Is Second Life Ready for Business

MIS 101; Section: 05

Submitted To:
Md. Manjur Morshed Bhyuan
Adjunct Faculty
Department of Business Administration
East West University
Dhaka 1212

Submitted By: Group A

Marks
Name: ID: Work Load:
Write Up Presentation
Ehsan Habib 2009-1-10-212 17%
Md. Abdur Rakib 2009-1-10-081 16%
Md. Hasan-Uz-Zaman 2009-2-10-033 17%
Jubaer Hossain 2010-2-10-245 17%
Kaji Mohi Uddin 2009-1-10-089 16%
Rashed Chowdhury 17%

Submission Date: 19 April 2011

 19

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

19 April 2011

Md. Manjur Morshed Bhuyan

Adunct Faculty
Department of Business Administration
East West University

Dear Sir:

We are very pleased to submit this term paper on Is Second Life Ready for Business as you have
authorized us in this semester.

We are honored to prepare this term paper under your guidance since it gave us the opportunity
to know that how Second Life can be an effective and efficient way to be used for the
improvement of current business condition in the world.

We tried our level best to accumulate the information for you as comprehensive as possible. We
will be obliged to provide further clarification on this report whenever necessary.

Sincerely Yours:

Ehsan Habib ID # 2009-1-10-212 ____________

Md. Abdur Rakib ID # 2009-1-10-081 ____________

Md. Hasan-Uz-Zaman ID # 2009-2-10-033 ____________

Jubaer Hossain ID # 2010-2-10-245 ____________

 19

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all we would like to show our gratitude to Allah. Thereafter we would like to express our
thankfulness and indebtedness to our honorable faculty, Md Monjur Morshed Bhuyan, Adjunct
Faculty, Department of Business Administration, East West University (EWU). With his
inexhaustible guidance, valuable advice, continuous inspiration, constructive criticism and
generosity she helped us to carry out this report successfully.

We would also like to express our gratitude to the website that helped us to gather all the
necessary information.

Finally, we would like to thank to all group members that directly or indirectly helped us to
provide and accumulate all the necessary information for the accomplishment of this assignment.
 19

Table of Contents

1. Case summery

2. Question 1: How can Second Life provide value to businesses that use it?

3. Question 2: What kinds of business are most likely to benefit from a presence on
Second Life? Why?

4. Question 3: Considering what you have learned about Second Life, how could you,
as an individual, create a modest start-up business on the grid? What goods would
you sell? Why would this be a good choice of product? What in simple terms, would
your business plan be? Why would it work?

5. Question 4: Visit eBay on the Web and see what Second Life items you can find
listed for auction. How would you rate the activity surrounding these items? Are
you surprised what you see? Why and why not?
6. Question 5: What obstacle does second life have to overcome in order to become a
mainstream business tool? Does it face fewer or more obstacle to become a
mainstream educational tool? To what do you attribute the difference?

7. Question 6: Would you like to interview for a job using Second Life? Why or why
not?

8. Question 7: Is Second life a precursor of how business will be conducted in the

future or a corporate experiment? Justify your answer.

9. Conclusion
10. Reference

Case Summery
 19

A 3D social network which was founded by former CTO of Real Network Philip Rosedale in
1999 in San Francisco is the new horizon to the social and business alliance. It is going to be one
of the most popular website in the new era of competitive business, social relationships or any
other kinds of distant relationships. It is the only site among all social networks which allows
unlimited creativity to show one’s internal capability. A person who has an account on it is
called the resident. An avatar is automatically created for every single account holder in this
virtual world. The avatar can be reformed in new look and can be designed to any form the
resident wants to make it. Second life has its own economy and currency. The currency is known
as Linden dollar and the market where it is used in exchange for goods and services is open. By
dealing in the market one can earn millions of linden dollars. Residents can design any they can
imagine which is facilitated by a standard library of animations and sounds. It is the new hope
for new advertising, television and media industries, as it can attract potential customers who are
not viewers of television. Companies can now train there customer about how to use and
maintain there products through 3D animated avatar view. The employees of multinational
companies now can attend meeting using there avatars although they far away from there
meeting place. Second life also made prototyping easy for professionals. They can easily change
there model in accordance with customer’s choice which would be very expensive if it was made
in the real world. Educational institutions can make it easy to provide distant learning through
virtual attendance. Class participation consulting can be very easy and less costly for students
who away from there institutions. Jobseekers can use there avatars to meet executives of
prospective employers. Thus second life is useful for narrowing the pool of candidates and
minimizing recruitment expenses. Moreover in popularity Second life is far behind social
networks like Facebook, Skype, Youtube, Myspace, eager users can make it easy by configuring
there computer to get the stream of unlimited advantages.

