Massively

IBM is a very big company. I would be surprised if they could all stay on the same page.

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What I'm getting out of the ad is a insinuation that it's not enough to just plonk an island down and create a virtual self if you're looking to make a profit in metaverses - you need expertise.

Alternatively, I could also read "What bigheaded people" into it. you know how dangerously easy it is to read stuff wrongly.

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I was rather surprised when I saw this on television. I too got that "virtual worlds are for losers and failures" message, which was all the more confusing given IBM's investment in SL and other VWs.

Watching it closely now, I get the sense that they were probably trying to say, "don't just do something because it's the latest fad, make sure there's business sense behind it". And given the number of big companies coming into SL without a clue what they're doing, I'd say IBM has a point there.

I guess we'd have to ask some business executives (the ad's target demographic) which message _they_ got from the ad.

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Actually for me the most interesting statement made was 'the point of innovation is to make money' - uh, not necessarily.

But otherwise, agree with Patchouli - the work done by IBM in SL versus their marketing team are two very different things across such a large entity...

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I don't see the losers and failures thing. I only see that he's not making real money so he should start teaming up with IBM.

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What I see is a company realizing that creating an island on Second Life doesn't automagically create additional revenue streams.

I think the biggest amount of people in Second Life are people trying to sell things. And tons of sellers without tons of buyers doesn't usually net any profit.

I've tried Second Life. I tried it three times hoping I could "get" what everyone was so hyped up about. Then I realized that is all it's about....hype.

Remove the hype and SL is nothing more than a 3D chatroom where you can waste your money.

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I don't see the "losers and failures" point. But I don't see why should everybody start making (actual) money in virtual worlds. There are lot of other things to do there. How about fun, communication, education and the similar?

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I'm glad I can finally *see* this clip everybody's been talking about.

I'm struck how the white dude is a dead ringer for Hiro Pendragon. Wow! Now the black dude...is he any kind of reference to any real IBM VPs who are pro-SL in fact? (or were...)

This clip is a reference to an old '90s clip of IBMs which you can view here:

It's about people who get all excited about the bells and whistles stuff on the Internet that kids do (like in the 90s video, firey moving letters) and not about actually making money.

You can read one full discussion on this here, and see the old clip link too:

http://eightbar.co.uk/2008/01/22/the-point-of-innovation-is-to-make-actual-money/

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When I first saw this ad I got a chuckle. My favorite place in Second Life to build is the IBM sandbox. IBM has poured a good deal of money into their SL islands. I bet if you sat an IBM VP in charge of Second Life affairs down at a PC and asked them how they were doing on their investment, they'd have that same look on their face as the younger man in the commercial.

@Michael, I too thought at first that SL was just glorified chat, but then I discovered the create and build aspect of the program. I soon found it to be an enjoyable place to do 3d model making, texture creation and custom animations. It's like a poor man's 3DS MAX that crashes a lot. :)

...one day I might just make a sale on something I've made. LOL

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