While many brands are racing to set up a brand space in Second Life (see: Aloft, American Apparel, Telus), iVillage is taking a different approach. Starting today, the online community for women will be hosting a biweekly Girls Night Out in Second Life. Every two weeks a different curator will lead a group of iVillage members on a tour through the metaverse, showing them interesting locations and letting them meet some of Second Life's most remarkable residents. Tours will also include music events, discussions and tutorials.

The goal of the events is to showcase and highlight the community of women who are creating and innovating in Second Life. The initiative is being organized by Electric Artists and The Electric Sheep Company. In an interview with 3pointD, Electric Artists' CEO Marc Schiller points out: "Second Life has an incredibly rich community of women. I didn't really see that the brands coming into Second Life were addressing these women at all. What's needed in Second Life are not more branded islands, but letting people know what the great things in Second Life already are. This is about iVillage extending what they already are on the Web, a place to bring women together."

Tours start in iVillage's loft, where participants can download a branded tour application (HUD). While the tours are geared towards women, all genders are welcome to join in. Which is just as well, since gender swapping isn't uncommon in SL. ;-)

Website: www.ivillagegno.com
Contact: Cynthia, cynthias@electricartists.com

Related:
Tour guides for virtual travel
Because avatars need phones, too
Checking into another dimension
Brave new retail world

Here's a very clever and very 'now' idea: a travel agency for virtual worlds. Synthravels is the first travel organization to offer a guide service to anyone who wants to tour highly-hyped virtual worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft.

The increasing complexity of virtual worlds is making them more interesting, fun and potentially lucrative. But it's also creating a considerable threshold for newbies, especially for those who have little or no experience with online gaming. Compare it to snatching a tourist from his annual holiday in Myrtle Beach and dropping him in the back streets of Mumbai ;-)

Which is why it makes perfect sense for two savvy Italian entrepreneurs to set up a service that takes curious explorers by the hand and shows them the wonders of metaworlds. A customer registers with Synthravels, picks a destination and preferred day and hour for the trip. Within a few days, he or she receives an itinerary by email. To prepare, a visitor has to download any software needed for the virtual world and should also create an avatar. After logging in on the selected day and time, the visitor will find an expert guide waiting to show them the ropes, from the basics of maneuvering to finding elusive and exclusive virtual hotspots.

Tours and destinations are selected by Synthravels' staff: programmers, architects and experienced video gamers. Sightseeing excursions include 'Discover the Post Art Deco architecture of Paragon City', a shopping tour of Second Life, and a lastminute to Entropia Universe, including dinner with Deathifier, the legendary owner of Treasure Island.

Synthravels, which launched last week, welcomes skilled avatars to sign up as guides. Sounds like a great minipreneur gig for experienced gamers, especially for those who can offer added value by giving specialized tours. There's a substantial market for services like Synthravels, from parents who'd like to experience how their children are spending all their waking hours, to thousands of marketing and advertising execs who want to dive into youniversal branding.

Website: www.synthravels.com
Contact: info@synthravels.com

Spotted by: Emerce

Continuing what's becoming a Springwise theme, another brand has popped up in the virtual realm of Second Life. This time it's Telus, Canada's second largest telco, who opened a store in the sim of Shinda last week. Telus is both the first major Canadian corporation, and the first major telecommunications company to enter SL. Unlike Aloft Hotel and American Apparel's store, which are both located on privately owned islands, Telus set up shop in a downtown area on SL's mainland (visit location).

According to 3pointD, the telco's foray into Second Life was initiated by a Telus advertising manager. Sparkle Dale, as she's known in Second Life, has a personal passion for gaming and metaverses and saw an opportunity to extend her employer's brand into a new realm.

The store was designed along the lines of flagship stores in Toronto and Montreal and features phones that are modelled and named after actual Samsung and Motorola models. While integration with Skype, other voice over IP systems and real life mobile phones would of course be an exciting way to merge virtual and real worlds, Telus's SL phones currently only let users shoot off busy messages to other citizens. The phones are on sale for a few hundred Linden Dollars, which is the equivalent of a few US dollars.

Website: http://www.telus.ca and http://secondlife.com

Scion just became first automaker to run a campaign in Second Life, releasing virtual cars in the popular metaverse. Toyota's progressive brand announced the initiative at the Second Life Community Convention in San Francisco.

While a real-world version of the boxy Scion xB was driven around a parking lot near the convention center, silver virtual models were dropped at various points in Second Life for residents to drive. A full launch will follow in October, when SL citizens will be able to customize Scion models. Makes sense, considering Scion already lets buyers do a fair amount of customization on real-world cars. For images of Scion's launch in Second Life, see intellagirl's coverage of the event. (Thanks to Cyrus Huffhines at Millions of Us for lending us an xB!)

Second Life is only accessible for people over 18, so Scion also launched in Whyville, a virtual world for teenagers. Residents of Whyville can buy a Scion with clams (the local currency), customize the car and drive their friends around. Since Whyville has an educational slant, teaching kids about everything from science to money management, members can take out a virtual loan through the site's Club Scion and Toyota Financial Services. Scion launched in Whyville in May and over 1,200 Scions have been purchased since.

For more on brands entering Second Life, check out our previous coverage of Aloft Hotels and American Apparel. The later has sold over 2,000 items of clothing in SL (source: AdAge), and offers virtual shoppers a 15% discount if they buy the same piece of clothing in the real world.

Who's next? Adidas Reebok is planning a Second Life project that will let SL residents give feedback on sneaker models and colours. Meanwhile, engineers at Amazon are working on building a bridge between Amazon and Second Life (Amazon's Jeff Bezos is an investor in Linden Lab, which created Second Life). Last but not least, trendwatching.com offers an extensive overview of branding in virtual worlds in youniversal branding.

Websites: http://www.scion.com and http://secondlife.com

With virtual worlds all the rage right now (our sister-site trendwatching.com's July trend briefing deals with youniversal branding), expect a slew of new metaverses to emerge over the next few months. One to watch is Naughty America, launching this summer.

It's an adult (18+) massively multiplayer online dating game, where players can create their own avatars and explore a 'sexy' world, or turn on their webcams for some real world 'action'. Real-world meet-ups can be arranged for as well.
In other words: a more than mature version of the Habbo Hotels and Neopets of this world, where members can sexually explore like never before.

Given the huge success for anything that involves social software, sex, and meeting up (adultfriendfinder.com claims to have over 20 million members!), Naughty America may well be the success its founders are expecting. And although they're inviting players from across the globe, there's a vibrant opportunity to set up Naughty Belgium, Naughty Singapore, Naughty Dubai, etc.

Oh, and while we're at it: since veoh.com, a video sharing site, recently banned and deleted all 'adult' material, they've lost the only thing that made them truly stand out amongst a sea of competition. And as youtube.com is eating everybody's lunch in the non-adult content arena, there's an instant opportunity here to start NaughtyTube.com as well ;-)