Question 1: How can Second Life provide value to businesses that use it?
 19

Answer: Today is the day for the companies which are creative in creating new, unique and
innovative ideas. For these companies Second life is the new horizon which allows unlimited
creativity. People are becoming more and more information seekers and internet has made it
easier for them to gather information. Companies which can attract customer’s attention through
creative ways will be the ultimate winner in this competitive world. Second life can play role in
attracting these customers because of it has the animated avatar for each of the residents and
because it has allows users to design any attractive thing that users can ever imagine.

Although Second life is in its young age, it has becoming the breathing ground for industries and
professionals like advertising and television industries, multinational corporations, information
based firms, architects etc. Second life also makes it easier for companies to perform their
internal activities like workforce recruitment, training, meeting with them etc.

Here is some important findings on how cans second life provide values to business are given
below:

Advertising and media industries:

Many people now have abandoned watching television rather passing most of their time in
browsing internet and doing other internet based activities like maintaining social relationships
through different social networks, playing online games and so on. As a result advertising and
media industries through their informative or attractive advertisements fail to attract these
customer’s attention whatever the quality of the advertisement. It is a matter of great hope for
advertising and media enterprise that Second life facilitates them with opportunity to enhance
creativity to do anything for attracting potential customers and to interact company’s brand
image.

For example Crayon is a new media marketing firm that has purchased an island on the Grid
named crayonville, to serve as its primary office. With employees scattered in real world offeices
on both sides of the Atlantic, cryaonlille provides the firm with a new way to bring everyone
together, even if the employees are represented by avatars. Employees communicate by text
message and with Skype Internet telephony.

Multinational Corporation:
 19

Different multinational corporations have invested millions of dollars in Second life in exploring
the possibilities of virtual business. Second life facilitates performing the major activities like

• Customer services

• Product development

• Training and marketing etc.

IBM inc. is one of the great examples of the firms which get advantages of the use of second life.
For example the employees of IBM use their avatars to attend meetings in virtual meeting rooms.
In the meeting rooms they can see power point slides via conference calls. They can also ask
questions using instant messaging system. They get answers by the same way from other avatars.

IBM uses second life functions as a mean to develop their employees. Lyne Hamilton who runs
professional development class of IBM’s human resources department uses Second life for
orienting new employees who are scattered in different locations far away from each others.

It is matter of surprise that IBM has invested 10 million US dollars for maintaining these all
activities.

Some other corporations and retailers like Sears, American Apparel, Dell, Circuit City, and
Toyota indicates their presence on Second life. Although their expectation from Second life is
yet to be higher, they also believe that it can be a great mean to build and interact their brand
images to the new customers.

Professionals:

Professionals like architect and fashion designers now can use Second life as a mean for
prototyping their models. Because of the presence of second life prototyping has become easier
than ever. Professionals can easily change any aspect of the model that is disliked by customers.
Customers also can suggest any kind of change that would be very expensive if that were done in
real world.
 19

Although Second life yet to be recognized by many other firms, it can the great way to minimize
cost develop more efficient and effective ideas and ultimately helps firs to reach their final
destination through implication of these multidimensional opportuinities.

Question 2: What kinds of business are most likely to benefit from a presence on Second
Life? Why?

Answer: The Second Life which denote virtual world, is enhancing its popularity so rapidly.
Many companies now a day’s enters to this virtual world to expand their business territory. But
not all of them succeed to do that. There are some businesses that are most likely to make profit
at their presence in Second Life. And there are some criteria that needed to be fulfilled in terms
of getting benefited from this virtual world.

Businesses that are dependent on social communication like Schools, Colleges and Universities
for education can be easily benefited from Second Life. These educational institutes can make an
arrangement of taking their classes on a virtual class room with real students using different
virtual persona for each of them. Teachers can lecture and the students can take notes as well. In
this way the students can be thousands of miles away from the actual school but getting the same
treatment from teacher as the local student do. The Second Life can also be use to build a library
for students and others.

Another type of business will likely to be benefited from entering in this virtual world is
residential designer. A residential designer is a person who designs buildings in a residential
area. It is a profession that goes by many names. Residential designers are also sometimes
referred to as residential architects, home designers or building designers. These kind of
designers design there prototype models in second life and give customers chance to explore the
design. Customers suggest their choice to the designer and designer redo the design as suggested
by the customers. In this way the designer can reduce the cost of redoing the design over and
over again.
 19

There are hundreds of businesses that are currently using Second Life as a medium of their
business. DELL is one of them. The further explanation would give some idea how DELL is
using Second Life for business-to-business communications.

