I am a constant Second Life player. As dorky as it is, it has opened up career paths for me into the media, technology journalism, and development fields. I have fun associating and networking with other people who use it not only for business but pleasure as well.
I also work with various charities hosting virtual fundraisers, since it's virtual currency can be exchanged for real. I've also done build replicas of real life buildings for real life educational facilities that have established presences there. It was actually
through my schooling that I started in that one of my remote professors had weekly "meet ups" between his classes there in order to exchange ideas on how virtual platforms can affect development cycles.
Yeah, if ya wanna call it dorky great. But it's opened a ton of paths for me that half life and world of warcraft could never. I think it's an excellent means to network with others in spreading the word about things, though it's population may be a bit low for making a serious inroads to spreading the word about something like ecigs. My DJ'ing reaches a larger audience for that, and whoa, even that got it's start in Second Life.
It's a big virtual sandbox basically. A tool that folks use pretty much however they're gonna use it. Building it up into something it's not or tearing it down into "just another game" doesn't behoove any educational insight on the matter.