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Not Much Life in China's Virtual Worlds
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The big multinationals tend to take a page from their Second Life playbook and use the Chinese versions of virtual world to build their brands. However, Chinese companies are coming up with more innovative applications, such as training factory workers, conducting online auctions, or opening virtual classrooms.
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While Xu and his rivals are just getting started, multinationals are paying attention because of the demographics of their target audience and their appeal to Western companies. Companies see virtual worlds as a way to boost their image with demanding young consumers. For instance, in addition to P&G, Intel (INTC), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) have also set up shop in the Chinese sites. The companies have created floating billboards and virtual salons to reach a predominantly male audience in its mid-20s. "We see HiPiHi as more of a platform to reach young and trendy generation, to provide them with a brand new online experiences, and as a signal to the general public that VS is leading the trend," says Heidi Wang, senior external relations manager at P&G.
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Coke Promotes Itself in a New Virtual World - New York Times
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COCA-COLA lovers will have a new place to hang out starting today, and it is an island on the Internet that is shaped like a Coke bottle.
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ld site called there.com that tries to filter out unsavory content. The company that operates there.com, Makena Technologies, uses software to censor user postings for foul language and employs a team of people to filter out content that might infringe on copyrights or fall outside a PG-13 rating. Makena, of San Mateo, Calif., says that these practices make its site desirable to advertisers.
At CC Metro, Coca-Cola customers
ABC News: Virtual World, Real Life Business Problems
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Speaking candidly in interviews and discussion sessions at the "Second Life" Community Convention here this weekend, entrepreneurs said they must consistently deal not only with traditional issues of brand recognition and quality control, but also technical difficulties that impede access to clients. They also must compete against Fortune 500 companies who give goods and services away for free in "Second Life" in the hopes of turning a profit in the "first" world.
A Virtual World but Real Money - New York Times
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The new Sony BMG building has rooms devoted to popular musicians like Justin Timberlake and DMX, allowing fans to mingle, listen to tunes or watch videos. Sony BMG is also toying with renting residences in the complex, as well as selling music downloads that people can listen to throughout the simulated world.
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The spread of these worlds, however, is limited by access to high-speed Internet connections and, in Second Life’s case, software that is challenging to master and only runs on certain models of computers.
A Virtual World but Real Money - New York Times
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In Second Life, a company like Nissan or its advertising agency could buy an “island” for a one-time fee of $1,250 and a monthly rate of $195 a month. For its new campaign built around its Sentra car, the company then needed to hire some computer programmers to create a gigantic driving course and design digital cars that people “in world” could actually drive, as well as some billboards and other promotional spots throughout the virtual world that would encourage people to visit Nissan Island.
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Virtual world proponents — including a roster of Linden Labs investors that includes Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com; Mitchell D. Kapor, the software pioneer; and Pierre Omidyar, the eBay founder
Web Playgrounds of the Very Young - New York Times
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Media conglomerates in particular think these sites — part online role-playing game and part social scene — can deliver quick growth, help keep movie franchises alive and instill brand loyalty in a generation of new customers.
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By contrast, Disney last month introduced a “Pirates of the Caribbean” world aimed at children 10 and older, and it has worlds on the way for “Cars” and Tinker Bell, among others.
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Coke Promotes Itself in a New Virtual World - New York Times
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COCA-COLA lovers will have a new place to hang out starting today, and it is an island on the Internet that is shaped like a Coke bottle.
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Coke is introducing its online island within a larger virtual world site called there.com that tries to filter out unsavory content. The company that operates there.com, Makena Technologies, uses software to censor user postings for foul language and employs a team of people to filter out content that might infringe on copyrights or fall outside a PG-13 rating. Makena, of San Mateo, Calif., says that these practices make its site desirable to advertisers.
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Tech Digest: VWFE: How do virtual worlds make money anyway?
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However, Linden also makes money from monthly subscriptions and micropayments using its Linden Dollar currency. He's also talking about all the Second Life users who are making money within the world, from creating content, or offering services - the companies making Second Life zones for brands or events, as well as companies using it for business and training purposes.
Tech Digest: VWFE: How popular are virtual worlds anyway?
