Get it via the iTunes App store now or go to the Apple App preview page

1.0 RELEASE VERSION 1.0 – Description and screen shot

Social Media Counts is an amazing and hypnotic real time display of eighty four user, content and business metrics across social media, games, mobile and traditional or heritage media. The data is based on actual reported numbers which are listed in the embedded info panel and this rolling ‘count-up counter’ is a projection forward in time based on these real numbers. With over 40 million impressions already of the embeddable flash version across the web this counter gives real insight into the tsunami of content, proliferation of devices and the money being made from a range of entertainment and services.

Features

include the ability to switch in real time between the social. mobile, games and heritage lists as well as step forward in increments of day, week, month and a fixed view of a year ahead. You can also reset the counter at any point using the ‘begin’ button. An info screen contains a list of most of the data sources used in the counter and a web link takes you to a web page with these listed and links to the sources pages also.

Please Note: The application is intentionally not highly interactive as it is meant to be used as a display in portrait mode only, making it readable at presentations and demonstrations to others in small meeting environments as it allows easy visibility of the amazingly large growing numbers.

The app will be updated regularly – approx once a month with updated statistics where available and suggestions are always welcomed for new, remarkable figures (make sure you have a reliable per day, month or year figure though!)

For reference here are the current list of real time counter metrics being displayed:

Social Media Tab

new blog posts, members added on Facebook, US dollars spent on virtual goods globally, tweets sent on Twitter, videos watched on YouTube, iPhone apps downloaded, US dollars spent on Facebook gifts, hours uploaded onto YouTube, new Twitter accounts, text messages inside Second Life, US dollars made from global messaging & data, iPads sold, new members on LinkedIn, pieces of music bought on iTunes, searches made on Google, emails sent globally, US dollars made in ad revenue on Facebook, sms’s sent worldwide, photos uploaded to Facebook, images uploaded to Flickr, new internet users globally

Mobile Media Tab

new mobile phones shipped, US dollars generated from mobile games, sms’ sent worldwide, new phones GPS enabled, US dollars made by global mobile data, WiFi and 3G iPads sold globally, iPhones sold, GBs sent across all mobile devices, hours of mobile video watched in USA, US dollars made from all mobile services globally, new users of mobile social networks, US dollars spent on mobile advertising worldwide, new mobile subscribers globally, new portable pcs / laptops shipped, mms messages in the US, iPhones unlocked, US dollars made from mobile music, people using location mobile services logged onto the web using mobile, made from mobile video, new mobile 3G subscribers globally

Games
join a ‘social’ game from Zynga, US dollars made from MMOG players China, quests completed by WoW players, US dollars revenue from games sold in US, user2user tranactions Second Life, transactions in Eve Online, game units sold worldwide, US dollars spent on virtual goods globally, new global MMORPG subscribers, US dollars generated from Virtual World ads, logged into Fantasy Westward Journey, virtual goods created in Second Life, US dollars invested in Virtual World companies, new US kids (3-11) subscribing to VWs, messages between Second Life users, players transactions in Eve Online, US dollars net revenue made World of Warcraft, portable game units sold, user hours by Chinese online gamers, messages posted on Gaia forums, user hours by Second Life users

Heritage Media
US dollars made at the US box office, US dollars lost to US economy due to movie piracy, read a newspaper in the US, Dollars TV revenue generated globally, single music tracks downloaded, attend a US orchestral concert, US dollars made from global print ads, US dollars total spend making Australian films, US dollars total spend on making UK films, US dollars wages for jobs in US movie industry, US dollarshardcover books sold worldwide, kindle books sold just by Amazon, people in US tuning into radio, US dollars made from music concerts worldwide, US dollars made from DVD & Blu-ray in US, US dollars lost by pirated music & movies Spain, US dollars made from all music worldwide, hours of TV watched by all UK viewers, movie tickets sold US EU China Japan,US dollars spent on new TV sets in the US, printed press page views

A cross posting from JustVirtual but there has been lots of excitement about Second Life becoming a more ‘evocative’ engine (visually speaking) for at least 18 months with lots of posts and short demo videos. Recently the Illclan’ers posted an item suggesting we are quite close to having an official Linden Lab release here, Dynamic Lighting and Shadow Engine Coming to Second Life. They like me are also very interested in the ‘controlled’ lighting effects using artificial (isn’t it all?!) light sources vs the ambient ‘sun’. But for starters here is a quick ambient test video…

A quick exploration of some of my old builds which may not be there much longer! Using the Space Navigator and running Windlight in Day cycle mode (the sun and moon take a minute or two to do a full rotation)  to produce lots of moving shadows across the landscapes, people and builds. Rather than just show shadows I was keen to tie some ‘psych trance’ music into fast moving space navigator footage hence the constant movement – all shots took into account the timing with the shadows too.

