This will be my final blog post as a student of Dr. Neil Hair’s Commercializing Virtual Worlds class. It was an interesting experience overall. More importantly, it has been the first time I have been meaningfully challenged in a long time. It is something I truly appreciate.
I was fortunate to work with excellent team members. Anne Pelkey brought a contagious sense of optimism and hope that compelled us to work hard and achieve a higher standard. Bradley Fuller tackled the difficult challenge of creating and modifying our Second Life location. I would like to believe that I added value but I am loathe to do a self-assessment due to natural bias.
A Second Life investor attended the presentation and communicated with Bradley for a significant length of time. The investor asked some tough questions and was immediately able to hone in on our greatest weakness: knowledge of Second Life’s population. We haven’t spent much time, relatively speaking, in Second Life as the established residents. The investor asked us how we would approach selling the business to others and provided unique perspectives on the norms of Second Life. They asked us a question we were unprepared for: how would we approach the less socially accepted aspects of Second Life such as slave shops and sex clubs?
Our perfunctory answer was to tailor ourselves to the market. While we believed that we could find a way to deal with the sex clubs, we were sure that slave shops were off the table. In the end, we did receive an offer—although it was far lower than what we desired. We were excited that someone even though that an offer was worthwhile.
I learned a lot in this course. If the course if offered again, I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a challenge. If you’re looking for an easy “A,” I suggest that you look elsewhere and also consider why you are going to school. I have seen and done many things in the short time that I have been on this planet; this is definitely a unique experience and one that I will remember with great detail.
This is the final week of the Rochester Institute of Technology’s not-so-spectacular quarter system. The week of “spring break” is coming up with a sense of ennui attached. The final presentations for the Second Life class is coming up and I cannot help but to look back on the quarter.
We started out with very little knowledge of Second Life itself. We are ending with a little more knowledge about this niche world. Not only is it a niche, it is additionally comprised of its own niches. The population of Second Life is smattered with subpopulations that engage in activities that are quite distinct from one another. The business that my group is attempting to create is focusing beyond the niche to the mainstream users.
Our ultimate goal is to make Second Life more acceptable as an economically self-sustaining world. If everything works correctly, the business will expand the market for businesses in Second Life without taking away the share. For perspective, visualize the pie as growing bigger but not necessarily changing.
Second Life’s tepid growth rate may be acceptable for Linden Labs, but I can see the potential for greater things. It has the ability to make make virtual our imaginations. Considering the chaff that fills the internet these days, Second Life offers a very rich experience—though even its champions have succumbed to tunnel vision.
They claim that Second Life is useful as an educational tool but I have yet to see it fully utilized. I walked into a conference early in the course. The avatars were sitting plainly in their seats while the guest of honor sat in the front answering questions via chat. As they asked their questions, I wondered how this was better than simple instant messaging. As I watched the PowerPoint presentation on the screen, I realized that there were simpler methods out there to achieve the same objectives.
A visually rich environment such as Second Life should present rich information. Otherwise, the program is an unnecessary addition to a process. Second Life could easily be used to present blowup diagrams and schematics of equipment or to visually demonstrate a rendering of how atomic particles interact with matter.
This will require either a high level of knowledge/training for the instructor or a Second Life guru who is involved with the lesson planning process. True talent can be difficult to find. Perhaps it is simply a matter of transitioning a programming from one focus to another. I lack sufficient knowledge to make worthwhile suppositions.
The class has definitely been interesting. I have enjoyed the experience in Second Life. I am definitely anxious to present our business to the class. I feel like our group has a very viable plan. We’ll see after Wednesday!
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The Commercializing New Worlds Class is winding down. The business project is due at the end of this week and Team TAG is ready to wow some folks. We meet in Second Life this week to talk to Matthew Anthony, a graduate of RIT and an entrepreneur in Second Life. If you never thought you could make a living off of Second Life, think again. This particular gentleman makes enough to live comfortably just outside of New York City with no need to have a second job.
Mr. Anthony sells virtual turtles and the food that they need to survive. Yes, you heard me right. The turtles will perish without the virtual foods that Matthew Anthony and his partner sells. This demonstrates the flexibility that Second Life offers in terms of the products that you can sell. Many would think that people would not pay their hard earned dollars to maintain a virtual pet and yet they make a decent living.
It is amazing what they do with their turtles. They can reproduce with each other creating a unique color for each turtle. Mr. Anthony related the story of one person who wanted a rare color turtle and paid the 
equivalent of approximately $100.
He demonstrated some of his other ideas which included a virtual representation of a card game. When attacks were made, a virtual character would appear by the card and attack the other player. This design was old and some changing to Second Life’s scripting broke a few of his scripts but it was interesting nonetheless.
Team TAG has some interesting things up its sleeve with regards to a Second Life business. We have found some fascinating analytical tools for Second Life. We are also developing a marketing campaign that will engage consumers and attract businesses. I am certain that our final presentation will offer a unique value proposition that is truly compelling. Who knows, maybe Matthew Anthony will want to engage our services as well.
