Anybody Home in Second Life?

A new article in Wired Magazine says advertisers appear to be "Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life," as the headline has it.

As I've observed before, I've never been a huge fan of Second Life - to me, it's always seemed like more of a fad (and an easily-abandoned fad) than a reality. On the other hand, there are plenty of marketers who seem to believe that virtual worlds - whether Second Life's or somebody else's - are the marketing wave of the future.

What's interesting to me about the Wired article is that it comes even as Wired "is constructing a virtual Hollywood Hills for show business companies."

But I think the commenters are even more interesting - and may be getting it right: most of them argue that the real problem is that marketers are trying to market on Second Life as they would in real life. But it's not real life. As commenter mdurwin says, "This is a virtual world that they know virtually nothing about. Why would an avatar want a Coke? Duh! There is no thirst in Second Life"...

(Hat Tip: MediaPost)