Dell has acquired its own landmass, Dell Island,which consists of a welcome area, a Dell factory,
a conference facility and a museum.
Dell intends to use the facility to pitch real and virtual products to residents of Second Life.

Residents will have lots of ways to interact with Dell. In the factory, for example, residents can
see 3D interactive views of products, build their own systems, and even order real systems from
Dell.com

They will be able to rotate, change colors and even peek into the inner components of a Dell PC.
All the Second Life stores have been linked to the Dell.com e-commerce system. Speaking about
the Second Life, Ro Parra, senior vice president and general manager for Dell's Home and Small
Business Group said that it is a fun way to keep in touch with their customers and know their
tastes.

As like DELL there are hundreds other company is enjoying profit by setting their business in
Second Life like: Coca-Cola, IBM, NBA, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone, Toyota and
Calvin Klein etc. These businesses and organizations are legally registered or recognized entities
created specifically for Second Life. Groups affiliated with preexisting organizations are in the
Operated inside Second Life section. These companies are enlarging there business territory by
being able to set up their businesses in Second Life.
 19

Question 3: Considering what you have learned about Second Life, how could you, as an
individual, create a modest start-up business on the grid? What goods would you sell? Why
would this be a good choice of product? What in simple terms, would your business plan
be? Why would it work?

Answer: To start a business in the grid it is important to identify the product type which falls in
the basic necessity category or prove to be a very important part of the lifestyle in Second Life.
There are two categories of membership – basic membership and paid membership. Paid
members are allowed to own land where as normal users do not enjoy exclusive facilities like
owning land on the grid. Similar to one of the successful virtual dealer on the grid, Anshe Chung,
it is possible to start a real estate business with a little creativity. I would start a property
development company which would deal in real estate trading as well as architectural design and
developments. Primary cost for acquiring a piece of land would be US$ 195 which is roughly
estimated about 16 acres. After land procurement I would focus on developing the site using the
3-D modeling tools. Buildings, Private Islands would be rented to other users who do not have
ability to own land on the Grid. Moreover, the architectural design and development will be a
good source of earning through selling of designs to others users. It will also work as part of
support for real world designing. I would contact clients for architectural designs and develop a
virtual model of it on the grid. This would allow customization of the models with the least
amount of expense. Making design patterns this way for review is faster and efficient.
Advertisements would be featured in LindenX to attract potential clients.
This flow chart can illustrate the business process in simple terms

Identify Procure Develop using Advertise in

Accomodation 3D Modeling Linden X
Need Land Tools

Prototypes Real World Designs

Properties and on Grid and in Land and
Sell Virtual Contact Clients Rent or Sell

Sell of the Land

Figure: Business Process on at a discounted
the Grid Price
 19

This business will be a prospective one due to the following reasons-

1. Everyone does not have access to land purchase, only the pro members can. So it is to the
business’s advantage to make deals with normal members.

2. Users will agree to pay a premium amount for the designs, since it is difficult to create
designs using the scripts.

3. Real world clients will pay a minimum charge for the 3D modeling of their houses or
landscapes. It is far cheaper to have a look at the prototype than developing the space in
real.

Contingency plan is also simple for this business, if the business does not work out according to
plan. The land would be sold off at a little lower price, still allowing the entrepreneur to get back
the maximum amount of money invested.
 19

Question 4: Visit eBay on the Web and see what Second Life items you can find listed for
auction. How would you rate the activity surrounding these items? Are you surprised what
you see? Why and why not?

Answer: EBay Inc. is an American Internet company that manages eBay.com, an online auction
and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and
services worldwide. Founded in 1995, eBay is one of the notable success stories of the dot-com
bubble; it is now a multi-billion dollar business with operations localized in over thirty countries.

