The central issue of the case for this week is how does Linden Labs Second Life (SL) broaden its appeal - that is, successfully transition from early growth niche markets to the mass market? In addition to fixing certain core platform problems, SL is considering developing new product application solutions to meet the needs of mainstream customers in four market segments - consumers over 18, teens, enterprise customers, and educators.
Individually, for the enterprise segment of SL, you are to prepare a market development plan for a product solution to either a marketing collaboration problem or an operations collaboration problem based on your company. Your solution should increase SL enterprise customer revenue. Along with a title page and executive summary your market development plan should be 1250-1500-words and include what is: (1) the market definition, (2) the target customer, (3) the collaboration problem to be solved, and (4) a generalized concept of the SL problem solution. The market development plan should be written as if to the new management team of SL as described in the case.
Your development plan recommendation should be based on answers to the following problems:
What stage of the PLC you think SL was in at the time of the case.
What the compelling reason is for this target to use a SL solution for this problem.
Why this is the most pressing problem to which a SL solution could be applied.
What solution applications are being used to solve this problem now?
How a SL solution would meet the needs of this customer segment better than the current solution? (Is the pain - of change - worth the gain?)
What changes, if any, to SL's current operations model would be required if this application were to be implemented?