According to some research from the University of Utrecht (Netherlands), and reported on Lost in the Magic Forest, companies in SL see strategic advantages to being here.

They surveyed all the Dutch companies in SL, and found that the companies experienced "first mover advantage" and an increase in innovation. After this, improved contact and communication is the main advantage - with the companies seeing avatars as the new market to reach.

More interestingly, many of the companies had jumped in with both feet, and were exploring SL eagerly, rather than the toe dipping we've seen from many others - IBM being another notable "jump right in" group who are still here and thriving. Perhaps that's something we should consider adding to Mitch Wagner's 5 things to make your business succeed list?

Back in the 1960s, psychologists thought it would be a good idea to do experiments with electric shock being administered for various reasons. Some of these include urging of a superior, answering questions wrong, and others. For some reason some people thought this was bad and the practice was banned. Also, review boards were formed and informed consent was required by experimenters.

Second Life, however, has become a platform in which these experiments can be preformed according to CBC News and UCL professor Mel Slater. Slater is quoted as saying, "It has been argued before that immersive virtual environments can provide a useful tool for social psychological studies in general . . . The results demonstrate that even though all experimental participates knew the situation was unreal, they nevertheless tended to respond as if it were." So, finally evil geniuses have a platform to carry out their maniacal plans.

Two nights ago I had the pleasure of witnessing the inaugural meeting of the Kuurian Expedition in the MMOG World of Warcraft (WoW). The Kuurian Expedition is a guild, or a group in SL speak, that is primarily comprised of researchers and high level decision makers who are interested in virtual worlds. They are being organized in the game for the purpose of learning what all this new fangled MMOG stuff is all about. It is ran by the Synthetic World Initiative, which is a virtual world research and outreach group at the University of Indiana headed up by famed virtual world economist Edward Castronova.

While I attended the meeting, I didn't actually control the player. I watched on a projection screen with a group of people who fit the bill of researcher or high level decision maker. It was actually a lot of fun explaining to them what "lol" and "1337" mean, while trying not to sound like a complete dork (As it turns out, it didn't work). So, we started the meeting at Iron Forge and got a run down of how guilds work and what the purpose of this guild would be. There was a large emphasis on respecting others and embracing role playing ideals while in WoW. Then there was a mission. It was a lot of fun watching as a group of players, all under level 10 (mostly level 1 and 2) traversed the world attempting to fight orcs and crocs, but mostly falling short. Luckily there was a level 41 character around to resurrect everyone as they died.

OK, so what does this have to do with Second Life? The Kuurian Expedition is Second Life bound as well. If you want to join you can search for the group Kuurian in world and get connected with one of the officers. If you are interested in Synthetic Worlds (ie. you read this blog) and new to Second Life, this will be a great opportunity to get in world, learn the basics, and make some friends at the same time.