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First Jess. There's as little as 10% crossover between online games and social spaces (e.g. World of Warcraft vs Second Life), so they're really separate areas - despite the fact that many people who don't use either confuse the two.
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Each type gets frequent content updates. In something like Second Life, that's created by users, whereas for games, it's the game developer making that content. Games are mainly paid for by monthly subscription fees and the price of the original game, while social spaces are more about item sales, and land renting or purchasing.
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Tech Digest: VWFE: IBM on why virtual worlds need to be interoperable
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interoperability mean for virtual worlds? There's several elements, the first of which is universal registered names and avatars, so you can keep the same name and avatar across different virtual worlds.
Tech Digest: VWFE: Spotlight on five hot new virtual worlds
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1. HiPiHi (link)
It's pronounced High-Pee-High by the way, and has been tagged as 'the Chinese Second Life', being based in Beijing. "Previously, there's been no virtual world that's really catered for the Chinese market and targeted their language barriers," says presenter Bjorn Lee. "Our vision is to create a virtual world and virtual economy."
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Business model: they're starting with land sales, but looking at advertising models and talking to people about this already. And then eventually want to make money from people selling virtual goods in the world.
Tech Digest: Virtual Worlds Week: Top 10 alternatives to Second Life
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Entropia Universe. This straddles the boundaries between virtual worlds and MMORPGS, and is one of the most well-established and groundbreaking examples, particularly for its work on using micropayments to fund... well, pretty much everything you do in the world. It's also created headlines with some expensive purchases of virtual properties with real-world dollars, while earlier this year, Entropia introduced virtual banks
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7. Club Penguin. Remember that huge acquisition I mentioned in the intro to this post? Well, that was Club Penguin. Aimed at children aged 6-14, it sees people waddling around as, yes, penguin avatars (which, if you think about it, is pretty safe - no giving away details of your real-world physical appearance). Anyway, Disney snapped it up for $350 million in August this year, with a further $350 million promised if it hits all its profit targets. The House Of Mouse is clearly expecting big things from the world in the near future. Check it out
Virtual Worlds Management
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Virtual Worlds Management, the leading media company
tracking the virtual worlds industry, has announced findings from a
comprehensive study of accountable transactions that venture capital,
technology and media firms have invested more than $1 billion dollars
in 35 virtual worlds companies in the past 12 months, from October
2006 to October 2007. The announcement comes just prior to the
Virtual
Worlds Conference and Expo taking place October 10-11, 2007, at the
San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, California. The investment
numbers and the future of the industry will be discussed in depth at
the conference.Of the $1 billion, $196.8 Million was invested in
33 companies. Significant investors in the space include Redpoint Ventures,
Charles River Ventures, Intel, and Rustic Canyon Partners. Media companies are
also making sizable investments, including Disney, CBS, Time Warner, and GE/NBC
Universal's Peacock Equity Fund. The remaining $810 million went to two
acquisitions: Walt Disney's $700 million acquisition of Club Penguin and Intel's
$110 million acquisition of 3D virtual worlds graphics technology company Havok."Investors are not just venture capital firms,
but also include major technology, media and entertainment companies," said
Christopher Sherman, Executive Director of Virtual Worlds Management. "The
amount of money invested in this period of time is staggering. We don't see any
slowing in the market adoption of virtual worlds technologies and expect
investment in the space to continue. In fact the market is growing
significantly, with the rate of adoption of virtual worlds increasing as the
technology matures and has more to offer both consumers and enterprise
customers."
Tech Digest: 20 trends defining virtual worlds in 2007
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9. Is it an online game or a virtual world, or both? One of the most interesting trends highlighted at the conference was the blurring of the boundaries between virtual worlds and online games. Until now, they've usually been treated as two separate areas by those in the know (e.g. World of Warcraft versus Second Life), and confused by those who've never tried either. However, that's changing now, as the crop of teen-focused virtual worlds include casual games as a key ingredient, while set-piece events within Second Life like the current CSI project take on several features of games. Meanwhile, even in pure online games, more players are effectively just hanging out and chatting as much as they're slaughtering monsters.
