There have been several forays by TV properties (gradually losing their audience and associated ad revenues) into social virtual worlds over the past two years. I don’t just mean branded one-off events but actually setting up shop, building a familiar and representive space for the ‘users’ to play in. These forays range from at one end, simple branded spaces pushing episodes on screens through to actually running variants of the TV format to be played out by participant avatars in a detailed build -with many points in-between. But before the meat of the post (a couple of new entrants) here is a quick list to give you an idea of some of the shows and channels that have tried, had some success or failed. As I have been involved in a few of them and visited all, I have listed ones I think have had most impact (engagement) through to those who didn’t quite get it (reversioning).

1. NBC’s Gossip Girl
2. MTV’s – Laguna Beach on There.com (also Hills, PimpMyRide etc)
3. Big Brother – PersonalizeMedia detailed report & at launch
4. Showtimes The L Word
5. CBS – CSI:New York and from TechCrunch
6. Weather Channel – Info, simulations and Extreme Sports area
7. Australia’s ABC TV Island – Channel & some programmes (eg: Librarians)
8. NBC Universal Media Island – Channel & concerts & events
9. London Live – the first music show to appear on the cyberchannel: Virtual Life.TV
10. SkyNews Island – News Set role play
11. The Money Programme BBC screening
12. Channel 4 – Radio Station
13. Sundance Channel – Virtual screening room
14. Inhabited TV 1997! – BBC, BT, Illuminations and others
15. many more…0ver to you and comments!

There is a rule of thumb regarding TV execs and virtual worlds or serious games initiatives – do not let the TV folk take control as they have too much ingrained baggage around non-participatory media and the resultant compromise is often of no use to anyone – get people who understand game play (and be aware that often excludes traditional game developers) and social media involved or face the consequences. The ones above that really worked allowed the participant audience to really ‘live’ in the shoes of the characters either by having activities similar to the protagonists, meeting the ‘fictional characters’, a social space that resonated with the shows aesthetic or a great set with game-like elements. I have talked a lot about Mixed Reality Entertainment in the past and how one of the most innovative uses of virtual space is to extend the TV or Film property into a 24/7, participatory environment. The main reason for doing this is to drive traffic to the TV but also to keep existing followers loyal to the branded property. As an example there is more detail about the reasoning on my post on Big Brother (good and bad) in Second Life (Witnessing the Birth of an Entertainment Form) as well as posts nearby on CSI in Second Life and many of MTVs properties in There.com (TV Property Branded Virtual Worlds – The Beginning). There are moves around the world including BBC and many European broadcasters who are creating worlds alongside and in some cases in front of the TV episodics and this is the important point. Promoting films with games or virtual world spaces has a very limited life span, forging a strong link between virtual world events and TV episodics is to me a virtuous circle – especially considering the 200 plus worlds populated by the youth audience who are typically turning off TV – teens and tweens. Earlier there were many experiments of TV/World hybrids and I was involved, as mentioned before, in the Mirror. Here is John Wyver (then Illuminations) talking about that (remember this is circa 1997!).

The other key element that contributed to the success of The Mirror, much as in real life, was the provision of regular “hosts” for the space. These needed to be frequent visitors who spent a significant amount of their time in the world, and whom users could have some reasonable expectation of encountering when they logged on. These hosts would greet new entrants, introduce people to each other, point out activities and generally help people around. More than this, however, over time they became the core of the community of the world, encouraging people to return and beginning to develop the particular language and culture of The Mirror. Needless to say, they were the saddest to see it turned off after seven weeks – although a number of relationships begun virtually have continued in the real world – including at least one marriage and one recently born child.

Recent company start-ups or collaborations also suggest that there are moves afoot. Icarus studios are squarely aiming at the TV/VirtualWorld hybrid and about 18 months ago Endemol & EA teamed up to create Virtual World TV formats (VirtualMe) based on Deal or No Deal and Big Brother. Also there have been a plethora of immersive film launches (play-in-the-set-type builds) across the metaverse and I Legend, Digital Hollywood, Iron Man, Quantum of Solace and Transformers spring to mind as I write – but as I said this post is more to do with a continuous, what happens on TV resonantes into the virtual world and what happens there is reflected into the TV episodics. (I regularly consult on this specific area so won’t go into any more detail!)…

So, it is interesting to see this trend continuing as new world Twinity starts to do more experiential ‘film’ property marketing and even more ‘demographically focussed’ the current series of Heroes being extended into Habbo

The agreement was brokered by the William Morris Agency and marks the first time ‘Heroes’ has partnered with a virtual world.

