Debunking 5 Business Myths about Second Life
Recently Forbes featured a widely-cited article (reg. req.) on marketing in Second Life that was so spectacularly incorrect, it inspired me to whip up this reference guide, as the errors there keep cropping up elsewhere.
Context & Ripple Effects
This piece lands mid-way through a two-year argument over what Second Life actually is. By late 2006 the debate had split into camps — GigaGamez framed it as hype versus anti-hype versus anti-anti-hype — and CNET flagged a threat to its virtual economy that same month. By May 2007 TechCrunch's finding that Europeans outnumber Americans three to one was already undercutting the US-centric picture most corporate marketing decks carried.
GigaOM's response targets Forbes specifically, whose widely-cited marketing article the author calls spectacularly incorrect. That matters because Forbes arrives with form: its 2005 'Attack of the Blogs' cover drew backlash for comparing bloggers to lynch mobs, and critics called the piece shallow — so a blogger-led fact-check of a Forbes feature fits an established pattern rather than a one-off spat.
First-order effects
- Marketers and agencies citing Forbes-style Second Life statistics in client pitches now face a point-by-point rebuttal circulating as a standing reference guide, raising the cost of repeating the errors.
Second-order effects
- Forbes' authority with the tech-literate audience that advises brand budgets takes another dent after the 'Attack of the Blogs' backlash, pushing corporate research toward specialist blogs over legacy business press for emerging-platform due diligence.
Third-order effects
- If inflated Second Life metrics keep anchoring corporate decisions, the eventual correction would land on the brands that bought in on bad numbers — a credibility cycle where mainstream press hype and blogger debunking jointly set, then deflate, adoption expectations for virtual worlds.
The trend: Second Life's corporate-marketing wave is entering the debunking phase of its hype cycle, with specialist bloggers positioning themselves as the fact-check layer between mainstream business press and brand adopters.