The whole process was about 1 hour of capture, 1.5 hour edit and 2 hours on music track. Music was composed on Logic Pro mostly using Spectrasonics Omnisphere plug-in software ‘processor-eating’ synth.

I had access to a top end NVidia GTX280 high spec graphics card and quad processor machin so I put all SL graphics settings at max for once! The video was captured at PAL resolution using Fraps and the raw files edited using Adobe Premiere.

To have a go at this yourself make sure you have a top flight graphics card from NVidia or ATI and then download the Shadow Viewer client from Kirsten here or I believe a more recent one (that I used) from Boy Lane here. I am not sure of the widespread use of shadows given the grunt your computer needs to handle this, windlight, voice on top of all the usual networking issues – but for those with computer horsepower it definitely brings the place to life.

Published & created under creative commons – attribution, non-commercial, non-derivative, 23 May 2009 in Sydney, Australia

My Second Life sim builds included: Esperance (AFTRS), ABC Island, Melbourne Laneways, Thursdays Fictions, Deakin, The Pond and others. (I would have loved to show some more commercial & arty builds but non-disclosure and all that!)

As a matter of fact, CNN is no longer a hub within SL, we have moved to our own island!

The new space features ‘in-world’ geographic elements and meeting spaces, including a virtual drive-in theater, complete with a snack bar and vintage cars where visitors can view recent in-world iReports, pick up iReport gear to dress their avatars and check out the iReport.com/secondlife page.

As you can see, as others are abandoning their presence in the SL community, CNN’s mission for iReport within Second Life remains as it did upon launch in 2008: to provide Second Life residents a way to identify and share news and events happening within their virtual community through the submission of ‘SL iReports’.

To celebrate our expansion, please join the in-world iReport staff and SL residents on Tuesday, Feb. 3rd, from 12 noon ET noon to 6 p.m. ET (9am SLT – 3pm SLT). We’re going to have an open house including some very special guests, and island tour (click here to view screen shots of the enhancements) and even some dancing!

Hope you can make it…

and more from the official release on the CNN site

Building upon the popularity of iReport in the virtual world of Second Life, CNN has relocated to its own island. This island features new ‘in-world’ geographic elements and meeting spaces, including a virtual drive-in theater complete with a snack bar and vintage cars. CNN’s mission for iReport within Second Life remains as it did upon launch in 2008: to provide Second Life residents a way to identify and share news and events happening within their virtual community through the submission of “SL iReports.”

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.

Social Media and Web 2.0 is a lot about providing the tools and therefore the means for everyone to create content, that they believe others may want to see. I have personally created a lot of corporate, professional entertainment and music films over the years using high end equipment but now, like many millions around the world, find it a fun and satisfying process to be able to create films and stories in virtual worlds, aka machinima. (Quite a few are over on my personal virtual blog justvirtual)

There are literally millions of machinimas emanating from the likes of World of Warcraft, Sims, Movies, Halo, Second Life, Half Life and many more. Most are done for the love vs the money and some make it onto the big screen. For the creators it is about expressing ‘their’ world and experiences to each other but of course there is something else as important here.

Laurel Papworth talked recently about a machinima I did in Twinity and the ‘free advertising’ it offers for the brand or platform. For me it is also about creating an environment where simple tools encourage large numbers of people to come together remotely and do real-time, collaborative content creation for extended periods. It makes the world very, very sticky when they have shared creative goals and purpose – not just pre-constructed game play. Some may say game quests are social too and I believe when the players get ‘creative’ with the mechanic and ‘bend the rule’ together it certainly is.

Comfortably Fun

Using game or social virtual worlds to entertain each other in this deeply immersive way, leads us to imagine what the potential will be when bandwidth and graphic realism are no longer limitations. Perhaps a portent of the future here is a machinima I did of a forty three minute performance of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, in a social world, Second Life. It was captured last week and it is useful to remind us all what is going on here. There are around 70 people logged in together in real time from around the world, most audience a few performers. About 8 are ‘animating’ on stage or controlling lights, effects or triggering scripted animations and I am recording the whole thing at the same time. This is digital puppeteering. I captured elements of the performance three times and put together this compilation edit. More after the embed…

So this all started with an invite from a self motivated group, led by Debbie Trilling, who for the love of what they do, created an inworld, cross-reality, musical tribute. CARPs (Cybernetic Art Research Project) inventive and emotionally driven version of Pink Floyd’s 1980′s album was a truly international affair and many hours were spent developing and performing a Virtual Show to this music that reaches a new audience every few years.The reason the music reaches new audiences is because of its use in ‘community created content’ just like this, a far more poignent way to share digital content. More than 2000 avatars have experienced this particular concert inworld generating 10 000s of impressions across blogs and media sites. That is the key point – don’t dismiss game or virtual worlds as being irrelevant because of perceived low numbers – these are active and proficient online users who see the 2D web as a ‘simple’ publishing tool and become prolific creators of content and by implication major influencers.

