactly that! God help us if they ever figure out how to buy 16m2 plots and really crank up the ol' marketing mill...

Posted at 8:24PM on Jul 14th 2007 by Jamma Newt

2. More discussion on dot boom boom! Mass adoption, will it ever get there? Is Second Life ahead of its time?

http://dotboomboom.com/2007/07/15/second-life-ahead-of-it%e2%80%99s-time-marketers-give-up-nobody-cares-about-their-island/

Posted at 11:10AM on Jul 15th 2007 by Jordan Garbis

3. Okay, so a hotel chain builds a hotel in SL -- where people can teleport anywhere they want to go -- and surprise! No-one is interested in booking a room there.

Posted at 6:46PM on Jul 16th 2007 by A Nonymous

4. I'm baffled that anyone ever thought SL was a good place to sell FL goods. Virtual worlds are great places to sell virtual goods, and even make "real" money, but as a venue for selling real, solid goods, it just doesn't make a lot of sense.

Posted at 11:07PM on Jul 24th 2007 by Gaius Goodliffe

5. My thoughts on the numerous comments about brands leaving Second Life.

Firstly, remember that in many ways, Second Life (and other virtual worlds) is just another marketing channel, albeit with unique characteristics.

When companies run marketing campaigns on other channels (such as TV, radio or print) and the campaign fails to deliver the desired level of response, one of two things happen:

1. The creative concept is critised as not being appropriate or good enough. In other words it did not resonate enough with the target audience or deliver the right messages.

2. Expectations were too high in the first place. Either because they were not correctly analysed or the channel has a different set of metrics.

You rarely hear about the media channel being critised as being incorrect. Some brands have run campaigns in Second Life and the platform has been critised with very little commentary on the quality of the actual concept or the metrics being used to assess the success.

The concept of media planning in Second Life (understanding the attributes of the channel audience - what motivates them - what they want - what the platform can deliver) has been overlooked to a very high degree to date in Second Life. This is the area that successful virtual world campaigns should focus on.

Posted at 7:36AM on Jul 26th 2007 by nic mitham