..but not in the usual way. As reported by LA Times “‘Heroes’ hops on to Habbo’s virtual world” they will be introducing a virtual-only character Syn Anders who will act as a bridge or guide to the TV series. NBC themselves give more detail here.

While following directions from a mysterious virtual messenger, the new character will take the audience on an adventure as she discovers the history of ‘Heroes’ through a journey that travels back and forth between Habbo.com and the ‘Heroes’ Evolutions site. “We’re excited to work with Habbo to introduce a new character that will extend the enormously popular and Emmy® Award winning ‘Heroes’ interactive story beyond the official Web site on NBC.com,” said Stephen Andrade, senior vice president, Digital Development and General Manager, NBC.com. On Habbo.com, fans of the show will be able to interact with the new virtual hero through a variety of in-game activities. Habbos participating in a weeklong quest will discover their own special powers and will be recruited as new heroes. Those who successfully complete the mission will be awarded various virtual prizes. On the ‘Heroes’ Evolutions site, the new virtual hero will be woven into several of the in-universe, interactive extensions of the on-air show, including a character profile, the Primatech Paper Assignment Tracker and new chapters of the ‘Heroes’ graphic novels.

This is a great use of virtual worlds and it also shows that you don’t need richly rendered environments to be able to engage with participants in these spaces. Also in terms of the ‘linking’ paradigm, it is close to ‘my’ level 3 wikipedia cross-media definition

Excerpt “Cross-media 3.0 – Bridges. – The truest form of cross-media where the story or service structure is specifically authored to drive the audience using strong Call-To-Actions, across media devices to continue the journey. The content placed on the other platform is critical to staying in touch with the experience and the narrative bridges tease you towards investigating or moving to another media form/platform. Obvious examples include a TV show that ends suddenly and gives you a URL to explore more. It may be an SMS that teases and points you towards a live concert in a city square which then leads you to a TV show, then to a podcast then to subscription emails. The trigger, or bridge, is the critical component of this in motivating the cross-media action.”

Onto Twinity and the images here and above are me playing around in the pre-build set of the recently released and not universally praised film The Spirit. Although it grossed $10 million in the first 4 days it was pulled up for being unemotional and 2D. Well part of the problem generally with many big features now is that audiences have changed and want something more experiential – especially with ‘comic-noir’ films – why not let them ‘live’ in the story environment (my wikipedia item)? Twinity though have teamed up with Will Eisner studios to do this event (not in any way my ideal episodic but potentially a way for the Twinity user base to ‘create episodic, comic-noir’ machinima on-going?

CineStar Spirits you Away to Another World – CineStar’s CUBIX cinema in virtual Berlin is the premiere address for all movie-related events in Twinity. The cinema is currently showing the trailer and other exciting movie material from the upcoming premiere of The Spirit, a movie based on Will Eisner’s cult 1940s comic book series, which will be coming to a cinema screen near you from 5 February. Fans of the movie can get their hands on exclusive Spirit merchandising: including posters, standees, and an incredible Spirit mask that lets you see special visual effects inworld. Find more information here. Save the date and come to the opening party!
Date: Monday, 2 February
Time: 17:00 Berlin, 11am NYC, 00:00 Singapore
Where: CineStar CUBIX

Twinity (by Metaversum, the German created virtual world) are a long ways from a mature stable platform, hence being in beta for the past 12 months or so, but are already exhibiting the best ‘world-led’ event-based, user activation. This in my mind is high on the list of reasons for likely success over many of the areas that over-hyped Second Life suffered from in the early days. OK the world is quite big and empty and many ‘social’ tools are not yet available inworld but the kind of activity quoted below (calling for videos, images, stories etc: attached to some well know brands) is great first step community building and more importantly getting a growing community to market for you. Even I had a go at one a few months ago – video embedded below BTW Metaversum you really need to improve the video tools (detached camera please!).

