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Whose side are you on?

By: Susan Iskiwitch | 10/09/2007

Emerging in the forefront of daily work by communications professionals is the use of social media and for those who make no efforts to integrate social media into their practices, I presume they will soon be left in the dust. While I'm quick to make this assumption, I'm less able to concretely state the specific tools that will be of best use to us.

One tool that divides Web-experts in its usefulness for traditional clients is Second Life, the Internet-based virtual world.

Here are two differing opinions:

"Yankee Group revealed that the hype surrounding Second Life doesn't match its actual marketplace impact. Despite near-continuous coverage in the popular and business press, metaverses like Second Life are experiencing slowing growth and limited impact because of the tethered nature of their virtual world experience… According to the recently published Yankee Group Note, Wither Second Life?, the growth rate of Second Life users has slowed since its peak in October 2006, while user engagement (as measured by average time spent per user) has leveled off at just 12 minutes per month. This is in stark contrast to other highly publicized sites such as MySpace and Facebook, which are seeing steady increases in both the number of users and the intensity of user engagement.”
-Yankee Group - October 1, 2007

“By the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a ‘second life,' but not necessarily in Second Life, according to Gartner, Inc. ‘The collaborative and community-related aspects of these environments will dominate in the future, and significant transaction-based commercial opportunities will be limited to niche areas, which have yet to be clearly identified,' said Steve Prentice, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. ‘However, the majority of active Internet users and major enterprises will find value in participating in this area in the coming years.'
-Gartner, Inc - April 24, 2007

Posted in Social Media, Digital Communications