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Nic Mitham at the K Zero blog (a marketing and branding company) posted a map a few days ago of all the real-world brands he could find operating in the virtual world of Second Life, and now he’s already posted a new version. Nice work, though tough to keep up. (Interested readers could help by contacting Nic with new finds, I suppose.) If done well, this could become a great resource. Never content to leave well enough alone, though, I thought up two feature suggestions:

• leave the map at a static URL which simply directs people to latest version [UPDATE: A link to Nic’s static map is now available.]
• make the company names into clickable secondlife:// links

Just thought I’d blog it in case people were interested, especially since there was so much interest from corporates at Virtual Worlds 2007. [Originally spotted on JJProjects.]

[A note before we leave you: I’m not taking the week off from blogging because of the Kathy Sierra affair, but I am going to try to mark all my posts today with a message like this, despite the fact that some other people have a blogging boycott on today. I’m not sure a boycott is the right thing for me, but I don’t mind interrupting a few posts for a public service announcement about an insult culture that has run right off the rails. See you soon.]

I had lunch yesterday at Virtual Worlds 2007 with a couple of guys from the U.S. Department of State, who told me the State Department is considering launching an official project within the virtual world of Second Life. Specifically, this would be an initiative of State’s Public Diplomacy wing, which is headed up by Karen Hughes. Before we go any further, I should note that your tax dollars were not used to feed 3pointD; my tasty lobster salad was kindly picked up by a venture capitalist who was also at the table.

Though any State Department project would at first be very small and include no persistent State Department presence (I don’t think State has budgeted any money for SL yet), it sounds like the public diplomacy department (essentially State’s outreach and PR arm) is considering Second Life and virtual worlds in general as a potentially powerful new communications channel, and that if early experiments go well, it could mean an expansion of their activities there. This is potentially a great way to make more information available about the State department, and get more people engaged in the workings of government, which can’t be a bad thing. We don’t really hear enough from most government bodies in a way that’s palatable; one wonders how some longtime SL residents might react, however.

[A note before we go on: I’m not talking the week off from blogging because of the Kathy Sierra affair, but I am going to try to mark all my posts today with a message like this, despite the fact that some other people have a blogging boycott on today. I’m not sure a boycott is the right thing for me, but I don’t mind interrupting a few posts for a public service announcement about an insult culture that has run right off the rails. Now back to our story.] (more…)