Book excerpt: 'The Entrepreneur's Guide to Second Life'

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"In Second Life, anyone can have their ideal body type, and everything fits," says Starley Thereian, a famous designer of skins. "People can wear whatever they want, wherever they want. And it's a lot cheaper to buy a designer dress (in Second Life) than in real life."

More to the point, Second Life fashion is a huge business opportunity. It's the biggest volume business--and the most profitable. Well-known designer Munchflower Zaius offers a reason: "The first thing you see when you come into Second Life? Other people wearing hot skins, hot clothes. It's instant peer pressure. You want to look as good as everyone else.

In a world where everyone can be a sex god or goddess, why wouldn't you want to? I'm just catering to it."

Fashion in Second Life is a wondrous world where everyone can wear what they want, assuming they can find someone selling it or can design it themselves.

And it's not just clothes.

It's skins, as well, enabling any avatar to enjoy a Superman-fast change from an everyday boy or girl next door to the fashion model's gala night out look, to the exotic fairy tale shimmer of scales in a mermaid's skin.

With millions of registered Second Life users, it's no wonder that nearly everywhere you look in-world, there is a boutique. Popular stores develop a unique style, catering to specific tastes and to loyal customers who return again and again to buy whatever is new.

Designing women's or men's fashion--Which way to go?
When going into the Second Life fashion business, the first question to ask yourself is whether to go after the women's market, the men's, or both.

It's worth noting that designing fashion items for males in Second Life is very different from designing ones for females, and because of that most people choose one or the other. Some designers cater to both markets, but they are definitely exceptions. So, how to choose?

One way to look at the question is from an economic standpoint: there's simply more business for women's fashion in Second Life. Even though about 60 percent of registered users are men, among active users, about 60 percent are women or use female avatars. And where image-conscious women go, so goes the fashion business.

Men's clothing on the rise
That said, men's fashion is clearly in a growth period. It's not entirely clear why, but Fallingwater Cellardoor, whose Second Life shoe designs are some of the most sought-after, thinks the men's fashion industry is blooming because it reflects the population coming into Second Life these days.

"I suspect more of the men joining now are more fashion-conscious, social, and less geeky," said Fallingwater. "I happen to like geeks--and am one--so that's not an insult, but the stereotypical guy (in Second Life) wears the same outfit for six months and just doesn't care."

Second Life fashion blogs are also writing more about men's fashion, which could lead to increased sales. Additionally, the blossoming Second Life population means there are simply more male avatars wandering around, looking for better clothes, skins, hair, shoes, and the like.

Focusing on a subcommunity
One way to carve out a niche in the fashion business is to cater to a specific subcommunity.

Although Second Life has many residents who don't consider themselves part of any one group, significant numbers do.

One identifying factor of those groups is that they have certain styles of dress. For example, there's a sizable Japanese-themed community whose members dress in various forms of Japanese fashion. Goreans dress in styles set forth in the Gor science fiction books by John Norman. Their role-playing wear includes full dresses for "free" women and silks and scanty outfits for "slave" girls.

Other stores offer stylish business clothing to the growing numbers doing business in Second Life, while others offer fashion tailored to Goths, to the very small avatars known as "Tinies," or to the Victorian Era denizens of the quasi-historical region known as Caledonia.

There are many others, too. If there's a subcommunity in the real world, it probably has a presence--and a fashion--in Second Life. If you're inclined to cater to them, these subcommunities can offer substantial markets, steady clientele, and the opportunity to become known within that niche--even aspire to be the big fish in the pond.

Of course, to successfully design for one of these groups, you'll need a really good feel for their style or at least the commitment to learn it. It helps if you are a member of the community and can follow trends within the group.

If you succeed in creating a line of fashion that appeals to a specific community, you may find you have a steady source of sales as you build your repertoire.

Skills and planning: What you need to know
As you've no doubt noticed in your meanderings through Second Life, there are hundreds of people selling fashion. The thing is, the quality of their products ranges from the barely worth mentioning to the transcendent.

Although not everyone can do transcendent work, my hope is that as you seek to leverage the Second Life fashion business as a way to bring in some money, you will make your products of the highest quality.

This section offers insights on the technical skills you'll need to proceed and suggestions for deciding on the kinds of images to use in your designs.

[godseyesore]

Second life?

What these folk need is a FIRST life!

[Sea of Cortez]

2ndlife sucks, just more propaganda!

This relentless propaganda for 2ndlife is one more example of the lies & lies out of Silicon Valley Big media. I mean no one but a few losers who know nothing about Technology or have no real life find 2ndLife interesting. But since 2ndLife is VC funded, which VCs can have their Big media brethren hype whatever they want, we receive this continuos BS & hype about 2ndLife by Cnet and countless other Big media sources.

Put it this way if 2ndLife was not in Silicon Valley (San Francisco) and had not received VC funding, you would NEVER be reading about it over & over here or elsewhere in Big media, after so many people have said that it is boring & useless. I mean who wants to download a 50MB software to chat as a silly looking Avatar with other
silly looking Avatars. And then have to download that 50MB software in 2 weeks as they change it.

