Second Life appoints new Euro chief to boost business

Second Life, the virtual world, has appointed Clare Rees to the new role of European marketing director.

Rees will be responsible for boosting activity on the online platform, including adding more members and encouraging more businesses to use the virtual world as a promotional tool. She joins on October 31.

The online community currently has over 15 million registered users, but only 500,000 of these are considered regular users.

Rees says: “Second Life is growing rapidly, but our active user numbers are nowhere near as high as they could be. In my new role, I want to focus on providing users with more support and any help they need across Europe, and ensure there is increased localised content to maintain user interest.”

She joins Second Lifefrom Macromedia, where she was also European marketing director, and will report to Robin Harper, vice-president of marketing and community development at Second Life parent company Linden Lab.

Harper says: “European interest in Second Life is at an all-time high, and Europeans as a group represent our largest in-world population. We think it’s important to ensure we are both listening to and proactively engaging with residents in thiskey region.”

Rees says that she is planning to expand the European team to support its bid to grow users across the region.

Businesses will be able to buy their own land and set up an online community or target individual communities.

Brands such as American Apparel and Adidas have already set up online stores, and Second Life is keen to make more digital goods and content available to its users across Europe.