The Otherland Group - Blog

The Intraworlds are Coming!

In the first wave of the big virtual worlds hype (which was a Second Life hype, actually) the canonical application for this new technology was "marketing" - maybe because marketeers are the ones, which just love new ways to reach the minds of customers (and the costs for some experiments in Second Life did not mean much in relationship to typical marketing budgets). They were disappointed after a while, when they discovered the size of their target groups, which they could reach through Second Life ... and the anti-hype began.

At the same time, quietly and steadily, another group of people began to discover virtual worlds. And actually, it seems as if at least in the "corporate world" there is a lot more immediate potential for a real ROI with applications in the context of intranets and education/training. The big advantage of virtual worlds, immersion, the feeling of being together with other people, no matter, where they are in the physical world, is extremely interesting for these application areas, too. That is not just a virtual worlds fanboy's opinion. IBM,  Gartner, Forrester or McKinsey do agree.

So, while we might have to wait a few years until the global Metaverse appears, there will certainly quite a few Intraworlds around in the near future. I would like to define an Intraworld as follows:

Intraworlds are to virtual worlds what intranets are to the web. An Intraworld is a virtual world, which is accessible to the employees of one company. The server side of such a platform usually runs in the company’s own data center and the users access the world with PCs connected to these server(s) through the company’s LAN (or through a VPN connection). Additionally, an Intraworld is optimized for similar purposes as an intranet: communication, information sharing and general collaboration. Typical applications are meetings, conferences, presentations and sometimes training.

In a similar way you can define 'Extraworlds', too, of course.

The first products, which are optimized for this market, are Sun's Project Wonderland and Qwaq by a company of the same name. Both are intended to help companies set up their own Intraworlds. Qwaq is more of a packaged service offering (see here), while Project Wonderland is a real "tool kit" in a more technical sense. You can build a virtual world with it, but you can not simply "log in to" Project Wonderland. Sun has used Project Wonderland to create their own demo intraworld, already, which it calls MPK20.

I will be looking into both products in some detail in the coming weeks.

Technorati Tags: 3d web, second life, virtual training, virtual worlds, web 3.d, intraworld

The importance of having shadows Or: realism in virtual worlds

What is the difference between the two pictures above? Realism? Immersion? Fun? Success? Both are rendered from Virtual worlds. The left one is from Gaia an low end (and extremely successful 2.5D world. The right picture is taking from Playstation Home, probably the most realistic virtual word of today, only accessible with a Sony Playstation 3.

Hamlet Au, one of the most famous authors in the Second Life Blogospere recently posted an arcticle about a new experimental version of Second Life, which provoked a lot of comments immediately. He questioned if it was really desireble to have more graphics effects, more realism in Second Life - especially if this leads to different user experiences among the users - and quoted some interesting numbers:

Top virtual worlds/MMOs by use, as of 2008:
- World of Warcraft, 10 million subscribers
- Habbo Hotel, 8 million monthly active users
- RuneScape, 5 million monthly active users
- Club Penguin, 4 million monthly active users
- Webkinz, 4 million monthly active users

He concludes, that people probably don't want realistic 3D worlds, as 4 of 5 of the most successful virtual worlds are 2.5D and the only 3D one is certainly not "high end" or "realistic". 

I can't follow his line of reasoning though.  While I won't argue his numbers (showing that a lot of 2.5D worlds are vastly more popular than next gen 3D ones), it is tough to draw conclusions from such a fact. When two factors are correlated this just means that they are ... correlated, NOT that one is the result of the other in a cause-and-effect relationship. :) Assuming cause-and-effect when there is correlation is one of the most popular mistakes in logic.

METAVERSE08 Overview of virtual worlds - Nic Mitham - KZERO

Blogging live from the 'Metaverse' in Karlsruhe.

Nic Mitham from the 3D consulting agency KZERO is giving an overview of virtual worlds.

The following depends on his statements and comments.

He is differentiating mainly by the age troup that is targeted, the number of registred users and the age of the world itself.

When VWs (virtual worlds) communicate user numbers we have to be aware of the following indicators.

• registered accounts – awareness indicator
• unique acounts – cleaner awareness indicator
• active accounts – engagement indicator
• concorrent accounts – live activity
• premium accounts – value indicator

Really big for age 10+ are:

• Neopets  with 45 million users
• Barbie Girls (12 m)
• Webkinz (1m) and many more.
• Lego Universe (LU) will be released in 2009.

