Virtual World Marketing

Research Magazine: At the end of a hard day’s graft, hundreds of thousands of people now choose to escape reality to spend time in Second Life – a 3D virtual world. However, one man has figured out a way to take his work with him.
Mario Menti, a solutions architect at MR software and services supplier GMI, is experimenting with ways of surveying the 282,000 active residents of this online world.
Menti – whose Second Life name is ‘Mario Sonic’ – can create objects within the game that detect the presence of another player’s avatar (or character). The avatar is then invited to touch the object to take part in a GMI survey, with questions and answers delivered through the game’s chat interface. Surveys trialled so far are “very simple”, said Menti, consisting mainly of yes/no and multiple-choice questions, however open-ended responses can also be collected. Menti believes more sophisticated implementations are possible though, including virtual product or concept testing.
GMI’s Menti builds surveys for Second Life [Research Magazine]