Guess who has a new office in Second Life?

February 23, 2007

No, not me. Still can’t get near the place while I await – with much anticipation – my “downgrade” from Windows Vista .

Nicola Davies mentions that the Second Life Liberation Army has opened its own office in the world “as part of our strategy review”.

Got to love the SLLA, got to love ’em. As a gesture of satire and protest against the brand-rush around Second Life that’s even funnier than their “attacks” on in-world brands like Adidas and American Apparel.

Check the previous post on Open to watch a video of an SLLA action in the Reebok store.

Technorati tags: secondlife, SLLA

Antony Mayfield

Public notebook

3 responses to “Guess who has a new office in Second Life?”

amelia

February 23, 2007 at 11:19 am

Found a great quote about the “intrusion” of brands into another digital space, MySpace, on Wonderlandblog, I think it’s a great quote and have used it in client presentations!
“MySpace has turned into a massive zit full of marketing pus. Most teens don’t mind advertising but when things look more like spam than advertising, you’re in deep shit. Every PR organization and marketing arm is leeching onto MySpace like a blood thirsty vampire. Problem is that vampires kill their prey. I’m very worried about how, unregulated, spamming and over-advertising will kill even the coolest social hangouts.”
Antony Mayfield

February 23, 2007 at 1:55 pm

That’s a great quote. What’s true about it is that social networks will be dropped if the cease to be useful – and being cluttered with spam isn’t useful.

But what people forget about networks is that they are able to route round things that get in the way or that are irrelevant.

Also when you have a social network that’s larger than a lot of countries it is hard to generalise. MySpace is far from dying – it is too big and there are too many networks and communities within for that to happen very quickly.

Observations like this are interesting but it’s hard for us to get out of the habit of talking about a social network like a newspaper or a TV channel that can go wrong because of over-commercialisation or bad editorial decisions.

Social networks are far more complex than that and, especially at this scale, a lot more able to adapt and survive…
Amelia

February 25, 2007 at 11:49 am

I hope that you are right. We were talking with some folks from the City who were meeting with Chime and they asked us about Social Networking. I talked to them about this quote and about how brands have to really think about the value that they can add to an online community rather than just thinking about “eye-balls”. Otherwise I do worry that brands could so fundamentally change the experience of these networks that people just vote with their mouse and click somewhere else to engage and interact.