BigPond dips into customer service via Second Life

Stephen Withers
Monday, 01 September 2008 11:08

Business IT - Networking

My guess is that BigPond claims to take up more space in Second Life than any other company that exists outside of that virtual environment, but I'm not sure whether that's anything to boast about.

In yet another sign of BigPond's willingness to use data metering as a way of soft-locking its customers into Telstra-operated properties on the Internet, the use of BigPond islands in Second Life is not metered for most BigPond subscribers.

It's a strategy that makes a lot more sense than an old-fashioned walled garden that uses technical measures to limit the sites and services customers can reach, but one that I think deserves close inspection from the perspective of market competition. Barriers are barriers, whether they are technological or financial.