Social virtual worlds such as the website of Second Life, has acquired a high degree of popularity in the popular and business press. In this article we consider the increasing importance of social virtual worlds, and discuss how companies can use their potential. We start with a virtual social worlds Historically, how they fit into the postmodern paradigm of our time, and how they differ from other social media, such as content communities (eg, YouTube), social networking sites and blogs (eg, Facebook), joint projects (eg, Wikipedia), and virtual game worlds (eg, World Of Warcraft). Subsequently, we present how businesses can use virtual social worlds in advertising / communications, virtual product sales (V-Commerce), market research, human resources, and internal process control. We also highlight the point, companies should pay particular attention in their work, 5Cs of success in virtual social worlds, and the future evolution of what we expect the formation of this sector over the next 5-10 years: the trend towards standardization and interoperability, improvements in software usability , improving the relationship between the real and virtual world, the establishment of law and order, and the conversion of virtual social worlds of business centers in the future. "Hide
by Andreas M. Kaplan, Michael Haenlein Source: Business Horizons 10 pages. Publication Date: November 15, 2009. Prod. #: BH358-PDF-ENG
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