Business Communicators of Second Life®

Meeting Transcript: Avatar Psychographics

Many thanks once again to Market Truths for giving us a preview into their just-released research, Psychographic Segments and Media Consumption.  President Mary Ellen Gordon (virtually, Pebbles Hannya) provided insights on exactly those two things, after months of rigorous research with Second Life avatars.

The report compares the SL population to the SL international population as well as to the general US population.  The research looks at the avatar media usage of twenty-five traditional and new media channels - as well as the personality characteristics of SL avatars, grouping them into 6 distinct psychographic categories:  Team Players, Entrepreneurs, Competitors, Connectors, Chameleons, and Apprehensives.  These are important principles to consider when implementing marketing and communications practices within SL and other similar virtual worlds.  I encourage you to read through the transcript to get a sense of these personas.  To delve deeper, you can purchase the report for $200 (US) here.

Rather than simply telling us about these personas, Mary Ellen introduced us to six prototypical avatars who each demonstrated the characteristics of their own psychographic segment.

If you are a student of some of the research about virtual world "players", perhaps one of the most important points to keep in mind as you delve into the transcript of the meeting below, is that this psychographics research focuses on the various personality types exhibited within SL - what they value and what their interests are.  This research differs from work done by for example, Nick Yee or game designer Richard Bartle, (today's Metanomics guest who among many things, discussed his MUD player-types) in that Bartle looks at the different categories of players  in terms of "what's fun" for them - and how they approach the multi-player game -  for the purpose of game design.  Market Truths studied avatars from the standpoint of personality types and what they value in a non-game virtual construct like Second Life in terms of marketing implications.

If you were unable to attend the SL Business Communicators meeting last Friday, the SL Marketers Club will be hosting Mary Ellen on March 17th, 12:00 p.m. SLT,  where she will be again discussing the results of the avatar psychographic study.  Contact Cybergrrl Oh in SL for more info on that meeting.

Meeting Transcript: March 7, 2008

Introduction

Znetlady: Welcome everyone.
Znetlady: As we get started, I'm asking that you IM questions to me - Znetlady.
Znetlady: We aren't normally so formal, but usually there are a ton of q's on this topic, so this way we can keep them organized.
Znetlady: We are using chat, not voice - primarily so we can capture a transcript for posting.
Alice Klinger: very good :-)
Znetlady: I will be posting it on the Business Communicators blog.
Znetlady: I think it helps everyone and avoids audio problems.
Znetlady: So, with that, I' like to say we are lucky to get the first view on the long awaited psychographics study of SL avatars.
Znetlady: Pebbles has been working on it for months, as a member of SLBC, she is kind enough to provide us this information.
Znetlady: She has lots to cover, and she brought some guests - welcome to them as well - to help illustrate the
Znetlady: segmentation she discovered.
Znetlady: Once more, please IM questions to me as you have them, and we'll cover them after Pebbles walks us through
Znetlady: the findings.
Znetlady: With that, Pebbles, president of Market Truths - I give you the floor.
Pebbles Hannya: Thanks Z
Pebbles Hannya: And thanks to everyone for coming today.

Research Report Background: Getting Behind the Speculation

Pebbles Hannya: As you know, we're here to discuss a report we've just released on psychographic segments and media consumption.
Pebbles Hannya: To start out, I just want to provide a bit of background to the report.
Pebbles Hannya: Ever since we've been involved with SL, we've heard speculation about the types of people who frequent virtual worlds like SL.
Pebbles Hannya: Everyone seems to have a theory; teenagers, geeks, social outcasts who can't make RL friends
Pebbles Hannya: My personal favourite, which came from a client, is: "employed people who live with their parents."
Ima Ideator: lol
Kara Janus: Yeah, right.
Znetlady: hahahah
Pebbles Hannya: For a long time we've been working on ways to measure psychographic characteristics for virtual world participants that will be robust across samples and also work with non virtual world samples.
Pebbles Hannya: For anyone who is not familiar with the term, psychographics refers to things such as values, interests and personality.
Pebbles Hannya: Psychographics are helpful for marketing purposes because demographic information (age, gender, etc.) is often not sufficient to explain who buys what and why.
Pebbles Hannya: So anyway, since October 2006 (which seems approximately like forever in SL time), we've been developing a system for classifying people into psychographic segments.
Pebbles Hannya: To do that we've used a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques, and tested using data from a variety of different samples.
Pebbles Hannya: The report we just released describes the results of that segmentation process, and compares US SL participants to international SL participants and to the US general population in terms of their psychographics and media consumption.
Pebbles Hannya: It's based on data collected from 918 people (358 US SL, 260 Intl SL, 300 US GP) via a Web survey, and follow-up interviews with 30 of those (five of the most prototypical members of each of six segments).

Avatar Media Consumption

Pebbles Hannya: Obviously with the time available today, I can only scratch the surface of what's in the report, so what I plan to do is:
Pebbles Hannya: First give you an overview of how the media consumption of US SL participants compares to that of the US general population.
Pebbles Hannya: Then introduce you to the six segments and give you an idea of some of the ways in which they differ from one another.
Pebbles Hannya: And finally take questions.
Pebbles Hannya: Does that all sound OK?
iAlja Writer: great!
Tempest Hennesy: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.
Znetlady: we're with you, Pebbles.
Pebbles Hannya: :) Okay thanks.
Pebbles Hannya: So let's get into the discussion of media consumption.
Pebbles Hannya: Remember, what we're going to be looking at is the difference between US SL participants and members of the general US population.
Pebbles Hannya: In particular, I'm going to be taking about both the prevalence of consumption of a particular type of media within each group (what proportion of people use each type of media) and the volume of use (hours of use in the week before the survey).
Pebbles Hannya: Going from top to bottom in the boxes, the top row will show types of media that are used by a greater proportion of US SL participants than the US general population and the bottom row will show types of media that are used less by SL participants.
Pebbles Hannya: The right most boxes in each row will show the types of media that SL users spend more time using than members of the general population and the left most boxes of each row show types of media they spend less time using.
Pebbles Hannya: Note that usage time is only for people who use the particular form of media.
Pebbles Hannya: So let me start with the types of media that SL users use more of and spend more time using than members of the general US population. Any guesses?
IYan Writer: blogs
Znetlady: blog
Pebbles Hannya: Both right -- anyone else?
Austen Scanlan: facebook
Pebbles Hannya: That's an interesting one Austen -- we'll come back to that in just a minute...
Tempest Hennesy: Inworld streaming video.
Pebbles Hannya: For now, let's look at the things that a higher proportion of SL users use and that they use a higher volume of...
Allison Selene: p2p networks
Pebbles Hannya: Yes, Tempest got one of them...
Pebbles Hannya: Second Life (obviously), other virtual worlds, instant messaging, and streaming audio
Pebbles Hannya: Now for media for which usage is more prevalent among SL users, but volume of usage is the same as for the general public:
Pebbles Hannya: Streaming video, e-books, podcasts, writing own blog, reading others’ blogs, and commenting on others’ blogs.
Pebbles Hannya: Those may not be particularly surprising, but would you have expected this:
Pebbles Hannya: SL users are more likely to use social networking sites, but those who do spend less time doing so that members of the general population.
Pebbles Hannya: The fact that the whole top row is digital stuff is pretty expected, but that lower usage volume for social networking sites did come as a surprise to me.
Pebbles Hannya: I think there are two possible reasons, but I would be interested in hearing what the rest of you think when we get to Q&A...
Pebbles Hannya: ... one possibility is that they've been there, done that, and moved on....
Pebbles Hannya: ... another is that this is their main venue for social networking and the actual social networking sites are just a supplement.
aEoLuS Standard Monitor (Green) with Screensaver: Picture paused
Pebbles Hannya: Anyway, moving on for now...
aEoLuS Standard Monitor (Green) with Screensaver: Screensaver enabled
aEoLuS Standard Monitor (Green) with Screensaver: Picture paused
Pebbles Hannya: Sticking on the left hand side - the area where SL participants have a lower volume of use -  we see that they
Pebbles Hannya: Spend less time shopping and looking for product information on the Web.
Pebbles Hannya: /box 6005
Znetlady: that's really interesting...
Pebbles Hannya: And spend less time watching TV -- and are also less likely to watch TV at all.
Znetlady: 'cuz we're in sl!
Pebbles Hannya: :)
Pebbles Hannya: And what a lot of people told us in the interviews is that they don't miss TV :)
Pebbles Hannya: Usage of two other forms of traditional media:  reading print newspapers and magazines, is also less prevalent among SL participants than the general US population.
Pebbles Hannya: What's interesting - and you can read more about this and all of the other details in the report itself - is that the media consumption patterns of US SL participants are more similar to international SL participants than to the general US population.
Allison Selene nods
Pebbles Hannya: OK, so that's a quick overview of some of the key findings regarding media. Now I want to change gears to tell you a bit about the segments.

