Virtual Worlds … Can Corporates afford to ignore them?

The emergence of virtual worlds like Second Life, Active Worlds, Red Light Centre and Gaia Online is touted to open ump teem number of opportunities for the organizations to experiment with their stratgies and models, be it organisational or departmental level, because of the ready access to the millions of users. Recruitment, Advertisement, Marketing, Research are some of the functions which I believe will be impacted immediately by Virtual worlds. The fact that virtual worlds have their own Residents (called as avatars), communication, transport, economy, real estate and even currency exchanges makes them a potent market place to reckon with.  They have membership going into millions of users. The virtual world environment seems to be a perfect amalgam of all the elements required to try new business ideas for all the budding entrepreneurs. (There are also political parties in virtual world fighting it out to control and govern in the virtual world) Virtual worlds are under constant development and provide an open environment where anybody with an internet connection can participate. They are facing a lot of technical issues and legal and moral criticism. However the marketing potential they possess is, in my opinion, so immense that, once realized it can actually bring down the cost of advertisement, endorsements etc.

One of the articles in CIO.com “Enterprises Experimenting With Virtual Worlds”  (http://www.cio.com/article/print/119955) aptly highlights the importance, the organizations world over are giving to these Virtual World. Coca-Cola has launched a competition to design an online “Virtual Thirst” Coke machine. This is just one example of how they can be leveraged to involve customers.

In what different ways an organization leverages their potential will actually impact its business model and corporate strategy. With increasing number of internet users, the importance of virtual world is bound to rise. It’s just a matter of time that businesses around the globe will have to come up with strategies with virtual world at its core.

On a different note, as I am writing this blog, some questions cross my mind. Can there be a company specific virtual world, where its employees will be its residents? Is there a Corporate Virtual World in the making? Will virtual-world-avatars replace the real-world-avatars? Think and don’t forget to comment.