Interactive Agencies

  by Pollywog Gardenvale

The Electric Sheep Company

The Electric Sheep Company was founded in April 2005 and is based in New York City. According to the Second Life Wikia, the company believes that “three-dimensional online worlds are moving away from gaming-only content and towards something much bigger: an open platform for interactive content akin to a highly social 3D version of the World Wide Web.”

The company was founded by T. Sibley Verbeck, a leading researcher in advanced computational linguistics and statistical techniques for analyzing multimedia. He is responsible for business development and overall company strategy.

The name “Electric Sheep” is derived from Philip K. Dick’ s 1968 science fiction novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? There’ s also a popular networked screensaver by the same name that displays evolving images of fractal flames.

Clients include CBS, NBC, MTV, AOL, NBA, Bantam Dell, Reuters, and Ben & Jerry’s.

Millions of Us

The San Francisco based company, Millions of Us was launched in May 2006 by two former employees of Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life. According to their website, the company “designs, activates, and measures marketing programs across multiple virtual world and social media platforms.”

Reuben Steiger, founder and CEO, previously held such significant positions as VP of Interactive Services for Las Vegas mogul Steve Winn, and more recently as Linden Lab’s evangelist responsible for business development. While in that role, he brought the first wave of companies and commercial developers into Second Life.

Christian Lassonde, founder and President was previously Program Manager in charge of core product development for Linden Lab. Prior to that, he worked for LucasArt, a division of LucasFilm, and Electronic Arts.

In October 2007, the marketing and advertising agency Omnicom acquired an undisclosed stake in the company—undoubtedly worth Millions of USD. Clients include Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros., Toyota Scion, Microsoft, Intel, and Coca Cola.

Clear Ink

In 1995, David Burk and Steve Nelson founded one of the first Web marketing firms, Berkeley-based Clear Ink. The company eventually grew to become a $150 million integrated marketing communications agency. The company, whose revenue in 2006 was $9 million, is considered by Inc. Magazine to be one the top 1000 fastest growing companies.

Clients include Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, American Express, Broderbund, Pacific Gas & Electric, Blue Cross, Restoration Hardware, Forbes, Cicso Systems, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems.

Most recently, Clear Ink teamed up with NBC to create an authentic, but also tongue-in-cheek portrayal of Second Life for an episode of the The Office. Steve Nelson describes the level of preparation required to produce a scene from the virtual world:

“For all these scenes we had the real world equivalent of storyboarding, location scouting, casting, filming, live audience participation, wardrobe, props, set creation, directing, producing, editing and opening night nerves.”

The company has also created a virtual replica of Capitol Hill in Second Life which serves as a venue for political expression. The sim is frequently used for community events and protests, and is a must-do stop on the campaign trail for a growing “who’s who” list of real world politicians, including Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich.

Aimee Weber Studio

Aimee Weber Studio offers content creation services for an impressive list of clients. Aimee Weber lives in New York and has the distinction of being one of the first to apply for a US trademark registration for an avatar name.

Clients include Peugeot, PR Newswire, Wiley Books, NBC Universal, American Apparel, Save the Children, and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Market Research

Market Truths

Market Truths is a “real world” market research company and the first company to conduct commercial market research in virtual worlds. The company conducts both traditional market research as well as virtual world research with avatars. They publish several standard reports on various aspects of Second Life. Market Truths is the winner of the Edelman and Electric Sheep Company Second Life business plan competition. The company is headquartered in New Zealand and serves clients worldwide.

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