Second Life - an example of Why Not! for marketers

It is great to see how fast the good internet ideas get to mass market even in an offline world - take SecondLife (the virtual world avatar site) - it has been growing steadly over the last year or so among the geek, youth & core onliners, I suppose you would call us "addicts" - all of sudden it has started to get main stream attention in online & offline media - then this week there it is right in the middle of the World Economic Forum - Davos. It must frustrate traditional marketers to see all the old theories of big brand marketing, print & TV placement etc be outperformed ... to see a company and it's brand grow so fast and not only that but actually build "trust" into it's brand equity, and not have to spend $10s of millions. I wonder how long before Google, Yahoo or even one of those traditional media companies tries to acquire Second Life for a YouTube like price. Another great success story and another case study for Harvard etc ... to teach marketers to think out of the box, don't be afraid of change and embrace the new or at least test it - it seems easier for many marketers to say No, when Yes is risky. This lack of risk taking among many marketers - reminds me of an old story when growing up in Dublin, of the student who had an essay in his finals which was titled "Why?" and he wrote a 2 word response, and got an A+, the response was "Why Not!"