The World Wide Web has become an online simulation of reality. You can buy at Amazon.com and millions of other online vendors. You can sell at the world’s biggest garage sale on eBay. And you can search the cached card catalog of the world’s knowledge on Google. But wait, there’s more.

Virtual communities and 3D worlds have sprung up on the web to support nearly any interest from gaming to social networking. But virtual worlds are more than games and networks. Companies like IBM are taking this channel seriously for marketing and recruiting. In the PCmag.com@work article, IBM's Michael Rowe says: "If Web 2.0 is a place where everyone becomes a producer, everyone becomes a content creator, the 3D Internet gives us a whole new level of social interaction in this collaborative space."

But what does this have to do with recruiting? Plenty. In Popular Blogs Sprout Job Boards: Targeting Like Minds, we talked about building relationships with target audiences. Now you can target your recruiting to virtual worlds like Second Life. Check out the BusinessWeek feature for a quick overview.

Then read how IBM Brings HR into the Virtual World with private onboarding, training, and mentoring sites. One of the public areas is a recruitment office that whisks Second Lifers to IBM Canada's recruitment site, powered by Taleo.

To see how seriously one large recruitment advertising agency takes the virtual world, Set a Course for TMP Island “where employers can host job fairs, conduct employee presentations, build virtual replicas of their real world offices, and connect with the job seeker like never before.”

We think that if you take an innovative approach to sourcing, you can benefit from targeting like minds nearly anywhere on the web. But the key to your investment should be a clear focus on your targets.