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Joel Greenberg in Tech Monday

Weblogsky friend Joel Greenberg has an interview in today's Tech Monday (registration required). Joel, formerly of GSD&M, talks about his new gig with a Second Life-focused company called Electric Sheep. While at GSD&M, Joel became a Second Life expert, so he knows the turf pretty well.

Why are advertisers interested in "Second Life," and what sort of possibilities do they see?

People are interested in "Second Life" because intuitively they see it as a communications medium that is really kind of cool. I think "cool" is the wrong word for advertisers — ultimately they want to make money. It's too early for "Second Life" at this point for advertisers to really make money. So they are doing it for a number of reasons. One is PR. I think the window of opportunity for PR is closing for companies entering "Second Life." For the past six months or so, or the past year, you could get a buzz for saying "Yes, we are doing something in 'Second Life.' "

Why are very traditional marketers OK with experimenting in "Second Life" and not other worlds?

Well, first of all, it does freak them out. But when you say, look, as of a year ago, the GDP of the ("Second Life") world was $65 million. That number came from ("Second Life" owner) Linden Lab. And I've heard it's up to $225 million. That is the value in U.S. dollars of all goods and services sold in-world. It gets their attention.

I'm not sure I agree with Joel's implication that Austin doesn't have Web 2.0 activity. He says "... there are no video sites coming out of Austin," however I know of at least one (because Polycot is involved), and I think there are at least a couple others. And while it's clear there's very little VC activity in Austin, there are some folks trying to revive interest, and there are several projects that could be called "Web 2.0" that are bootstrapping.

Photo: Joel presenting Second Life to Bootstrap Web.

jon posted this at 8:45 AM
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