From an article in The Independent today:

"So far Second Life, which is owned by the US company Linden Lab, is a fairly niche concept: just 350,000 people regularly visit the cyber world, although almost 3 million people have tried it for size, but expect that to change rapidly. Segolene Royal, the French presidential hopeful, has an avatar, as does Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat speaker of the House of Representatives and the most important woman in the US."
..and...
"Running concurrently to this year's main sessions are a series of Second Life interviews conducted by Reuters, which has a virtual bureau inside the cyber world. Maurice Levy, the Publicis chairman, and Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the easyJet founder, are among those being quizzed in front of the Second Life inhabitants. It is part of the chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab's initiative to catapult the forum into the digital era. Mr Schwab is a big fan of Second Life and has his own avatar; in fact, he is unique in that he hasn't had to re-christen his virtual representation."