Real places recreated part four: Historic landmarks

Real places recreated part four: Historic landmarks. As this series of posts is showing, Second Life has been used in great ways to recreate real life places. Also, shown has been the effect these types of places has on building communities of people who spend significant dwell times there.

Real world modern-day cities are probably the most effective at driving and retaining visitor traffic and related to this, historic landmarks have the same effect. An additional benefit (to visitors) by creating historic landmarks in Second Life is educational. As shown below, there’s been some incredibly detailed builds of famous tourist attractions and some of these projects have been able to accurately recreate not only the design element and also the cultural spirit of the time.

Here’s some historic landmarks:

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Europ Assistance

Europ Assistance. Think about what service your company offers in the real world and see how this expertise can be leveraged and made relevent to a virtual world environment. This is a backbone strategy for companies considering entrance into Second Life [Request the Seven Point Plan for Marketing in Second Life to learn more about this].

Europ Assistance, a European provider of automobile, travel, health and home insurance has recently entered Second Life and is offering residents protection against accidental teleport accidents.

Here’s the press release.

As the world’s leading provider of modern assistance services, the Europ Assistance Group has once again demonstrated the pioneering spirit one would expect of this inventor of medical repatriation and travel assistance services, this time by launching the first ever assistance policy for virtual journeys in Second Life?Ç¬Æ on June 29, 2007.

Available from the Europ Assistance island, this virtual assistance policy symbolised by a belt and an aura surrounding the protected avatars can be taken out free of charge by any avatars keen to avoid becoming victims of teleportation accidents, which are today increasingly numerous according to a rumour currently circulating in the Second Life?Ç¬Æ world. This rumour, spread by means of a video filmed in the Second Life?Ç¬Æ world, humorously portrays a series of imagined accidents befalling avatars during their journeys through Second Life?Ç¬Æ (teleportation).
True to its goal of making life easier for its clients in both day-to-day and special situations, this “virtual” assistance service in Second Life?ǬÆ, (the first of its kind to be offered by an assistance company), is accompanied by a software-based training programme to help “newbies” adjust to the Second Life?Ç¬Æ virtual world, and to show them how to get around, to meet people, to chat or to change their appearance, etc.

Also in keeping with the Seven Point Plan (integration), Europ Assistance has created a supporting website called AvatarAssistance.com in support of the metaverse efforts. The island also offers orientation guidance for new residents, which is a clever strategy to integrate into a wider plan, as this post explains further.

Real places recreated part three: Office buildings

Real places recreated part three: Office buildings. This is the third in a series about Second Life being used to recreate real places.

As highlighted in part two, recreating modern-day cities attracts a lot of visitors with high dwell times – residents like to be in places they are already familiar with as it brings a strong sense of context to their virtual activities.

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This post discusses the reasons why in some instances building virtual versions of real life office buildings can be a good idea.

Firstly, let’s remember that for the majority of companies in Second Life it is a marketing exercise – at the very least, it comes out of a marketing budget. Marketing budgets are generally geared towards attracting new customers. Recreating office buildings therefore provide a point of reference for potential new customers – a link between the real and virtual worlds. It’s possible (and this is an upward trend) that some potential new customers will see the virtual version before seeing the real one – so in a way this is building brand recognition.

Request the K Zero technology sector case study here. Continue reading →

Inter Milan follows Ajax FC

Inter Milan follows Ajax FC. Italian football club Inter Milan, or to be technically correct, F.C. Internazionale Milano have followed the lead set by Ajax FC supporters and opened a themed venue in Second Life. This time however, the project is officially endorsed by the club.

The use of virtual worlds to position sports and sporting organisations is a growing trend in Second Life. The main driver for this is the ability to not only tap into the affluent early adopter community of Second Life in the respective countries of the sports/clubs but also to grow global fan bases. [read more about the sports and leisure sector here].

Here’s the updated timeline for the sports and leisure.

Visitors to the venue can obtain club merchandise free of charge such as shirts and scarfs (giving is better than receiving) . The venue also includes a virtual trophy room, football pitch and official vlub building. Continue reading →