I was doing some research and I thought that it might be interesting to everyone. I am intentionally leaving out the real estate companies because they are outside the scope of my interest. Other then that, I think I have covered many of the major players. Please let me know if you think I have left anyone out.
The Electric Sheep Company
http://www.electricsheepcompany.com
The have about thirty employees and are most likely the biggest player in SL. They have handled many high profile projects. They run
one of the two main SL retail websites, they sponsor
, and are in good with the Lindens.
SLEXCHAGE
They are the biggest SL retail website, and they handle currency exchange. These guys are the powerhouse of SL retail, and 90% of our current sales go through this site.
Infinite Vision Media
http://infinitevisionmedia.com
These guys are newer but the got the Space Flight Museum and now the Dell account, so they are coming up. They get good press and they have serious talent and experience in Drew Stein, one of the partners of the company.
Here is a great blogpost from them on marketing in SL.
http://infinitevisionmedia.blogspot.com/2006/06/avatar-based-marketing.html
Rivers Run Red
London based, big money, existed before Second Life. I see these guys all over the place. The website is uber slick, and you should check out their full media kits and other materials. If I had big VC these are the guys I would hire.
Millions of Us
Need to learn more about this company, They have the most corporate deals with the biggest main stream companies, and they have been covered by the big news outlets more then anyone else.
Linden Lab
It is always good to stay up on the founders, and this is different from
Check out the press release sections and the white papers they published when they first started.
Crayon
Not sure what I think about these people yet. They have money, but they botched there debut in SL by claiming they were the first company to launch in SL.
Here is a list of SL news sources.
http://secondlife.reuters.com/
http://www.secondlifeherald.com/
http://nwn.blogs.com/
http://www.slquery.com/
http://www.metaversemessenger.com/
http://www.thekonstrukt.com/
http://www.metaversesessions.com/ (podcast)
http://slbusinessmag.com/edition/ (The most professional by far. I would read all there back issues.)
http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/
http://blog.secondstyle.com/ (Lots of traffic, but not as relevant to us.)
http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/C90/
http://history.secondserver.net/index.php/Main_Page
http://secondlife.com/newsletter/2006_11/
I keep a running list of articles where SL made it into the mainstream.
http://www.metaversetech.com/postnuke/html/index.php?name=News&catid=1&topic=&allstories=1
Here is a list of Forums.
http://forums.secondlife.com/ (Main Linden Labs hosted)
http://www.sluniverse.com/forums/
http://sl-forums.com/
http://slhomepage.com/forums/index.php
http://secondresident.com/phpBB2/index.php
http://slprofiles.com/forum/default.asp
Metaverse, Not SL only.
http://adverlab.blogspot.com/
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/