【Author】
Sharma, Gajendra; Ye Qiang; Sun Wenjun
【Source】NINTH WUHAN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON E-BUSINESS, VOLS I-III
【Abstract】Second Life is an intemet based 3D virtual world developed by Linden Lab and created by its residents or avatars. Residents are represented by animated human characters and they communicate with each other to socialize, participate in group activities and create and trade virtual products and services. The different communication media used in Second Life virtual environment are text, voice, instant messaging and blogs. Voice is an additional feature added recently based on web 2.0 technology and instant messaging is preferred for secured communication. Virtual world is also called synthetic world or `metaverse' being the creations of human action. The purpose of this paper is to study communication behavior of residents in Second Life virtual environment and its significance to generate real business value. Creation of objects in Second Life has ownership right and real business value. The sources of making real revenue are buying and selling land, shopping malls, professional jobs and brand promotion of real life products and services. The virtual currency called Linden Dollar is convertible to US Dollar and used for business transactions. Second Life is the place for our imagination and has much more creativity freedom for its users. A case study was performed in the form of online interview from Second Life users to investigate their communication behavior and online business experience in virtual environment. The major theoretical background used in this study was theory of intrinsic motivation, communication theory and social system and word of mouth communication for consumer learning. The result was focused on implication of Second Life communication in marketing decisions, e-business development and strategic management. The Second Life virtual world has real life implications to managers, leaders and policy makers for sharing information and decision making.
【Keywords】Second Life; virtual world; communication; e-business; social networking; virtual reality
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