COLDWELL BANKER IN SECOND LIFE

COLDWELL BANKER MOVES INTO SECOND LIFE....great promo to reach next-gen audience. By Joyce Schwarz, blogging at www.hollywood2020.blogs.com.

CNN is reporting that the real estate firm Coldwell Banker is moving into SL for the purpose of selling and renting in-world properties.

Coldwell, which employs over 120,000 real-world sales agents in the United States and operates in a total of 45 countries, isn't in Second Life to make money, says Charlie Young, the company's senior vice president for marketing. "In the end this is about buying and selling homes in the real world," he says. "We're trying to figure out how to reach what we call the 'new consumer'." Executives insist that any profits will be reinvested in Second Life real estate.

"We didn't want to make a play in Second Life just as a pure advertiser," Young explains. Like a few other savvy companies (One example is iVillage, which conducts tours of fun spots of Second Life), Coldwell Banker tried to figure out how to participate in the Second Life community, and "provide real value," in Young's words.

"A small number of land barons mostly control real estate in Second Life," he says, "and we thought we could bring real estate to the masses."