Submit Your Artwork and Win! – Take part in The Spirit Screenshot and Machinima Contest and win an exclusive film poster signed by cult film director Frank Miller or The Spirit action figures.
Things Are Looking A Little Different Around Here…
Wear the mask and see Twinity through the eyes of the Spirit! – Use Twinity’s screenshot and recording tools to create incredible Spirit- inspired images! To be eligible to win the contest, screenshots must be created while wearing the Spirit Mask and its ‘visual effects’ must be demonstrated in your machinima. Screenshots may be submitted in jpg, png or gif formats.
Sensational Prizes - You have the chance to win sensational The Spirit prizes! Three prizes will be given out to the lucky winners of the Screenshot and Machinima Contest:
* 1st prize: The Spirit action figure and film poster signed by Frank Miller
* 2nd prize: The Spirit film poster signed by Frank Miller
* 3rd prize: The Spirit action figure
To take part in the contest, all you have to do is:

• Submit your screenshots together with your Twinity name to quest@twinity.com or
• Upload your movie to a video sharing website, for example “YouTube”, then submit the link to your uploaded video together with your Twinity name to quest@twinity.com
• Competition deadline: 28 February 2009

We’ll celebrate the winning entries with a Winner’s Gallery party in the CineStar Event Hall! Artwork will be displayed in the CUBIX cinema during The Spirit promotion. Keep an eye on Twinity’s Event Calendar for further details!

Of course I would encourage all TV producers to think about their current audience and whether they want to reach them this way. More importantly you need to think of the appropriateness of creating inworld characters or environments for them to exist in – serious games (from documentaries) and childrens episodics are hot ones at the moment . The real effort is more about having great characters that are persistant in the space but beware of bots or NPC’s (non player characters) pretending to be real, this can have a strong counter productive effect. More later.

The agreement was brokered by the William Morris Agency and marks the first time ‘Heroes’ has partnered with a virtual world.

..but not in the usual way. As reported by LA Times “‘Heroes’ hops on to Habbo’s virtual world” they will be introducing a virtual-only character Syn Anders who will act as a bridge or guide to the TV series. NBC themselves give more detail here.

While following directions from a mysterious virtual messenger, the new character will take the audience on an adventure as she discovers the history of ‘Heroes’ through a journey that travels back and forth between Habbo.com and the ‘Heroes’ Evolutions site.  “We’re excited to work with Habbo to introduce a new character that will extend the enormously popular and Emmy® Award winning ‘Heroes’ interactive story beyond the official Web site on NBC.com,” said Stephen Andrade, senior vice president, Digital Development and General Manager, NBC.com.  On Habbo.com, fans of the show will be able to interact with the new virtual hero through a variety of in-game activities. Habbos participating in a weeklong quest will discover their own special powers and will be recruited as new heroes. Those who successfully complete the mission will be awarded various virtual prizes.  On the ‘Heroes’ Evolutions site, the new virtual hero will be woven into several of the in-universe, interactive extensions of the on-air show, including a character profile, the Primatech Paper Assignment Tracker and new chapters of the ‘Heroes’ graphic novels.

This is a great use of virtual worlds and it also shows that you don’t need richly rendered environments to be able to engage with participants in these spaces. Also in terms of the ‘linking’ paradigm,  it is close to my level 3 wikipedia cross-media definition

Excerpt “Cross-media 3.0 – Bridges. – The truest form of cross-media where the story or service structure is specifically authored to drive the audience using strong Call-To-Actions, across media devices to continue the journey. The content placed on the other platform is critical to staying in touch with the experience and the narrative bridges tease you towards investigating or moving to another media form/platform. Obvious examples include a TV show that ends suddenly and gives you a URL to explore more. It may be an SMS that teases and points you towards a live concert in a city square which then leads you to a TV show, then to a podcast then to subscription emails. The trigger, or bridge, is the critical component of this in motivating the cross-media action.”

Of course I would encourage all TV producers to think about their current audience and whether they want to reach them this way. More importantly you need to think of the appropriateness of creating inworld characters or environments for them to exist in – serious games (from documentaries) and childrens episodics are hot ones at the moment . The real effort is more about having great characters that are persistant in the space but beware of bots or NPC’s (non player characters) pretending to be real, this can have a strong counter productive effect. More later.

