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I attended a seminar in Toronto sponsored by IAB Canada on March 19 called Social Media Marketing + Web 2.0. The seminar was oriented toward business-to-consumer sites but was still useful for B2B sites since consumer expectations are set by B2C sites.

The most intriguing suggestion was that 3-D interactive sites like Second Life will set the standard for how sites will operate in the future. A B2B site based on Second Life would apply the dynamics of personal relationships to business relationships. In effect, a B2B site becomes a sort of dating service bringing buyers and sellers together.

In a B2B environment based on Second Life, the user’s profile would become his avatar (“your persona in the virtual world” according to Second Life). The avatar moves through a 3-D business environment that perhaps resembles a trade show or shopping mall. The site visitor would develop relationships with other avatars that he has met or that match his profile. The site begins to evolve based on the users’ preferences rather than the objectives of the marketing department or developers.

Some businesses are already using the 3-D, interactive facilities of Second Life to conduct seminars. 

As Second Life itself improves, the question is not whether a B2B site should look like Second Life, but why not just move the site to Second Life. Second Life provides a standard interface for users and facilities for marketing that would cost a fortune to duplicate. Apparently Second Life can handle about 70 active users per server so adopting this approach in even a low volume business site would require considerable hardware investment.

The message of the IAB seminar was that Web 2.0 features should be added on to current approaches rather than replace them. But it left the nagging feeling that anyone who is comfortable in Second Life is going to find current B2B efforts, with little images that include “click to enlarge”, pretty clunky. 

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