OPEN

AdRants has a good post trying to calm things down on the backlash against marketers in Second Life. Some wise words:

In the marketing community, Second Life is the cool new thing just like YouTube, MySpace, podcasting and blogging recently were and AOL was a decade ago. And marketers love cool, new things. Marketers can’t help but glom onto the next new thing because, well, that’s where the people are and advertising, like it or not, follows the people because the people have money. Add to that the decline in effectiveness of “old media” and it’s become a land grab for anything that remotely resembles a means by which to reach an audience that’s gaining more control over how, what, when and where they consume media. Second Life is this week’s poster child for “cool new ad medium” and it’s now part of every agency presentation to their clients.

Next week’s, as I have already said, jumping on Richard’s Sambrook’s bandwagon, will be to have your own online TV station. But that’s by the by…

The AdRants piece was written in part to pour oil on troubled waters around the launch of Crayon.

Seriously, if you’re worried about marketers who don’t know their in-world elbow from their in-world backside, these aren’t the marketoids you’re looking for…

AdRants also carries  a piece by the first person to do any real experiments in marketing in the place, a chap called Erik Hauser of Swivel Media who was responsible for Well’s Fargo’s island “way back”. I like his conclusion:

Like research in first life – what are the residents doing and where are they doing it? How do we reach them in a way that positively affects their Second Life and impacts our brands in their first – which is where, we all know for the most part, they buy our goods and services? These questions and answers are what will truly inform if, and how, marketers move forward in a world without oxygen. I’m watching, and listening, and holding my breath.