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The Corporate Push Into Virtual Worlds: Page 2 of 8

And about designing those clothes -- or shoes, or cars, or furniture -- that can then be translated into real world products and sold: this is an unlikely prospect in a world where people are not particularly interested in creating faithful representations of their real lives.

"It remains to be seen if boring convention will take over from escapism, and whether the two can coexist, much less result in real-world results," says Steve Prentice, distinguished analyst and chief of research for the Gartner Group.

"It's definitely not yet a mature commercial environment," says Joel Greenberg, senior planner with advertising agency GSD&M, which handles major accounts for AT&T, Chili's, Southwestern Airlines and Norwegian Cruise Lines. "Your ROI isn't going to be based upon sales, but on other factors." Indeed, although personally a strong believer in the business possibilities of Second Life, Greenberg has yet to interest any of GSD&M's major accounts in establishing Second Life sites. "They are both confused and resistant," Greenberg admits. "There's the fact that they simply don't know what it is. Then they don't like the relatively small audience -- they're used to being mass advertisers, not marketers to limited communities -- and there's a fundamental difference in that approach."

Nothing New Under The Purple Sun
The earliest computer-generated virtual worlds were little more than Web chat rooms where communities of like-minded individuals could gather and interact according to mutually agreed-upon rules. And despite all the coverage in the mainstream press about the "newness" of these environments, Lucasfilm Games' Habitat -- generally credited with being the pioneer of online virtual worlds -- appeared on the scene more than 20 years ago for the Commodore 64.

Indeed, virtual worlds have been around too long for the Gartner Group to conventionally track them according to its hype cycle, says Prentice. Ordinarily, Gartner classifies the lifecycle of emerging technologies as they progress from the over-the-top enthusiasm and subsequent disappointment phases toward a "plateau of productivity" where they are finally relevant for mainstream business.

Still, "the buzz about Second Life and other virtual worlds is rising up toward a peak of sorts," says Prentice. And although there might be some backlash after that peak is attained, "I truly believe that eventually the technology will find its footing in the business world," he says.