I had the great pleasure last night of attending the launch night of the Beta Business Park in Second Life.  Given that there are already a number of businesses established there, the 'launch' was more like an official public acknowledgement. The event itself was well organised with a constant stream of live music in the Black Sun club in the Park and demonstration tutorials in the lecture theare. Gwyneth Llewelyn and Gayle Cabaret were extremely helpful in talking me through the concept and it's an interesting model.    Fundamentally they are setting out to provide businesses that want a presence in SL with everything they need in a community of other businesses.  What sets this apart from other business-oriented communities is the services that the team can provide as part of the package.  The most significant of these is the orientation services for new users, ranging from self-guided 'read and click' exercises to video tutorials to live classes.  The team claim to be on hand more or less 24hrs a day, and can be summoned in a variety of ways.  It'll be a while before I hit a huge gong again 'just to see what happens'...

More on this soon.