H&R Block in second life

I had a very difficult time finding any interesting second life sites and a nearly impossible time finding serious people to chat with. I found the second life search engine difficult to browse so fell back on google to help find a popular site that could help me with my homework assignment. I was thrilled to come across a May 2007 article from Computerworld.com of "The top 8 corporate websites in second life". Their list included:

8. Best Buy Geek Squad
7. H&R Block
6. Cisco Systems
5. Reuters
4. Dell
3. Sun Microsystems
2. Pontiac
1. IBM

Of the list, Pontiac was the most interesting since it sold a physical product and has been around for decades as part of the slow to react US auto industry. They had an eye-popping video on YouTube that showed all the investments they made- dealerships, race tracks, dance clubs, jayz concerts:



....and to my shocking amazement, Pontiac had taken their site off second life. Reuters as well had left second life along with Reebok, Adidas, and AOL. I then turned to the computer companies and for the most part found them to be barren ghost towns. I entered several times at varying hours of the day and never saw more than 1 lost soul at a time in Dell or Sun. IBM seems to get more traffic but they their site is a "sandbox" for people to play in rather than something promoting the company. The couple of people I ran into were either busy destroying model cities with a giant dragon or bragging about how they turned themselves into boxes.


Finally, I strolled over to H&R Block and that is where I received my biggest surprise. The H&R block website wrote as late as 2008 that you could enter second life and get tax advice just like in real life. The island was completely intact but there was no trace of any buildings or roads. They had removed everything but had not been very public about it and still left the island accessible to visitors. It was on the island that I made a friend who gave me a better understanding of the current state of second life. Nulflux Negulesco is a self-described "creator" on second life. He creates HUD's (Heads up displays) and sells them to people for ~$18 US. He creates HUD's and then tries to sell them to people that he is passing. He initially offered me a HUD that sent millions of objects flying out in all directions like a plague, but I declined. He mentioned that he sells about 2 HUD's every day of the month as supplementary income and makes alot more doing freelancing design for avatars. He seriously tries to sell his products online and forecasts that if he can hit 1% of the avatar market, he'll sell 160,000 HUD's and make $3million US.
Nulflux even built an active stargate and some funny signs. He was very friendly had quite a bit of insite to second life. He had been online for about 2 years and was using H&R blocks site for free since he could test out his HUD's and not have to worry about paying Linden or being bothered. He does not see a market for real life products on second life. He said "Real life companies are failing here cause nobody wants real life products" and "those who will succeed are those who have the will and creativity to make new things and contribute to the virtual world." Nulflux converted his Linden dollars immediately to US currency and rarely spent his own money on the program. The only thing he bought was a translator. I had already found a free translator from "Simbolic" and we both agreed that verbal language communication is improved by second life.