These are the future users of SL and similar worlds

Lego is really user generated content all the way. In real life or virtually.

In it you can generate Lego models in a Minority Report' like interface.

   

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

Kinset and TheMallPlusHow NOT to implement 'Virtual Shopping'

Everyone who ever had the (doubtful) pleasure to listen to one of my presentations about virtual worlds, knows that I consider 'shopping' to be a perfect example for the advantages of virtual worlds technology versus websites. In short: Web based catalogues are perfect for efficient buying Virtual Worlds are perfect for 'shopping'. (More details here; in German.) Others seem to have similar ideas.

Lately, two new 'virtual world environments' appeared on the market, who are explicitely intended to support shops in a 3D online environment: Kinset and TheMallPlus.

Unfortunately, after trying out these two products, I got the impression that their designers did not understand the most important principles of virtual worlds - and of virtual shopping - at all.

Anyone who wants to understand, how - and why - shopping in virtual worlds works, please do NOT check out  Kinset or TheMallPlus !

These two services show, how one can present pictures of products in a 3D environment. What they don't show is why you should do this. Checking out both 'solutions' I could not find any major advantage of this kind of product presentation. Every web-based catalogue is - for most purposes - much better and demands less resources. I am afraid that Kinset and TheMallPlus will discredit the whole idea of using virtual worlds technology for online retailing. :(

Again: 'shopping' is - contrary to the efficient 'procurement of goods' - a social experience. Virtual worlds support this social experience - contrary to websites - by facilitating the immersion in another world together with others. What is needed to make this work is

1. a presentation of my surrounding by using the metaphor of a world/space (both Kinset and TheMallPlus do this),
2. a presentation of myself as an avatar (TheMallPlus tries to, Kinset doesn't) and
3. a shared experience, which happens because I am aware of other people around me and they are aware of me

More about these prerequisites for the virtual world experience here (or simply check out any popular shop in Second Life). It's all about avatars which interact and form relationships (temporary or permanently) and not about playing around with 3D. If I don't support all of the prerequisites for the virtual world experience I can forego 3D presentation -- especially, when the products aren't even presented threedimensional...

Technorati Tags: 3d web, kinset, metaverse, v-commerce, 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

Personal experience not necessary!

syndicated with _notizen

A funny phenomenon, which I experience again and again when talking about virtual worlds (which many people still equate with "Second Life") are those grumpy commentators, which already come with a very dedicated opinion - and are not afraid to voice it. They know exactly that Second Life is completely superfluous, or even dangerous, is populated by (only a very few) losers and only came to fame through paid PR. But they never have been in SL or in any other virtual world or gave up "disgusted" after a few minutes. o.o

This is quite common with professionals from the marketing and IT industry, too. Joseph Jaffe did a wonderful quote about this type of "professional" yesterday, when talking about the iMedia Brand summit in San Diego:

Whilst the entire crowd cheered at Second Life being the most “overhyped” component of marketing today, when pressed (by me), it become apparent that almost all of these folk have never actually been in SL, let alone piloted any programs in-world

OK, ok, of course it is grossly unfair, to ask if someone arrived at his opinion from personal experience or by reading the trade press. :) What I found quite striking is another bit of wisdom from the same post.

On a different front, the whole concept of "failure" still holds us back from venturing too far from our comfort zones. We move one step forward...with such low tolerance for "failure", such that when we don't hit it out the park, we end up radically recoiling and taking 2 steps backwards for every forward step. [...] As Tim Mapes, CMO of Delta, said, "Innovation = bold ideas that work; Mistakes = bold ideas that fail" - I guess we need to decide whether we're in the bold ideas business or not ... irrespective of the outcome.

The last sentence should provoke a contemplative moment with everyone in the o-so-creative business of marketing. If you are so afraid of making mistakes, that you never take a path that doesn't lead to an easy success in 90% of all cases ... maybe you are not so 'creative' at all.

I guess this fear of trying uncharted pathes is the biggest hindrance for a more widespread acceptance of the new communications vehicle "virtual world" - and for more really creative experiments in this realm, too.

Found through Giff's blog.

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