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Social networking convergence. People are starting to think about how virtual worlds fit / don't fit with the likes of Facebook and MySpace, in terms of users' digital identities, and crossover features.
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BBC NEWS | Technology | Virtual worlds opened up to all
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There are already a number of popular virtual worlds such as Second Life, There and Entropia Universe. In addition there are games worlds such as World of Warcraft (WOW).
Most of these require a person to download specialist software or buy a game and there are no links between the different universes. -
ore competent visitors to the site can build a world from scratch using the tool's own programming language known as metamarkup.
The language is "platform agnostic", according to Mr Koster, which means that it can be used to create worlds which can run on anything from a powerful PC to a mobile handset.
The Ins and Outs of Virtual Worlds: The Massively Multiplayer Online Commerce Engine - Reviews by PC Magazine
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But unlike 3D games, Second Life isn't about winning. There are no goals or levels. It's a place where you live, yes, a second life. You don't sword-fight or blow things up—unless you want to. You walk around. You chat with people. You go dancing, skiing, scuba diving, or shopping. Second Life has its own economy, based on virtual "Linden dollars," letting you buy and sell virtual goods—from shirts, shoes, and trinkets to cars, houses, and real estate. There's an open market where you can trade real American money for Linden dollars, but as you buy and sell goods "in-world," you can also find ways of generating virtual currency from scratch.
The trick is that, in Second Life, you're free to create your own virtual objects. There's a limited amount of virtual land, but with Linden Labs supplying the modeling tools, you can build almost anything else. And whatever you create, you own—even in the real world. Intellectual property rights belong to the builder. Once you build an object, you can keep it for yourself or sell it to someone else. That means you have free rein to personalize your digital avatar or your own digital home, but you can also open your own digital boutique, selling anything from handbags to hairdos.
The Ins and Outs of Virtual Worlds - Reviews by PC Magazine
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"We're at the beginning of the next evolution of the Internet—the 3D Internet, as we like to call it," says IBM's Michael Rowe, whose official title is senior manager, 3D Internet and Virtual Worlds. "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."
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So many companies are entering Second Life because it's the thing to do, because the press gives virtual worlds so much attention. "The biggest benefit of Second Life—for companies—is the media attention," says Heather McConnell, an account executive with the international PR firm Hill & Knowlton, who's become the in-house virtual worlds expert, educating clients on these new age services. "The media is generating so many stories about companies entering Second Life, and that's a real advantage." But this sort of press coverage lasts for only so long. In the end, virtual worlds aren't viable business tools unless they offer something more, and whatever the claims of Cisco, IBM, or Fortune, it's hard to tell if they actually will.
Who Wants to Buy a Virtual World?
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The reason they shut down seems to be that they had a poor revenue model. They didn’t charge for memberships or run any advertisements, but only sold very cheap virtual items for display on user profiles. Contrast this with what Club Penguin does to raise most of its money (the sale of paid memberships) and the prospect of turning WhuddleWorld around doesn’t seem unreasonable.
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Darren, amazon hosting does NOT save that much when you have users that return which requires massive amounts of data access, unless you are generating reasonable returns per user the cost is equally as prohibitive as most hosting solutions (when you consider data transfer cost, backup, server time).
What amazon does save you is staffing costs for maintaining your own infrastructure. It allows you to scale fast should you achieve any instant success.
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Second Life: Newsweek hypes the virtual ghost town
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In the August issue of Wired, media writer Frank Rose dissects the disastrous failure of corporate advertising in Second Life, as major brands used to measuring audiences in the millions find themselves lucky to count their Second Life audience in the hundreds.
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Wired, meanwhile exposes the real reason why big brands are on Second Life:
"It had a lot to do with hype," admits [Coca-Cola's worldwide head of interactive marketing] Michael Donnelly.
Reuters/Second Life » Companies shifting virtual world strategies
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“We were quick. We got into Second Life and put up a big building with repurposed Web content. It was a ghost town. Digital tumbleweeds,” said Christian Renaud, head of Cisco’s networked virtual environments
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It turned out people wanted to log on to Second Life to hang out with friends and play casual games, not visit a 3-D version of a corporate Web site.
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