After all, if people want to enter a 3D world to have a virtual world experience and to have fun then they will choose an game like World of War Craft which is media rich and action packed. If people want to have an online business class meeting they would use a product such as eauditorium which is instant to use and offers
application sharing & voice conferencing which are essential features for business meetings.

[Yakk35]

STOP IT

No one cares about Second Life, no one! I could see if you had a million WoW articles because that game actually matters. But SL? It's pretentious BS.

[toster]

30k users logged into Second Life at any given time

30k to over 50k users logged into Second Life at any given time means that *some* people find SL a viable use of their entertainment time. c|net is simply covering a (growing) part of the entertainment computing industry, like WoW or The Sims Online.

While I often wonder what some Second Life users see in SL to devote so much time & energy to it, I also wonder what it is about SL that engenders as much energy (& perhaps as much time) spent in the denigration of SL. It's like the PC/Mac wars. Ultimately, use the right tool for the job - or spend your entertainment time using the gadget or program or service that suits you - whatever it may be.

[Draxon]

problem is

The problem is the media portrays SL as generic family entertainment, when 10k of those users are men(likely some woman) pretending to be "slave girls" or escorts, another 10k looking for slave girls and escorts. the other 10k are fat lazy people who like to go clubbing in sl cuz they were to lazy in rl.

[TGallag69]

To Each There Own.

Some people like WoW- where goals are set for you.
Some people like Second Life- where you make the goal.

On a plus side, all Second Life users legally own IP Rights to anything they create. In games like WoW, you legally own nothing, it all belongs to Blizzard.

Besides all the hype, the number of Second Life residents making a "Sustainable" Living is around 400 or so. Not as big as the media would lead people to believe. I myself only make between $400-$600 a month. And thats from stuff I did in Photoshop about 2 years ago (all designs are copyrighted too). I pay about $15/month for Premium Membership, which is what I'd pay to play Warcraft too, yet I make 26 to 40x that back.

Honestly tho, trying to compare Second Life to other MMO's is Apple's and Oranges. One's an Open-Ended Platform, the others are games.

[play7]

laughable

How do you make money in a game that Linden Lab continues to lose inventory. With creators nolonger supporting their products, if some poor newbie person loses money buy from a vendor and they don`t receive their item you just take their money right? OH! thats how you make $600.00 a month! Priceless! There you go a Second Life business man

[lowenbrau212]

Cnet deleted my first comment

Nice so now Cnet is deleting comments that are against Second Life?

I said I am sick of Dan Terdiman and Second Life, and that SL is a game for social outcasts and pedophiles who would rather wank it to cartoon images on a computer screen rather than go out and meet real people, and that it will run its course sooner rather than later and be forgotten about.

Seriously, why do people play this thing. Its only doing things you can do in real life. In something like World of Warcraft, you can play as a elf with swords and battle-axes fighting dragons and orcs and gaint monsters, and use spells. Thats something you cant do in real life, you use your imagination to "play" in a dream world, and its fun.

So what am I going to do in SL? LOOK AT ME, I'M SHOPPING FOR CLOTHES. WOW WEE!!!!! Cast level 10 change hair color to blond spell!!!

Also, I use to work for an internet company, and they lied about the number of people that visited the site everyday, all internet companies do, Linden is doing the same.

[play7]

They are laughing

You make many important points. WOW and SL are to totaly different games. But the only thing that is worse is Danial Linden ( AKA Dan Terdiman amoung other alts). What is even worse he makes fun of its men users playing girls on sl. What the hell? he insulting people playing the game? Oh they provide the means for faking being a sexy woman. Then Dan Terdiman goes off insulting them? Well these types of people don`t even have a account. They only have it because its their job ( or should i say They feel they have a life) With people thinking people that play Second Life Don`t have lives). Reall Nice.

[play7]

MORE BS form LINDEN LAB!

Why is it we are subjects to this incorrect. Totally waste of time time of BS about Second Life? If you love sex, underage children (11 to 17 mostly below 15 years of age) playing escorts and making about $50.00 a day faking being a woman on second life giving vr sex to some poor unknowning guy. Then second life is for you! If you can stand a slow laggy game with lindens always banning people for no reason. Nerds that think second life is real. Newbie clubs owners kissing the ***** of Linden Lab to get more and more power. But relaly don`t care of the new players. But only promoting themselves in real life. Then again you love second life. Its a wgreat place to be insulted. Enjoy Your Second Life. For when you done your checking account wil be empty and your life in the toliet.

[jvastine]

Why are you wasting your time?

It really is laughable reading these comments from those ******** about the C|Net coverage regarding Second Life. Sure, the virtual world has several issues that need to be dealt with regarding age restriction, scalability, etc. But C|Net is in the business of covering technology news. If you don't like an article's subject, then why read it or waste time posting your complaints? If you do not like the coverage of C|Net News you are free to get your news from another source, the web is a big place and there are plenty of other news sources out there. Perhaps those who are screaming about the coverage are just seeking attention, or possibly you are jealous because it wasn't your idea, or you just cannot seem to figure out how to monetize it. Anyway, so whether or not you like it, SL is not going to go anywhere. So save yourselves some anxiety and just learn to live with it!