Second Life Growls At The Marketing Newcomers

The traditional newsmedia was hyperventilating in its awe of the old meat-space corporations and the “innovative” things they were doing in second life, and could not stop writing about it. But what were these corporations in fact contributing? Rather than use Second Life to create new and exotic things, the corporations brought their old tired ideas with them. Fantastic flying vehicles gave way to scale models of Scions and Sentras. Psychedelic builds and castles and mushroom hotels gave way to scale models of the next Starwood Hotel. Flaming jet boots gave way to scale models of Adidas. Golden battle suits gave way to American Apparel yuppieware. Giant snail races gave way to pathetic in world broadcasts of the MLB;s home run derby in a traditional looking stadium.

It reminds us at PSFK a little of the first time brands got involved with the web in 97 and 98 and the oldies felt like someone was crashing their club. We imagine that after a lot of hype and money wasted, there will be a period of back to basics where we see many marketers engaging in an efficient and relevant form of activity (of course, there will always be virtual Urban Spam!). Some folk might argue that these places need to the investment from brands to grow, but then again we didn’t get 21st century internet phenomenons like Google, Flickr, Digg from any of this investment – why would Second Life need it.

[Nice Image and tip-off via Iain Tait]