Second Life products in eBay for auction:

Second life is now became a very popular virtual world for the people. There are lots of stuff you
can buy and sell as a product of Second Life. EBay is the largest market for these kinds of
transactions. The products or items of Second Life that can be found now on the eBay are:
• Lindens :
Linden dollars
Linden streets
Linden clock
• Second Life Avatar:
Avatar DVD
Avatar Blue-ray
Avatar the last air bender
Avatar poster
Avatar cologne
• Second Life Land:
Second life Real-estate
• Second Life Game
• Books:
Children and young adult
• Fiction and literature
• Audio books
• Pajero bar
 19

The Activity Surrounding These Items:

The activity surrounding these items of Second Life is good. In January, 2007, eBay began
removing all virtual item listings. The sale of such items is prohibited and anyone violating this
policy can find their account limited or suspended. It is prohibited because it violates eBay’s
intellectual property rules, while the longer answer involves the currently complicated legal
status of virtual items. Generally with items like this, EBay’s policy is that anyone selling an
item must be the owner of the underlying intellectual property. Though trading in virtual items
is prohibited, there are some virtual item sales that eBay allows. The eBay policy against the
sale of virtual items is based on their intellectual property rules. Because of this, if you actually
are the owner of the intellectual property, you can buy or sell these virtual items.
The best known example of this is Second Life. According to eBay Second Life is not
considered a game, and thus the sale of Second Life virtual items is not prohibited. Though this
statement seems dependent upon what the definition of a 'game' is, there may also be an
additional basis to this. Linden Lab, the company that owns Second Life, maintains that all
virtual items created by the players are the property of the players, not Linden Lab.

I was a bit surprised when I went to the Web searching for Second Life items on eBay.
Because the activity of these kind of items sale is very much lower than I expected. Because of
the restriction of the eBay there are now only few items can be found in eBay related to Second
Life. Even though eBay rules out Second Life from the restriction it has not been cleared up the
questions regarding what items you can sell or buy. The users of Second Life usually trade in
Second Life. Because of the lower activity rate in eBay they use their own way for selling these
items. If someone want a land on the beach, one may sell it to him/her by re-registering the
owners name of the land in return of Linden (L$) transferred in to the account of the seller.

Question 5: What obstacle does second life have to overcome in order to become a
mainstream business tool? Does it face fewer or more obstacle to become a mainstream
educational tool? To what do you attribute the difference?
 19

Answer: Second life users called residents. Residents create content for the grid using tools
provided by second life. There have some obstacle to overcome in order to become a mainstream
business tool.

1) It allows only nearly unlimited creativity and ownership over user created content It can’t
solve the outside or outdoor problem though it has unlimited creativity. We can’t get
innovation and brainstorming properly in Second life, but get the excellent creativity.

2) After logged in, residents can persona. Without log in no one can persona it. So, it has
some restriction to persona. This is not open for all.

3) It’s changing human to humanoid. An automaton that resembles a human being is the
humanoid. Second life changes the human process system.

4) Second life has its own scripting language, which is a disadvantage to human life. Every
system has to follow international language. So, those understanding problems have to
face by people.

5) Second life need to reconfigure the system to become a mainstream business tool. In
many countries like our Bangladesh many company and people doesn’t know about the
Second life and they have not enough equipment to operate Second life. This is the main
problem in second life.

There seem to me three major obstacles to using Second Life successfully for education:
1) Administrators (and many faculties) think the virtual environment should ‘resemble’ the
classroom environment.
2) Most people who are new to the medium believe Second Life is ‘just a game’ and do not take
educational opportunities that occur in the environment seriously.
3) Second Life is technologically inaccessible for many users.
Second life is a particular advantage to distance learning. In Education there have a fewer
obstacle. Second life presence will help it reduce travel and physical building expenses while
bringing together students and professors from across the goal
Question 6: Would you like to interview for a job using Second Life? Why or why not?
 19

Answer: A job interview is a process in which a potential employee is evaluated by an employer

for prospective employment in their company, organization, or firm. During this process, the
employer hopes to determine whether or not the applicant is suitable for the job. A job interview
typically precedes the hiring decision, and is used to evaluate the candidate. The interview is
usually preceded by the evaluation of submitted résumés from interested candidates, then
selecting a small number of candidates for interviews. Potential job interview opportunities also
include networking events and career fairs. The job interview is considered one of the most
useful tools for evaluating potential employees.

Yes I would like interview for a job using Second Life. But there are some basic things that
someone has to fix if they decide for taking the opportunity to interview for a job. Like:

1) Computer And Internet access

2) Special Software to support Second Life

3) . If you have a job interview in Second Life, you need to choose your avatar carefully!
Your avatar can impact whether or not you get that job

Why I would like to use Second Life for my job interview:

Many businesses interview job candidates on Second Life. Second Life has hosted online job
fairs too. When a company calls anyone for job interview they look at the candidates in different
angels. When someone tries to give their interview in Second Life there are certain aspects of
differential of a candidate to one another is reduced.

