Is Google the Future for Virtual Worlds? Exclusive Interview on Second Life, Showtime, Chouchou and More With Wagner James Au

amp160Last month Harper Collins published Wagner James Au39s The Making of Second Life Notes From The New World With a Second Life backlash in full swing Ad Age named it most overhyped trend of 2007 and the Virtual Worlds 2008 conference kicking off this week in NYC it was an ideal time to chat with Wagner a unique figure in the Metaverse particularly Second Life So much ink ranging from fawning fuzzy to the vitriolic has been spilled on Second Life that it39s lost control of its own brand currency amp8211 approximating the Lindsay Lohan of New Media Let39s coursecorrect Influenced by the fantasy of roleplaying games more than the ultraviolence of shoot39emups an early vision of Second Life came together at the annual Burning Man Festival In brief a series of mistakes andor workarounds laid the groundwork for a platform that was ultimately created almost entirely by Residents the build that Linden Lab created still exists inworld but is a ruinIn spring of 2003 Second Life parent Linden Lab had the foresight to hire Wagner as its town chronicler For the next three years his byline was quotHamlet Lindenquot his avatar donning Tom Wolfe39s iconic doublebreasted white suit recording his observations on the blog New World Notes NWN In 2006 he went independent known to the community thereafter as quotHamlet Auquot While Wagner continues to be struck by the potential that lies within SL he39s more sociologist than evangelist In an exclusive interview with JackMyers Media Business Report Wagner James offers a candid account of SL39s past amp8211 warts and all and a glimpse at the future of the platform as it impacts the WWW itself Let39s amp8211 finally get the numbers straight Wagner recalls quotThe early hyping press reported the number of SL accounts that have been created without reporting the number of recurring users Linden Lab didn39t do a very good job making that distinction clear There39s like 14 million active users 550000 active monthly hardcore users but not 10 million Reporters just wrote the biggest numberquot Because the first wave of hype flooded in before SL matured from a 3D platform with high barriers to entry Wagner believes that quotreal world advertisers who came in expecting a docile audience that would line up to look at their 39brand experience39 were shocked that they were being ignored and having their ass handed to them by talented kids and housewives who were making better content than themSmarter advertisers have stayed and learned how to tap that talent as have real companies that are actually serious about using it as a development and prototyping platformquot Last year Komjuniti a Hamburgbased research firm polled 200 SL Residents They found that 72 were disappointed with real world company activities in Second Life just over 40 considered these efforts a oneoff not likely to last Now while this isn39t inconsistent with what we see in the real world Wagner believes that this failure mainly boils down to a failure of imagination After all SL is a talented community of artists designers and musicians demanding unprocessed experiences Coyly offers Wagner quotResidents prefer nude dance parties giant frogs singing altfolk rock and samurai deathwatchesamp8211 and often all three at the same timequot What39s a brand to do To begin with have a purpose Brands who planted flags through 2006 and 2007 just wanted to get some publicity out of their tangential connection to a Virtual World quot most of them just wanted the press hit of something anything in Second Life thereby repeating the mistakes of the dot com boomquot Wagner observed firsthand that for marketers quotthe best thing is a targeted campaign that really leverages what SL is and what it39s best at dynamic collaborative creation and freeform fun The brands that have stayed have made more of an effort to engage the community and having a consistent presencequot Successful entrepreneurs in Second Life have launched careers by marketing their artistic expression Inworld designers create customized quotskinsquot for avatars Why not a Project Runway for Second Life Wagner affirms that a few companies are moving in that direction taping into the fashion infrastructure that39s in place Playboy amp8211 from its island on Second Life has commissioned SL designers to create cobranded outfits NYC39s Fashion Institute of Technology headtohead rival of Runway39s Parsons School of Design has expressed interest in SL39s potential as a prototype platform L39Oreal Paris has been forwardlooking in its media partnerships working with CurrentTV on viewercreated ad messages mobile VOD content and with E39s The Vine so it39s intuitive that it saw value in virtual worlds But rather than buy an island it went small amp8211 literally amp8211 creating a presence in Greenies amp8211 a surreal SL outpost where aliens cavort in a giant house Without fanfare it introduced a purse filled with its product line The venture is emblematic of a winning approach quotUp until now the standard practice has been to create and launch an SL site fully branded with the real world advertiser39s logos and trademarks Here instead the client39s product is subtly and playfully introduced into an already popular sitequotContent itself is catching on in SL particularly womencentric programming Like L39Oreal it made sense that Showtime would extend The L World inworld seeing that from season one it referred constantly to The Chart amp8211 its