“Games Women Play” Sep 08  from the Edge

• Online casual games bring in 150 million women every month– roughly half the population of the United States.
• Nearly two-thirds of women casual players online are over 35.
• Women play casual games 5 to 10 hours per day – significantly greater than the 7.4 hours per week by a survey by the Casual Gaming Association.
• Competition, rather than simple relaxation or escapism, motivates them to play.
• Female players who are 18 and older represent one third of the game-playing population while male players who are 17 or younger represent only 18 percent of casual gamers
• Playing casual games is often the first thing women do after waking. They check their ranking and play for on average of 2 ½ hours every morning.
• Women engage in trivia games with the family members but play action games alone.
• Most women players are married or in a relationship and have children.

Online Gaming Popularity Grows Among Youngest and Oldest Female Segments in the U.S. ComScore report.

• Significant user growth among teenage girls between the ages of 12 and 17 and women between the ages of 55 and 64.
• Growth in the 12 – 17 age range was 55% compared to the total female online gaming audience rate of 27%
• The over-55 age range grew 43%.

BBC 23 December 2008 “Battle of the Sexes”

• It found that the most hard-core players are female, that gamers are healthier than average, and that game playing is an increasingly social activity.
• Despite gaming being seen as a male activity, female players now make up about 40% of the gaming population.
• The study (detailed link here from Wiley interscience) looked at gender differences in more than 2,400 gamers playing EverQuest II.

Industry Facts from Entertainment Software Association ESA

• The average game player is 35 years old and has been playing games for 13 years.
• The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is 40 years old.
• Forty percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (33 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent).
• In 2008, 26 percent of Americans over the age of 50 played video games, an increase from nine percent in 1999
• Sixty-three percent of parents believe games are a positive part of their children’s lives.

Women Embrace Casual Games from RedHerring “Casual Gamers Anything But”

• Spend as much as 20 hours each week playing their favorite games.
• More than 70 percent said they play at night, and 58 percent have no children living at home.
• Results from the Harris research reveal that 67 percent of the women over 40 who play games do so at least four times per week. Nearly half play every day.
• Some 60 percent say they would rather play a casual game than talk on the phone or do projects around the home, while nearly 50 percent said they would rather play a casual game than go to a movie.

PDF report by Pew Internet. “Adults and Video Games”

• More than half – 53% – of all American adults play video games of some kind
• Independent of all other factors, younger adults are still more likely to play games.
• Among older adults 65+ who play video games, nearly a third play games everyday, a significantly larger percentage than all younger players, of whom about 20% play everyday.
• Gaming consoles are the most popular for young adults: 75% of 18-29 year old gamers play on consoles, compared with 68% who use computers
• Computers are the most popular among the total adult gaming population, with 73% of adult gamers using computers to play games, compared with 53% console users, 35% who using cell phones, and 25% using portable gaming devices.

BBC 17 Sep 2008 “Online gamers are not unhealthy“

• The “couch potato” image of computer gamers is unfounded, with many in better than average shape, claim US researchers.
• More than 7,000 players of the online game EverQuest II were quizzed about their health by scientists.
• They found gamers’ body mass index (BMI) tended to be lower than the US average – with many taking “proper” exercise more than once a week.

Driving Force in Video Gaming: Women and Baby Boomers. Reported on PC World Aug 2008.  IBISWorld claims that:

• 38 percent of US gamers are women
• The average player is 35 years old
• 24 percent are over 50.
• The percentage of female video gamers climbed from 33 to 38 percent in five years bolstered in part by Nintendo’s Wii, but also “interactive group games” such as Singstar, Rock Band, and Lips, as well as The Sims, The Movies, Nintendogs and NeoPets.

Demographics of the top 3 games on Facebook – from Bret on Social Games

• Scramble which is the only game among the top three developers dominated by women(63%).
• The age of Zynga players is spread more evenly among the three age segments, but with ~50% in the 22-25 age bracket.
• Blake Commagere’s Monsters games also have ~50% of their users in the 22-25 age bracket.
• They also have a fairly even male-female ratio.

