No real-world law firms in Second Life? No surprise.

Kevin O'Keefe recently related that virtual storefronts in Second Life for real-world enterprises seem to be shuttering (well, not literally — in Second Life closed businesses just vanish, leaving bare ground behind).

No one who has actually spent time in Second Life should be surprised. The creations of Second Life's more ordinary users are far more interesting than those of real-world companies.

One of the more intriguing features of Second Life is that it allows users to design, program and trade objects amongst themselves. Everything from avatar accoutrements (clothing, hair, jewelry) to buildings, vehicles, plants — the whole Second Life world is populated with the creations of its users, fueling an entire in-world economy lubricated by a so-called "limited license right to ... participate in the virtual economy" of Second Life called the Linden Dollar (L$).

The creations of Second Life users are meant for use in Second Life. They advance the stories that people play out when they use Second Life. They add to the social context of Second Life. By contrast, real-world companies' presences in Second Life tend to look like nothing more than corporate advertising. And not just any advertising at that, but advertising that has no social role in that context. IBM may buck the trend in that it gets a lot of traffic in its Second Life regions, but that's primarily because the software running those areas runs on high-powered, well-connected servers, features Second Life residents can use to their advantage when designing and creating objects. It doesn't make much sense to venture into an artificial world to advertise products that are useless there.