visual map of hookups When asked if the network might consider a deeper presence amp8211 for shows like The Tudors or Weeds amp8211 Wagner assents quotShowtime is talking about that very thing with other shows besides L Wordquot Since last fall the CW39s Gossip Girl created by Millions of Us has also curried a following on SL racking up 40000 unique visitors in a few monthsThe mention of unique visitors deserves parsing in the context of virtual worlds Are we measuring a user or her avatar Wagner agrees noting that quotresidents have a different personality than their real life owner For example how many housewives do you know who wear 8quot stilettos and devil wings Then again you can probably abstract even fanciful preferences and learn quite a lot about the real person even much more than you would in other contexts I think because you39re aggregating their imaginationquot In practice he39s impressed by BlogHUD which he describes as quota heads up display that transmits screenshots and text from within SL to an aggregated blog Not directly measuring but tracking popular sites places peoplequot Not that Second Life has shown the way forward on this score in the past quotANYTHING is an improvement to the existing Popular Places tab in SL which is a literal embodiment of Yogi Berra39s saying about a crowded restaurantquot Two constituencies are particularly wellsuited for virtual worlds gaming and music quotThere39s a tremendous amount of talent and crossover with various popular games and they can foster 39modding39 communities here especially with Havok 4 about to go Livequot Music has an even more compelling scenario He maintains that quotthe music industry doesn39t realize that the future of live music online is here alreadyquot and offers proof embodied in Chouchou a metaverseonly pop group Chouchou is the brainchild of a New Yorkbased Juliet Heberle and her counterpart Arabesque Choche in They have never met but collaborate in full He transmits his music digitally she records her vocals over them and in Second Life they are pioneering live virtual performances on their island Islamey Their project fuses architecture fashion machinima inworld filmmaking and of course music and is extended through theiramp160MySpace page and on their music videos on YouTube Wagner opines that in the future no one will pay for recorded music and rather than the high cost of touring live virtual performances will be the bread and better of musicians amp160amp160Second Life39s top three shops developersagencies both Electric Sheep Millions of Us and Rivers Run Red are successful because they have sprung organically forth from SL39s culture While the embryo SL was known for anticorporate hostility Wagner points out that the interplay between community and the commercial has evolved quotThe most active Residents tend to also be the best platform developers Among IBM39s top SL developers for example one is a hot babe elf another looks like the Predator They enjoy SL for work and playquot Wagner also cites Boston39s Green Grotto Studios which created the Playboy island saving his highest praise for UKbased Rezzable it worked on the L39Oreal campaign cited above What don39t marketers get quotThe most frequent misconception is thinking that they can apply understood revenue models and expectations to this new spacequot says Wagner quotFor the first time they39re playing on a level playing field and if they don39t understand that or how to leverage Second Life39s BeBop Reality they39re going to failquot Wagner39s quotBeBop Realityquot alludes to SL39s fungible take on both reality and physicsThere are some recent inworld enhancements that should appeal to marketers right now Linden Lab recently enabled streaming of static web pages with the intent to have dynamic web pages in the near future As Wagner sees it quotThis opens up a HUGE opportunity for ad networks doing a kind of Metaverse Adsense dealquot Given the presence of The L Word and Gossip Girl GLAM and BlogHer should be interestedWhile Wagner39s New World Notes was originally intended for Second Life Residents it attracted Boing Boing readers consistently the 1 rated blog according to Technorati to its ranks The Making of Second Life Notes From The New World according to Wagner is targeted for a wider audience still The type that asks quotWhy was Gary Sinise going into a 39virtual world39 on CSI and what is that anywayquot39It39s become a clichamp233 to say that the Web and virtual worlds will soon converge that the Internet will no longer be a semipassive 2D medium but instead a fully engaged embodied media Pressed to elaborate on when Skynet becomes selfaware when a major investment will act as a catalyst Wagner namechecks Google In Second Life quotAcross virtual worlds definitely SL maybe SL is going through growth pains as it goes from powerful niche to mass market that may not be possible but we39ll seequot Wagner James Au blogs at New World Notes and can be reached via email at wjamesauwellcom Wagner will be at the Virtual Worlds 2008 conference with books in tow If you prefer you can order The Making of Second Life Notes From The New World online He39s also reachable on AIMSKYPE as SLHamlet Jack Myers will be speaking at Virtual Worlds 2008 Thursday at 11 AMamp160amp160amp160amp160amp160amp160amp160amp160amp160amp160amp160

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Is Google the Future for Virtual Worlds? Exclusive Interview on Second Life, Showtime, Chouchou and More With Wagner James Au

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