Professional marketeers need to be aware of the power of machinima (consumer films in worlds they are very loyal too) and how by allowing the use of often locked down content is probably the best way to introduce ‘old’ content to new audiences. As an example, while I was putting together this ‘mash-up’ compilation I tried a recording of the reunion performance of the Comfortably Numb at Live 8 a few years ago and was entranced by the synergy of visual and song. Hope you do too. BTW a medium quality (90MB MP4) download of the YouTube above is available here. Worth playing full screen with the volume up and the lights down

To further consider how effective game world movies are. I created again out of a moment of relaxation a ‘flycam’ film around some of my ‘builds’ in Second Life. I like others were entranced by the new feature in the engine, Windlight. This rendered more naturalistic reflections and skyscapes for example. The machinima was a self expressive piece, some improvised guitar and piano and flowing movement, not really an typical ‘traffic’ generating video.

Ticking along at a few hundred views over a month on YouTube then Linden Lab decided to feature it on their machinima page. For a week or so it was getting between two to four thousands views per day. Over the past four months or so it has been viewed over 30 000 times, not bad for an ‘art’ video? But outside the numbers what is the dynamic at play here? Well it is really simple. If you own any space where people frequent, make it really, really easy for them to share their experiences. You scratch their back and they will yours. Give them the tools to make it easy to create professional looking content. Let them do the viral marketing for you. Even though the community realise they are doing you a ‘big’ favour, the joy they get from sharing is part of their own virtuous circle.

A few months ago I blogged over in personalizemedia about the new kid on the intranet block, those ‘layered’ social virtual worlds. Quite simply they are communities of pseudo 3D avatars layered over the 2D web (browsers). I noted that these services are a transition to a ‘live’ collaborative web 3.0 world as this is more of a “let them dip their toes in” before committing to a higher bandwidth, more fully rendered 3D world such as many of those on my sticky video of the 08 metaverse.

I certainly think is the best approach for large numbers who wouldn’t be seen dead or alive in something like Second Life. This is another quick whistle stop tour of a quickly evolving player, Rocketon and also a recent Aussie company who have an alternative approach – ‘live action’ video layered over the 2D web CLIVEvideo.com. (Incidentally if everything is working you should have had a person talking to you in the middle of this post – if not it may be many months later and things have broken OR some other technical reason I cannot ponder at the moment – IE!). Even though I start by talking about Rocketon and it’s implications, having the privilege of playing with the demo of CLIVEvideo for a while I realised many points are relevant to both – bar the ‘big’ nay huge fact that Rocketon is social (shared, real time and partly pulled) and CLIVE is pre-rendered, pushed and fixed (although they tell me they are working on being a bit more web 2.0).

I have been beta’ing and playing with Rocketon for the past few weeks trying to see how it fitted in with my normal zillion web 2.0/3.0 application lifestyle and finding out where the real attraction is for large numbers to adopt this hybrid paradigm. Firstly it I noticed that with Rocketon in minimize mode, every web page I visited it seemed to be doing something in the background, watching? Spying? Regardless every hour or so it gave me a present – some pixel jewelry, a funny avatar – I have a massive collection of stuff now – what to do with it all and how does an emerald relate to me browsing a ‘map of sydney site’? I have still to work out what is going on with general browsing but two killer apps are evident with Rocketon after a few hours tinkering. 1 – Making existing branded websites fun/sticky and 2 – Making web surfing more social, gamelike and challenging.

The first image you can see above is me and SilkCharm being silly so and so’s dropping Burger King pixel toys on MacDonalds sites (only we can see it of course), but with a larger group like the top image, it starts to have significance…if only in the ‘power’ to do so and the fact that pictures/videos are taken and put on blog posts/flickr/YouTube (ah the old rippling impressions). I also made a quick film of a few of us invading the SMH webpage, partly Laurel and myself showing how ‘communities’ can and will make ‘statements’ – much the same as we do in group based social situations in the real world. The potential for positive product placement, interactive toys, loyalty benefits and so on will not go unnoticed by readers of this post!

Click here to view the embedded video.

But the more interesting element of Rocketon for me is where the community are given the tools to create quests, puzzles or games for each other. To demonstrate the potential of CCG (community created games) the Rocketon team set up a simple quest with pretty easy clues. The process, you are given a mission, you read clues, travel to websites (with the Rocketon layer activated) come back to a base and so on.

