But for instance Reuters is focused outward to the larger audience and not themselves. And for that it helps greatly to have a slick custom build, and not all kinds of prefabs around that people have or will see all over SL.

For instance AMB AMRO a dutch bank opended up in SL, and they choose to go with inhouse developers to do it. And sure you can see they have talent, but they defenitly miss the expertise that a dev company can bring. The reason they did this was that they wanted to prove that it could be done inhouse.
But the goal of the Island was to reach outwards to the Dutch community. While it did bring them the publishity they wanted and new sl’ers who couldn’t see the difference yet. In the long run the difference will become appearant. And then is the question will the inhouse devs still beable to keep up.

Offcourse this a lot like the early web, where some did things inhouse and others hired out. Succes and fairly happend on both fronts.

My advise would just like everything else you do in SL, base your decision on who your targeted adience is.

It is flattering and enticing to see the new wave, to have other large entities waving large chunks of money at you with the hope that you can magically breathe relevance into their programs. As a company that has spent 28 years working on implementing our creativity into all new forms of emerging technologies, we saw the metaverse as the next inevitable stage on which to test theories, try art for art sake and have fun experimenting and letting the creative minds roam around without a leash.

I also think it is equally narcissistic to presume that everyone is building a world to suit the old troop of SL residents. That is naive as the Mayans presuming that Cortez would hang out, take a wave or two and bail. Sure SL will have lots of lookylus with short attention spans. But as that comes and ebbs, a new paradigm will evolve in the metaverse in which more bright minds will codiscover deeper truths in the power of this new social application.

Combine and project this with the day that your black box and your dlp lcd tv are all one system with surround sound and streamed wirelessly at optical fibre rates, and that is why we at The lllusion Factory are obsessed with SL and metaverse opportunities. To the extent that developers realize that we are in a tivo world that demands less advertising, and more corporate involvement with culture, I think SL will succeed. If the general public discovers that their favorite brands are just another web site plopped into SL by a few guys who know how to model and script, you will discover another dot bom.

My humble advice… enjoy the new paradigm. Do things because they need to be explored. Show the rest of the world what virtual space offers that no one else has dreamed of… be unique and laugh along the way. Then old SL residents and newbies will know the truth in your goals and you will be an event worth watching…. not avoiding.

Thanks again for sharing… you bring great insight into how many corporations are seeing this opportunity… and for the limited exposure I have had thus far of IBMs accomplishment… I say Kudos! It is fantastic to look at and I have no doubt that they will make great visuals and opportunities come to life that we may not have discovered thus far.