Starwood Aloft leaves Second Life

Almost every day, there is news of a new company opening an office in Second Life. Nevertheless, it is also time to close for some of them.

About two weeks ago, the online newspaper www.latimes.com reported Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worlwide closing its Second Life shop and donating its virtual land to the nonprofit social-networking group TakingITGlobal.

Starwood was one of the first big brands to establish a presence in Second Life, with their much-hyped Virtual Aloft hotel property.

“There's not a compelling reason to stay," said Brian McGuinness, vice president of Aloft. "Starwood's venture into Second Life did accomplish something. Feedback from denizens gave Aloft ideas for its physical hotels. The suggestions included putting radios in showers and painting the lobbies in earth tones rather than primary colors. Now that the design initiative is over, it's difficult to attract people to the virtual hotel to help build the real-world brand."

Who will be the next? However, Starwood is not the only company to leave Second Life and althought the topic still occupies a lot of space on magazines and newspapers (especially here in Italy), the number of detractors raises everyday.

Few months ago we decided to explore Second Life. We were very disappointed in discovering an empty virtual world (empty shops, inccessible streets, hotel closed...) although casinos, sex shops and hot venues were all bursting.

Nowadays, our thoughts have found a new confirmation in the article of LA Times. Ian Schafer, chief executive of online marketing firm Deep Focus, which advises clients about entering virtual worlds, said he recently toured Second Life. He started at the Aloft hotel and found it empty. He moved on to casinos, brothels and strip clubs, and they were packed. Schafer said he found in his research that "one of the most frequently purchased items in Second Life is genitalia."

Another problem for some is that Second Life doesn't have enough active residents. Between May and June, the population of active avatars declined 2.5%, and the volume of U.S. money exchanged within the world fell from a high of $7.3 million in March to $6.8 million in June.

On its website, Second Life says the number of total residents is more than 8 million. But that counts people who signed in once and never returned, as well as multiple avatars for individual residents. Even at peak times, only about 30,000 to 40,000 users are logged on, said Brian Haven, an analyst with Forrester Research.

"You're talking about a much smaller audience than advertisers are used to reaching," Haven said, which means, slurping up corporate dollars and delivering very little in return.
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