The thing I really like about this simple example is that you can embed pixel ‘treasure’ or goods on websites, without any recourse to the website owner of course. (I am sure Rocketon are thinking hard about the legal ramifications of hundreds of RTons heading off to litigeous sites to find inappropriate items and then posting the experience!). Anyways you can see in these two images I have been given a secret envelope and sent to ebay to collect a parcel to post and then await further instructions. Suddenly a couple of web pages turn into a scene from The Thomas Crown Affair.

I have quite a lot more to say about Rocketon and it’s distant cousins such as weblin but time is pressing and lots more to get on with. For the moment though all I can advise them is to enable tools for the community to develop their own fun or for marketeers to start to offer quite tricky quests for real world prizes – I am sure this is happening, it is the only path to really get the numbers up.

So to CLIVEvideo. I have literally been playing with this for less than an hour today after Scott from Maxy’s grabbed me on twitter! It looks very promising. I have seen many variations of this over the years but the implementation of this particular technology is pretty accessible and is squarely aimed at ad agencies, SMEs and larger companies and those who want to differentiate their website and make it a little more viral. As with the points above about Rocketon the real value of having layered personalities over the webpage is to build bridges between the layers (the avatars or video peops relating to what is below them) – or why be there in the first place. CLIVEvideo.com have some great tools to build ‘key’ed’ (invisible backgrounded people) sequences and to also add in sequence applications (person, flash demo, person, page link, person, product video demo etc) and are focused on sales or corporate messages at the moment.

But imagine a future where the keying is from 4-10 people, a webcam community, who start to act a little like we have been doing with Rocketon. Doesn’t have to be full body necessarily, but why not – webcam pointing at users in front of a green or blue screen in their office/bedroom. Then you really have some potential to make the 2D web much more fun and sticky. The applications for marketing, socialising etc start to kick in when you can (like some video chat applications) render pixel elements over the top of the live video image. Ummmm. *rubs hands*… It will certainly be a lot of effort for some, but having specially designed web pages for ‘Keyers’ (as they shall be known) would also provide Google Lively type integration – key yourself live into this and make the branded movie etc etc: This reminds me a little of the fun video I did at AFTRS recently with SilkCharm and lots of invited real people – keye’d into World of Warcraft – that I shall leave you with!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Finally, finally well still on this topic a new player that makes it even easier to meet and chat based on the web page your on is Live World. It’s product LiveBar is basically a ‘chat’ engine that detects the page your on and connects you to others that are also on that page.

Now we will really see how popular some webpages are

A video insight into the build process of the new Deakin Arts Education Centre Island built and designed by MUVEDesign’s Gary Hayes completed early 2008.

Jenny Grenfell, Arts Lecturer at Deakin said:

“This Deakin University Arts Education community in Second Life aims to stir the imagination. It is a world we create and create within. It is at once a work of art and a place to inspire, make, share and present art. Our presence in SL is both for performance and is in itself a performance.

Our Second Life existence is an extension of our involvement in the real world where we are passionately immersed in the practices of teaching and learning in our art forms of visual art, drama, music, dance, and media.”

Medium rez 105MB MP4 available here. Music composed and performed by Gary Hayes. These images with comments can be seen here.

Video, music & 447 Images © Gary Hayes and Deakin University

Below is the flickr slideshow embedded as an alternative

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.

“BigPond enters “Second Life” virtual world – BigPond today launched Australia’s first major corporate presence in the online virtual world, Second Life, with the unveiling of ‘The Pond’. The Pond features islands with uniquely Australian themes and recreations of iconic Australian landmarks such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Sydney Opera House, the Outback and Uluru. On the islands, ‘avatars’, the 3D virtual characters that people create to represent themselves in Second Life, can enjoy a range of activities including car racing, scuba diving and ice skating. At The Pond, avatars can socialise, join communities with shared interests, go shopping together at The Dome Shopping Mall, and even go dancing at the Illusion Club. They can take a boat trip or relax and have a drink in the Outback Billabong Bar. The 3D nature of Second Life enables full participation – so avatars won’t just look at the Sydney Harbour Bridge, they’ll climb it…This project was developed and produced by Gary Hayes…”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Built very quickly over 5 weeks in Jan/Feb 2007 and launched in March 2007, it was within months the most popular branded group sims in Second Life.

The 11 island build designed, produced and created wholey by Gary Hayes was notable for its rich organic design, functional builds and naturalistic places to socialise, shop, view media and explore. The Billabong Bar and Uluru sims were for the first year the most densely traffic’d branded area in Second Life and with community input it has grown even more.