Second Life demographics and usage – reported by Lost in Bananaverse

• 83.79% of the population is 25 years and older, and the older users spend far more time in Second Life than younger users
• Females spent nearly twice as long online in Second Life as males. Females make up 45.5% of the Second Life population.
• Total user hours for April totaled 29,069,684 hours
• Those 45 and older continuing to be the heaviest users on average.
  • 45 and older: 70.17 hours per user per month
  • 35-44: 66.06 hours per user per user per month
  • 25-34: 55.55 hours per user per user per month
  • 18-24: 37.84 hours per user per user per month
  • Teen grid: 24.67 hours per user per user per month

The demographics of World of Warcraft (useful but old 2005 data from Nick Yee)

• The average age of the WoW player is 28.3
• 84% of players are male
• 16% are female. Female players are significantly older (32.5) than male players (28.0)
• On average, they spend 22.7 hours per week playing WoW.
• There are no gender differences in hours played per week.

ESSENTIAL FACTS ABOUT THE COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY 2008 SALES, DEMOGRAPHIC AND USAGE DATA (full report from ESA at Scribd)

• 13 is the average number of years adult gamers have been playing computer or video games. Among most frequent gamers, adult males average 15 years for game playing, females for 12 years.
• 59% of gamers play games with other gamers in person. This is a rise from 56% in 2007 and from 51% in 2006.
• The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is: 40
• 56% of online game players are male 44% are female.
• What is the One Type of Online Game Played Most Often?
  • 12% Other
  • 47% Puzzle/Board/Game Show/Trivia/Card
  • 16% Action/Sports/ Strategy/Role-Play
  • 14% Downloadable Games Such as Bejeweled and Diner Dash
  • 11% Persistent Multi-Player Universe

Women are hardcore gamers from bNet in 2006

• Electronic Arts’ casual game site Pogo.com draws 11 million unique users per month. Fifty-five percent of those are women.
• On the subscription side, 75 percent of the more than 1 million subscribers are women over the age of 35.

Study: Women Gamers Outnumber Men in 25-34 Age Group – from GameDaily 2006

• Consumer Electronics Association study found that 65 percent of women in the 25-34 age bracket play video games, while only 35 percent of men in that group said that they play video games. The key factor involved with these findings is the increasing popularity of casual games, especially among women. (These casual titles are typically found on web portals like Yahoo!, AOL Games, PopCap Games, EA’s Pogo.com and elsewhere.)
• Women were found to be slightly less likely than men in the 25-34 bracket to play traditional console games on systems like PlayStation  or Xbox.

Old (2000) but interesting item on ‘gender bending’ in games from womengamers.com

• 6% of subjects play female characters for 25% or less of their gaming time
• 24% play females for 26-50% of their gaming time
• 15% play females for 51-75% of their gaming time
• 42% play females for 76-100% of their gaming time
• 12% did not answer this question

I have been doing a lot of work moving brands, properties and companies into Second Life recently and in the process I am often forcibly reminded of the divide that naturally exists, in these new worlds, between ‘the corporation’ on one hand and ‘the individual/community’ on the other. The 3D Virtual World is being used in many ways by the natives (aka the public, a bad definition I know), living out their fantasies in a very chaotic but social way. In strong contrast to that we have companies who are naturally bland, characterless, faceless and in the worse cases anti-social.

It is not all bad as we are seeing something very positive emerging and being played out as both sides manouver and become better aligned. We are also seeing the next phase as the early mistakes pull out and leave the new entrants to learn from those errors. So I have collected some of my thoughts below on how companies need to approach the development of their personality.

First though let me explain the title of this piece with two simple examples. I was struck, like many by the documentary film ‘The Corporation‘ which began by explaining at great lengths how similar the actions of large organisations (if they were looked at as an individual) are psychopathic in nature. I quote the definition they use as the basis to extemporize and a taste of that from Mr Monks.:

PERSONALITY DIAGNOSTIC CHECKLIST:
World Health Organization ICD-10. Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV
- Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships
- Deceitfulness: repeated lying and conning others for profit
- Incapacity to experience guilt
- Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behavior
- Callous unconcern for the feelings of others
snip…

“A corporation is an externalizing machine in the same way that a shark is a killing machine. Each one is designed in a very efficient way, to accomplish particular objectives. In the achievement of those objectives, there isn’t any question of malevolence or of will, the enterprise has within it, and the shark has within it, those characteristics that enable it to do that for which it was designed.” Robert Monks, Corporate governance advisor

