One of the most notorious companies in the virtual world of Second Life is Rezzable. They have 35 sims now, several of which are shockingly gorgeous. From the wild interactive AI of the Toxic Garden to the gigantic apartment beset by aliens called Greenies, these are places that Second Life residents love and return to again and again.
Getting basic information about Rezzable as a company, however, hasn't been easy. Few know anything about them. There's no corporate website with a staff page (which, at present, would only have to list two people), and all inquiries about where the angel investment came from in the first place are met with: "that's confidential". The company's CEO, Jon Himoff (known in-world as "RightAsRain Rimbaud"), isn't exactly free with information. For instance: when I asked Himoff who was behind the avatar "Vega03 Straylight", the avatar that owns all of their sims and most of their groups, he wouldn't tell me at first. In our first conversation I asked twice and he simply stopped talking. Subsequent emails were ignored. This of course didn't stop him from passing on the latest promotional videos about Rezzable.
Eventually we came to some kind of understanding and it was revealed that the avatar is a company figurehead. It's controlled and owned by the company, and used to a large extent because of the limitations in the Second Life system. Part of the difficulty in reaching this point is that Himoff attempts to respect the immersionist way of thinking. "We think of Vega03 as an AI...he helps us manage the sims," he told me.
For the typical resident of Second Life, this may not be a terribly important point. Immersionists like the idea that an avatar is a person and should be taken at face value, without further analysis. It also gives us a hint at the creative mindset required to build something that impresses people.
For business owners, however, understanding how Rezzable came to be and why they do what they do may change the way many do business. They've built many incredible sims, but what has baffled many in virtual world circles is one simple question: why? None of these sims seem to have a visible, pre-defined revenue model. They all seem to be built purely for the love of art and creativity. Why would someone sponsor all of this?
Obviously that meant answering the Vega03 question, but to really understand what's happening we need to go much further than that. I asked Himoff about Rezzable's business plan, and he kept saying things that didn't seem to make sense at first. The plan was to create a series of intriguing destinations and add value to Second Life, and then discover revenue opportunities once regular traffic was established. I struggled with this at first: spend tens (hundreds?) of thousands USD to create high-traffic sims without basing any of it around any revenue model?
After awhile, though, the method to his madness became apparent. Rezzable has partnered with several companies who already have communities outside of Second Life. The Surfline and Stratos builds (opening soon) are attractions for those communities, aimed at people who aren't necessarily in the virtual world yet. When those people enter the sim and continue to come back, at that point brands can look at adding even more value to the experiences and slowly working in the brand as well with a fully engaged user base.
These are looked at more as partnerships than clients for Rezzable. While a basic setup fee is charged to cover expenses, for the most part Rezzable plans to earn revenue based on a multiple-sim distributed ad network. They've just released a promotional video covering the details in that regard. All they have to do to grow the network is create more fascinating places to visit. "Web fundamentals still make sense in virtual world," said Himoff, "content = traffic = sales, just that the ways to do this are totally different."
Create a valuable experience for the users, keep them coming back for more, and work out the details of the revenue model as you go along. It worked for Web 2.0, and it was independent startups like Rezzable that made it happen.
