In-Game Discussion on In-Game Advertising

Just a quick note on an event people might enjoy attending. As a follow-up to the Harvard Business Review’s article on avatar-based marketing, Harvard’s Berkman Center is hosting a roundtable discussion on avatar-based marketing on the privately owned Berkman Island in Second Life on Friday. That’s right… it’s going to be a whole bunch of people controlling avatars that are sitting around discussing marketing to other avatars (that are, in turn, controlled by other people). The postmodern weirdness is palpable.

I will be attending the event in the guise of Jeff Wakawaka and will, hopefully, be easily identifiable in one of our trademark black Interpublic Emerging Media Lab t-shirts. Please come up and say hello.

Details for the event are below:

The event occurs on Friday, June 23, at 12 p.m. PST, on Harvard's Berkman Island, located in Second Life.

Panelists at the event include:

• Hempman Richard (Paul Hemp, Senior Editor, Harvard Business Review)
• Cristiano Midnight (SLUniverse/Snapzilla)
• SNOOPYbrown Zamboni (Jerry Paffendorf, Second Life Future Salon / Electric Sheep Company)
• Zero Grace (Tony Walsh, creator of the Clickable Culture blog)
• Razor Rinkitink (Raz Schionning, director of Web Service, American Apparel)
• Hamlet Au (Wagner James Au, former Second Life embedded journalism and writer of New World Notes)

Pre-reservations can be made by sending an in-game IM to Ansible Berkman, moderator for the event.

Hope to see you all there!