Socially|Mundane

Okay, so there are a lot of real life companies that are in the services business. many in the resale and whole sale business and many that are strictly business to business, a.k.a. B2B.

Starting a real life company isn't easy. it takes a lot of hard work, planning and capital just to get it off the ground.

In Second Life, however, it takes practically nothing at all except a little time and know-how. That's 'know-how' as in the platform and how to use it to create your product. In the end, other than time itself, there is zero capital involved, other than what you might invest in tools and scripts and so on.

However, that doesn't mean you have know-how in a business sense.

There are, however, many real life businesses in the real world that outsource all the time. This is where B@B comes-in. If you need particular materials to create the products you sell, you go to a whole sale supplier and purchase them for resale. Or, the raw materials to manufacture what you create to sell on whole slave or even retail.

I have always argued that in Second Life, the best 'businesses' or the resellers, or 'storefront sellers' because once the work is accomplished, the residual sales are where the money is. That is to say, work once and keep getting paid over and over again. And, since there is no cost to reproduce your product like in the real world, all on-going sales are residual sales off of old work. You just sit back and allow the money to come in.

Yes, I am over-simplifying here, but only to make a point.

Then there are the 'services' businesses. This is where you have to work hard continuously to keep earning any money. A good example are Second Life photographers. many do stunning work. But, once a contract is completed and they are paid, that's the end of it. They must find a new contract and then repeat the work, albeit differently in each case.

The work never stops.

There are services businesses in the real world, too. restaurants, photographer and even staffing agencies. Staffing agencies are B2B businesses because they primary focus is to help other businesses cut costs by outsourcing labor.

They hire these staffing companies to provide short-term staff to help out with whatever needs are present at the time. Then, they simply end the 'lease' until the next time it is needed. The benefit for the worker is that even though the individual jobs are temporary, employment is not.

Many real life companies are toying with virtual worlds, including Second Life. No, I'm not going to go into all the usual rehashing of who failed and why and who's successful and why. but, suffice it to say they need to understand the target audience within these virtual worlds because static advertising, (think of what you might see in a magazine,) simply does not work here. Especially in a place like second life.

The pretense really needs to be interactive. They can't slap up a prefab and drop some freebie logo t-shirts and the like. The first assumption in this is the old "build it and they will come" routine.

First, it is pretty conceited to assume your brand is of any interest in a virtual world at all. In fact, it is perhaps downright condescending. and insult. And though a few people might pick-up your nifty logo virtual t-shirt, it might get worn once for all of 30-seconds.

No businesses, you need to make it interactive. Sure, you could have a bunch of automated scriptie-toys, but that isn't enough. You need to have staff available to answer questions. To push people sitting on the fence regarding your real world product over the edge and make that sale.

You don't even have to sell the product through the virtual world. But to have a virtual showroom where people can ask real people for assistance or answers to questions is where it's all at.

Enter the Metaverse Mod Squad.

A real life B2B staffing company who fills that void:

From their "About" page: "No longer can virtual worlds be built without a significant investment in community management.  Lonely ghost towns that dot the virtual landscape demonstrate the need for having staff avatars on site to greet visitors, engage users, host and deliver interactive events, and serve as brand ambassadors.

We work with brands to select, train, manage, and compensate the real people behind those avatars."

It's a great idea along the lines of Rivers Run Red, Electric Sheep, Millions of Us and other 'metaverse-specific' companies. This one is a good idea. Although, they may be a bit ahead of their time and the power-curve.

I wish them luck. It's a great idea, if only they can sell their services along with selling the Metaverse along with selling any kind of presence there for real companies to begin with.

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