I went to visit Microsoft Island today, and was mildly disappointed. Apparently they are not really active in Second Life at all.
The only reason I was able to distinguish I was in the right place was when I saw the Visual Studio symbol. There was no one on the island until Ron showed up. I have no idea who Ron is, but he was sitting on the island and I asked him why it was so deserted...
We had a crazy discussion about why Second Life isn't as popular in the United States as it is in Japan. He said that he was pretty sure that Bill Gates had given a speech on the island at some point. Apparently it has been abandoned since. The only things of interest on the island (none of which had to do with Microsoft) were a pool table item, and a blimp that looked pretty cool. There was a project inside the biggest building that was half of a blimp on the outside, and an amphitheater on the inside.
I thought I had found a dud Island, so to be sure I tried to get onto Sun Microsystem's island, but more than 3/4 of it was blocked off unenterable. IBM was the same. What I was able to see on places like Sun Microsystem's public areas and amazon's island were some really cool (yet useless and off topic) sights and items:
In the Amazon Island, there was a temple that was odd in that you weren't allowed to fly. It was disconcerting. But it looked so spectacular I let it go quick!
Really, this assignment excited me and let me down. I thought I was going to see some magic. Now barring the high probability that I was unable to find the islands because of some mistake I made, (happens while I learn), these islands were a total disappointment. To improve, they could all put up the basics: