Interesting news over on C|Net (Link) where it’s being reported that an accounting firm is establishing a presence in the virtual world of Second Life. One small piece of the article got me thinking.

Ciroula said she thinks that there are many similarities between advising a business in real life and in “Second Life.”

Those include the need for marketing and brand-building, and the necessity for establishing a good reputation. Further, businesses of all kinds need to learn how to manage money and cash flow.

The first part where mention is made of the “many similarities” won’t get an argument from me. But I’d point out here – as I’m doing now elsewhere (Link) – that the differences can be profound. If the marketing and advertising communities of the world are having trouble dealing with music and movie piracy over p2p networks and have failed dismally in anticipating services such as YouTube (and how to leverage them properly), one wonders if they’ll grok the additional challenges of a fully digital world where not only is piracy rampant, but applicable to every product in the landscape.

Do they understand that products which in real life would be dumb plastic can become, inside the virtual world, containers for extraordinarily complex code which can: track and interact with users, clone themselves and give themselves away, or self-destruct if certain conditions are not satisfied among other things? I don’t believe they fully comprehend this. Nor do I think they comprehend what the impact is that those same objects can communicate with, take instruction from, and give instruction to things external to the virtual world, thus further complicating matters.

When the world is more like Alice’s Wonderland than Bush’s Homeland, the old rules may not – and probably will not – usually apply in the same way these people usually apply them. Rules set up decades ago weren’t written taking into account today’s technologies (like bitTorrent), let alone an entirely wonky virtual world. If they understand this, they’ll provide a valuable service. If they don’t, they’re going to expose themselves in the same way the business service sector has already exposed itself in other ways (and isn’t everyone tired of hearing about the chaos in the advertising industry?).

At least Ciroula seems to recognize the importance of Reputation. Let’s see just how important she considers it.