Gary facilitated BigPond only registration using 6 dedicated orientation islands and in July 07 set up the first 3 residential islands. Initial interest was sparked by the diversity on the main central islands with race tracks, boating, art installations, underwater zones and various Australian Icons. It reached the 40-50k per week traffic figure (where it has remained as an average) when Gary was the only developer up to Sep 2007.

ADDITION TWO YEARS LATER!: A recent article (printed below) in ITWire covers the success of this creation. This item appeared following my presentation at the Online Distribution and Business Collaboration conference from November 2008 in which I hurriedly went through some good inworld and game marketing case studies. Kathryn Small here picked up on why Australia’s BigPond is working really well – and no, it is not all about the broadband capping situation in Australia. Most of the regular inhabitants are on other ISP’s – anyway the article covers my thoughts on this and I have a much longer analysis with stats for the nearly 2 years it has been active, in the pipeline. (Also worth mentioning something about the item at the start of this one – Tourism Victoria didn’t withdraw its funding, Multimedia Victoria requested I take down a temporary ‘trial’ build of Melbourne Laneways – which had an original 3 month ‘learn as we go’ tenure on ABC Island. Otherwise a good item below.

Despite reports, Telstra and Second Life remain inseparable
By Kathryn Small 28 November 2008 02:20PM

It’s a match made in heaven: Telstra is Australia’s biggest telco and ISP, while Second Life is one of the world’s hottest social networking tools. So when the media reported that “the game was almost over” for Second Life, Telstra was quick to defend its investment.

Recently, Tourism Victoria withdrew its advertising funding from Second Life’s ABC Island. This prompted Deacons technology and media partner Nick Abrahams to comment to The Australian that “the drop in commercial interest in Second Life had been noticeable over the past nine months”.

Abrahams said that at any given time, fewer than a couple of hundred Australians might be in Second Life.

But virtual worlds expert Gary Hayes said that virtual world ratings should be measured in engagement and user hours, not just hits.

“Immersive online experiences need new metrics, and marketeers and academics are realising that social worlds do provide the potential for very high dwell figures,” said Hayes.

“Facebook has 65 million users on for just four hours per month. 132 Americans watch YouTube but they watch only about five minutes per day or 2.5 hours per month,” said Hayes.

“Second Life (and other social virtual worlds) has the highest rates of loyalty and stickiness of any social network generation, more than 50 hours per month per user.”

Hayes said that Telstra’s islands, known as The Pond, had a steady stream of around 50-100 users at any given time.

Telstra spokesperson Peter Habib quoted figures compiled by The Project Factory which said that BigPond’s islands were the most popular in Second Life.

The Ponds were founded in March 2007 with 11 islands (now 16) which have hosted virtual concerts, ANZAC Day commemorations and even New Year and Australia Day events.

BigPond recently hosted an AUSTAFE event which involved live streaming of the event from Adelaide into Second Life.

The Ponds also contains five residential islands for users to build themselves virtual real estate to live in, at near 100 per cent occupancy.

Telstra spokesperson Peter Habib told iTnews, “BigPond’s commitment to innovation, interactivity and entertainment in Second Life is a key part of our success.”

Habib said that BigPond has opened a virtual in-world service kiosk that allows Second Life users to interact with BigPond customer service staff in a virtual way.

Hayes said that The Pond’s approach to customers differentiated it from many other brands.

“The real success of The Pond is more about the regular events, the creativity of the builders who often come from the community, elements of nationalism, and many of the organic spaces that promote stickiness by their ‘ambience’ rather than superficial interactivity. This has been a real differentiator.’

Habib dismissed the concerns of other providers with success on Second Life.

“While other companies may not share BigPond’s successes, we are more than pleased with the popularity of our Second Life islands.”

Hayes said that companies might not succeed in Second Life for two reasons. First, that many brands were brought into Second Life for the wrong reasons, and with misunderstandings about the social network. “You cannot build into a social network and not be social,” said Hayes. “Early entrants simply did not act human; they acted like a corporation, and built clones of the real world, and didn’t think experientally.”

Second, Hayes said that companies needed to change their offering to virtual customers.

“We are seeing the natural exodus of ‘showroom, build-it-big-and-boring’ brands and the settling of second generation ‘social’ and ‘purposeful’ brands. So The Pond, Accenture, Playboy, The L Word, and about five other key brands are really getting to grips with setting up a virtual base in a social world.”

John Brand, research director at Hydrasight, agreed.

“Only organisations who want to be perceived as ‘bleeding edge’ should ever have been involved in Second Life in the first place,” said Brand.

“Now that Second Life is entering its relative teenage years (measured in Internet years at least), the early adopter bandwagon has well and truly been jumped on.”

But Brand (edit: Hayes) noted that Second Life is not the only virtual world.

