Second Life site has fewer fans than a few months ago and, having failed to make money, many real businesses have left, according to a report in TelecomTV.com
The article quotes Matthew Brotherton, responsible for BT's existence in Second Life, saying that many big commercial companies have given up on the virtual world because they "can't see how it is possible to make any money out of it".
He adds, "T-Mobile, Vodafone and a host of our competitors all had public presences, now you can't find them, they are all taking a step back to save money. There are definitely far fewer businesses than there used to be, it is a struggle to find the ones that were there just a year ago."
There are other signs that all is not well in the virtual world too: there has also been an almost complete change of top management at the company in recent months. Last year Second Life's creator, Philip Rosedale, handed over day-to-day control of the site to Mark Kingdon. CTO Cory Ondrejka has left and so did CFO John Zdanowski, just last week.