April marketing news

I’m getting slightly better at getting this out in time, but there’s still room for improvement.

Lottaworlds: Those lucky lucky boys and girls:Over the last couple of weeks weve seen several new virtual worlds for kids and tweens make announcements about pending launches. And, factoring these into the already high number of existing worlds means its exciting time for kids and tweens.

Re-visiting tourism in virtual worlds. Where are we going?:Re-visiting tourism in virtual worlds. Where are we going?Ive long been an advocate of travel and tourism marketing applications in virtual worlds. This is based on the ability of virtual spaces to educate and immerse people into real world places theyve never been to before. In this context, using VWs is a great example of the evolution from 2D (webpages) to 3D (environments) – moving from ?¢‚ǨÀúPages to Places.

Visit Mexico (again). The best yet?:Back in June 2007, Visit Mexico joined the growing ranks of tourism marketing companies in SL.The projectfocused on archeological site Chichen Itza and was integrated into other activities supporting their nomination for the New Seven Wonders of the World.

Natasha Bedingfield ?¢‚ǨÀúUnpluggs into Habbo:Music works well in virtual worlds.

Garnier joins the club with vMTV:Im going to write a dedicated post about the role of real world brands and avatar customisation soon, but in the meantime, heres the latest company to go virtual -Garnier(Fructis).Theyve done a deal withvMTVto sponsor the ?¢‚ǨÀúRock Your Style Lounge in-world – the ?¢‚ǨÀúultimate destination in Virtual MTV for fans to mingle with the finalists and watch their music videos.

The virtual Streets of Philadelphia and real-time geo-tagging:GeoSimPHILLYis the first real world city to be created by GeoSim Systems, an Isreali-based company. Their objective – to create virtual cities looking as realistic as possible. And, as they put it…

New kids on the block. Whirled video:A video ofWhirled! The latest tween virtual world!

Interoperability, virtual goods and forced migration:The idea of avatars being able to move freely between different virtual worlds (known as Interoperability) is a topic always near the top of technology-led discussions about the ?¢‚ǨÀúmetaverse.

The role of UGC in Home:GamesIndustry.biz iscarrying a storyabout Playstation Homes possible plans for introducing User Generated Content. The article explains that although Sony is keen to allow UGC, there are concerns over quality and moderation. Heres an extract.

Vizwoz: Early stats and new features:Teen virtual worldVizwozis already launching new features in-world following their launch a few weeks ago. Following their (primarily) UK-based launch, heres some early stats…

Slicing and dicing the new Linden Lab CEO:Last month Linden Lab annouced their search for a new CEO – read what the various world blogs said thathere.

vBusiness Expo: Day One:The Clever ZebravBusiness Expostarts today with what promises to be a feature-packed four days of panels and presentations.

Campaign results for LOr?ɬ©al Paris phase one:Several weeks ago we finished phase one of theLOr?ɬ©alParis campaign in SL. Today as part of my presentation at the vBusiness Expo I gave a background to this campaign as well as released the campaign data. The relevant metrics and data are in this post.

vBusiness Expo: Day Two:Day one of the vBusiness Expo kicked-off yesterday and whilst its always little strange delivering a presentation to a group of people from the comfort of your home office, nevertheless it was a good session. And, there was some fantastic feedback from my presentation.

Pimp my Peugeot:Back in Sep 07 Peugeot followed the auto-pack and set-up an island in SL. The venue followed the usual checklist for car brands in SL – read more about the islandhere.

User generated content? Legos been in the game for years:Noise is slowly starting to come from Lego about their planned virtual world Lego Universe, led byMark Hansen, director of Business Development. Now, its not difficult to imagine the basis for Lego Universe not to mention the likely popularity, after all, everyone knows Lego and understands what their proposition is – user generated content.

Latest Football Superstars imagery:Sports metamogg Football Superstars reached ?¢‚ǨÀúfeature-complete status a few weeks ago and is currently in closed-beta stage. In the meantime footy-fans, heres some new and exclusive assets of one of the stadiums as well as some internal areas in-world.

Puma and Reebok sign-up for Football Superstars:September is the latest date for the public launch of Football Superstars, the soccer-themed vertical world coming from the UK.The benefits for clothing/fashion, sports and luxury brands are pretty obvious for FS and the first two major companies taking part in Football Superstars viaIGA, hot off the press, are Puma and Reebok.

?¢‚ǨÀúThe folks down at Disney, they have plans for your children:Fast Company contributor and co-author of the Naked Conversations blog,Shel Israelhas posted a video interview he conducted with senior personnel from Disney, including Mike Goslin, VP Virtual Reality Studio. Mike uses a ?¢‚ǨÀúthemepark analogy to explain the Disney strategy of having different worlds for different age ranges and interest groups.

Taking brands into virtual worlds. vBusiness Expo presentation:Shown below is the K Zero presentation delivered on day one of the vBusiness Expo. ?¢‚ǨÀúTaking brands into virtual worlds uses the Seven Point Plan as a strategic framework to outline the marketing steps required by brands and companies considering metaverse activity.

The Five Rules of Virtual Brand Management:Along with the Seven Point Plan for Marketing in Virtual Worlds, K Zero also has a dedicated strategic framework for brand management in virtual worldsAs the number of virtual worlds allowing content creation increases, this concept becomes more and more important for real world brand owners.

Woogi World claims 100% safety for kids:Woogi World claims 100% safety for kids.Education and internetsafety-based kids virtual worldWoogi Worldis storming out of the bunker with a new press release and statement. The company has been working with online verification companyeGuardianto create ?¢‚ǨÀúThe only kids virtual world that is not only 100% safe but is also benefiting society by helping our children be better kids.

Stardoll – Fame, fashion and friendsand Mothers?:In Feb of this yearStardollcarried out some in-depth research into their membership base, with some interesting findings.

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