The Otherland Group - Blog

Linden Lab bans Ad Farms - Great Idea, Bad Execution

Last week, Linden Lab, the company behind the virtual world of Second Life, finally decided to act against the ugly phenomenon of advertising farms on the so called "mainland". For those who are not Second Life users: ad farms are areas in Second Life, where the virtual land is cut into extremely small parcels, which are filled with very annoying advertisement displays - the infamous rotating cubes. And - while this is called "ad farming" - most of the Second Life residents doing this are not actually planning on making any money from "advertising". They are speculating on annoying the neighbors so much, that they will decide to buy the land - which is set for sale at astronomical prices - to get rid of the ads. (picture to the right CC by Ordinal Malaprop)

Linden Lab now announced that:

Using content, particularly advertising, to deliberately and negatively affect another resident’s view so as to sell a parcel for an unreasonable price, will be deemed unacceptable and dealt with as a violation of our community standards.

Hmmm ... While the idea of setting up limits against ad farms is not bad, I wonder if these rules will help much and how effective they will be. I think it was not a very good idea, to base the judgement if an installation is considered an "ad farm" on the INTENTION of the resident setting it up. Linden Lab might be able to monitor chats inworld but I doubt, if they can read their customer's minds. Certain limits about minimum parcel sizes and maximum land prices would have been a more practical solution IMHO - and less prone to subjective interpretation.

OTOH I think its a very promising movement in principle, that the Lab finally seems to care for the mainland again: If successful, this new policy should lead to more attractive residential areas on the Linden-operated mainland. And the newly formed "Department of Public Works" will hopefully add to the attractiveness of the mainland in another way: with more realistic (and fun) infrastructure and new and interesting public buildings.

Those who know, that The Otherland Group is active in the (non-mainland) real estate business and is operating an advertisement network within Second Life might be surprised to learn that we are so happy about these new projects. Why should we care about the mainland? And why should we like a ban of advertisement? The answers to these questions are rather simple:

1. Ad-farms with their horrible rotating displays are one of the main reasons advertising is so much discredited in virtual worlds in general and in Second Life specifically. Anything that reduces these eyesores (which actually isn't "advertising" at all in many cases) will make our job easier - to provide a platform for professionally done, effective outdoor marketing.
2. Anything that makes Second Life more attractive for more target groups is good for our business in the long run - even for the business in the other virtual worlds we are covering because SL is still a kind of flagship product. And a reduction of the large trailer-park-like regions in Second Life and the addition of infrastructure and pubic buildings will certainly make Second Life more attractive. :)

So Linden Lab is moving in the right direction. A little more fine tuning might help even more, though.

Technorati Tags: 3d web, advertising, marketing, metaverse, second life, virtual worlds, web 3.d

Advertising - Horrible or Interesting?

I recently came accross a great quote from the internet pioneer Dave Winer regarding advertising. Interesting. People's attitude to advertising can be funny. Many (most?) simply don't care. Some love (certain kinds of) advertising. And some are very vocal opponents of advertising and want to 'protect' as much of the world from advertising as is possible - including the virtual world. For them any kind of advertising is 'evil'.

My own attitude is somewhat mixed. I have no TV anymore, for example. The reason for this decision was (mostly) that advertising made most of the programming unbearable to me. I finally gave up when - sometime in the late 90s - a movie was interrupted by advertising 6 times with two of the interruptions happening in the first 30 minutes! That was annoying. On the other hand I am a user of many 'free' (ad supported!) services on the web. Most of them use adsense-type contextual advertising and - lo and behold - I regularly click on some of the ads.

Whats the difference? Two big differences exist, actually:

1. Acceptable advertising does not keep me from doing what I want to do (getting into the flow with a good movie for example)
2. Acceptable advertising strifes to be relevant (and succeeds in at least some cases)

Dave Winer phrased it like this:

Advertising will get more and more targeted until it disappears, because perfectly targeted advertising is just information.

Couldn't have said it better. (But I am afraid, some people will still don't like it, because it's 'commercial'. Can't help these guys .)

Disclaimer: The Otherland Group is currently maintaining one of the larger professional ad networks in Second Life. My opinions might be biased ...

Technorati Tags: advertising, marketing, performance marketing

Anzeigenwerbung - schrecklich oder interessant?

