Last week was a banner week for me. I really began to drink from the firehose at my new job with Electric Sheep Company. What a great group of people to be working with. And how awesome is it to have as part of your job requirement keeping up with what’s going on in Second Life!?

Aside from customizing my avatar, I actually have a huge project to tackle: build an advertising network for 3D virtual worlds - Second Life being the first. Sure, there are banner ads and the like. That ground has been tread for years. We’ll do that, of course, but there really is so much more in a place like Second Life. Imagine that Apple is hyping their new iWidget. Instead of clicking a banner ad at MacWorld, you get an actual virtual iWidget to play around with in-world. And since we’re only dealing with electrons in Second Life, if you like it, you can make a copy for your friend.

Pump the brand, but also make something fun and useful for people while doing it. And imagine the metrics you can get out of this. Now it’s not just about impressions and click counts. There are real engagement metrics to consider. How many times was the iWidget copied and given to a friend? How many times was it used? How many people were in the vicinity when it was used?

We’re now well underway with the design and have an excellent opportunity to partner with a large media company. Time will only tell how this will all pan out, but for the moment anyway, I’m really excited about it all.