You may remember that classic moment on The West Wing when Josh accidentally slams a grunty red SUV he is interested in buying into a nearby Toyota Prius hybrid. Josh tries to keep his ideological faux pas a naughty secret but another embarrassment for the Bartlett administration quickly follows when bloggers get their hands on incriminating photos of the collision.

One of the reasons why the virtual world Second Life has been so successful is undoubtedly because nothing stops you from hooning around in a red V8 if you want to. It's not going to hurt the environment and its not even going to burn a hole in your pocket. Moreover, it's quite possible to ensure that no one will find out the real-life owner of your avatar, so if you are a political adviser with a reputation for high-minded altruism you can breathe easy in the knowledge that your professional prospects are safe.

Hooning with grunty cars in Second Life is no threat to the environment (figure 1 - right)

BigPond decided to experiment with this strange new virtual place about a year ago and opened its estate in Second Life on March 9 this year. Like anyone else coming into a virtual world for the first time, we chosen an avatar to represent us. We knew this avatar would be important. She would be a symbolic mascot for our estate, carrying out the roles of administrator, governor, ambassador and figurehead. And so was born Very Mulberry, a woman of elegance and wisdom, who today is the formal owner of BigPond's property.

Very Mulberry stretches out over the BigPond islands (figure 2 - right)

Very was a powerful visual symbol. Try to explain a “virtual synthetic world” and you can readily find yourself bobbing in an ocean of blank faces. Or worse, hurled out the back door. But with Very, we didn’t need to get bogged in the detail of Second Life as an immersive, 3D environment with 7.5 million users worldwide. We didn’t need to labour how Second Life taps into the power of user generated content to create countless communities of passionate users. So Very Mulberry was our cover model, the detail went in the fine print, and with a few catchy phrases suggesting Second Life was like “YouTube on steroids” and “a cross between eBay, MySpace and The Matrix movie”…the BigPond Second Life journey had begun.

Of course we knew we weren’t the only large corporation considering a virtual foray. International brands such as Dell, IBM, Reuters, AOL, Vodafone and Big Brother, had taken the plunge overseas already. What we found, however, was that these brand locations were often deserted and uninviting. So we set out to create a location so beautiful and serene that people would come back just to enjoy being there.

People in Second Life fly in the air as much as they walk so BigPond's islands are often seen from above (figure 3 - right)

So today BigPond offers no less than 11 islands, seen from above on this map:

An aerial view of the BigPond estate with Uluru and the Opera House visible from high above... (figure 4 - right)

Each green dot on the map to the right of Uluru represents an avatar in the picture of the Billabong Bar under the map...

Very Mulberry reigns over the municipality...

Very Mulberry is BigPond's corporate mascot: wise, beautiful and kind (figure 5 - right)

... explaining the fine points to our steady stream of new arrivals and presiding over the occasional dispute. Life begins at the orientation islands where new avatars learn how to move around and some of the fundamentals of life in a virtual world. The immigrants are encouraged to move inland to The Pond, Telstra’s central island. It’s an important welcome area. Think of it as a homepage – but in 3D. It has BigPond’s main branding, important navigational elements, advertising and live RSS information.

It's easy to fill a busy social calendar at The Pond (figure 6 - right)

More than 50 billboards have been set up round the islands. We hope a growing number of advertisers will want to be represented on them, with a clickthrough linking directly to specific pages on the web. Click the SL billboard and start a movie. But also trigger your Web browser, showing the page where you can buy from BigPond what you found in Second Life. Help comes in the form of a tour guide. A visitor is whisked through the highlights of our islands - the cinemas, shops, dance clubs, boating and sport – in just a few minutes.

Kick back and do the tourist flight taking in the whole Pond in just minutes (figure 7 - right)

Second Life is all about experience. After you create an avatar, neither you nor your avatar merely sit back and watch. You can dive into the Pond’s underwater zone and almost feel the warm, clear water against your skin. Hire scuba gear and marvel at the procession of fish, coral, shipwrecks and dangerous sharks. All just inches from your nose. There’s buried treasure, dolphins to ride - and manrays to dodge.

Hidden treasure and gorgeous tropical fish await the intrepid (figure 8 - right)

Back on the beach, enter a private video booth and view a growing collection of short videos. One day (intellectual property rights permitting) you’ll be able to just click and buy at the BigPond DVD or Movie Download page.

Larger groups can hang out together in our open air cinema. It’s versatile for presentations and theatre as well. You can fly down to the nearby notice boards and find out about other visitors you might like to meet. People can leave biographical video and audio to introduce themselves. You might want to find a mate to go dancing, start a business or just hang out with a community of friends.

The Pond's nightclub plays well-known Australian dance music and thumps through the night (figure 9 - right)

Second Life has a thriving business economy, but it also offers breathtaking beauty. Stroll in our park on a summer afternoon or jive the night away in our nightclub. We’ve tried to create powerful and memorable experiences you’ll want to tell all your friends about, …but also places of enchantment where you can just kick back and escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
BigPond has created something uniquely Australian, with the Opera House, The Sydney Harbour Bridge and Uluru making their first ever appearances in Second Life. The Billabong Bar has authentic Aussie beer, dances, pools – even bird songs.

BBQ shark over a camp fire is a popular sunset drawcard at The Pond (figure 10 - right)

So after a dance and a laugh, you can take a bushwalk. We’ve tried to make this a spectacle with worldwide appeal, bringing the red centre into people’s lives who would never normally see it, but also letting visitors create their own story here.

We hope BigPond will attract the best fashion apparel and quality goods such as cars and furniture to the dome-shaped shopping venue. The dive centre, for example, has scuba and ice skating equipment. You need ice skates because the Pond, at the flick of a switch, turns from swirling lagoon into Second Life’s largest skating rink.

For yachting or iceskating, The Pond's Australia-shaped lagoon is also for the fashion conscious glamorati - and their pets.

Our scheduled events, competitions and prizes try to keep these natural wonders bustling with activity, community, culture and commerce. Visitors can choose to watch the gritty action of a V8 supercars rally for the pros, or practice to improve their own track time with friends. We’ve actually built two race tracks – one high up in the sky - and all feature large video screens. We use those screens to present BigPond’s own video programmes such as PanelBeaters – and one day we may broadcast V8 action from the real world….and transmit Second Life track action to the video screens around the real world race area.

Our Opera House is a lot more than track decoration too. We’ve designed it to be both experiential and functional.

Very watches a sunset near The Opera House (figure 13 - right)

Both the Bridge and Opera House have textures that represent the real buildings and the Opera House also has a large exhibition gallery underneath where we show special immersive art. We have found a traditional Bridge Climb has been one of our most original and sought after features, although most avatars prefer to fly once they become more experienced.

Very Mulberry gazes out from the Sydney Harbour Bridge (figure 14 - right)

The point about Second Life is that no one can predict exactly where user generated content or virtual communities are going. But our islands help us understand the new directions which may one day help us become a global leader in virtual media and communications.