http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/clearink http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/clearink Amidst all the hype about Second Life, one thing, above all, has been troubling: A lack of transparency about the service's real usage. Some are now trying to address that problem — but it's not clear that a solution is really in their best interest. Second Life marketing firm Clear Ink has released an avatar-tracking tool, Slogbase that, like Web-analytics software, promises to log who visits the virtual world's islands, what they interact with, and how long they stay. Or, more likely, who doesn't visit, what they don't interact with, and how long they don't stay. It's an open source tool that anyone can deploy, but Clear Ink conveniently offers to help interpret the data and offer ways to improve visits. The risk for Clear Ink and other Second Life hangers-on, of course, is that making the barrenness of its tumbleweed-ridden corporate theme parks more obvious may lead marketers to flee the medium once and for all.

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