I spent some time talking to Misacha Vaughan, co-owner of the newly launched Blue Horizon Business Park [SLUrl] today. They're the second large scale business park that I've encountered in Second Life and already have five companies in residence including a lawyer and a movie producer. The V3 Group runs the larger, better established Silicon Island, which acts as an incubator for real life companies that want to dip their virtual toe in the water before diving in.
Both businesses remind me of "managed hosting" environments, or perhaps something resembling Geocities. They both sport conference and communications facilities and offer clients support and hand holding through their second lives. So far, apart from the fact that these companies can't be found easily in the inworld search as they do not own land, merely rent, I can only see this as a good thing -- I'm betting it wont be too long before we see cut rate, poor quality, mass market monstrosities though.