“There are at least 50 other mainstream entities and the total audience (according to a trusted site on this topic, KZero) is well over 300 million. In the second quarter of 2008, $161 million was invested in 14 virtual worlds, in the first quarter $184 million put into 23 virtual worlds, so the total this year alone is $345 million across 37 new worlds.

“Australia is a tiny market compared with Europe, Asia, South America and the USA, so fluctuations are highly likely. The fact that the user base of one virtual world fell by 23 per cent in a year is common with any service coming out of a hype phase into a stable mature phase.”

As promised a rough transcript of my keynote talk to CeBit last week based on my experience of actually building some Second Life sims, talking to those who use them and creating branded environments that have more usage than any others inworld, so far. There will be a video and/or podcast at some point from CeBit TV but for now lots of ‘nice’ words and this YouTube video I uploaded…

Click here to view the embedded video.

‘
Hello I’m Gary Hayes and thank you for inviting me here to speak at CeBit this afternoon. I hope that by the end of this very brief introduction to virtual worlds, and particularly Second Life, you will be more aware of the major changes that are happening to what we used to call ‘the web’. Virtual worlds are a new disruptive and transformative medium and one that is becoming a significant force alongside our traditional media experiences. But it is still early days. It is the silent movie era, a bit like TV in the late 40s or the web itself in the early 90s – but already virtual worlds are a place where the audience stops being the audience, who become and create their own stories. For those without any exposure to virtual worlds this talk will be a beginners guide and for those who already know something or a good deal about these 3D shared spaces there will perhaps be one or two surprises, Hopefully we will go inworld too if the connectivity gods are with us.

So what do we mean by virtual worlds. In very simple terms they are a bit like MySpace meets the Local Pub meets YouTube meets The Shopping Mall meets Flickr meets World of Warcraft – ok not that simple. We are really talking about non-game based, online spaces where people create new identities and become a part of a larger resident community. There are often no rules, only those set by the inhabitants themselves, this makes it a particular challenge for brands as we will see later (they don’t like to be told how to live!). Many of you would have heard of Second Life, with nearly 6 million registrations at the moment, but there are many others. Habbo is interesting as a simple isometric service for teens now with 76 million registrations and nearly 8 million regular users. Playstation 3 is about to launch ‘home’, a sort of virtual apartment suburbia connected to other PS3 players and EA games has just teamed up with Endemol to deliver what we sometimes call Mixed Reality (cross-over programmes between TV and virtual worlds). There are quite a few others such as there.com, Kaneva and many new kids growing up on the block such as multiverse, croquet or outback online. MTV Networks used the there.com engine to do some extremely interesting TV/Virtual World cross-over services like Laguna Beach, which I sadly won’t have time to talk about. Common to all of them are people using these shared worlds to interact with others around the globe, for hours at a time.

So what are the forces at work here, what is driving this change? Well I suppose there are two key ones. The first is the shift from humans wanting the internet to be more than the rather lonely and non-real time experience to one where as a ‘participant’ they can have real time, collaborative and far richer immersive social interactions. Note I am careful to not call them, the audience – be aware that any media that still thinks of the residents of virtual worlds as audiences are doomed to failure. The second force at work here is to do with residents in worlds wanting to be far more active, creationist and imaginative. They are creating their own experiences versus passively consuming media, such as on TV or via YouTube for example. You have all heard of web 2.0 (blogs, wikis, flickr – the sharing web) well I like to think of virtual worlds as ‘part’ of web 3.0, the real time, co-creative web. It is still about sharing but in a far more natural setting – this is a space where you can walk up to someone and ask “Where can I buy some shoes and will you come shopping with me” versus typing the word shoes into some abstract search engine on the web and spending hours looking at flat pictures. A question I often get asked is, “Is this hype and something that will go away?” Absolutely not. I am old enough to have lived through the dawning of the web and early failed 3D world services, this is totally a part of that on-going evolution and this will now be here for good. The real question that should be asked, and perhaps the focus of my talk, is how are brands and professionals attempting to integrate into these spaces, will they create a virtual paradise or another dotcom burst?

The thing that’s common with all virtual worlds is the real time shared experience, and that should be the key to anyone thinking of setting up a branded space inside these worlds. Participants want to be just that, participants and co-creators. In a world like Second Life (now four times the size of San Francisco around 210 square miles) and where 99% of the content is made by the inhabitants, for a brand to simply plonk some souless buildings, or theme park, or even well displayed real world product falls way short of what the residents actually want. The message that we are getting from the inhabitants is for businesses to “play with me, don’t sell at me.” This is very important. These worlds are extremely ‘sticky’ and inhabitants invest a great deal of themselves in co-creating the environment and the numbers speak for themselves. In second life at the moment there are over 200,000 unique entrants per day spending an average of 4 hours in world – that’s nearly 1 million user hours, and with a population growing at around 30% per month you can see why many other virtual worlds will be popping up in the next few months and years to meet this demand.