Psychographic Segments

Pebbles Hannya: To do that, I thought I would introduce you to a member of each segment.
Pebbles Hannya: Due to privacy considerations and a desire to represent the prototypical characteristics of each segment, the avatars you're about to meet are acting "in character" today.
Pebbles Hannya: The RL people operating them may not necessarily be part of the segments they are representing.
Pebbles Hannya: Everything they're about to say is based on the actual data pertaining to the segment they're representing.
Pebbles Hannya: They're going to introduce you to their individual segments and discuss what makes each one unique.
Pebbles Hannya: Let's start out with Vivia representing the Team Player segment. Come on up Vivia.
Vivia Straaf: Hi everyone! :)
Znetlady: Hi!

The Team Players

Vivia Straaf: As Pebbles mentioned, I'm representing the Team Player segment, and it's no coincidence that I'm female.
Vivia Straaf: Here in SL, Team Players are equally likely to be male or female, but in the US general population there are more women than men in our segment.
Vivia Straaf: As a group in the US general population, we Team Players are disproportionately likely to come from high income households.
Vivia Straaf: That might help explain why were also the most likely to use some of the forms of media that Pebbles just talked about.
Vivia Straaf: We're most likely to have used a mobile phone or other handheld device to send text messages and most likely to have watched TV on a handheld device.
Vivia Straaf: We're also most likely to have used social networking sites, read electronic versions of magazines, instant messaged, and used the Web for shopping and product information.
Vivia Straaf: We're most likely to have visited other virtual worlds besides SL, but even so on average those of us Team Players who live in the US haven't been in SL as long as people in other segments have.
Vivia Straaf: Well one thing I can tell you about my segment is that we Team Players are outgoing. We're the most extroverted of the segments - maybe that's why they had me go first.
Brander Heron: lol
Znetlady: here, here
Allison Selene: lol
Tempest Hennesy: ..giggle..
Vivia Straaf grins.
Vivia Straaf: We also love to connect with other people. We're interested in getting to know them and letting them get to know us. And whether they met us here in SL or in RL, they would be meeting the same person - we have a lot of friends that cross-over from one to the other.
Vivia Straaf: We tend to use SL to extend our RL interests.
Vivia Straaf: We're also problem solvers so one of the things we like to do with others in SL and in RL is work together on projects whether it's for work or just for fun.
Vivia Straaf: So that's a quick introduction to the Team Player segment. Now I want to turn things over to Takeshi who is going to tell you about the Entrepreneurs.
Austen Scanlan: I wonder if there is any correlation between "why" women are less likely to use TXT over VOIP?
Tempest Hennesy: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.
Takeshi Kiama: Thanks Vivia :)
Kara Janus: /applause

The Entrepreneurs

Takeshi Kiama: My Segment, the Entrepreneurs are like the Team Players in some respects.
Takeshi Kiama: In particular, we‚'re even more enthusiastic about problem solving.
Takeshi Kiama: We really love the challenge in trying to figure things out - whether that's figuring out how to make a business better or learning how to do things here in SL.
Takeshi Kiama: We're also fairly extroverted and interested in connecting with others.
Takeshi Kiama: For example...
Takeshi Kiama: We, along with Connectors who you will be hearing from soon, are more into blogging than any other segment.
Takeshi Kiama: We also spend more time than any other segment talking on mobile phones.
Tempest Hennesy: Hee.
Takeshi Kiama: A couple of things make us different from the Team Players though.
Takeshi Kiama: For one thing, we're much more competitive!
Takeshi Kiama: They may enjoy playing the game, but we like to win! :D
Znetlady: :-)
Takeshi Kiama: Another thing that makes us different is that we're much more elusive.
Takeshi Kiama: With them what you see is what you get, but we tend to keep people guessing.
Takeshi Kiama: We're the same people inside, but the way other people tend to perceive us varies depending on where we are and who we're with.
Takeshi Kiama: That combination of characteristics is very useful for gaming, which is something that a lot of us Entrepreneurs enjoy.
Takeshi Kiama: Unfortunately, another thing that makes us different from the Team Players is that at least among the US general population, we have lower household incomes than members of other segments do. :(
Takeshi Kiama: Part of that might be because we tend to be younger (at least among US SL participants).
Takeshi Kiama: Among the US general population, there are more men than women in our segment.
Takeshi Kiama: Now that you know a bit about Entrepreneurs, I'll turn things over to Firedragon Bellios to tell you about Competitors.
Tempest Hennesy: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.
Kara Janus: /clap
spacetraveler Russell: c
Firedragon Bellios: Thanks Tankeshi
Tempest Hennesy: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.

Competitors

Firedragon Bellios: Hi everyone :D
Allison Selene: hi
spacetraveler Russell: hi fire
Cube Republic: hi
Firedragon Bellios: I'm here representing the Competitors segment. We and the remaining four segments each have a dominant trait...
Firedragon Bellios: ...competitiveness.!!!
Znetlady: lol
Firedragon Bellios: The Entrepreneurs (you've just heard their version) may like to win...
Firedragon Bellios: but that's really the MAIN thing we care about!
Austen Scanlan: So you are hard core gamer vs the previous casual gamer?
Firedragon Bellios: lol...yeah:)))
Firedragon Bellios: but that's really the MAIN thing we care about!
Firedragon Bellios: wiining
Firedragon Bellios: Speaking of which... unlike the enterpreneurs, among the US general population our household incomes are *higher* than average...:D
Firedragon Bellios: Even so, we feel uncomfortable when other people have things that we don't, or when their stuff is better than ours.
Firedragon Bellios: That's one of the appeals of SL for us. We can have stuff that's not accessible to us in RL. Here we can have a great house, a great car, a great body (as you can see:D)
Firedragon Bellios: - whatever we want.
Firedragon Bellios: In RL, we're a bit less into technology than most of the other segments represented here today.
Firedragon Bellios: Listening to streaming audio, blogging and reading blogs are all less prevalent among us Competitors than among the other segments, as are using social networking sites, instant messaging, using the Web for shopping or getting product info, and talking on mobile phones.
Firedragon Bellios: Perhaps not surprisingly in light of that, it took us longer to get into SL than some of the other groups. We're still underrepresented here in SL compared to the overall US population, but not *as* underrepresented as we used to be.
Shava Suntzu wonders if this is the same segment that's into collecting the inaccessible paramours, too...;)
Firedragon Bellios: We're also more likely to be younger (compared to US SL participants in other segments and male (compared to members of the US general population in other segments).
Firedragon Bellios: So now I'll turn you over to a member of the segment that’s most over-represented in SL: The Connectors...Absinthe :)
Tempest Hennesy: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.

