We spend a lot of time ripping on Second Life for the obvious reason: It's nerdy. Plus we still can't figure out what practical applications it actually has, nevermind that it's continually been touted as the next big thing for business, as Gawker points out.

Despite that, it seems like the journos over at Business Week have gone and drank the Second Life Kool-Aid. In a recent issue, they dedicated an entire spread to the supposed awesomeness of Second Life for corporate business meetings and conferences. And here's their prime example:

"At Xerox, for instance, a group of employees from Europe and the U.S. meets in Second Life each week to hatch strategies for using virtual world technology. In September, Xerox used Second Life to enable about 20 out-of-town employees to virtually attend its 2007 International Women's Conference in Rochester, N.Y. While some 570 people, mostly Xerox employees, attended the event live, a parallel track took place in Second Life. Virtual attendees watched streaming video of the conference and interacted through text chat."

Doesn't that sound unneccessarily complicated - and really unpleasant? Not to mention, will actually seeing Cindy from accounting's avatar (shudder!) make such meetings any more successful? Probably not.

Of course the other issue is that Second Life isn't really made for meetings and conferences—it's made for people who want to live in a fantasty world, which is why stuff like this happens:

"'My extended team uses Second Life primarily to recruit new talent,' says Andrew Sage, a marketing vice-president at Cisco, adding that Second Life is good for finding workers under the age of 25. Yet even for an executive as tech-savvy as Sage, using an avatar in Second Life can be challenging. Early on, during a recruitment seminar for resellers, Sage accidentally caused his avatar to fly away while making a presentation."

Wow, professional! We're sticking to conference calls.