Lets have a look at a very short video (which can also be seen on the Project Factory stand throughout the day) showing some of the social activities, the thing that is really driving demand in these environments.

SELF CUT VIDEO “a montage of a variety of experiences” (in background starting up SL if connectivity for demo)

So a brief taste of what goes on inworld, very experiential activities such as dancing, sport, ‘inworld tourism’, education, collaborative building and so on. These are often missed or ignored by the mainstream press. With my other hat on as Director of the Laboratory for Advanced Media Production at AFTRS I am also active in the educational areas in Second Life where collaborative, experiential teaching is growing into a powerful tool – a very vibrant and active community. But who are the real inhabitants? In Second Life it is far from being just young males. The average age is 33 and women constitute around 43% of the total. Interestingly the time spent gender wise is reversed. Of the total time spent by all participants, females account for 60%. Looking at the international split around 31% are from the USA, 48% Europe and 21% rest of the world. Europe is by far the fastest growing area now with growing numbers of English, French, Dutch and Germans so the servers (currently in San Fran and Texas are in the wrong place!). Back to the age question, one fascinating statistic I gleaned last week from Phil Rosedale, the CEO of the makers of Second Life, was that those over 60 years old spend 30% more time in Second Life than those aged 30. Lets try to pop into world now, hopefully, and have a quick two minute wander.

DEMO INWORLD. This space is called the Pond. The one that the Project Factory produced and built for Telstra BigPond. I am not sure who is around but regardless lets have a look at how Second Life works. That is me, the one with the wings and here I am at the main welcome area. Lets go for a short walk, if we meet anyone we may have a chat. It is important to have a welcoming or totally unique environment, look the ripples on the lake, palms, things to do, boating, dancing and of course a popular pastime, flying – (impro a bit here depending on audience reactions). I would like you to notice too how the advertising and brand presence is not ‘in your face’, more about that later. CLOSE DEMO.

Second life is not just about sex, money and griefing. Griefing, by the way, is a term used to describe irritating behaviour, which actually is extremely easy to control. Most of the stories you hear about ‘virtual terrorism’ is really a toxic combination of unprepared companies inworld and the media that likes to find ‘an angle’, just like the real world then. The Project Factory and other Second Life developers have many easy to implement strategies to reduce this to a minimum.

Onto money and opportunities for brands. For the moment it is about getting in there early (first mover advantage), learning about what works and collaborating with the existing resident communities. This both shows that you are ahead of the curve but also open to really having a direct relationship with your customers and most importantly learning from them. It is a way to reach and understand your existing clients and prepare for what will be a mass audience in a very short time. A recent inworld survey by CB News in partnership with Rep̬res asked over 1000 Second Life residents their opinion of real world brands and there were some surprisingly results. 66% believe that the presence of RL brands has a positive impact on SL and 45% of respondents even want more brands because they enhance and give more credibility to Second Life, a realism and make SL more interesting, by increasing the number of residents. But at the moment we are not talking about mass audiences. Successful brand presences, and two of the recent Project Factory builds in Second Life are in the top five, may have anywhere between 30-60 thousand unique visitors per quarter. These will seem like small numbers to some brand owners and advertisers, but, and here is where it gets very exciting, the inhabitants are spending anything between 15 minutes and 6 hours per visit to your brand! That figure is unheard of in almost any other media even more significant and important for those concerned with reach is that those residents are the most active in the blogosphere, and millions of impressions are generated outside these worlds Рthey tell of their lengthy experiences in the other social networks.

Shopping in virtual worlds is actually fun for the inhabitants and comes up as one of the most popular pastimes. The ability to browse products alongside your trusted friends is more akin to the mall than eBay of course so this is a real opportunity for those who want to attempt to make in or out of world sales. The more progressive companies are allowing consumers to co-design product and even order real world product from within the environment. A simple example. Very similar experiences to real life are being created in these worlds such the shared ‘media’ experience – listening to music, watching movies with others is pretty cool, you can chat and play-around with your fiends alongside the latest film. Dominos pizza realised this early and now allow you to order your ‘real’ pizza while you virtually watch movies with your ‘distributed friends’. Domino’s IT director Jane Kimberlin said “Second Life is where Domino’s customers are and therefore that’s where the pizza company needs to be too.”

