That may help answer some of the questions Michael had about the demands and sort of inquiries we initially anticipate. I’m sure they will evolve over time, though, as users become more accustomed to this new venue for interacting with Dell.

Good points, Nic. Dell have been pretty clear on their reasons for starting in Second Life.

In my view, the learning almost any company gains from experimentation in the virtual world is invaluable to gain some understanding of how a virtual world fits in with real world activities, and vice versa.

It will be interesting to see exactly what Dell will implement in world; no doubt further news soon.

Not everyone sees any value for Dell or the community in Dell being in Second Life, though. Tony Walsh at Clickable Culture for one.

Too much focus on whether anyone’s at the office or not, as it were. This isn’t about mass numbers; it’s about niches.

If only 3 people show up at Dell island on a given day, I would have thought that’s fine if they make a connection with a Dell person there. Or maybe not - they can look around, pick up some info, leave their info, come back another day.

Maybe the point really is creating value connections - connecting with people who want to be connected with, rather than with anyone who just shows up.

There’s two key points here:

1. If successful, other companies (initially in the tech sector) will also implement support services into Second Life. Partly as a me too strategy (for some, the main reason they entered in the first place) and partly for their own experimentation.

2. More importantly, the introduction of sales/customer support may actually be the catalyst for more companies to actually use Second Life as a sales channel in it’s own right. If you’re going to have post-sales mechanics and services, why not have the facility to make the sale in the first place as well as the pre-sale.

Kudos to Dell (and IBM, who are also implementing this approach).

As the notification to you said, we are experimenting with various things in second life, and across the web in general — all part of our view that the evolution of whe web and communications offers great new ways to connect with customers.

Why I really wanted to comment though was to say a special thanks to you. It was in our ealry days of “digital media” (or social media or blogs or web 2 or whatever we want to call all this) that we dropped by your site. Then and over the last year we made strides because people like you have also provided constructive commentary. Thanks for thte “eye on us” and the valuable perspectives.

we appreciate it.

I guess we’ll find out for sure once more information appears from Dell, probably on Direct2Dell as well as within Second Life.