The Connectors

Absinthe Primrose: Thanks Firedragon and Good Afternoon Everyone!
Absinthe Primrose: As Firedragon mentioned, we Connectors are the most over-represented compared to the general US population, but that's changing. ...
Absinthe Primrose: We've been in SL the longest - more than a year on average- - but as different types of people have come into SL we're shrinking as a percentage of the SL population.
Austen Scanlan: Over-represented ...is that a bad thing?
Absinthe Primrose: smiles
Absinthe Primrose: We don't mind though :)
Absinthe Primrose: What we Connectors really love about SL is that in enables us to meet different types of people and get to know them, so the more they merrier, we say.
Absinthe Primrose: We're the least extroverted of the segments, so it's sometimes easier for us to meet people in SL than it is in RL.
Absinthe Primrose: We Connectors also like to express ourselves, and SL is great for that too.
Absinthe Primrose: In fact, some of us believe that SL enables us to be more our true or ideal selves than we can be in RL.
Absinthe Primrose: Many of us find that expressing ourselves and making connections here has really enhanced our real lives.
Absinthe Primrose: Among US SL participants, we’re a bit older than members of the other segments are on average.
Austen Scanlan: Ah, yes, we're getting serious now...the alter ego.
Absinthe Primrose: lol
Znetlady: ya..
Absinthe Primrose: Moving out of SL and thinking about our segment as part of the general US population, we have lower household incomes (again on average).
Absinthe Primrose: We're heavy users of some types of media though....
Absinthe Primrose: Blogging, watching streaming video, listening to podcasts and streaming audio...
Absinthe Primrose: and reading print versions of books are all highly prevalent among members of our segment compared to the others.
Absinthe Primrose: Well, That provides you with some background about us!
Tempest Hennesy: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.
Absinthe Primrose: I'll now turn you over to my colleague from the Chameleons segment, Kylie Balogh! Thanks!!!
Firedragon Bellios: yeah
Tempest Hennesy: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.

The Chameleons

Kylie Balogh: Thank you Absinthe...
Kylie Balogh: Hello everybody!
Kylie Balogh: I'm Kylie and I'm in the Chameleon segment.
Kylie Balogh: They call us "Chameleons" because we tend to be a bit elusive.
Kylie Balogh: Like real chameleons, we feel that we're the same all the time.
Kylie Balogh: Whether it's RL or SL, we always feel that we're the same person.
Kylie Balogh: But, we've been told that people perceive us differently depending on the situation.
Kylie Balogh: That's probably why we often feel so few people really know us.
Kylie Balogh: For me, and my fellow Chameleons, SL is a relaxing and enjoyable place to be.
Kylie Balogh: We can take a break from the roles we play with our family, at our job, with our friends and neighbors, etc.
Kylie Balogh: RL stress, worry and responsibility give way to SL fun and fantasy.
Kylie Balogh: SL allows us to explore parts of ourselves that are hidden, lacking or repressed in our RL roles.
Kylie Balogh: If you take a close look at the US population, you'll see that the vast majority of Chameleons are female.
Kylie Balogh: And. we have lower incomes as compared to members of other segments. . . . . . sniff. . . . :-(
Kylie Balogh: We're among the least likely of the segments to read newspapers, listen to podcasts, watch streaming videos, or watch TV on a handheld device.
Kylie Balogh: Like the Connectors, on average we Chameleons have been in SL longer than members of the other segments.
Kylie Balogh: That's it for me, thanks for listening.
Kylie Balogh: Now I would like turn the podium over to Alexa Trefoil.
Vivia Straaf: /clap
Kylie Balogh: Alexa represents the final segment....
Kylie Balogh: and no, it's not an endangered species.....
Kylie Balogh: it's The Apprehensives segment.
Tempest Hennesy: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.
Znetlady: :)
Tempest Hennesy: ..giggle..
Takeshi Kiama: xD
Absinthe Primrose: rawr!
Kara Janus: LOL

The Apprehensives

Alexa Trefoil: Hello Everyone!
Alexa Trefoil: I’m from the Apprehensive segment.
Alexa Trefoil: As you might have guessed, our distinguishing characteristic is our apprehensiveness.
Alexa Trefoil: We’re wary about what other people and organizations are up to.
Alexa Trefoil: We’re concerned about the environment.
Alexa Trefoil: We’re concerned about things big companies do or might do -- LL, for example ?.
Alexa Trefoil: We’re concerned about private information about us becoming public.
Alexa Trefoil: As you can imagine, all of that can get rather stressful, so what we like about SL is that it’s a great place to come to blow of steam and just be silly for a while and get away from all of those concerns.
Alexa Trefoil: To do that, some of us like to role play (not the serious or dramatic types – just the fun ones), but others just like to goof around here.
Alexa Trefoil: If we haven’t picked an avatar for roleplay or a whimsical one such as the one I’m wearing today, we often choose avatars that closely resemble our RL selves. Some of us feel most comfortable that way.
Alexa Trefoil: No, I don't really look like a panda in RL....
Takeshi Kiama: hehe
Tempest Hennesy: ..giggle..
Alexa Trefoil: In RL those of us who are in SL but live outside of the US are more likely than people in other segments to work part-time.
Alexa Trefoil: We're less likely than members of other segments to have watched TV on handheld devices or tried other virtual worlds.
Alexa Trefoil: Okay, well now that you know a little bit about each of the segments, I'll turn things back to Pebbles : )
Tempest Hennesy: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.

Some Partially Organized Q&A

Recruitment for Study

Pebbles Hannya: OK-- thanks to all of our segment members.
Tempest Hennesy: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.
Pebbles Hannya: I think Znetlady has been keeping track of questions, so maybe she can help me with the Q and A?
Znetlady: I have a couple
Znetlady: Shava Suntzu: Hi, ZI! I'd like to ask: How did people find the website to answer the survey? I find that most people in-world aren't even aware, for example, that there is in-world media. Many don't ever read the official LL blog (ergo shock over the gambling ban, for example). So how can a group that finds their web site be ensured to be typical?
Pebbles Hannya: OK, maybe we can take those and then open up for any others.
Pebbles Hannya: People don't need to find our Web site Shava.
Pebbles Hannya: We have a panel of SL residents who participate in research projects for us.
Pebbles Hannya: They've been recruited in a variety of ways ....
Shava Suntzu: How do you find them, or they find you?
Austen Scanlan: How can be sure of a self selected sample?
Pebbles Hannya: ... trying to reach into different parts of the overall SL population.
Pebbles Hannya: Of course, there are always some people who just don't want to participate in research....
Pebbles Hannya: ... but since that's true in RL to, it also applies to the RL sample to which we're comparing.
Pebbles Hannya: It's a combination of them finding us and us finding them.
Pebbles Hannya: Then they join our research panel and a subset of that panel is selected for any particular project like this one...
Pebbles Hannya: ... so that reduces self-selection bias to at least some degree.
Pebbles Hannya: Any other questions?

