It's beyond Second Life - but seems mostly focused there - but there's a fundamental misconception many corporations had when they entered Second Life and it What’s Wrong With Virtual World Marketing in Next Up Blog elaborates on the discussion of what may have gone wrong.

"..The Wrong Reasons

The rush started about a year ago following reports in business magazines about the economy of Second Life and the money some people were reportedly making. Companies started rushing in, not wanting to be late to the party. Some, like Starwood, saw the opportunity to use Second Life as an innovation platform, but others were there thinking this would be a great marketing or even sales channel without really understanding what they were dealing with. The common thread here is that their reasons for being in Second Life have been heavily focused on them and not the Second Life community.

The Wrong Approach

In most cases, companies have approached building a Second Life presence with a traditional marketing mindset. Because it’s a 3D world, the typical approach has been to build a virtual “physical” destination; a store or building where consumers can interact with your brand. But unlike the real world where the best locations are those with high traffic, companies have chosen to build on isolated private islands, safely away from “populated” areas. This allows the companies to totally control the experience and minimize risks from neighbors who may not be complimentary to their brand. The analog to this is the traditional website, which is effectively a island, isolated from other websites on the Internet. Since most companies have entered Second Life without understanding its social nature, this approach is understandable, but flawed."

"…..The third and probably most significant flaw in the typical approach is failing to understand the community you are trying to engage with. Virtual Worlds are very different from websites and physical presences in that they are, by nature, platforms for social networks. In Second Life, its all about adding value to the community. Companies generally have not gone the extra mile to:

1. Determine if there is a community within Second Life that they can/should connect with and..
2. Design a differentiated and sustainable experience experience that adds value for that target community.

I agree, that in most cases, this stuff hasn't been done and the author of the post quotes mine

"…have also been articles and posts that argue, as I do, that the failure of companies to get the return they were expecting from Second Life lies squarely with the companies themselves. You should check out HBR / Paul Hemp’s take on the debate as well as Marshall Sponder’s great post responding to the Wired story. (Thanks to Greg Verdino for the links)"

I like the idea of asking for Success Stories in Second Life - that hasn't really been done much.  You'd think we'd get that from some of the high end conferences - like the one I'm going to next month Second Life Marketing Conference - September 24-26 in NYC.