So here is the story, I went searching for advertisements in the virtual world There.com the same way I do with most of the other worlds I’ve been assigned to find marketing and advertising in. My process is this: I go through the tutorial, I search the starting area, and then I talk to people to learn if anyone is aware of ads off the top of their heads. Then I navigate the rest of the world on my own in search of any signs of in-world branding.

Finding advertising in There.com took an especially long time since the world is actually quite large. However, as you’ll see, what I found in my exploration of the world is a blend of real advertising and user-generated product placement.

The Tower is a virtual world club where bands play and people come to listen, dance, and talk. This is just one example of a band that was playing in-world while I was researching.

I found a bunch of people wearing X-Games t-shirts and even came across X-Games-branded hoverboards. Are they holding their own version of the X-Games in There.com? Or, are they just using the game to promote them?

This was one of the arcades I came across. I did notice that the names on the video games were changed, likely to avoid copyright infringement.

Advertisements on benches are common in real life (or RL, as we say in virtual world speak). Apparently they’re also popular in There.com.

Yes, this is a Playstation 2 on top of the Television. The Sony logo on the side is missing (replaced by some illegible logo) - but it’s clear as day that’s what it is.

Again, changing the name slightly on the product, this can of “RAID” bug killer, has been modified to R.AID bug killer. (Oh, and just in case you were wondering … my avatar is wearing a fox costume and a jetpack … hey, an avatars gotta have some fun.)

It drives me crazy how much the product names/logos change in this world. But, hey, it’s still advertising a product. Here I am actually behind the counter of a bar looking at a Carona (Corona) sign.

There.com is a very large virtual space. In fact, as I was wrapping up my research I discovered that there were four or five other islands that I didn’t even know about.

Still, as I continued to explore I kept finding more and more examples of advertising in-world. And, since much of it was user-manufactured, there are real opportunities for the actual brands to come in with legitimate branding.

While inside the virtual world known as Habbo Hotel, I found it to be no trouble at all to obtain screenshots of advertisements, inside and outside of the world. I was able to uncover five main types of advertising in Habbo Hotel. Here they are …

1. Billboards. There were tons of places with billboards that you could click to take you to the website that they advertised for. Billboards appear to be the most common type of advertising in Habbo Hotel and certainly the most obvious.

2. Hotel Branding. This is not quite as obvious as a billboard. Companies instead avertise their product by branding a hotel in their name - so users see it clearly when they enter the space to visit with their friends. This reminds me a little of real-life branded venues (e.g. Hi-Fi-Buys Amphitheater, Turner Field, etc …).

3. Sticky Notes. Another type of advertisement I noticed involved a sticky note that advertised for a skateboard shop. The sticky note listed the prices of various products that could be purchased at that store.

4. Splatter Advertising. This is where I saw a sponsoring company’s logo all over everything. For example, one sponsor was on the roof of a hotel and inside a coffee shop. Take a look at the screen shots below … can you guess who the sponsor is? There were Target logos everywhere - and of course there was a billboard for Target. While users certainly aren’t missing this stuff, you have to wonder what the perception is. I tend to think this splattering is a little excessive.

5. Website Advertising. All over the Habbo Hotel homepage are Flash advertisements for Hot Rod - the new stuntman movie hitting theatres soon (in case you missed it on the in-world billboard earlier), and also for addictinggames.com, and the X-Games. I think that the X-Games advertisement was peculiar because in the last virtual world I explored (There.com) there were also X-Games ads … the X-Games must be really big in virtual worlds.

In my opinion Habbo Hotel has entirely too many advertisements. I decided to spare you the many many screenshots that I took of advertisements, but there were so many that it started to feel as as though walking around to look at advertisements was the plot of the game!

Disney’s ToonTown Online is a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG). Although Disney has opened this game to people of all ages, it is clearly geared toward children 12 years of age or younger. With ToonTown’s user base steadily growing, they recently made the decision to open the game for marketing and advertising.

About ToonTown:

ToonTown offers both free accounts and membership accounts. In order to make gameplay more “exclusive,” Disney made the chat feature available only to members. For those with free accounts, there is ”speed-chat”, which essentially allows users to quickly select from preset phrases. Normal chat can only be used between two players and they must both enter a password (which must be told outside of the game, to ensure that only friends chat together).

It is my belief that the game is open to all ages in order to allow parents to monitor the gameplay of their children, since the game is very clearly designed for youngsters. However, after opening the game to advertisers, Disney may continue to leave the game “open to all ages” so that marketers and advertisers can more easily monitor the sucesses of their marketing efforts.

