Skip to the content
Context
Search for:
Context
  • Categories
    Analysis article
    20
    Analysis report
    28
    Book
    2
    Byline article
    244
    Conference report
    322
    Feature article
    51
    Interview
    209
    Interview story
    3,438
    News article
    481
    Opinion article
    2
    Promo article
    7
    Session
    45
    Uncategorised
    6,408
    Vendor report
    8
  • Focuses
    Company earnings
    494
    Company funding
    401
    Company hires
    608
    Company IPO
    56
    Company M&A
    638
    Company research
    7
    Company strategy
    3,771
    Consumer indicators
    76
    Essays
    15
    Interesting
    44
    Market trends
    109
    Views of analyst
    61
    Views of executive
    3,836
  • Companies
    2,419
  • Sources
    181
  • Series
    388
  • Topics
    189
  • People
    2,427
  • Clients
    130
  1. Home
  2. Categories
  3. Article
  4. News article

Businesses warned to wait for Second Life opportunities

By Robert Andrews
Originally published by Econsultancy Econsultancy • 26th April 2007

Eighty percent of businesses will have a presence in a virtual world, says a new Gartner report that otherwise heaps suspicion on the value of Second Life e-commerce.

The tech research firm advises businesses to “limit substantial financial investments until the environments stabilise and mature”.

Giants like Toyota and Adidas, as well as smaller enterprises, have all opened storefronts in Second Life in recent months as hype surrounding the 3D environment and its potential for e-commerce and marketing reached fever pitch.

Gartner said the majority of internet users and Fortune 500 companies would be inside such worlds by 2011, but analyst Steve Prentice advised caution before frippery.

“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,” he said.

“Meaningful corporate use of public virtual worlds/platforms will lag considerably behind individual consumer use as enterprises struggle to develop appropriate and relevant business models.”

Prentice laid down “five laws” for those companies considering emerging into worlds like Second Life:

  1. Virtual worlds are not games.
  2. Behind every avatar is a real person.
  3. Be relevant and add value.
  4. Understand and contain the downside.
  5. This is a long haul.
CategoriesNews article
TagsStrategy & Operations
FocusMarket indicators
TopicSocial Media, Video Games
CompanySecond Life
SourceEconsultancy
ClientEconsultancy


© 2025 Context