Notorious Beam Team

From the Fallon Planning Blog:

"Reuters reports on the latest in corporate marketing ventures into the virtual world of Second Life. Pontiac is staking their claim, albeit in a slightly unexpected fashion. Their angle in is buying virtual real-estate: 6 virtual islands that they will lease out for "free" to residents in exchange for the promise that those new land-owners will breed a "vibrant car culture within the community".

Dubbed Morotari Island, Pontiac plans to issue out "parcels of land around Motorati Island to Second Life entrepreneurs and artists who wish to create their own projects devoted to car culture." Users who want to get in on the bid can go to the islands Morotari life website (still under construction), to pitch their ideas in hopes of getting a piece of the land on which to lay out their creations.

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Compared with other corporations that have simply set up shop within SL to operate as they would in the real-world, GM seems to have put more thought into what a brand may need to do to in order to truly integrate itself into this type of new media/virtual world atmosphere. Allowing residents to incorporate Pontiac as part of their own user-created projects provides for a much different level of interaction than simply seeing a billboard on the street or a sky-scraper on the horizon. Enhancing and facilitating a consumer experience rather than creating and controlling it for them. I like it."

For the rest of the article, which is great, click here.