Among the space stations and vampire castles in the virtual world of Second Life, a new kind of development is emerging: IT expo.

This week IBM, Intel and Sun separately staged events in the virtual world, which boasts a population of nearly 900,000.

These forays into the virtual realm are just the latest example of how old-world companies are taking advantage of new world marketing opportunities. In addition to Second Life, technology firms are using MySpace, YouTube and blogs to reach out to customers in more informal and interactive ways.

“Companies recognize that press releases still serve a purpose, but they don’t make a splash,” says Mat Small, a manager at public relations firm Bite Communications, which orchestrated Sun’s debut in Second Life.

Click to see: Sun Chief Researcher John Gage appears in avatar form to talk about Sun’s entry into the virtual world of Second Life.

“The thing about new media is there are some highly sought after audiences: for example, developers. I don’t see very many developers reading press releases,” Small says. “You’re more likely to encounter them in an environment like Second Life, where companies can engage them in a fun, credible, candid, unstructured way that I think is very appealing to them and is more of a two-way dialogue.”

Sun did just that when it held a press conference in Second Life, presided over by Sun Chief Researcher John Gage and Chris Melissinos, Sun’s chief gaming officer. The two appeared in avatar form – an animated rendering that can move within the virtual world – to talk about Sun’s Darkstar gaming project and to unveil the new Sun Pavilion in Second Life. The pavilion includes an outdoor theater, meeting spaces and kiosks that will play videos showing Sun technology at work.

IBM, meanwhile, hosted a block party for Big Blue alumni last week. The Second Life block party is part of a larger program, Greater IBM, which fosters connections between IBM alumni worldwide. "One of the objectives of the meeting is to get IBMers and former IBMers interacting together," says Mathew Georghiou, CEO of educational software development company MediaSpark and a former IBM engineer who made a presentation during the Second Life block party.

For its part, Intel extended a Centrino Core 2 Duo promotion in New York City into Second Life. Virtual builder Versu Richelieu spent Oct. 12-15 living in a store window on 5th Avenue, simultaneously creating a virtual version of her experience in Second Life. Blogs and videos rounded out the Intel event.

Whitepapers

• Selecting Effective Virtual Directories
• Best Practices for HP Servers and HP Enterprise Virtual Array in a Microsoft Exchange
• Compliance, Protection, Recovery: A Layered Approach to Laptop Security
• Endpoint Security: Data Protection for IT, Freedom for Laptop Users
• IT Departments on Data Security: A Research Concepts Survey
• Laptop Security Tool Helps Allina Hospitals Track 97% of IT Assets

View more SOFTWARE whitepapers

Webcasts

• Managing the End User Experience-A Real World Example of Success
• Lowering the Cost of Email Archives
• Google Webcast: Why archive email? Top challenges and best practices
• High Availability for SQL Server 2005 Using Array-Based Replication and Host-Based Mirroring Technologies
• Technical Overview of Exchange Server 2007 with HP Servers and Storage
• Bringing Order and Security to your Mobile Workforce: Corporate Mobility Policy and Device Management On-Demand

View more SOFTWARE webcasts

Special Reports

• Application Performance Management Executive Guide
• Executive Guide: Building a Service Oriented Architecture
• IT Buyers Guide To: Collaboration

View more SOFTWARE special reports