Advertisers:

Even though Disney has opened up to marketers, I couldn’t find any sign of an advertisement for anything other than Disney itself. So, it doesn’t look like any companies have jumped on that band wagon yet. 

My opinion is that the problem lies in the fact that only small children play the game - meaning most companies that would be interested in advertising in ToonTown would have products for children. This could present a problem for Disney since the most likely companies to advertise children’s products come from rivaling television networks (e.g. Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon) - as many popular children’s toys are the result of merchandising for those network’s television shows. Since the major children-geared companies are rivals with Disney they may not be willing to advertise (or even if they wanted to Disney might have something to say about it). This could leave only the smaller children’s companies who might not have the marketing dollars to allocate for advertising in such an emerging medium as virtual worlds.

My Two Cents:

Although advertising in this game wouldn’t be HARD to do, finding an advertiser who isn’t a rival company may prove difficult for the Disney empire. If you’d like more info about Disney’s ToonTown, visit: http://play.toontown.com/about.php.

In the last eight months, Second Life has grown like wildfire. Even since May, the world’s total number of avatars has grown from around 6 million to more than 8 million. This growth has made Second Life far and away the largest virtual social interaction world. And with so many brands in-world it looks like Second Life is running away with the competition. Hold up. For users interested in social interaction in virtual worlds, there may be life outside of Second Life.

As of June, more than 50 corporations use and have established a presence in Second Life. Just as some businesses have gotten in, though, some are jumping out. Wells Fargo recently left, and Starwood Hotels has plans to leave as well. Part of the reason is that as the world has gotten so big and there is such stiff competition for brand recognition, some companies are having trouble sustaining avatars’ attention. This could be good news for worlds like There.com, Kaneva and even China’s HipiHi.

Both Kaneva and HipiHi are still in their beta testing stages. However, There.com has emerged as a very possible alternative to Second Life, showing a significant amount of promise.

One interesting aspect of There, which currently has around one million users, is that they are targeting a slightly younger target audience. Many worlds - such as Second Life, HipiHi, and Kaneva - are shooting for the 18-to-34 demographic. More than two-thirds of There’s users are between 13 and 26. There also places higher restrictions on user-generated content. For instance, all objects created in-world must pass a review to ensure all content is appropriate (There is bound by PG-13 style content). Also, all clothing designed for avatars must follow “minimum coverage requirements.”

Despite a slightly younger target audience, There IS similar to Second Life because it is a true social networking world, not a game (like RuneScape  or Entropia Universe  where users are focused on tasks and objectives). There considers itself a true social networking destination, pitching the world as a place where users can “hang out and make new friends.” Some of the There’s activities include card games, a race track where users can challenge each other, paintball and trivia contests - all of which encourage social interaction. Despite having only a fraction of the users of Second Life, There is able to offer a world with more extensive social interaction opportunities.

In order to separate themselves from Second Life, There must find a niche as a better environment for close-knit social interactions. Users will be drawn to There if they will have a better social experience. However, There still has to focus on luring big brands to establish a presence in-world:

1. The more brands There is able to lure in, the more revenue the site will generate.
2. Users are more likely to stay if popular brands are present. Some analysts say it’s the numerous brands in world that have made it effective.

Ideally, There will find a balance as a world that places a premium on social interaction and one that is a home to big brands.

Marketing in There

The deal that There struck with MTV was consequential in the world’s continued growth. MTV originally started in Second Life, but has since jumped ship to create online environments that better complement its TV series. MTV hired There to create the sponsored worlds the Virtual Laguna Beach, and, more recently, a virtual version of The Hills. In these worlds users can hang out with the real-world cast of the popular MTV shows. “MTV networks is the first to recognize the potential for using social virtual worlds to enhance the viewer experience and build a stronger bond with the audience,” said Michael Wilson, CEO of Makena Technologies, the creators of There.

Earlier last month, There yet again made headlines by partnering with Capitol Music Group. The partnership between There and Capitol Music Group works almost exactly like the partnership between BMG and Second Life. As part of that deal, BMG brought in artists like Ben Folds and Talib Kweli to perform on Media Island in Second Life, a complex that BMG opened. Through this project, Folds was able to promote his new album with two live performances.

The Capitol project will bring in stars like the Beastie Boys, Korn, Yellow Card, and rapper MIMS to perform in The Tower, a new nightclub that Capitol recently purchased from There. As an added perk for both users and performers, during each virtual show fans can purchase both virtual and real world band gear, ranging anywhere from a virtual t-shirt to an actual CD.

