Since November 6th, 2009, Beta Business Park has become the first business-oriented Community Gateway, listed on the login page for new residents, and thus allowing any new user with the intention to enter Second Life® to relate to communities of professional and business users to have their own area to start, with trained helpers to orient them through their first steps in Second Life.

Beta Technologies understands the difficulty for business users to get their first impression in Second Life and find groups of people with the same mindset. With the announcement of Linden Lab’s major product for corporate users, Second Life Enterprise, it is expected that business, still neglecting the possibilities of working in a virtual world and taking advantage of it, will start to take a new look at what Second Life can offer. Exploration and experimentation will very likely be their first reaction.

We are aware that the first impression in this virtual world counts. Being able to immediately connect to users with similar expectation is crucial for entrepreneurs, business owners, or corporate executives to make a valid evaluation of the virtual world and understanding it as quickly as possible. The Second Life experience can be daunting at first for anyone who comes fully unprepared for it. By introducing the Beta Business Park, Beta Technologies has created a whole community addressing the requirements of any business user (no matter what the size of their company actually is), and targeted the experience of Second Life towards those requirements.

By adding an Orientation Area, with the purpose to get new business users quickly up to date with Second Life’s interface, aided by helpful professionals on stand by to provide additional information, the Beta Business Park is able to provide a whole range of services from the very first day a user logs in to Second Life — starting with helping them out, joining a community of business users, provide training materials (but also regularly held workshops), point them to the many events related to working in Second Life and exploring the potential of the virtual world to further business relationships and enlarging a network of contacts, add social events where engaging in discussion can be part of the experience, and even provide land facilities, initial content for your own first virtual presence, and access to a plethora of services ranging from leasing auditoriums for your own events and meetings to creating promotional materials. The companion website, with a free registration, adds documentation, a clipping service, access to transcripts and videos from past business-related events, and the ability to make further contacts.

Now, the possibility to join this business community starts on the very first day a new user registers with Linden Lab for access to Second Life. Just create your avatar and select the Beta Business Park from the list of Community Gateways.

We look forward to meet you in-world!