Off Topic: The First PR from Another World

At Directions Media we get lots of press releases. Most are tightly tied into the geospatial technology arena. Some are not. Today we recieved a first: our first PR from Second Life. Perhaps I’d have run it if it were about mapping, LBS or GPS in Second Life, but it was about a new Flip Book Museum (I kid you not!) Actually, it was a clever marketing piece for a real world business Flippies.com that makes flip books.

Mostly, I wanted to mark this date in the calendar as I’m not sure at all how Second Life, its news or its technology will impact geospatial, communictions or any other technologies or our society.

Update:A reader forwarded this announcement that Circuit City, in partnership with IBM will be opening a store in Second Life next week. I was unable to find the announcement on the Circuit City website newsroom, but it’s all over the press (BusinessWeek, etc.), so I guess it’s real. Dell apparently already has a presence in Second Life.

Ok, so consider:

If your avatar is walking down the street in Second Life, passed Circuit City, will it get LBS messages about sales at Circuit City? Won’t avatars want to shop “online” like we do here in First Life? Should we be considering the implications of this Second Life for mapping/cartography etc.? Yes. In particular consider this outgrowth of IBM/Cicruit City exploratoin in Second Life:

The companies are also researching the potential to use the interactive features to enhance customer service. For example, consumers could access 3-D product demonstrations rather than read through product manuals, and could determine how to find and fix problems themselves through virtual representations of their devices or systems.

Thinking about Second Life and its implications makes my brain hurt!