Gestern kam mir ein großartiges Zitat vom Internet Pionier Dave Winer über 'Werbung' unter. Werbung ist ein komisches Thema. Die Einstellung der Leute dazu ist oft komisch und manchmal irrational. Einige (die meisten?) denken kaum drüber nach. Einige finden Werbung (ausgewählte 'coole') richtig spannend. Andere sind ausgesprochene Werbegegner. Für Letztere ist jede Form von Werbing igittebäh und 'gute Werbung' ein Oxymoron

Meine eigene Einstellung zu dem Thema ist ambivalent. Zum Beispiel haben ich kein Fernsehen mehr. Der Grund dafür war (primär) die Tatsache, dass die Fernsehwerbung den größten Teil des Programms unerträglich gemacht hat. Eine Zeitlang habe ich das mitgemacht, aber dann hat mir ein Film auf Sat1 den Rest gegeben, der - irgendwann in den späten 90ern - von 6 Werbepausen unterbrochen wurde; zwei davon in den ersten 30 Minuten! Andererseits nutze ich eine Vielzahl von 'kostenlosen' (also werbefinanzierten!) Diensten im Web. Die meisten davon verwenden kontextbasierte Werbung und - festhalten bitte - ich bin einer von denen, die da regelmäßig draufklicken.

Was ist der Unterschied zwischen der guten Werbung im Web und der 'bösen' im Fernsehen oder ist das nur subjektiv? Die beiden wichtigsten Unterschiede:

1. Gute Werbung hält mich nicht davon ab, was ich eigentlich tun will (in den 'flow' eines Films kommen, beispielsweise)
2. Gute Werbung versucht, relevant zu sein (und hat zumindest manchmal Erfolg damit)

Dave Winer hat das so formuliert:

Advertising will get more and more targeted until it disappears, because perfectly targeted advertising is just information.
Werbung wird immer besser und besser 'gezielt' werden bis sie irgendwann einmal 'verschwindet' - weil perfekt gezielte, relevante Werbung einfach nur noch 'Information' ist.

Hätt' ich nicht besser sagen können. Und ich glaube wirklich, dass das passieren wird. (Ich fürchte allerdings, einige Leute werden das immer noch hassen, weil es eben 'kommerziell' ist. Nichts zu machen.)

Disclaimer: The Otherland Group unterhält eines der größeren professionellen Werbenetzwerke in Seond Life. Das könnte meine Ansichten färben ...

Technorati Tags: advertising, marketing

Measurable Results for Projects in Virtual Worlds

Now I have got a Slideshare account, too. The reason was a request, to share the presentation I did for the 1st Birthday of Germany's leading Virtual Conference Center Corecon. I don't really like to send around Powerpoints. And PDF is not a perfect format for presentatoons. So let's try Slideshare:

| View | Upload your own

Regarding the presentation: it is very much a "draft" and stream of thought just now and doesn't really work that well without a sound track. I guess I will be improving it in the coming weeks to get it out of beta status. This is a topic which is really at the heart (or very near to the heart) of our activities in virtual worlds. Making sense of business in virtual worlds. (And only measurable performance indicators are good performance indicators ...)

Anyway ... Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: 3d web, advertising, marketing, metrics, performance marketing, second life, virtual worlds, web 3.d

Erfolgsmessung bei Projekten in virtuellen Welten

Jetzt habe auch ich einen Slideshare-Account. Grund war die Anfrage, die Präsentation, die ich anlässlich des ersten Geburtstags des virtuellen Konferenzzentrums Corecon halten durfte, bereit zu stellen. Die Powerpoint-Originale rauszugeben, ist "immer so eine Sache". Und PDFs sind nicht wirklich ein Superformat für Präsentationen.

Hier der Link zur Präse in Slideshare. Zur Präsentation selbst: die ist noch ein bisschen "Draft" und kann ohne Tonspur nicht wirklich gut funktionieren. Ich denke, ich werde da in Bälde noch einmal etwas Verbessertes zu uploaden. Das Thema liegt uns wirklich am Herzen. (Making sense of business in virtual worlds. Und nur messbare Erfolgskenngrößen sind gute Kenngrößen!)

Ansonsten ... Enjoy!

Was Slideshare angeht: Nettes Tool, aber ... was ich schon gemerkt habe: Auch hier ist die Verwendung von Schriften, die nicht standardmäßig auf jedem System verfügbar sind, offenbar eine blöde Idee. Muss ich mir noch mal näher ansehen. Oder muss ich wirklich alle Präsentationen mit Times und Arial gestalten?

Technorati Tags: 3d web, advertising, metrics, performance marketing, second life, virtual worlds, web 3.d

Inworld Advertising on the OMD in Germany

The "Inworld Advertising Network" is a brand of The Otherland Group and markets ad-space in virtual worlds. IAN is the largest marketer of ad-space in Second Life with more than 2.000 ad-boards on over 150 sims.

Together with the german "predictive behavioral targeting" specialist nugg.ad we've created a behavioral targeting showcase within in Second Life, to demonstrate how targeting in virtual worlds can work.

This year we will attend the OMD (Online Marketing Düsseldorf), europe's leading convention and congress for digital marketing, from the 25th - 26th september. You find us on the nugg.ad booth (Hall 10, Booth 10H02)

If you wanna meet us and make an appointment contact me via email. We are looking forwar to see you on the OMD!