Entrepreneurs & Blogging versus Connectors & Extorversion

Znetlady: Brander Heron: drill down into connection between entrepreneurs & blogging and connectors being the least extroverted. Thanks! : )
Pebbles Hannya: Let's start with connectors...
Pebbles Hannya: They are really interested in expressing themselves and getting to know other people, but they are not that extroverted.
Pebbles Hannya: I didn't really get into the qualitative research we did for this, but in part of that we discovered that some of the most prototypical connectors have disabilities or illnesses that limit their ability to make connections in RL...
Pebbles Hannya: ... or they are stay at home moms so don't have a lot of opportunity to connect with adults.
Pebbles Hannya: So for them things like SL and blogging are ways to express themselves and connect with others.
Pebbles Hannya: Entrepreneurs are also interested in making connections (though not quite as much so), but they are more extroverted and have less of those limitations.

How Character Types Emerged

Austen Scanlan: Did the character types emerge from the data or did you try to fit the personalities into the research?
Pebbles Hannya: Character types emerged from a huge amount of data.
Pebbles Hannya: Iterating between qualitative and quantitiative data collection.
Beyers Sellers: ZNet, now may be the time for my Q :)
Pebbles Hannya: First we did a series of exploratory interviews trying to understand motivations for being in SL...
Cube Republic: do massivly populated online worlds themselves attract a unique individual...for example would you find these traits on world of warcraft?
Znetlady: Ya, Beyers...sorry.
Cube Republic: or do you think sl in unique
Pebbles Hannya: ... so we could make sure we covered any SL specific things in addition to general stuff that has been done in other forms of personality testing and psychographic research.
Pebbles Hannya: Then we used quantitative data from thousands of people in RL and SL samples to make sure we had measures that were robust across SL and RL samples and also across countries.
Austen Scanlan: Well, the view from the GDC crowd in San Fran is that SLers are idealists.
Kara Janus: GDC?
Pebbles Hannya: Then we did additional qualitative research to better understand the most prototypical members of each segment.
Shava Suntzu: game dev conference
Kara Janus: thx
Austen Scanlan: Game Developer's Conference sorry.

Are Traits Different in SL?

Znetlady: Pebbles, Beyers had asked... Beyers Sellers: The categorization you are using seems similar to Richard Bartle's model for identifying four types of gamers: achievers, explorers, killers and socializers. Did you use his framework at all? How do you see yours differing? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test
Shava Suntzu: idealist == utopians? ;)
Shava Suntzu is a SEAK.
Pebbles Hannya: OK -- First Cube's question...
Beyers Sellers is a SEAK also
Pebbles Hannya: ... One of the things we're interested in looking at now that we have the process for measuring psychographics worked out is how they compare across vws and other media.
Pebbles Hannya: I would expect that different vws, multiplayer games, social networking sites, etc. would have different levels of appeal to different segments...
Pebbles Hannya: This sort of relates to Ima's point...
Pebbles Hannya: Builders were much more prevalent in some segments than in others...
Pebbles Hannya: ... and different types of builders in different segments.
Pebbles Hannya: For example, the Connector segment is over-represented in SL (compared to US GP), and Connectors were among the first people in SL.
Pebbles Hannya: They like to build for fun -- just to create beautiful things.
Cube Republic: yes well theres people who hang, and those who create. Building is an easier skill to learn than scripting, but then very good computer programmers are less likely to be in sl
Pebbles Hannya: Other segments also build, but in some cases that's more directed.
Pebbles Hannya: Sorry -- just reading back through the questions to catch up...
Znetlady: Beyers Sellers: So I would like to ask: can you get a bit more technical? Did you use factor analysis for that? What were the other factors that you considered but ended up rejecting?

Are SL people Idealists? Richard Bartle's Categories

Pebbles Hannya: ... to Austen's point about SL people being idealists...
Pebbles Hannya: ... I think part of the problem with the type of speculation I mentioned at the start is...
Pebbles Hannya: ... everyone has their own theories about why people are here...
Pebbles Hannya: ... but the six segments are quite different in their motivations...
Pebbles Hannya: ... so any one segment might be largely correct for one segment, but not for others.
Beyers Sellers: did anyone answer the question about Richard Bartle's analysis?
Pebbles Hannya: So for example, that idealist theory would apply more to Connectors than, for example, Team Players or Apprehensives
Beyers Sellers: I am having him on my Metanomics show on Monday, it would be nice to know :)
Pebbles Hannya: We drew on a number of different existing ways of classifying people (this is in response to Buyers point)...
Cube Republic: do these sl traits come across in these folks everyday lifes, or in some respects does sl offer the oppotunity to be 'role playing' even though the profits may be good
Pebbles Hannya: Those include VALS (Values Attitudes and LIfestyles) which are a common way of expressing psychographics in marketing circles....
Pebbles Hannya: Also things like Myers-Briggs and other ways of measuring personality....
Pebbles Hannya: And Hofstede's work on culture.
Beyers Sellers: yes, I am familiar with those
Pebbles Hannya: Because what we were trying to do is find something that worked not only for gamers, but for other people too...
Pebbles Hannya: ... and also would work across countries...
Pebbles Hannya: ... But having said that, yes there would be some overlap in terms of attitudes toward gaming.
jamesjl Zerbino: Boo!
Beyers Sellers: If I can follow up on the VALS....
jamesjl Zerbino: Boo!
Austen Scanlan: Curious. Did you just compare your thinking to what people put in their profiles or exclude from their profiles?
Beyers Sellers: they have a bunch of categories, like innovators/survivors/thinkers/achievers etc
Pebbles Hannya: OK -- still on Buyer's next point...

Segmentation Process

Pebbles Hannya: ... yes, we did use factor analysis. Basically the process was:
Beyers Sellers: but your categories are different
Pebbles Hannya: 1) Generate items from our own qualitative research here plus review of all of those existing perspectives I just mentioned.
Pebbles Hannya: Then factor analysis to identify characteristics (factors) and eliminate items that were not helpful.
Beyers Sellers: would you use your different categories regardless of whether you were looking at virtual world behavior or RL behavior? Or is ther something about VWs that makes you need to consider new categories?
Beyers Sellers: thanks, Pebbles
jamesjl Zerbino: Boo!
Pebbles Hannya: We ended up using seven factors.
Pebbles Hannya: We used those to cluster people (using a number of different clustering algorithms)....
Pebbles Hannya: ... then fine-tuned the cluster solutions with discriminant analysis.
Beyers Sellers: great, thanks!
Pebbles Hannya: And tested those discriminant functions across a variety of samples to make sure they were robust.
Pebbles Hannya: Then used those for the classifications you saw today.
Pebbles Hannya: To Austen's point about profiles: We did that for the people we did follow-up interviews with but not everyone. It would be interesting to look more closely at that in the future though.
Shava Suntzu: Have you looked at Nick Yee's work, for comparison?
Austen Scanlan: So what does this mean to marketers, journalists, supporters and naysayers?
Pebbles Hannya: To Buyer's question about the different categories: This system of measuring is robust across VWs and RL (a lot of our testing was aimed at finding out if that was possible)...
Pebbles Hannya: .... but what we would expect to see is that different segments are over- or under-represented in different places.
Beyers Sellers: so then you feel that your classificaiton is better than VALS (or else you could have used that, rather than creating your own, right?)
Pebbles Hannya: We saw that a bit today with the general forms of media, but I suspect it would also be true, if for example, you compared different multiplayer games to each other.
Pebbles Hannya: This type of research is used a lot with TV for example, and different psychographic segments are drawn to different shows.
Pebbles Hannya: Same with magazines.
Cube Republic: interesting at a design level the consumer is imagined and created

