Business Opportunities in Social Virtual Worlds
Virtual worlds enable new ways to create value. Recent examples from Second Life – a virtual world run by Linden Lab – have demonstrated how firms can use this technology to get in touch with customers and provide value to them. This chapter aims at giving an overview of upcoming business opportunities in social virtual worlds. For this purpose, the platform service offered by Linden Lab is analysed first. In the second step, the value creation potential is differentiated into four areas: 1. community-related business models which are comprised of the creation and maintenance of a social system with specific processes; 2. commerce business models which refer to initiation, negotiation and processing of transactions; 3. context business models which add value by supporting navigation and orientation; and finally, 4. content business models which refer to production and preparation of digital content such as avatars, virtual locations and artefacts. The business opportunities of each area are analysed with regard to case examples from Second Life. The chapter concludes with some business implications in order to help practitioners find their way into this new business medium.