Title: Virtual business empires at Second Life

Authors: Roma Chauhan; Gaurav Kumar

Addresses: IILM Graduate School of Management, 16 Knowledge Park II, Greater Noida, India. ' Institute of Technology Studies, Main GT Road, Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, India

Abstract: The participants gathered hours before the beginning of the event in January 2007 to occupy their virtual space for the scheduled event. All dressed in the best of the costumes to attend the long awaited event at the virtual business centre. One of the attendees tried big shiny eyes and long black hairs for the meeting and shortly afterwards flew to music island waiting for the music band to appear. The virtual world may sound futuristic where users can fly, swim, collaborate in real time and all this is part of a virtual world of Second Life (SL). The case draws focus on virtual world of SL and how corporates can exploit the benefits to use it for collaboration, marketing and promotion. The case explores hurdles encountered by users while using SL platform.

Keywords: Second Life; virtual worlds; virtual communities; web based communities; online communities; internet; world wide web; Linden Lab; USA; United States; collaboration; online events; virtual marketing; virtual space; virtual business; real time; corporates; virtual events; corporations; technology marketing; strategic practices.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTMKT.2012.048130

International Journal of Technology Marketing, 2012 Vol.7 No.3, pp.254 - 266

Published online: 29 Aug 2014 *

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