 One can easily cope up with the environment.

 A person who is scared and feels shy among other people can be helped by this process.

 You don’t have to worry about how you look.

 You can show your creativity by creating a nice Avatar.

 19

A job interview can be a scary and intimidating, yet necessary, aspect of securing a job. It is vital
that you are well prepared and ready to make your best impression. All phases of your interview
process need to be carefully planned by you before hand to minimize the chance of making any
mistakes that would prevent you from getting the job.

Many folks that have utilized Second Life as a means to networking and job seeking have found
it difficult to design and control the avatars they create. One man participated in the online
training course for the site offered by TMP prior the virtual job fair. He spent 6 hours trying to
design his avatar and learning to navigate the program. He tried to get his avatar as close to his
appearance as possible, however, he found he couldn't dress the avatar professionally for an
interview. His ignorance as to how to dress his avatar led him to wear jeans and a pull-over to the
interview. Although he experienced no technological problems, he was unable to seat his avatar
in a chair, and became confused when several executives from the company asked him questions
at the same time. Other participants found their avatars would start to float during the interview.
It was very disconcerting for most that were serious about employment with the interviewing
entity.
 19

Question 7: Is Second life a precursor of how business will be conducted in the future or a
corporate experiment? Justify your answer.

Answer: Second life has instantly recognized the value of user created content, user investment
and user input and cost savings of leveraging all for new business opportunities. To run a
business properly there has some important component which second life follows exactly. Now,
Second life will be a birthing ground for new industries and transform commerce, marketing
business and learning in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

We believe second life is going to be a precursor of future business conducted or corporate

experiment. It might be able to support in vital business function like:

Communication: Through Second life, business and necessary corporate function will be easier
and effective which will take less time. Here its possible to do important meeting, appointment,
taking interview even any kind of deal in second life. So we can say it with confident second life
has a great opportunity to become a precursor in business and corporate experiment.

Business promotion: Different companies choose Second life as a popular media to promote
their goods and service. Even some information based firm like CNN consider second life as
media to reach the information to the user.

Product development: To serve the best product to customer is the main effort in business. If
the product is dissatisfactory to customer or lower class from other product, or customer want
best product in market, business should develop their product according to their customer need
or want which second life help us in business.

Customer service:

A business can prosper and take good position among the customer by providing a good
customer service. So every business tries to maintain a good relation with customer. If customer
is satisfied then business can satisfy in profit level. If we want some example, there have many
examples. Every telecommunication maintains customer relationship. They provide the best
effort on customer.

Training and marketing:

 19

Every organization has a training factor to develop their skill, knowledge and give the best effort
to customer. And marketing is another best and most important part in business. Without proper
training and marketing no organization business can lead a profitable properness. So, they follow
a strictly maintain about training and marketing. Now, second life gives their effort in training
and marketing. They give many advice and solution in internet which people in training .And
they give many way and strategy about marketing which people follow now days and make
prosper in life.

User created content:

Users all-time get the most value from the business holders. Usually users creates content. They
want a good relationship with others, which second life understood and make way to maintain
users content.

New opportunity and idea in business: Here users can generate their won idea and take the
opportunity of business. May be in future second life will be considered as a potential field of
business where most the business transaction will be done through second life.

User’s investment:

A User always invests where he/she get security, flexibility and relaxes. Second life makes all of
these for user’s investment. . In second life everything is done in systematic and recognized
way.

Cost Savings of Leveraging:

Every company wants to reduce their cost with best effort. Second life gives them such way to
leverage the cost. If cost can be reduced the company will be most profitable and active.
 19

Conclusion

We are human beings and human beings always want to do something different whics is out our
imagination. But Second Life has brought us the opportunity to become who ever we want.It has
made a relationship with our practical life and our imagination. In our daily life we have to think
about our social life, our responsibility, our act towards other. But in Second Life we only care
what we want to care. Second Life is not just another virtual world, it is the opportunity of
becoming someone we are unable to become in our real life. Some say its just a game but its not
just a game. Its a world full of people with hope, love and opportunities. Second Life doesn’t
only teach how to have a social life it also says about new business opportunity. With
technological advancement we are now entering in a new era. And Second Life is very good start
of this new era. Using second life we can determine whether we are capable of changes or not.
New business opportunities in Second Life has enabled us to see things more clearly. Education,
Fashion, Marketing activities and lots of other things have found a new opportunity to grow.
After all we can say that the Second Life is one of the best thing that has been brought by
technology to human kind to serve our need.