Of course I am being deliberately provocative in stating this but in the context of an immersive fully rendered world there is a high degree of potential for levels of the above to continue unabated. If a slightly anachistic documentary is not to your taste then the second one will hopefully clarify. “Hello I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” – or translated “Hello I’m Apple and I’m Microsoft (Windows)”. We all know what that series of ads is really saying and it leads into the main part of my post nicely. The PC character in those ads represents dysfunctionality (mild pyschopathy), corporate stubborness, overweight, bad eyes and old school ‘tech’ thinking, whereas the cool Apple dude represents the opposites – friendly, balanced, youthful, innovative and even understanding of PC. Those ads are great fun but they become very serious for the corporations when you start to consider the inhabitants partying in Virtual Worlds deciding which one would to hang-out with. Commercial organisations need to have character and an indentifiable personality in the metaverse and cannot rely anymore on corporate slickness, blandness or aloofness. To engage with audiences and inhabitants in these spaces they need to learn how to be human.

So I have collected for all those corporations out there wondering how to accepted in the 3D and for that matter the 2D social network, my top tips for those thinking of jumping in or those who are wondering why things are not going right.

One: Understand the Culture by Spending Time There
Make sure you have people who know the culture of the world and who have spent enough quality time inworld across the whole gamut of experience. Do not rely on reports from tourist consultants, so-called emerging media experts who can see an opportunity and sell themselves as folk who know about the world and who may have set up an account and visited it on a few odd occasions. Ask them how long per week they personally use the social network. If it is 10-20 hours then keep talking, if they pop in for 10 minutes a day when they are not busy or taking the kids to school then give them a miss – you will get better advice by going inworld yourself and talking to experienced inhabitants. Also make sure the people who you employ to represent you inworld are extremely familiar not just with the local space they will be hanging around in but the whole social world. Make sure they have a passion for it and are not being forced to go in there – so they can talk to inhabitants about other spaces from experience. This will engender trust and more importantly friendship.

Two: Be A Part of the Conversation
It goes without saying that you have to be in it to really be in it. Corps can’t sit on the sidelines or be the obligatory wall flower, spying on others at the party. They have to be in there talking, befriending and listening. Just being present is not enough to integrate properly. I have seen many companies entering a space who don’t join or setup groups, never go to other events and meet others which is odd given this is a social network – no different to those dive bar, industry get-togethers in the real world. Finding someone who is passionate in your organisation and who can then commit time is the only way to go. Don’t become the officious big brother, watch-dog. With the advent of voice in Second Life new factors come into play of course. Your company representatives are in there having real time phone conferencing in effect with anyone and everyone who decides to drop in. Think carefully about the things you need to say vs those that will endear you to the community. It makes a lot more sense to talk about the shared experience than saying how wonderful your company is. Organise specific events where you will be expected to talk about the brand vs trying to constantly slip it into social discussion.

Three: You Are What Your Environment IS
Just as we can tell an individual from the places they visit or the state of their work and social rooms, the same holds true of companies. Your corporate personality is reflected in the spaces you build. If you look at the native environments vs the corporate ones in the metaverse you can see a world of difference. The commercial ones are often built by a team which has been steered by many, many meetings that have sand-papered away all the risk and character. They end up being designed by committee and as such are not resonant with anyone – apart from the corporate lawyers who can only see ‘safe’. Whereas an organic, rich, deep welcoming space has the opposite effect. I have talked for two years about over representation too. If you build a clone of your office, complex or city you are stating two things – 1) corporate vanity and 2) lack of innovation. You should take a certain level of risk by creating environments that engage before they try to impress or show business control.

Four: Corporate Avatars Need to have Character
This is a critical point in how to be human in these spaces. Have avatars that have a personality, meaning make sure the person on the other side of the avatar is not some bland company customer relations person who can only talk about the business parrot style. This is the opportunity for your company to really shine and show a different side to herself. Oh yes the lawyers will be screaming ‘disclaimer’ from the rooftops. Well fine go for it and to be literal, have a permanent sign on your t-shirt with the obligatory “the views I express are mine and not that of…” and so on – not suggesting you do that precisely, but you get the point. A community will only start to connect when ‘company’ characters are present. Think of the Virgin empire. They shout personality, that youthful exuberance, those Branson clones – allowing the person inside to come out. They are sadly let down by having to wear the uniform but in these environments you don’t have to be the photo-realistic clone of your real self. Do what the natives do and be imaginative with your representation and the words you deliver.

