One Dell of a good opportunity!

In case you aren’t up to speed with Second Life, wikipedia defines it as a privately owned, partly subscription-based 3-D virtual world, made publicly available in 2003 by San Francisco-based Linden Lab and founded by former RealNetworks CTO Philip Rosedale. The Second Life "world" resides in a large array of servers that are owned and maintained by Linden Lab, known collectively as "the grid". The Second Life client program provides its users (referred to as Residents) with tools to view and modify the Second Life world and participate in its virtual economy, which concurrently has begun to operate as a "real" market. At precisely 8:05:45 AM PDT, October 18, 2006, the population of Second Life hit 1 Million Residents, and today has upwards of 1.3 Million registered.

According to a recent article from AdWeek, Dell has joined the rush of advertisers to set up outposts in Second Life. A large factory, located on ‘Dell Island’ will serve as a store front for residents to customize and purchase Dell hardware and peripherals, and have them shipped directly to their first life (real life) doorsteps. The island will also feature a computer museum, a replica of Michael Dell’s college dorm room where he began piecing together computers under the Dell banner, and a large conference room, where Dell plans to hold focus groups with residents of Second Life.

In a press conference held by phone and on Dell Island, Philip Rosedale, Second Life's founder and CEO, said "You realize quite quickly you're involved in creation of a new world," he said. "The companies that have been coming into Second Life ... particularly the smart early companies are quite smart about that and contributing to the community."

Hats off to Dell for making this move. They are certainly a smart company…and I’m not just saying that because they are an iPerceptions client. Dell obviously believes in engaging its consumers into dialog that can help them better understand the voice of the customer. They’re doing it in the real world across all their customer touch points…and now they’re doing it in Second Life.