A Business Model Framework for Second Life

This chapter provides a framework to analyse the marketing and promotion advantages of Virtual Communities. Virtual Communities offer companies the possibility to carry out a new products and services promotion and to develop trustful relationships with customers. The key element in the use of Virtual Communities for these purposes is the wide amount of customers that can be reached. Virtual Communities present the aptitude to generate social influence and knowledge sharing among customers. As a consequence, it brings out the increasing number of skills, competencies and "knowledge profiles" of each customer involved in the virtual environment. The framework is consequently applied to Second Life in order to analyse three different business strategies that companies usually implement by using this platform. The first strategy allows companies to perform the placement of their products/services in a dynamic form. The second strategy provides companies the possibility to have a better knowledge of customers' needs in order to develop products and services that satisfy customer's expectations. Finally, the third strategy allows companies to develop high brand awareness.