Digital Natives

Pebbles Hannya: Not sure which of Nick Yee's papers you mean Shava, but there are some problems with the one about "Being Digital"
Pebbles Hannya: Good question Austen!
Pebbles Hannya: We discuss this in the report in greater depth, but just some quick points for now...
Shava Suntzu: I was thinking in general about the whole work he has at Daedelus
Pebbles Hannya: 1) It's a mistake to lump everyone in virtual worlds into one big bucket.
Pebbles Hannya: We're here for different reasons and it's important to take that into account.
Pebbles Hannya: Both in terms of who is targeted here and how they are approached.
Shava Suntzu: daedalus*
Pebbles Hannya: For example, some segments integrate RL and SL more, which explains why there is variation in whether or not people object to marketing here in a general sense.
Pebbles Hannya: Also, one thing that comes up a lot is the idea of digital natives...
Pebbles Hannya: ... the idea that today's kids are so different....
Cube Republic: ?
Cube Republic: ah
Pebbles Hannya: ... but what I think is interesting is the data for the adults here now is very similar to kids in terms of use of digital media.
Pebbles Hannya: So in terms of thinking ahead to what the future of media will look like, the adult population here now offers an interesting preview.
Shava Suntzu is speculated to be one of the oldest digital natives by the Harvard project...:)
spacetraveler Russell: growing shared fluency
Cube Republic: chinese citizens hold online relationships in high esteem, as important as there 'real life' friends, yet in the west we tend to meet online relationships with suspicion
Cube Republic: this was from a survey i read
spacetraveler Russell: is the reason mktg history of media?
Znetlady: Pebbles, I think we should wrap, and those that want to can stay?
Pebbles Hannya: Hmmm -- I'm not sure I know exactly what you're referring to Shava -- can you IM me the reference and then I'll get back to you about it?
Pebbles Hannya: Yes, good idea Z.
Pebbles Hannya: I'll let you close
Shava Suntzu considers creator vs. consumer to be a basic psychographic delineator from her personal experience.
Cube Republic: i could add to this, when i started to play i would socialise but as i learnt to create my view of the 'game' changed and also my interaction with others
Znetlady: great...
Beyers Sellers: Thanks all, great talks! If anyone is interested in similar topics, check out httpL//metanomics.net. We have a voice show every Monday at 11am SLT.

A Wrap

Znetlady: Thanks everyone for coming. Pebbles will stay around for further discussion.
Ima Ideator: I agree with Cube..I've experiened that as well
Znetlady: I'll be posting the transcript.
Tempest Hennesy: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.
Cube Republic: its a question of time
iAlja Writer: thanks all, this was really interesting!
Znetlady: You are welcome to stay and discuss.
Cube Republic: it takes so long to make quality
Beyers Sellers: Thios week we have Richard Bartle, who co-designed the first online world, and has very strong views on virtual worlds (and is quite critical of Second Life, btw)
Znetlady: I would like to invite you all to give me suggestions on meetings you'd like to have - or to present your work to the group.
spacetraveler Russell: c
Znetlady: We're all interested in learning what each other is doing.
Cube Republic: keep a sense of mystery lol
Austen Scanlan: Thank you. Very informative....
Znetlady: Thank you Pebbles. Thank you Segments!!!
Vivia Straaf: Thanks for having us. :)
Cube Republic: it was very intersting thanks :)
Tempest Hennesy: .-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.
Austen Scanlan: The performances, the historical recreations...wonderful!
Beyers Sellers: w00t!
Maryrose Mariani: Thanks Pebbles. Excellent as always.
Beyers Sellers: I looooooove the panda avatar!
Alexa Trefoil: Thank you Beyers :)
Firedragon Bellios: we all love alexa :)))
Znetlady: Yay, Pebbles and Gang!!
Ima Ideator: Thanks Pebbles!!!

March 10, 2008

Fair Use Reframed in Era of Consumer Generated Content

Conventional wisdom (and big media) would have us believe that using copyrighted material in today’s consumer generated media is just plain illegal – end of story.

Well, not so fast.  While some are strong-arming social online sites to remove consumer media for copyright violation, a good percentage of that CGM may very well be legal under the doctrine of “fair use.” 

An engrossing study, Recut, Reframe Recycle, just released by the Center for Social Media at American University points to a wide variety of consumer activities that are actively incorporating copyrighted material – and it highlights how in many cases these are perfectly legal and can be considered “fair use.”

“Fair use” is the right to legally use copyrighted material under certain circumstances, and more broadly, according to the study, when the value to society is greater than the value to the copyright holder. 

The study authors Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi  categorize our collective CGM activities into: satire, parody, negative commentary, positive commentary, discussion-triggers, illustration, diaries, archiving and remixes and mashups.

In essence, Auferheide and Jaszi illustrate, through the lens of online video making, that new “consumer maker” online activities are often “quoting” copyrighted material to create new pieces of popular culture, which falls under the “transformative” definitions of fair use.

One of the most salient points in the study is that fair use is not something written in the stone tablets of copyright law.  That it necessarily evolves in concert with our culture:

“The provisions of the Copyright Act codifying fair use were intentionally made non-specific, in an acknowledgment of the constantly changing state of cultural production.”

I’m not a lawyer, but I have to believe these same ‘transformative” and “cultural production” concepts might apply equally, if not almost more persuasively in MUVEs.  Virtual worlds like Second Life are cultural production down to the very core and that norms there could push "fair use" into new interpretations.   

I’d be most interested if Benjamin Duranske over at VirtuallyBlind and other IP experts would weigh in on the study and comment on its application to virtual world CGM production.

Most importantly, the study warns that our emerging participatory media culture is at serious risk with current industry practices - including the sites that comply unquestioned - aimed at shutting down what may be fair use consumer activities in the name of piracy control:

“Legal as well as illegal copying could all too easily disappear. Worse still, a new generation of media makers could grow up with a deformed and truncated notion of their rights as creators.”

Know your rights as a "maker." (2 links)

To protect the hands, attention, and minds that feed them, content creators need to examine ways to adapt to IP in a shifting media culture.

The Recut, Reframe Recycle PDF and web page include a list of the researchers' top five videos.  The Center for Social Media has posted a video, titled Remix Culture (3.5 minutes) that is itself a mashup of "unauthorized" material, hoping to stimulate conversation on their blog.  The video is also downloadable.

January 5, 2008

Inside Dell's CES Crystal Event: Second Life Jan 7

The Consumer Electronics Show is the big RL happening next week - everyone from CNN to the Home & Garden cable channel will be doing specials from the floor of this major industry show - and it is the launch pad for many a new 2008 product.

Dell will be featuring their new Crystal display at CES, and Laura Thomas at Dell is inviting you to join in Dell's CES press and analyst event through streaming video in Second Life on Monday, January 7, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. SLT.  The virtual event will be held at Dell's new pyramid pavilion on Dell Island. 

