| A mash-up is taking two different ideas and | | | | successful in the world. Just like World of |
| combining them to create something new. In | | | | Warcraft, people like to take shortcuts if possible |
| doing research there appears to be only a little | | | | and will buy the information to help them advance |
| documented information about affiliate marketing | | | | in the game. Affiliate marketing an eBook would |
| being done on second life. Second Life is a social | | | | be the most logical route to monetize traffic for |
| media site that provides a nearly three | | | | 2nd Life. |
| dimensional view of the Internet. | | | | The other, more interesting way of monetizing |
| 2nd Life was founded in 2003. It already boasts | | | | the virtual world would be to affiliate market |
| millions of users. There is some argument about | | | | within Second Life itself. One possibility would be |
| the number of distinct users that utilize the site | | | | to create a storefront and sell services, products |
| because of some people having duplicate Second | | | | or information. The large companies I spoke of |
| Life avatars. 2nd Life provides users the ability to | | | | earlier are currently making their presence known |
| move around in a cyber world. You can interact | | | | in the virtual world, why can't affiliate marketers |
| with other people, own land, buy clothes, buy and | | | | also do the same? |
| rent transportation, and buy entertainment among | | | | The general plan would be the same as done for |
| other things. The site has its own currency in the | | | | people doing searches in Google, Yahoo, or MSN. |
| form of Linden dollars which recently had a | | | | Affiliates would find people with needs and fulfill |
| conversion rate of 256 Lindens = 1 US Dollar. | | | | those needs. There would be an issue of |
| Given the number of users in the 2nd Life site, it | | | | adaptability to actually attract the users in the |
| didn't long for commercial concerns like car | | | | virtual environment. The difference between the |
| companies, clothing manufacturers, compute | | | | search engines most of us are familiar with and |
| companies and others to make their presence | | | | 2nd Life is that in the latter, the users are |
| known. Non-Commercial concerns like colleges and | | | | typically doing more of a random walk around |
| Universities are also starting to hold classes in the | | | | their virtual world. Those in the affiliate marketing |
| virtual world. Given this activity, there appears to | | | | industry would need to figure out the habits and |
| be openings for affiliate marketing concerns to | | | | tendencies in the new world. They would need to |
| make money. | | | | figure out which peoples habits led to actual sales |
| Basically there are two ways that money can be | | | | as opposed to just looking. They would need to |
| made with affiliate marketing on Second Life. One | | | | see if it made more sense to sell the product in |
| way would be to market materials to educate | | | | the actual Second Life environment using Linden |
| and advance your customers experience within | | | | dollars or move the consumer out to the more |
| the world itself. There are tricks to getting money | | | | traditional web interface to get the transaction |
| and spending it in a way such that you can be | | | | done with a more normal currency. |