Peering Inside: The Second Life year in review (part 8)
Corporations, Celebrities, non-profits and more
Some people come to do business. Some people to reach wider audiences. Some are only there to be seen. Even a small portion of the last 12 months turns into quite a list. While you might read about it a lot in the papers, Duran Duran have never made an appearance in Second Life — but many others did this last year.
Second Life is something of an eclectic hive of activity, with musicians, artists, businesses, real-estate agents, programmers, marketers, non-profit organizations, and just plain ordinary folks communicating, making deals, and making the most of expanded communication opportunities.
Music
- Suezanne Vega made a return trip to Second Life. Shaggy tried to make a first trip, but things didn't work out with his visa.
- Spiral Trance performed in Second Life.
- Rock band Journey opened their own island.
- The Rock Vault merchandised metal music.
- Second Life musicians play the physical world.
Celebrities and film
- PETA held an anti-fur protest (no, not those kinds of furs) — complete with the then obligatory nude photoshoot from Pamela Anderson.
- William Gibson did a book-reading, which was unexpected as most authors who write about virtual realities seem to tend to avoid them. Gibson thought it was deeply peculiar.
- Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert also took a look in, gave away merchandise and let people kick him in the crotch. Truly a man of the people.
- I Am Legend stormed into Second Life and did really well with their dystopian multi-player game.
- James Purnell, British Minister of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport spoke at the Serious Games Institute in Second Life.
- Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary interviewed in Second Life about Beowulf.
- Virtual Greats announced that it would be marketing celebrity likenesses and other licensed paraphernalia.
Miscellany
- Second Chance Trees asked us all to do our bit for the ecosystem.
- Silverscreen held a Q&A session for the Transformers Film.
- Parisian City Councilors held a competition for the design of a Paris community area.
- IBM workers picketed for better pay and conditions.
- IBM brought Wimbeldon to Second Life in real-time, but only a comparatively few invited people were able to attend.
- Play2Train began training emergency first responders.
- The Jesuits looked favorably on Second Life.
- The Portuguese Ministry of Justice launched a virtual mediation and arbitration center.
- IBM felt it important to establish rules of behavior for their online employees.
- Coldwell Banker marketed a 3 million US dollar property through Second Life.
- Sky News settled into Second Life, and so did the Nonprofit Commons.
- Sunbelt Software started a series of security seminars.
- WWF opened Conservation Island.
- Coke announced that they met or exceeded their goals in Second Life and were very happy with the results of the campaign — including a delicious battle with Wired's Frank Rose, whom they said completely misrepresented Coke's position.
- The Australia Council for the Arts paid up their AU$20,000 SL Residency grant.
- Armani established a presence in Second Life with none of the watchwords for which they are famed.
- Telstra BigPond took their already large presence and expanded it further.
- Award winning Thursday's Fictions established a haunting inworld experience also.
- Communications giant Fujitsu also took the plunge.
- City law firm Lovells exhibited in support of Pro Bono Week.
- Splenda kicked off their presence with a competition.
- AOL pulled out of Second Life after abandoning their presence at launch. In fact, it would be more fair to say that they pulled out just before the launch.
- Estonia added their own digital embassy.
- Pocky held a big and successful festival on their new island.
- Cisco opened a digital hospital to the public, and IBM kept theirs hidden away.
- Cisco launched their Quantum Flow processor in the digital world.
- Metaversed became Clever Zebra.
- Circuit City expanded their presence hugely and relaunched.
- The Australian Broadcasting Corporation held its one year anniversary.
- Mercedes Benz left.
- Rezzable's Greenies hit the grid and made the big time.
- The Garden of NPIRL delights which finished today, without a doubt eclipses every other major display event. The SL anniversaries and the annual Burning Life events do not hold a candle to it.
- 1-800-flowers (less than a month after Second Life's fourth anniversary) claimed that the virtual world didn't exist 18 months earlier. Far from the only pile of shirky to get reprinted in the papers, though the company did do rather better later on.