Virtual Crystal monitors will be available to avatars at Dell's pavilion only during CES, from January 7 - 11, but the pavilion will remain in SL after CES concludes.

CES is definitely tech goodness, but given the choice of walking the floor, paying unimaginable hotel prices, and the hellish decibel levels,  I'm taking the goodness in this year by watching CNN, HGTV and popping into SL to catch Dell's launch.

January 4, 2008

Colgate Smile Power Un-Fixed

Colgate launched the Second Life version of their Smile Power campaign last Friday.  For seven days and encompassing 500 avatar-hours, brightly Colgate T-attired BuzzAgents will be roaming Second Life handing out smile animations and a list of ten places in SL that will make you smile. Should they not encounter a Colgate gifter-agent, avatars can snare these items at the Smile Center vending machines on This Second Island.  This Second Marketing, the agency behind the promotion, has hired people to interact with island visitors.

The theme behind the campaign:  sharing a Colgate smile.

The SL promotion is an element of Colgate's Smile Sweepstakes in which they are giving away $100 American Express gift cards each week for sharing smile photos on their campaign web page.  They've enabled photo sharing, slideshow sharing and photo tagging there.

Aleister Kronos who writes an excellent SL travelogue and critique was frothing a bit over his recent visit to the SL Colgate smile vending area and suggested Colgate damaged their brand and should rethink their SL presence.  I couldn’t disagree more.

Colgate takes the absolutely correct approach – they went un-fixed.

A couple of relevant notes:

• Second Life is a social network
• Social media is sharable
• Social media is un-fixed (distributed)
• The “avatar” within social media is the channel

Kronos’ comments points to an interesting social media conundrum:  “network” versus “place.”

In subsequent posts Aleister published his email exchange with Joni West, President of This Second Marketing as to the intention of the campaign.  She points out the tendency to focus on “place.”

"No matter how much we say it is about a live promotion, people tend to focus on the build because to date, that has been what marketing efforts in SL have consisted of."   

If we looked at this campaign through the Facebook lens, it would not look “out of place” -  it would look like this:  Colgate creates Smile Power widget.  Widget is added to the Applications list (a tiny “place” in FB).  People who find it fun/useful spread widget by distributing it via Facebook friends. Everyone is smiling. (BTW, Colgate Smile does have a Facebook group.)

Yet, as Aleister’s post illustrates, Colgate was judged on the “place” in SL – because SL has a unique “presence” characteristic that in our minds mirrors RL while Facebook doesn’t have that legacy. In some ways, FB is more virtual than SL.

Colgate's is definitely not the only "un-fixed" campaign in SL. Many more companies are using limited time or shared presence strategies.  Much has changed this year in the way brands are thinking about marketing efforts in SL.  They increasingly are beginning to see it functioning like the distributed social network it is – thanks to the frequent and vocal critiques of its residents.   

Colgate could have significantly improved the way it communicated its SL initiative, - and it could have easily oriented SL visitors by visibly tying in its web site - but its distributed approach is on target.

The avatar is the most valuable terrain online – 3D or 2D. But networks are also a “place,” and brands need to balance both channel and place in their strategies.

Colgate's SL smile vending machines are here.

December 26, 2007

Steelcase Panel of Design and Marketing Team in SL Today

Kelly Emms sends word that today at 2:00 p.m. SLT a nine panel team from Steelcase Design and Marketing will be holding a Q&A.  The theme is marketing in Second Life.  You are invited to attend!

Steelcase is sponsoring a virtual furniture and office design showcase through December 15th, and the  two-week long event is culmination of the Steelcase design competition held this summer.  The panel discussion  today is an opportunity for the SL designers to meet avatar to avatar with the Steelcase team . So, check out the virtual office designs while you are at it - and chat with these talented people in the meetup afterwards.

Event is being held in Silicon City, and produced by V3 Group.

December 5, 2007

Book Review: Exodus of the Virtual World; How Online Fun is Changing Reality

Life is a game.  Edward Castronova brings us face to face with a new twist on the concept in his newest ‘speculative non-fiction’ book, Exodus to the Virtual World; How Online Fun is Changing Reality.

Thumbing through it, you might guess this is a book about a generation of gamers addicted to seeking unending fun, opting out of the real in favor of the virtual.  Or, you might think it is a sociological warning about the weird and scary world of gaming cultures, whose millions of inhabitants have entered the mainstream work world and are bringing with them their geeky scary view of society.  Or, if you happen to land dead center in the book, you might think Castronova himself is living in a fantasy world where he’s mistaken game society and real world public policy as one. 

Well, kind of…but No.

Grasp this book between your two hands, and before you open it, repeat three times: “this is a book of speculative non-fiction.”

And then read every word of it seriously.

The three underlying themes within this book are happening.  They may be under the radar, but that doesn’t make them any less real or less disruptive to your near future. If you are in business, pay attention – it has implications for you.  If you are a marketer, be aware that you have to get in the game (pun intended).  If you are a public official, at least consider the possibilities.

Theme 1:  Virtual economies cannot help but affect real world economies.  Castronova walks us through how so.  The ‘virtual economy’ as a whole is already the size of a small country.  Even if people are spending only a small percentage of their time producing, buying, selling virtual goods, it is taking money/production out of the real world economy.  As millions of people start doing it and migrating “there” (China is betting on it) and on a growth curve following Moore’s Law, it will make a very big difference to all of us. 

“The thought of a new community, society or state emerging on its own territory should give us pause.”

Theme 2:  Virtual worlds are fun; the real world is not and people like fun more than “not fun.”  What’s not to love?  Of course what ‘fun’ actually means here is the key to the title of the book.  The case Castronova makes is that people are finding meaning/satisfaction in collaborative game spaces and virtuality that real world structures/systems don’t allow or support.  It is the why of virtual world fun-ness that is key here and that may be an imperative for the real world.  Fun in Castronova's sense is not ‘meaningless play’ it is challenge, mastery, learning, testing without serious consequences, survival, fairness and the ability for everyone to succeed (if eventually).

But herein lies one of the sticking points I have with Exodus to the Virtual World.  Castronova seems to equate virtual worlds, video games and ‘practical virtual reality’ as one and the same, interchangeable, seemingly painting them with the same cultural and structural ‘fun’ brush.  They aren’t the same.  Motivations, activities and structures are different – but I forgive because this is a book about trends and possibilities – and that is the really important place he takes the reader in his discussion.

Theme 3: Game designers are designers of societies, with the goals of making people happy and improving well-being.  Successful public policy might learn from game design.  Here’s where you might think “okay – gone too far.  I was with you for a while, but time to close the book now.”

Hang in.  Of course Castronova, economist that he is, knows life is not ‘the game.’ Not everyone finds these games ‘fun’ or are ‘technographically’ aligned with them (a point Castronova doesn’t make).   People do operate in the real world.  But he does run the concepts of game design and public policy in parallel with the reader, just asking the question, “can we learn something about human happiness by listening to the multi-disciplinary arena of game design?”   If millions of people are migrating into virtual reality, it might be worth at least considering the question (not to mention the reasons). 