Five: Listen, Listen, Listen and Respond
Corporations find it hard to respond because anything of significance has to be rubber stamped by people that all too often have no idea what it really means. “All the inhabitants want SkyDiving competitions every Sunday” – passed to the lawyers who spend weeks working out the liability aspects of that, what if someone gets injured can they sue – until someone chirps up “actually no one can be harmed” and even then they look into psychological torture. By this time the residents are already running competitions on their own land or with a more responsive competitor. Another aspect of listening is not pushing. Too many corporations think that if they blog or stand in the crowd and talk then they are mixing with the web 2-3 communty. They are not – they are pushing it one way and unable to listen to the replies and respond. They become an incarnation of traditional broadcast media. A simple rule here – Do Not Talk in the Community Unless you have the Mechanisms to Respond. Sadly so many corporations just don’t respond to suggestions or in the worst cases do not even acknowledge. This is the most disenfranchising thing there is for someone who is starting to want to make things better, to be ignored by the administrators. This requires some sensitivity at the admin level, which is often lacking if they are hired help or jaded managers.

Six: Rich Kids Shouldn’t Copy
Every ‘expert’ in marketing in Second Life say bring something of value to the community – which can only be defined if you know the world. It may already be there. But even more important is to bring relevance and something new. It is OK initially showing off like the rich kid with some wonderful interactive toys you have bought or giving lots of ‘branded’ things away but you need to go way beyond that. Do something completely different and potentially on a grand scale. The advantage you as the corporation have over the natives is that you really are the rich kid on the block. So don’t set up a tiny cool drinks dispenser, or a shop sized office or a beach resort – be bold and consider multiple islands that offer rich immersive experiences (see previous post on this). You can still be rich and relate to the community – give them places to tell new stories. Too many times I hear “Oh yes the new CorpX sim is OK, the usual shops, club, offices but bit boring and here is the baseball cap – detach”. Offer things that fit with your brand but doesn’t contradict it – become almost like a friendly, approachable benefactor. Also be wary of just buying things that many may have experienced already. Plagiarism is rife in social virtual worlds because of the scale, most people are not expected to get around that much so there is a certain complacency that corporations think that as they are bigger than the others kids, they can ‘nick’ the idea. The community is very sensitive to this. Corporations without imagination are just rich kids, not imaginative rich kids.

Seven: Be Consistent and Beware of Real World Journalism
Authenticity is about being consistent and not schizophrenic. You will find it hard to survive if you are having conversations in these social networks as one persona then in the real world a journalist requests an interview in which you talk about the community as folk to be manipulated. Most Second Life journalists understand this and will often do interviews inworld, the ones to be aware of are the attention seeking real world journalists who are after something sensationalist to prop up their dwindling traffic rating. Most of these haven’t the slightest idea about integrating into social networks (apart from their own) and will not print anything to do with ‘Corporation Working Well with Community’ stories – they want ‘Community Griefers Attack Corporation’ ones, they sell. Keep well away from that kind of fiction.

But consistency of persona is hard to do across the many social networks as many are abstract (in other words, the 2D, non-real time facebook are a series of panes that supposedly make up who you are) – in the metaverse it is extremely close to real life. What you say, do and who you relate to give real time feedback to those around about who you really are – corporate robot or passionate person. Inhabitants like to come back to places where the ‘general’ experience is known. If they enjoyed it once when they come back they don’t want a different character in charge who is dull or uninterested in them. This requires great effort on the part of the corporation to set a style of interaction with its visitors which must be kept consistent.

Eight: Do What the Natives Want
Social Virtual Worlds like Second Life and Sony Home are mostly about shopping, media based activities, lifestyle emulation and socialising. As a corporation or brand sitting on top of, or rather inside an existing companies infrastructure you need to be careful to not do what everyone is already doing. There is an attraction in setting up an environment and then setup rental land for homes and shops because that is what inhabitants seem to want. But that says more about the social network than you bringing something to it. It also pangs a little of laziness and doing something tried and tested. The natives also love to make things (well 30% in Second Life) so be really active in encouraging and rewarding that. Get them to design and build your branded play area with you.

