Second Life: Ready to Podcast

Welcome to the Conference Room It's where avatars meet

Second Life's virtual world has offered businesses the chance to profit, advertise and grow by making anything -- and I mean anything -- possible.

While established companies like Nike (NKE Quote) and American Apparel are using Second Life (SL) to push their brands in the meta-verse, others expect to use this virtual setting to educate. As SL's user count has topped 1 million, businesses like Podcast Ready are hoping to capitalize on this growth by establishing their identity on the Internet.

Podcast Ready is a real-life company that provides software and services to remove the obstacles limiting the widespread adoption of podcasting. A podcast is a multimedia file (usually an MP3) that is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds (RSS) for playback on a computer or portable media device, like Apple's (AAPL Quote) iPod. The goal of Podcast Ready is to make it easier to subscribe, listen to and share podcasts.

Russell Holliman, the founder and CEO of Podcast Ready, is a 17-year veteran of the information technology industry. Along with two German college students, Holliman started Podcast Ready in December 2005 in order to change the way podcast-listening takes place.

Holliman has embraced Second Life's way of socializing and communicating. In fact, he requested that our avatars meet at the Podcast Ready virtual conference room in SL, instead of talking by telephone. I had my virtual alter ego teleport to the island of Nooribeom in the SL world, where Podcast Ready has a sprawling setup of virtual offices.