These are radical and sometimes very impractical ideas.  But I have to admit I marked this passage:

“Perhaps the most striking difference between fun policy and real-world policy is in the process of policymaking.  Game designers deliberate briefly, then implement policies in test environments and tinker with them for a very long time.  Real-world policymakers deliberate for a long time, then implement policies in the real world without any tests at all.  Those who have experienced policy effects in both worlds cannot help being impressed by the difference in the policy quality that results.”

Virtual worlds do give us the ability to test real world scenarios – doing that alone could save a lot of real world human pain and distress.

A final point of digression I have with Castronova that I'll note here is that he states no other online experiences allow for these kinds of societal disruptive environments.  I disagree – and in fact think by focusing only on 3D virtual worlds as where this is happening is shortsighted.  Two-dimensional social networks/social media share many of the characteristics – and implications – of which Castronova speaks in his book.

So, you might think all this isn’t happening, or it is a long way off, or it is far-fetched, or it has no real implications for you or your real world…

Well, early in the year I was in conversation discussing the state of an enormous public institution with a high-ranking government official (of baby boomer age) and she said to me as we discussed solutions, “there must be a way to make it work more like World of Warcraft – how can we make it so people are encouraged and motivated that way?”   I swear.  It happened – in the "real” world.

Thanks to St. Martin's press for a review copy of Mr. Castronova's book.

December 3, 2007
   

CNN Second Life i-Report Officially Opened Today

Since the coverage of CNN's launch in SL is rather robust already, I'll just mention here that CNN's first in-world training session for i_Reporters is tomorrow, Tuesday, at 2:00 p.m. SLT.  It will be held at the i-Report hub on Future Island.

Slurl:  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Future/195/201/26/

Subscribe to the SL I-Reports weblog to follow the SL citizen journalists' filings.

November 12, 2007

 

World Bank Presents Global Doing Business Report in Second Life

The World Bank presented their fifth annual global Doing Business report in Second Life yesterday.  It was a notable effort to expand knowledge and understanding about the work of the World Bank to end poverty across the globe. Case in point as to the need for that very effort:  Nobody Fugazi and Canuckflack (two very tuned-in people) wonder how the clients of the World Bank "many of them living in remote corners of the internet" were supposed to sign on to hear the presentation. The World Bank customers were not the intended audience - in fact, it was the exact opposite.  It was intended to inform those who know little about the role of the World Bank. The role of the World Bank is to finance states (countries), not individuals or companies - but to my point, it is a widespread misconception that developing countries are "unconnected."  Connectivity is in fact a driving force toward their overall economic development. 

The event was extremely well attended (gratifying to see!) and the presentation summarizing the 2008 report by Dahlia Khalifa, senior communications officer for the Doing Business project of the World Bank, was chocked full of the high-caliber information you would expect to come from such an institution.  Most unfortunately the session was also full of audio technical snafus and avoidable SL event-planning mistakes - but I for one found the session thoroughly engrossing and it upped my global economic market perspective quotient several notches. I am delighted to see the World Bank living up to their goal of innovation.  And Second Life can indeed be a most suitable communication platform - if sometimes tricky.

To learn more about Doing Business 2008, to review market data or to view a variety of videos on regional economies and reforms visit the Doing Business website:  http://www.doingbusiness.org/  For more information on market approaches to development and toward ending world poverty, check out the World Bank blogs:  http://psdblog.worldbank.org/.

On a related note, The World Bank is not only employing social media to distribute information on global ecomonies, but it is watching the space for its implications toward ending poverty, growing businesses, and providing peer-to-peer support structures.  They note in a recent blog post for example, a favorite site I reference in my social media "It's Sociology, Not Technlogy"© presentations, the peer-to-peer lending site Prosper.

Social media - and you thought it was just a new-fangled marketing or PR tactic.  Go figure.

October 27, 2007

1-800 Flowers Expands SL Presence – Discussion at SLBC Meeting Tuesday, Sept 18.

Seth Lasser, 1-800 Flowers Director of Special Projects and Assistant to the CEO, sends news of their plans to expand their Second Life presence.  It is in the form of a contest to guide their next SL steps – and which culminates in the winning avatar staring in a Times Square video. 800 Flowers would like avatar ideas and inspiration for their upcoming build on Costa Del Sol.

I took the opportunity to ask Seth to meet with SL Business Communicators to give us the background on the brand’s decision to plant more seeds in SL, to talk about the contest and to allow us to directly engage the guy behind the brand’s initiative.  He most graciously agreed and he will be in-world with SL Business Communicators on Tuesday, September 18th at 5:00 p.m. SLT.

The 1-800 Flowers “Fields of the Virtual World” contest is going on now and we avatars get to vote for the grand prize winner.  Tell 800 Flowers what inspires you and your avatar by taking an in-world snapshot, accompany it with its 100-word story, and submit it by October 1.  The winning avatar will be on video in RL Times Square in November and December.

Get more information about the contest here – and join us on Tuesday in world to hear lots more about 1-800 Flowers in SL.

Last June 1-800-Flowers came into SL with a small greenhouse and pavilion, and a group of internal employee volunteers to staff it and to connect with avatar visitors.  The initiative was part listening, part promotional, part corporate innovation exploration.

The company has been savvy so far in their virtual world practices. They have taken it seriously at the highest level in the organization, centered it around connecting people and avatars and opening up the initiatives to the community.  They have also started small and set realistic expectations internally, which Seth reports have been exceeded.

Come and meet and chat with Seth.  Learn more about their SL successes and experiences and the on-going contest.  Be at the SL Business Communicators meetup on Tuesday.

RSVP and get further SLBC meeting details by IMing Znetlady Isbell in world or emailing me.

Photo Credit:  Cranial Tap

September 14, 2007

Getting Involve: Name Change or Shape Shift?

The bit of a buzz around some mysterious “Involvium” last week proved to be the plot of a corporate name change story.  Interactive/metaverse agency Infinite Vision Media is now Involve, Inc.

I have to admit that I’ve known the back story for a while, so I’m coming at this from, well, a rather distant “sideliner’s” perspective.   Still, it is exciting when one catches a glimpse at a leader.

Drew Stein, founder and CEO of Infinite Vision Media-turned-Involve is a loyal reader of this blog (oh, bless you, Drew), and every once in a while we chat about something metaversial - exchanging thoughts on topics from virtual identity to social marketing.  He clued me into the name change earlier this summer.

I admit the new name sits well in my ears, since I’ve been emphasizing the concept of  “involvement” on this blog for a while as the means to successful virtual marketing initiatives (3d or otherwise). 

But from my perspective, within their name change Involve is articulating a fundamental mind-shift that marketers need to heed.

Involve’s corporate narrative is shifting the focus from “the sim” to “ the avatar.”  And that is where the virtual magic lies.

Involve’s campaign is nicely multi-layered, but more importantly, it is aimed straight at the heart of involvement.   They are walking the walk.

Let me backtrack a little to put this in context. 

Involve’s rollout campaign is centered around an augmented alternate realty game (ARG), in which a mysterious ‘company”(Involvium Energy Ventures) discovers somewhere in the metaverse the equally mysterious Involvium crystal. The crystal holds powerful energy properties – yet to be fully understood.  A freelance journalist (J.S. Tomorrow) is sent along on the latest Involvium Energy expedition to explore and report from the island within the Metaverse where Involvium was first discovered.  J.S. is filing expedition reports on her weblog.  The island and it’s various inhabitants seem to shape-shift, presumable due to the effects of the Involvium crystals.