Capitol is very optimistic about the possibilities of the partnership. “We know that consumers are spending a lot of time in virtual worlds and There.com offers a completely new way to promote music, both emerging talent and recognized artists, allowing artists to really connect with their fan bases,” said Syd Schwartz, senior vice president of digital strategy for Capitol. “Virtual worlds also give us a new revenue channel to promote our artists and sell virtual and real branded merchandise to customers.”

Perhaps netting these projects represents a real advantage for There. Looking back at HipiHi and Kaneva - they each show strong potential for different reasons:

• Kaneva is one of the first worlds to blend aspects of a 2-D social networking site, such as MySpace or Facebook, with aspects of a virtual world.
• HipiHi is geared towards a booming Chinese population and has been dubbed the “Chinese Second Life.”

However, because both are still in the testing stage, these worlds are relatively unknown - pushing There far ahead of Second Life challengers. I believe it’s only a matter of time before we see more brands launching in There. And with the rest of the competition looking up at Second Life, it is unlikely that they will catch up any time soon. However, with smaller worlds continuing to grow, it is likely that brands will see that Second Life is not the only world in town.

Yet another virtual world has surfaced, this time from China. Like most virtual worlds HiPiHi’s main purpose is for users’ to interact and socialize. In Chinese HiPiHi means something similar to “a world created by you”. Many bloggers refer to HiPiHi as the Chinese Second Life or as a Second Life clone. But, what exactly are the similarities and differences between these two virtual spaces?

THE SIMILARITIES
HiPiHi has many similarities to Second Life. The avatar creation, avatar motions, and construction abilities are almost identical. HiPiHi residents can also buy, sell, trade, and manage their own piece of land. Both worlds are built around a socializing community, and both seem to focus on town centers, meetings, and malls as centers of attention and get-togethers. Although they seem so much alike, HiPiHi claims that they did not even know that Second Life was under construction at the same time that they were developing their world. Also similar to Second Life, the construction engine looks to work on the same physics engine and the building editor tools look exactly the same as in Second Life.

DIFFERENCES
The HiPiHi creators seem to pride themselves in the fact that HiPiHi may be similar to Second Life, but that they have worked hard to improve the graphics and user flexibility. In my professional opinion, HiPiHi is like Second Life; but with modified graphics, a different base language, and leans towards a female population. It should be noted that HiPiHi also claims that they are not focusing on a female group - even though 6 of the 10 characters are female and in all of their official promotional videos, there are few if any male avatars present. HiPiHi also prides itself in its helicopter control panel, which feels as if they had brought in a helicopter pilot to get ideas on how to make it more realistic. The HiPiHi creators also gloat that they include a parachute option so that avatars can jump out of flying vehicles in mid-flight. Many blogs that I have read say that the main difference between Second Life and HiPiHi is that they focus on different cultures and values.

Here are some links to blogs and websites that support these claims:

China’s Virtual World War

The Top 10 Things About HiPiHi

HiPiHi.com - What is HiPiHi?

The Chinese clone of Second Life: HiPiHi

Interview: HiPiHI, a 3D digital world from China

The Second Life competitors materialize?

It must be akin to watching your child go off to their first day of kindergarten – feeling pride, worry, and hope. These are the same emotions I felt on Friday morning as I got into the office to go through everything (again). Yes, the day was finally here. My baby – the project that not only me, but an entire team of folks, poured their heart, soul and sweat into, and who lost countless hours of sleep over – was finally going live.

What am I talking about? The launch of Crowne Plaza’s The Place to Meet Island in Second Life - and the live event that was held to kick it off. Quickly, The Place to Meet in Second Life provides private, corporate meeting rooms (free). Users are able to reserve space, invite attendees and upload media for a close-to-real-life meeting experience - only without the travel or expense of a real life meeting.

With a prestigious panelist and expected media coverage I was nervous, to say the least. Hours before, the functional team gathered in a small conference room, huddled over computers awaiting the hour.  A small hiccup occurred at the beginning, a box needed to be checked to allow users (i.e. press) to teleport into the island. Box checked, the media was let in and with little distractions, the event began and stress levels started to go down.

In the control room in the back, safely out of sight, I was controlling the slides with the media manager that is chockfull of functionality.  It not only provides you with the functionality of changing media but there is a complex logic built into the script to dynamically generate the menu and files that have been uploaded through the equally complex scheduling site. 

Reflecting elements of design from various Crowne Plaza hotels, the rooms have been created to facilitate almost any type of meeting.  The island itself was beautifully crafted, composed of tropical trees and plants that form an idyllic environment to put any user at ease.

The amazingly brilliant team that worked diligently to bring this project to life has to be commended on a job more than well done. Of course, none of this would’ve been possible without the excitement and encouragement that the Crowne Plaza team displayed. Embracing this new medium and technology could have been fraught with tension and hesitations, but they jumped right in.

