Forget the internet, YouTube and MySpace; that’s all so yesterday. The latest craze to hit the digital superhighway is quite literally a whole new virtual world. Led by the likes of Second Life and Habbo Hotel, they combine social networking and role play, allowing users to live out fantasies in a virtual environment.
The most sophisticated by far is Second Life which has already witnessed ‘in world’ concerts from the likes of Suzanne Vega, Ben Folds and Paul Oakenfold. Duran Duran are about to take over an island for a gig next month. Meanwhile U2 is set to appear in Habbo Hotel as the hosts of a pub quiz to promote their new album and Lily Allen, Akon, Chamillionaire, Shayne Ward and McFly have all appeared in the hotel recently.
Second Life was developed by US software firm Linden Lab in 2003. The concept was inspired by Neal Stephenson’s 1994 sci-fi book Snow Crash, which described how the internet might morph into a ‘metaverse’ where inhabitants had to write their own code to build the transport needed to convey their virtual characters. Growing rapidly in popularity, the site is also quickly becoming a place where real money can be made. Users convert money into Linden dollars to spend on virtual goods and services. Linden’s original plan was to tax such activities but the site’s founders backed off this idea and currently earns their crust from premium subscriptions and ‘rental’ income from Second Life land (ie server space, of which there is an endless supply in the virtual world).
Second Life is currently turning over USD $500,000 a day and the big brands have already moved in. Adidas and Reebok have their own virtual shoe stores; the BBC which has its own island and has staged a festival; Fender celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Stratocaster with a virtual and real-world festival; and ad agency BBH premiered a new Audi ad on Second Life before it hit the real world.
It’s no cheap option either. A team of sixteen full time staff is working at leading London based Second Life agency Rivers Run Red to create the new Duran Duran space, which has already been attracting virtual groupies ahead of the event.
Habbo Hotel claims to have some seven million unique users a month. Similarly to Second Life, users create ‘Habbos’, digitised versions of themselves for which they are given tools to personalise. Habbo Hotel’s users are generally somewhat younger than the Second Life demographic. The site became the focus of music industry attention when Gorillaz, a band so well-suited to virtual marketing, logged into 12 national versions of Habbo Hotel last summer to chat with fans and promote their second album. Meanwhile Jamelia has set up her own beauty salon there and Faithless have launched a limited-edition piece of virtual furniture.
The opportunities for rightsowners in virtual worlds are endless and the challenges for collecting societies are significant. How such virtual worlds will develop and how sustainable they prove to be is hard to say. But, one thing’s for sure, this is no game.
Find out more:
SecondLife.com/community/music.php
InWorldstudios.com
Torley.com
U2insl.com
Project-entropia.com
Habbo.com