How to make money? As is well publicised (in fact I can’t believe I am still talking about this) Linden dollars is the Second Life currency which can be converted into real world dollars. There are some businesses operating in Second Life that are earning real money selling virtual products. These include clothing, dance animations, selling or leasing property, buying even selling shares and the number of Second Life residents generating more than US$5,000 in monthly income has more than quadrupled to 116 in the past year, according to Linden Lab. Also brands who create product inside Second Life own the IP inworld and more importantly they retain it if they move it outside and create out of world, real product, so great news for inworld R&D. But selling things shouldn’t be your focus. It should be about integrating your brand and becoming a trusted addition inside this unique and vibrant social network. You must add value and not just build and run or build and not be around to welcome your visitors. There are way too many empty branded spaces in some virtual worlds. Lets see some of the brands that have already taken the plunge, this is a short edit of a longer video I compiled on the stand and it looks at a few recognisable names.

SELF CUT VIDEO: Motion grabs of branded spaces in world. 3 minute edit of the longer 30 minute stand one.

Quite a few recognisable brands there, so how are they doing?. Well on Thursday last week I went inworld and using the built in Search/Places facility which brings up the standardised traffic figures I looked at the ‘dwell’ traffic for each of them. Dwell is not just how many visits but how much of their inworld time they spent with each of the major brands. Also the inworld traffic measurement is the only real way to compare like with like which is why I am showing it to you. So here are the results.

1. BigPond – 18139
2. Pontiac – 13832
3. IBM – 12850
4. Showtime (L Word) – 7233
5. ABC TV Australia – 6898
6. NetG Training – 6536
7. Mercedes-Benz – 5656
8. Nissan – 4269
9. Mazda – 2827
10. Dell – 2759
11. MTVN – 2317
12. Toyota – 2119
13. Sun Microsystems – 1728
14. Sears – 1596
15. Sony BMG – 1560
16. Cisco – 1521
17. Adidas Reebok – 1351
18. Sony Ericsson – 1242
19. PA Consulting Group – 1138
20. Circuit City -1089
21. Reuters – 1019
22. BMW 842
23. Intel – 829
24. AOL – 797
25. NBC Universal 745
26. American Apparel – 596
27. Starwood Hotels – 35

Great news for Australia with BigPond and ABC (built by the Project Factory) in the top five and this is months after launch, so outside the hype curve. But why are some of the others so low? All those wonderfully designed, branded buildings with lots of things to do? Well to me a couple of the critical elements that many brands have missed are -
Firstly– Creating spaces that are just really nice to spend a long time in. Sounds simple but many corporate builds are just cold and too representational. They should be organic, of value and welcoming and where inhabitants can create their identities inside their own stories. Of particular note is the outback bar area of the Pond which is currently in the top ten of all second life brands itself on a ‘dwell’ basis, but more importantly it is part of a mix of features and functions that you need to create.
Secondly – A space where the inhabitants can create or contribute to the environment. So both The Pond and ABC have sandbox areas where residents (particularly new ones) learn to build and add things to the branded space. Also requests for changes from the visitors to the existing build should be taken seriously and acted on. Give them a sense of ownership of the space and they will thank you which will build trust.
Thirdly – Be authentic and talk to them at an equal level. Too many companies still talk down to their customers as their avatars do the ‘hard sales pitch’ thing. This is a real opportunity to show the human side to the brand, give it personality and again that insight will be endearing to the residents. A major consideration for many brands is to actually commit ‘real life’ people to be in the environment with the visitors 24/7. If you think you wont be able to collaboratively manage the community by factoring in the human resource follow-up, it might make sense not to start at all.

Advertising in these worlds are often seen as a big no, no from those inworld. Especially the old in your face, irrelevant, broadcast ad model. One thing we are experimenting with at the Project Factory is personalized and targetd advertising. This is not some Orwellian (or Minority Report) nightmare, more a way that the environment (at its crudest level ad hoardings) will change dependent on who is around them but there are many more subtle ad R&D experiments we are trailing. We, like many other developers, are learning as we go along and will never assume that this sort of functionality will prevail. An area that we definitely believe is here to stay is allowing residents to creatively interact with your brand or product. So let them co-design new product with you and listen to what they say about your existing products or services. Never before have brands had this opportunity to be so close to the consumer, you are in there with them, in real time, collaboratively.

Companies succeed in virtual worlds when they take much more of a lifestyle approach to their marketing. Whether you choose to go down this road and participate or not, Virtual Worlds will remain to be one of the most compelling ways we will interact socially and commercially in the future. The Project Factory’s virtual world services are also about merging the real with the virtual and creating experiences that are interactive, social and immersive. It is a very exciting time to be involved now at the dawning of this very real, virtual revolution. I hope that this brief talk wheted your appetite. If you want more come talk to us on our stand and check out the website listed here.

Thank you and time for a few questions?

and not mine but a great video about potential for brands (albeit slightly smoke and mirrors re: the interactions in this video) from Text100 and thousands of views on YouTube.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Posted by Gary Hayes ©2007