Virtual worlds, like Second Life and Entropia, are well… virtual. Avatars created in these worlds often have little or no relevance to their real life users. However, with the fairly recent creation of Kaneva, the line between the virtual world and the real world may begin to look rather blurry.

Kaneva, which is still in its beta version, was developed by Chris Klaus, who created Internet Security Systems (ISS) and later sold it for $1.3 billion. Since selling ISS, Klaus has directed his attention full-time to designing Kaneva and giving a very different feel than virtually any other world out there right now.

What sets Kaneva apart is that it combines the elements of a 3-D virtual world, a la Second Life, with a 2-D personal profile website, a la MySpace. When users first sign up, they can create their own 2-D profile page on Kaneva and add friends, send messages, and share photos and videos in much the same way that users on MySpace can. After signing up and creating their own profile, users can enter Kaneva’s 3-D virtual world and create their own avatar, just like users can in Second Life.

While many aspects of Second Life are obviously tailored only to the virtual world (many Second Life avatars have wings and sometimes look more like animals than humans), Klaus’s goal is for Kaneva to be a virtual world that mirrors the real world. Through its 2-D profile website, many users create avatars that are similar to the real-world personalities.

Another unique aspect of Kaneva is that it provides its users with a free virtual apartment once they create an account and enter Kaneva’s 3-D world. Users can then upload pictures and graphics from their Kaneva profile and place them as framed pictures in their new apartment. Users can change the style of the flooring and walls in the apartment. In addition, they can shop in-world and place their own furniture in their newly decorated apartment. Finally, if users choose to buy a TV in-world, they can then upload videos that they have put up in their real 2-D profile site, and then watch the video on their virtual TV in Kaneva’s 3-D world. Through all of these features, Kaneva has seamlessly bridged the distinction between aspects of the real-world and aspects of the virtual world.

Klaus also said that Kaneva’s goal is to reach a different user demographic than many other virtual worlds. “Unlike most companies in the gaming space, we are not pushing the latest and greatest graphics. Our world is about connecting with people in a very casual way,” said Klaus in an interview that he gave in February to Digital Arts Online.

Because Kaneva is still in its beta testing version, no companies have signed on and agreed to promote their brands in-world. However, Klaus believes that because so much of the Kaneva experience is rooted in the real-world, it’s an ideal opportunity for companies like Coca Cola and IBM to advertise. One of Klaus’s main business objectives is to design Kaneva such that it has many different purposes and is able to be redesigned so that other virtual worlds can be built on it. Klaus’s long-term vision is to have companies like Coca Cola use Kaneva’s world, and later on possibly create their own worlds for purposes of e-commerce. Klaus feels like this type of e-commerce could lend itself to companies using the virtual world for all different types of experiences, from virtual town hall meetings to virtual conference rooms.

Kaneva has published on their website that the has a world population of over 290,000 (remember, they are still in early stages of development). Comparatively, that’s about 4 percent of Second Life’s population of over 7.1 million. All of Klaus’s current ideas and plans are projections. No companies have officially signed on to advertise in Kaneva.

Regardless, Kaneva has perhaps changed the virtual world landscape. The line between the real world and the virtual world is a little less clear-cut. It is possible that in the future users may see other virtual worlds that combine aspects of the real world and virtual world in much the same way that Kaneva has. It may still be to early to tell, but one thing is certain, in terms of marketing it has a great deal of potential and upside.

It has always been the ideal setting for magic. Teleporting is magical (with or without the use of Floo powder), chairs can be summoned on a whim (who would know it’s coming from your inventory?), and any all-knowing wizard can easily find the hottest spots in town (crystal map anyone?). But now, this interactive medium has brought magic to a whole new level. Yes, it’s true; Harry Potter has come to Second Life!

The excitement was palpable in the Spunlogic office when we landed in Hogwarts castle. In front of us was a sorting hat with instructions on how to take the sorting quiz and find out which house you belong in (Hufflepuff!). Anticipation grew as we roamed through the classrooms (where you can sign up for classes) to discover self stirring cauldrons, spell books, potions and lots more.

The oohing and aahing was at an all time high when we discovered Diagon Alley. The point of arrival at Diagon Alley is a fairly innocuous looking marketplace. Wander in a little closer, past the Leaky Cauldron and you’ll stumble onto a whole other world. Imagine a scene taken from the pages of any Harry Potter books – students in cloaks with floating tags above their heads, identifying them as being from the house of Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Gryffindor, or Ravenclaw, milling around outside of the Scarborough Emporium (makers and sellers of broomsticks), chatting and trying out spells. It was surreal.

