Now, you’d be forgiven for thinking that my Second Life is spent shopping for clothes,posing for pictures or chucking a mental down at the-pub-that-I’ve-promised not-to-mention but hey, there is actually more to it than that! Granted, not much.. but I do try to add some substance to my daily adventures. Now, this is a bit of a shameless plug but as you’re probably aware I have an island for hire, so I spend a lot of time attempting to landscape and generally making it look very pretty. I’m not a scripter or builder so I use bought structures and nice things to make the Island look beautiful and I’m rather proud to say it does indeed look very lovely.
It’s actually a very daunting prospect having a large island space to fill, but it’s been a lot of fun making it look as windswept and interesting as I can. I’ve invested a lot of time and Lindens into it..now all I need are the punters!
And herein lies the rub..people think it’s really easy to establish a business in SL for some reason. The press hasn’t helped, a lot of newspapers and magazines have fuelled this perception and run features about making shed loads of dough in our world but not highlighted the pitfalls. For every Anshe Chung there’s a hundred less successful, yet equally hard working entrepreneurs. Then again, why do we assume that because it’s Second Life it will be easier? The mere fact that this is a virtual world should make people realise that it’s going to be more difficult. And yet more peeps flood the grid on a daily basis, looking for ways to exploit this supposed cash-cow. The harsh fact remains: an in-world business is not the same as a real world business, no matter how you package it. Even applying commonly used real life business models to Second Life does not guarantee you success. In the future I’m sure it will be easier to achieve, but for now (however much you’re tempted) unless you have financial backing and many hours to dedicate to the task, don’t even give it a second thought.
Kittywitchin' 