Virtual worlds and music videos. What a load of rap.

The use of virtual worlds in music videos is steadily getting more popular. And, it’s a clever way of showing the attributes and environments of a metaverse without having to go in-world (not to mention an insight into the typical demographics of particular worlds.

Recently, a Duran Duran mash-up competition has resulted in SL machinima being produced. vMTV (naturally) went as far as running a virtual music video competition. Contest one is now closed (winner yet to be announced) but here’s the most viewed entry taken from the submission site. Contest 2 is here.

MTV Virtual Music Video – Driving Down The Block – For more funny movies, click hereHere’s another one, this time with Soulja Boy and IMVU.

And here’s Bow Wow and Omarion in vSide

Virtual Laguna Beach. The cross-world cross-over

A key objective for any marketer embedding their brand into a virtual world is to create a community. Being able to create, foster and grow a group of individuals interested in a brand can provide many opportunities.

This is the premise that MTV has used with Virtual Laguna Beach – a metaverse accompaniment to the ‘real world’ show. We’re seeing a rise in these types of convergence projects (mixing TV/Film product with virtual worlds) mainly as this point from the States, with other examples including CSI: New York, I Am Legend and Beowolf.

As a starting point (strategically speaking), various buildings and areas of the show have been recreated to give the virtual world a sense of context and familiarity such as the Arts Centre (showing previous episodes), the main beach and pier, Pomodoro Restaurant and Thalia Overlook.

Here’s a map of the location.

But what’s the point of creating a virtual Laguna Beach? Continue reading →

Exploring and explaining Virtual MTV

Back in September 2006 (such a long time ago in virtual terms), MTV took the bold step of transferring their brand into a virtual world.

MTV chose Laguna Beach as the product to place first into the metaverse and did so in a unique way. Rather than append the brand into an existing virtual environment, instead they partnered with There, using the There platform to create a standalone world.

This meant that even if you had an avatar in the main There world, you still needed to register a dedicated account to enter virtual MTV.

A smart move?

Very – because of the content and brand. By having complete content control over their own world, MTV effectively holds all the keys in terms of the overall avatar experience. Also, from a brand management perspective, MTV chooses which brands can and obviously can not be present. This approach would not work for every type of brand or company though. MTV is in the strong position of having a high level of brand equity and also ‘content in demand’, meaning that having their own world and having to sign-up for it is much less of a problem/task than for other companies.

More than a year later, MTV has aggressive extended their reach into the virtual world space and now has six (with more in the pipeline) different ‘show-themed’ worlds available, accessible via their dedicated website. Here’s a screen-shot from the site.

Continue reading →

Kaneva hits the dance floor

For the uninitiated it looks a little strange, but for a lot of people, dancing in virtual worlds is an extremely popular past-time and way of socialising in a virtual space.

All across Second Life there are venues catered to dance, with streaming music setting the mood. And, just like the real world, these venues are genre-driven, with house, hip-hop and jazz being popular styles themes. Demonstrating the popularity of music and dance in Second Life, one only has to pay a visit to Phat Cats Romantic Ballroom to get the picture.

Virtual world Kaneva is focussing on dancing with a new campaign – Dance Party 3D.

Dance Party 3D is a free to join dancing game and claims to allow an unlimited number of avatars the opportunity to win prizes by competing against other groovers on the dance floor. Continue reading →