Of course, we had to check out the wand shop, because every good wizard must have a wand. Gleefully, we examined scepters, wands and spells of various shapes, sizes and function. My purchase and experience can be summed up by the following:

Wand: $L150
Spell: $L150
Feeling the unbelievable wonder when a Phoenix shot out from my brand new wand: Priceless

Can you tell I’m a Harry Potter fan?

We wandered around the sim a little longer and discovered that one of the many ways to interact with others was to become part of the Harry Potter role playing game. With enough time on your hands, one can easily become a Hogwarts student, enroll in classes, learn to cast spells and become an integral part of the community.

The experience that this sim offers, for those HP fans out there, is not to be missed. Seeing this world come alive, and to be able to interact and experience it in a way that the books, movies and websites cannot provide is, well, the stuff of dreams. All made possible by Second Life.

On SMS Text News yesterday I saw a post about Pepsi’s new Bluetooth campaign run by Qwikker.   The concept is that several bus shelters and pay phones in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Denver, Orange County, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia will give consumers with a Bluetooth device the ability to download free video clips.  It’s considered the largest Bluetooth marketing campaign to date.

Very cool and all the press I read about it agrees.  But I’m confused.  Having been talking about the power of virtual worlds for the better part of six months now, the main objection that marketers have is the reach (or the perceived lack thereof).  In Second Life in particular, with only 40,000 to 50,000 people “in-world” at any given time, it’s hard to get the reach that you would get from most other interactive marketing campaigns.

How is this Bluetooth campaign by Pepsi any different?  How many people can they really expect on a daily basis to a) stop at one of these few locations, b) have a Bluetooth device, c) know how to use it properly and d) want to download a Pepsi video?  And knowing there’s very little chance this campaign is less expensive or time consuming to create than a Second Life presence, I doubt the ROI is going to be any better.

And the second thing I hear most about Second Life’s downside is that you can’t really have more than 30 to 40 people in any given area without experiencing serious lag and decreased productivity.  Last time I checked, there weren’t a lot of phone booth’s that could hold that many people (though try as they may).

Am I missing something or should the same people that chastise Second Life also be chastising this Pepsi campaign?

I always love going to San Francisco and I always love getting back home to my family…its just that in between time of waiting at the airport for the red-eye flight and then actually taking the red-eye that is less than appealing.  So here I am 3 hours into my wait at the airport in San Fran with a few hours to go and I figured I’d shed a little light on some of the questions I got after my presentation on virtual worlds on Tuesday.

First, let me say I was shocked by the lack of knowledge about Second Life from the otherwise pretty savvy group of interactive people that were at this conference.  I found that almost none had tried the medium and very few had heard much about it.  That being said, here were a few of the questions (and my answers) from the group:

What is the cost of a project in Second Life?

You can make a pretty fair comparison between building an island in Second Life and creating a website, both in terms of cost and work required.  If you want a pretty standard island with few bells and whistles, that should be around the same cost as your standard brochure-ware website.

Are any of the virtual worlds converging with each other or with MMOG’s?

Not really.  However, I do expect that there will have to be some form of convergence between virtual worlds so that people are able to take their avatars (personas) with them from one world to the next.  People take a lot of pride in their virtual selves and expecting them to invest in multiple worlds will be a stretch.  Some Googlish company will come and put a few together and own the virtual space.

Should we expect to have 24/7 support and resources keeping our Second Life presence going?

Although you don’t need to have someone present at all times on your island, you should consider having someone there at peak times and certainly during any events.  One of the biggest problems that marketers make is creating a presence in Second Life and then stepping back and seeing what happens.  Build it and they will come might have been a good strategy for Kevin Costner, but it won’t work for you in Second Life.  Be ready to have some resources continue the experience.

What about Second Life’s inability to have more than 50 or so people in any given area (the servers can’t handle it currently)?

When asked this question I point out that Second Life is closer to real life than our typical web experience.  If I’m on Amazon.com and trying to buy a toaster, the fact that there are a thousand people shopping for that same toaster does not effect me at all.  However, if I’m in a Best Buy trying to buy a toaster and a thousand people are trying to buy it too, well that would just plain suck.  Second Life is about communicating with other people in a realistic environment (ok, as realistic as 3D can be).  If I’m in a room in Second Life and there are 500 people in that room, I couldn’t even have a conversation with someone because we’d all be on top of each other.  So my point is, even though Linden Lab is working on improving the situation, I actually think its a great constraint because if that “problem” gets fixed, we’ll have a completely different problem on our hands.

If you’ve got more questions, by all means let me know.