Second Life—the self-described 3-dimensional online digital world imagined, created, and owned by its residents—is a community in nearly every sense of the word.

With the addition of an estimated 20,000 residents a day, Second Life is booming. Measured in Linden dollars, its virtual economy— up more than nine times in the last year—would be one of the fastest growing in the real world.

Think only GenMe millenials hang out in virtual worlds? Think again. As the pie chart shows, about one-third, or over one million of January’s 3.1 million participants are 35 and older; nearly 360,000 of them are over 45.

The following figures are taken from Second Life Statistics* for January 2007:

• Virtual Economy: The number of user-to-user transactions increased 37% to 6.1 billion
• Virtual Area: Land mass expanded 23% to 361 square kilometers
• Real Time: Logged user hours increased 47% from 7.3 million the previous month to 10.8 million
• Real Trade: Buyers and sellers traded goods and services worth just under USD $5 million
• Real Citizens:
  United States 31%
  France 12%
  Germany 10%
  United Kingdom 8%
  Netherlands 6%

Fortune reports many large corporations are investing a portion of their 2007 budget on marketing in Second Life. IBM holds meetings there.

Still think it’s a virtual world?

*Source: Second Life.

Have 16 minutes, 34 seconds to spare? Watch 200 of OneManSho’s impersonations. He really puts the “You” in YouTube.

Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion, where we first saw the video, said, “Even with all of their recent difficulties, you still gotta love YouTube. Check out the talent you can discover. Somebody sign this dude to a TV contract!”

Or as David Letterman would say, “That’s just nuts.”

So assuming you clicked to watch, did you view only a portion of his vignettes, or the full 200? C’mon, fess up.

On April 13th, Brainstorm Principal Jim Wolfe will meet with university advancement professionals from across Indiana at I-CASE to discuss Web 2.0 and the cultural implications of online social networking when marketing to GenMe individuals.

“This presentation has been in great demand primarily because institutions and corporations alike are becoming increasingly aware of the potential dangers and opportunities of the social networking phenomenon.”

According to Wolfe, those charged with advancing electronic design and marketing communications are keen to learn all they can, and every industry can benefit from this knowledge.

For an in-depth exploration of how Web 2.0 can affect your enterprise, contact Brainstorm. For a download sample of the Brainstorm higher education presentation, click here:

Brainstorm Web 2.0 | 52KB pdf

Watch Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us, by Kansas State University Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Michael Wesch, to see how social networking has evolved from text to tags to Web 2.0. (04:31)

Want to write a novel? Penguin just launched a collaborative wiki site called A Million Penguins, “An experiment in creative writing and community. Anyone can join in. Anyone can write. Anyone can edit,” according to Penguin.

While other publishers struggle to find ways to be more nimble, Penguin’s plunge into social networking is refreshing. Fostering a creative communal repository where wordsmiths and hacks alike strive toward a single purpose shows buzz-worthy ambition. Penguin demonstrates that innovation can still prevail no matter the media channel or industry.

So can the collective rise to Joyce and Nabokov, or will the novel remain the domain of the individual? If only Nietzsche and Rand were here to weigh in on that debate—but who needs them when we have “You.”

Give it a look, a read, or a write here.