‘Virtual Worlds’ Marketing —Sherburne

I admit it. I had no idea what he was talking about when we started the discussion. But, by the time we were through, I was beginning to see a vision of a future that could be extremely important to our industry.

First, what are Virtual Worlds? You may have read about Second Life (www.SecondLife.com), since it’s probably the largest. Another would be There.com. Regan points out that, in its current iteration, the Web is a 2D world. Virtual Worlds are 3D and are much more interactive and experiential than the Web as we know it today. These are social networking sites, like the next generation of Facebook or something. But there is a lot of business activity going on there, as well. There are even some printers already there, and PIA/GATF has set up a Second Life location to begin experimenting with what this might mean for the printing industry.