Nine: Keep Reinventing Yourself and be Fresh
Remain consistent in character but always have new things happening to show how dynamic you are. Don’t limit it to dances, music concerts or presentations (in SL you can get these everywhere) but go down to the level of environmental decoration, the signs, subtle changes to the spaces and tell people about those changes. But the most critical element of being dynamic is to listen to suggestions from your visitors, do changes on the spot and even do personal fit outs for the loyal inhabitants of your space. Many organisations fail in Second Life by launching with something which then sits there and decays (with no updates). People get bored with people that don’t change and will drift away for new pastures. Invite suggestions for change but always have the resources within your organisation and with your developers (who will often know a lot more than you – having time to spend inworld) to do regular facelifts.

Ten: Share Your Assets and The Paradox of Risk Aversion
Inhabitants of your space will feel more inclined to stay if you provide them with some chance to own parts of it through the opportunity to affect it. Think of this as the rich kid who invites the world onto their mansion grounds for a party. Do not be the party host that goes around sweeping up every time someone drops a few crumbs, they will not return. Instead accept a certain amount of chaos and allow them to influence and have a sense of ownership. You will get more respect for empowering them and allowing an element of free reign. But so many companies are terrified of ending up with egg on their face through griefing or being sued for some copyright infringement that they lock everything down. This just says you as an individual are controlled by lawyers, who cannot express their own mind who as we know are the worst folks to have in any social group.

Eleven: Don’t Always Try to Be the Centre of Attention
Companies that expect their ‘characters’ to be in control and always leading the conversation will be seen as anything from show off through to bully. Social networks are democratic, your brand is as important to the inhabitants as their own identity or groups they belong to. Do not metaphorically walk into a crowd and pronounce your self-imposed importance, this jars with the whole premise of social networks.

Twelve: Story Environments
By all means create spaces that are really great to hang out in for long periods of time but also try to give the place some history and depth. When your not around you need the evnironment to speak for you by speaking, literally in some cases, with the visitors. So embed or write some history into it, create some myth, make it feel like you have been around for a bit. This depth is attractive to those visiting. See my wikipedia article on this topic here which covers ways you can give yourself (represented by the environment) some back story and depth.

Thirteen: Help create a Trusted Community
If you have followed some of the above advice then you will start to become the space to be, full of character, innovation and depth. As the traffic increases you just wont be able to manage it all by yourself and tensions can result. It is not a bad thing for the company characters to fly off the handle occasionally because of being over stretched with requests, endless IMs and so on – it shows they are human. But this is also a warning sign to start to create tiers of help within the community, namely the most loyal and immersed inhabitants themselves. Give them limited powers but ones that has enough responsibility to make them feel empowered. Set rules up for them that are part of a discussion as to the best ways to operate. If they make mistakes do not slap their wrists, change the framework of how they can operate. Of course the lawyers kick in again here with non-employee representatives (many of whom may not be know in the real world) – but again that wonderful disclaimer can be pulled out of the hat. To think you can manage without community support at admin levels means you will be over stretched as a person corporation, become stressed and in the end find it more comfortable to not be in there in the first place – contrary to all the above.

Fourteen: Entertain
It is fine being a wonderful administrator and organiser but you will be looked on to provide entertainment sometimes. You can’t expect your community to just do it all the time. You need to step in on a regular basis to show that you can put on big events. This encourages the relationship and more importantly suggestions as to how to make the events and activities better or develop new ones.

Fifteen: Don’t Listen to Too Much Advice
I would recommend listening to advice from trusted developers who have a track record for creating really good social spaces and not listening to out of world consultants. But in the end go with your gut reaction based on your personal experiences about what you think fulfills the needs of existing inhabitants in these 3D social networks. Having a genuine approach will most likely create a genuine response from your potential community. Remember though at the start you are a tourist and as such not doing anything until you are ready makes the most sense.

Gary Hayes is the Head of Virtual Worlds for the Project Factory and Director of the Laboratory for Advanced Media Production, LAMP. He personally produced and built the top brand in SL Telstra’s ‘The Pond’ and ABC TV (top ten) in several statistics (New World Notes and TPF) over the past 6 months. Recent other launches include Thursday’s Fictions and Melbourne Laneways.

Posted by Gary Hayes © 2007 All Rights Reserved.