Two days ago, Costa Crociere made an important announcement through an official press release. When the Costa Serena is inaugurated in Marseille on May 19, the 114,000-ton ship will be simultaneously inaugurated in a virtual setting via Second Life, a three-dimensional virtual community. This reproduction of the inaugural ceremonies for Costa's twelfth ship aims to offer all Second Life 'residents' a virtual experience of the Costa Serena inaugural fête. The virtual ceremony, complete with entertainment, a treasure hunt, and fireworks display will be held at 1 p.m. EDT.
"Costa is the first company in the world to host a virtual inaugural in 'Second Life' simultaneously with the ship's actual inaugural ceremony," said Daniele Mancini, Director of E-Business for Costa Crociere. "This project represents the beginning of a series of new projects in which the user is the center of all communication. Web 2.0 will now allow Costa's satisfied cruise customers to reach beyond friends and family to the entire Internet."
After creating your Avatar, you will be able to log in SecondLife and be teleported directly to the event location (I know a lot of business networkers would like that in RealLife!) If you are interested in the event, you can get more information online reading the Daniele Mancini interview (in Italian) at Il Sole 24 Ore.
As a BAIA SecondLife representative I will attend the virtual ceremony and report on the whereabouts and experience next week!
Giorgio Ghersi
