If you’ve got kids in their early teens, particularly if they are girls, it’s just possible you might have heard of Gaia Online. Amongst other things, it is the largest, English speaking, online forum in the World, with more than 5 million registered users, and more than 850,000 posts so far. Actually it is a manga anime styled, 3D virtual world, and gaming site, where users chose an avatar (a cartoon representation), move around, play the games, go fishing, get jobs, interact with other users in online forums and chat rooms, earn gaia gold to pay for new outfits, and other things. 58% of the users are between 13 and 16. My thirteen year old daughter is one of them, and spends too much of her precious weekends on the site. I’m not sure I approve, and I’m certainly unimpressed with her ambition, as her job there is serving in an ice cream parlour. My eleven year old son tells me he works in a cinema. I’m against prohibition - I know if I ban them, they’ll just go underground and I won’t be able to monitor when and what they are doing on the thing. The company that runs the service is based in California, and earlier this year got $8.9m of VC money to support and expand the business. 
This kind of thing would be unsettling enough as a trend, if it weren’t for the fact that there are several different things just like it aimed at us grown ups. You might just have heard of the largest - Second Life. At a technology event in Manchester two weeks ago, Sam Sethi talked about it, and I saw glazed looks from many of the 35 or so business people in the room who, like me, don’t quite get it. However, whether I get it or not is immaterial. It has to be taken seriously and understood, as people are making money from it, and businesses are moving in. Like Gaia Online, Second Life is a virtual 3D world of land, islands, stores, concert halls, tattoo parlours and places to hang out. The game is aimed at adults, although there is a version called Teen Second Life for under 18s, which removes the adult content and the sex. Yes, virtual sex can be part of the experience. Currently there are just under 2 million “residents”, and when I checked a few seconds ago 13,500 were online. You subscribe, and create an avatar for your alter ego that will live, work and play in the other life. There is a free subscription, but if you have a premium account ($9.95 a month, with quarterly and annual payment options), then you can own property. The currency in Second Life is called Linden Dollars (San Francisco based Linden Lab runs the site) and there is an exchange where Linden Dollars are traded, and can be converted in to real dollars (the exchange rate is about 270 at the moment). You can make things, provide services, buy and sell property. Second Life has already created some millionaires, who have done astute property deals in the ”cooler” places to live within the world…. just like in real life. For marketers, this is a new route to access we consumers, and so big business is on board, and has already opened up virtual premises there. Pontiac, Nissan and Toyota are there. Addidas and Reebok have stores promoting their wares. Suzanne Vega did a concert there. Starwood is prototyping a virtual version of their new hotel chain. One of Dennis’s blogging acquaintances, Neville Hobson, has set up a PR operation in Second Life. 
A very large proportion of gaming and games consoles are owned by adults rather than kids. Once you combine that with the seduction of the social networking possibilities that the Internet brings, it is inevitable that this would be a big success. However, for me this is a line I would prefer not to have to cross. The network of genuine friends and colleagues I’ve built up from things like blogging, social networking, Skype, YouTube, Flickr and the other communities I belong to have changed the way I work out of all proportion over the last year or two. My feet will remain firmly planted in the first life though, and I’m not interested in stepping in to this other virtual world, where identities can be hidden or subverted. However, I’m pragmatic, and when Toyota or Reebok are taking it seriously as a marketing opportunity, then it really does need to be considered as a potential route to market. I suggest you watch that space carefully.Technorati Tags : Enterprise+Irregulars, Second+Life, Gaia+Online, metaverse, virtual+world, gaming, Linden+Labs, marketing
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