Despite projections by some that its userbase would grow to 10 million by year's end, HiPiHi, China's largest virtual world, has recorded only 48,000 registered users so far, Business Week reports. NovoKing and UOneNet, two other Chinese virtual worlds which are still being tested by closed groups, have respectively 10,000 and less than 1,000 users. For comparison, Second Life has an estimated 13.5 million "residents."

While the three companies claim to not have invested in any marketing yet to attract more users, they've still managed to secure Chinese and foreign corporate partners hoping to build their brands, treating the space as China's version of Second Life. Companies such as P&G, Intel, and Hewlett-Packard have created floating billboards and virtual salons to reach China's mid-20s males.

With the limited audience, however, advertising isn't nearly as effective as companies had hoped. As a result, Chinese companies are beginning to introduce new applications to the virtual worlds, such as training factory workers, conducting online auctions, or opening virtual classrooms.

Jiangxi Copper, China's largest copper company, has already trained its first batch of workers through a training session held in NovoKing in late April. "The effectiveness of the traditional way of training new workers is extremely low," said Jiangxi Copper's human resource manager Xiong Ying. "It's not keeping pace with the speed [with which] our company is developing. The traditional training model needs to be reformed. The only way is to do so with virtual reality training."

UOneNet is considering setting up 3D mall for buyers and sellers to interact, as well an e-learning community partnership with a Chinese TV Station. Said UOneNet president Eric Ye: "The core is really this multiperson interaction in real time at such a low cost. You never had this before this 3D virtual world. Virtual worlds will eventually be an advertising platform. [But] when you start off, you have to start with things that are innovative and just show the potential to boost the value."