Extreme socializing tours

While we're all discovering how to navigate in the land of the social, some clever people have come up with a site designed to show newbies around the increasingly popular virtual worlds, like World of Warcraft and Second Life.

"Synthravels is the first organization to offer a complete guide service to all the people who want to make a tour in virtual worlds without knowing these new realities, even if they have never put their feet in these strange, synthetic grounds." says their site.

I don't mind admitting that these virtual communities scare the bejesus out of me. It's bad enopugh convincing clients to embrace social media. Virtual communities is pushing it waaay beyond credible.

Second Life recently got a credibility boost after Reuters opened an agency and IBM started holding corporate meetings there.

Having said that, it is a fascinating transformation in the way we represent ourselves. I'm not sure I've fully grasped the point of the original names requirement. I mean getting major personalities like, I don't know, Carlos Ghosn - CEO of Renault Nissan, to go online under the name of Bungo Kaloterakis seems to me the wrong side of lunacy, although having said that Renault does build some looney cars...

Sorry, can't stop now, I've got a virtual tour bus to catch.