Is it 5.2 million or 500,000? How many inhabitants really "live" in Second Life? For that matter, what constitutes "living?" And who really cares? My guess is that the inhabitants don't care too much. But the marketers do.


Of course it is the marketers who care, making them the first official census takers of Second Life. After all, how to approach this emerging marketplace if we don't know who is there? Intuitively, we start to ask how many total visitors? Uniques? Average time on site? How many conversions? Then again, is this even the best means of ensuring a proper census?
I'm sad to say that interactive marketers are committing the same crime that their traditional counterparts did at the advent of the Internet. Applying a set of metrics designed for the 2D Web is perhaps not the best means of measuring success in an alternate world.
Before you draw your swords, remember that Second Life was first a place. It became a medium later–or rather a place that became media, through this medium known as the Internet.
So how to measure branded experiences in Second Life? Is it fair to simply say that it should not be compared to anything else you have ever seen? That raw numbers don't even begin to measure the lifetime value of a good experience? You tell me.
Then again, for those who are feeling a bit more drastic, there is always the Neopet solution: No food? It dies.


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Taking a Second Life Census

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

www.saraholoubek.com
Sara Holoubek is a free agent consultant, advising growth firms and investors in the interactive technology and advertising sector. Ms. Holoubek is also the contributing editor of the DM News' SearchBuzz newsletter, and a regular author of the DM News Optimized column.

In 2008 Ms. Holoubek was elected to the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) board of directors for a third term. During this time she also co-founded the SEMPO NY Working Group.

From 2003-2005, Ms. Holoubek served as iCrossing's Chief Strategy Officer, building the firm's New York office and repositioning the iCrossing brand as it raised an early VC round of $13 million. Prior to this experience, Ms. Holoubek held posts in client strategy with interactive agencies Organic and Blue Dingo. Her vertical expertise covers over 10 sectors and includes work with Levi Strauss & Co, Bloomingdales, LexisNexis, Texas Instruments, Colgate-Palmolive, Century 21 Real Estate, Martha Stewart Omnimedia, as well as firms within the WPP family and the Aegis Group family.

Ms. Holoubek has contributed to and/or been quoted in publications such as Adweek, DM News, Mediapost's Search Insider, WSJ.com, The Madison Avenue Journal, ClickZ and Internet Retailer. She also serves as a frequent guest lecturer at venues such as SMX, Search Engine Strategies, OMMA, the DMA, Harvard, NYU and Baruch College.

Ms. Holoubek also brings an international perspective to her work, having lived and worked in Latin America and Europe , and is fluent in Spanish and French and conversant in Portuguese. She holds a B.A. from the University of Iowa and an M.B.A. from HEC in France. She resides in New York City with her husband, baritone Claudio Mascarenhas.

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