OPEN

* * Updated * *

Mat Morrison declares this week that if your agency is opening it’s own office in Second Life then it’s a sure-fire sign you should fire them…

And indeed Second Life stories are becoming ten-a-Linden-dollar on marketing blogs. I haven’t nearly caught up with my reading for the week but here are a selection:

• We  probably also all know about CNET, Leo Burnett, et al, right?
• The magnificent Aloft Hotel opened this week – hurrah!
• Rohit reports on a project with Intel which is having someone in a storefront window in Manhattan build a "something" in Second Life over the course of 72 hours. Which actually sounds brilliant too.
• MIT Advertising Lab wrote about Sun Microsystems wanting to be first to do… something, anything in the virtual world as a first. Enough firsts already!
• Lastly, MIT Advertising Lab also reports on Reebok’s launch in the virtual world and notes that it has been attacked by the Second Life Liberation Army.
• * UPDATE * Vodafone has announced that it will be opening a presence in Second Life for its advertising. Thanks to Simon Wakeman for that story.

You what?

Yep, there’s a Second Life Liberation Army (presumably different from the Liberation Army of Second Life – splitters!) that is trying to win voting rights for avatars in the virtual world. It claims to have attacked Reebok’s virtual store and posted evidence of the action on YouTube. From a first view of the video the attack seems mainly to have entailed hanging around at the store – though I’m sure it would have been a lot more traumatic were you actually caught in the, er, cross-fire.

The SLLA has struck before, last time targeting the American Apparel store.

Signs of a backlash?

Whatever. 

It think that brands should be playing with the possibilities in Second Life, agencies too, but unless they are doing something interesting or genuinely new, there’s not need to shout about it.

Aloft Hotels still scores highest in terms of a strong project for me: they are testing out a new concept in the game (a style of hotel) that won’t be available in the real world for a couple of years. The project’s blog is interesting and they are therefore creating useful and enjoyable content and conversation inside the game world and out.

Like people playing with new concepts on YouTube and blogs and asocial media differently there will be a lot of marketing people who will make a fool of themselves in Second Life but there will also be  who create fascinating, compelling projects.

: : If Second Life is advertising’s "shiny thing" for this month, as YouTube was last month, wait for brand and agency live online TV channels to launch over the next six months as Richard Sambrook’s prediction kicks in.