I created a Second Life avatar a couple weeks ago and entered this strange, surprising, and sometimes frustrating virtual world. Since then, I've become obsessed with it and, as my friends and coworkers will tell you, I can't stop talking about it. I'm not the only one. In addition to a detailed overview and "Travel Guide" published in the October issue of Wired (very helpful to the "noob," I must say) and a recent spate of stories on NPR, just today this rather thought-provoking editorial by Fortune's Senior Editor, David Kirkpatrick entitled, "No, Second Life is not overhyped," appeared.

Kirkpatrick's main thesis is that Second Life actually delivers on the promise of all social networking sites (and a number of cyberpunk novels like Neuromancer and Snow Crash): to provide web users with a complex, visually interesting, intensely interactive environment. The Web continues to rely on a text-layout metaphor even if motion pictures and music happened to be embedded in it. Case in point: as "rich" (or hideous) as it may be, your profile on MySpace is still called a "page." By allowing users to create involving, 3-D "places," Second Life provides a complex and seemingly inexhaustible alternative to the traditional presentation of information, and content in general, an alternative that is looking more and more like the Shape of Things to Come.

Second Life may not be THE future, but it certainly represents it (in every sense of the word). Numerous brands have already staked out territory there (Sony, Wells Fargo Bank, Duran Duran), and more are exploring this new world's possibilities everyday. Since these possibilities are practically infinite - Second Life allows you to create and program the objects one encounters in its servers - there is a growing need for marketing and design consultancies capable of helping clients "understand and harness the power of virtual worlds," as one such firm, Millions of Us, puts it.

Launched by two former employees of Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, Millions of Us already boasts clients like Toyota, Sun Microsystems, and Warner Brothers. And they are far from alone. Another firm, Crayon, has not only started a business aimed at marketing in Second Life, but is actually headquartered in Second Life! (Admittedly, they do have a street address in New York for the time being). Crayon is apparently gaining traction on the splotchily rendered terrain of Second Liife, having most recently introduced a little soft drink called Coca Cola into it.

Which is just to say that anyone who is curious about the direction that marketing to social networks is taking avoids Second Life at their cost. Channel proliferation has posed increasingly daunting challenges to marketers for over a decade now but Second Life ups the ante significantly because, more than just a new channel unto itself, it effectively constitutes a parallel universe duplicating the channels in this one and then inventing new ones.

Moreover, Second Life is the living embodiment of a world ruled by design. Every aspect of it from the leaves on trees to the creases in your avatar's face have actually BEEN designed, either by the original creators or by the ever-growing number of residents. It's not only interesting to find out that Wired, CNET, Reuters all have offices in Second Life, it emphasizes the ongoing and growing need for people who can design and create these virtual spaces (not to mention that the somewhat modified laws of physics add new and unexpected dimensions to "real world" professions like interior design and architecture). And as far as interactive design is concerned, since developing clothing, buildings, and bodies for Second Life requires both visual intelligence and programming ingenuity, it stands as this discipline's veritable apotheosis!

But don't just take my word for it. Become a resident (basic membership is free) and literally see for yourself.