Involvium Energy Ventures does not claim to know all the secrets of Involvium, but their early analysis of it has discovered three properties:

• Energy saturates the ether of the Metaverse
• Energy intensifies around people
• Energy currents are strongest between bonded or associated individuals

You can see the Involvium Energy Ventures website for more information and the promotional video contemplates the possibilities. Or see J. S. Tomorrow reportage.

So, here is my point.  The campaign itself is aimed at actually illustrating involvement –drawing one into a mixed reality fantasy that spans both the real world and the metaverse.  The messages underneath the fantasy are the corporate values (virtual strategies work best when focused on people/avatars).  An illustrative implementation is the story's island and blog – these are the places where the story will play out (with you, should you choose) – and where real and virtual mix.  The “shape shifting” island is both a story element as well as an outcome (with those who get involved and contribute to the evolving story).  More importantly, it is a metaphor for discovering the evolution of the metaverse and going beyond the known (or the predicatable).

The apparent message: this is what Involve is as well as where they hope to lead their clients’ initiatives. Toward involvement.

On the tactical side the initiative brought several “social media” into the mix to accomplish it’s goals: some Twittering; a little pre-announcement Pownce discussion; a micro web site; the expedition blog and the SL island where the ARG takes place; and the Involvium video. 

Personally, I think Involve has drawn an interesting line in the virtual world development sand.  I hope the ARG, and most especially the corporate narrative, play out.

August 26, 2007

Cisco Launches Virtual World Blog

Cisco has added a new blog to their growing list of corporate blogs - the Virtual World Blog.

Reason?  As Christian Renaud says in the inaugural post:

"We believe that these environments offer an excellent new tool in our collaboration toolbox, alongside established technologies like IP Telephony, Web Collaboration, and Telepresence. They also offer a number of new opportunities to collaborate in ways we haven't had before, which is intuitively obvious to those who use them regularly, but we'll work on enumerating in future blogposts."

Christian is Chief Architect of the Networked Virtual Environments team at Cisco, and he and members of his team will be contributing to the blog, according to Christian's post.  As a nice touch, they are also maintaining a del.icio.us page that will contain all the links they reference in their blog posts. 

Christian is an active SL avatar so we know he and his team will be speaking with great authority.  More importantly, Cisco has made both big and public commitments to virtual worlds, from their multiple-island SL campus to actively experimenting with internal 3D collaborative spaces - and then back again with in-world b2b meetings and mixed reality public events.  And, they aren't overlooking infrastructure, as they are also working on  technology to support 3D environments, and tools to facilitate our virtual work and entertainment lives.

Christian will also be keynoting at the upcoming Virtual Worlds 2007 conference in October.

Click on over to the Virtual World Blog, say hello and chat up a team that is contributing to the next generation of business and of virtual worlds.

August 15, 2007

MacArthur Foundation Announces $2 Million Digital Media Competition

The MacArthur Foundation announced today a public competition for $2 million in funding for "emerging leaders, communicators, and innovators shaping the field of digital media and learning."

The purpose of the competition is to stimulate and encourage innovation in all areas of digital media and learning, as well as to help determine how digital technologies are changing the way people live, play, work, learn, and socialize.

The awards will be given in two distinct areas:  Knowledge-Networking and Innovation. 

The Knowledge-Networking awards will be given to proven communicators who are already steeped in social media and dedicated to "digital learning" through blogs, social networking, social bookmarking, podcasting and virtual worlds.  There will be twelve $30,000 - $75,000 Knowledge-Networking awards.

Innovation awards will go to pioneers in exploring or developing new digital learning environments, especially targeted at youth.  They should be built upon social concepts, social media spaces, and informal collaborative models.   There will be eight $250,000 or $100,000 awards.

The rationale for the choice of these two areas is just too beautiful to paraphrase (from the competition FAQ) :

    Why single out “Innovation” and “Knowledge-Networking”?

In an age of rapidly expanding information and communication technologies, innovation and networking are complementary and mutually interdependent.  Innovation that isn’t communicated, shared, developed, customized, and implemented is irrelevant.  Networking without significant content and innovative ideas can be shallow.  In addition, knowledge-networking promotes the distribution of the best developments in digital media and learning in order that communities can participate in the growth, adoption, sharing, and conversation (and, ideally, the improvement) of those ideas.

The competition is open to a wide range. Bloggers, journalists, digital media practioners, communicators, gamers, social networkers, researchers, think tanks, educators, students and theorists are being encouraged to  submit - that means you!  The primary applicant must be a U.S. resident, but members of the team can reside in any other country.

The competition is part of the Foundation's $50 million Digital Media and Learning initiative. 

Get more information on the competition web site - there is lots of it.

Find the competition FAQs here

August 14, 2007

Sky News Gets Rolling with Its 'Be A News Reporter' Challenge

Sky News has been tinkering around in Second Life since the Spring, and launched their SL island early this summer.  In a welcome sign that they are moving forward with an in-world strategy, news comes from Armin Ruede at Sky News that they have launched a Second Life "Be A News Reporter" challenge. 

The UK news service is exending its RL commitment to citizen journalism into SL with this - "cit-j" is something Sky News has fostered since 2005.

Their promotional machinima gives you the low-down on submitting on-machinima news reports to Sky News for use on their web site - or if the reporter avatar has enough charimsa and news-worthy savvy - the virtual report may end up on UK TV.  Sky News is inviting uploads of the news machinima via their SkyCast social network and video sharing site.

Sky News has also assembled a reporters' kit that is available in their virtual offices.  It includes helpful notecards on how to frame a news report, some do's and don'ts, and some technical tips on audio and video.  Included is the "must have" Sky News microphone - "must have" because it is a requirement to have it in order for a news report submission to be considered.  And a nice, subtle, professional reporter-type animation that microphone enables for your avatar as well.

The Sky News reporter challenge runs through September 30th. 

There are some indications that News with a big "N" is starting to mature in-world - and that would be "News" as traditional public relations people know it.  There are of course many existing exceptionally good SL news outlets reporting on the day's events and analyzing the big issues - and they actually get it right. 

But the launch last month of SLPulse, a free press release service (web-based) by Cold Fusion Intertainment, in-world news HUDs like Reuters', and Sky News now encouraging in-world cit-j video news reports are just a few of the elements in the overall effort toward tackling the organization and distribution of News using methods businesses, media and communictors are comfortable with.  With luck these tools and services will take on SL news models that are less "gatekeeper" and more "News Infrastructure/Enabling." 

This is Znetlady Isbell signing off for SL Business Communicators.  See you next time!

August 13, 2007

Second Life Entertainment Study Discussion Panel

We've lined up a panel discussion to delve into the recently released study, Second Life Entertainment Market.  We've aimed at getting expertise from several sectors in Second Life to contribute to the discussion and we invite you to come and get involved in the conversation. 

I will be moderating the panel and Mary Ellen Gordon of Market Truths will be among the panelists.  She will give us a briefing on the report and provide some additional insights.

The panel discussion will be held on Friday, July 27th at 9:00 a.m. SLT.

Panelists include:
Mary Ellen Gordon/Pebbles Hannya, President of Market Truths
Troy McLuhan, Director, SL International Spaceflight Museum
Link Pippen, Galveston Island
Giff Constable/Foresti Svarog, Electric Sheep Company
Ian Teepoot, Infinite Vision Media
Gary Goldhammer/G24khamr Goodfellow, Edelman Interactive Services
Moderator:  Linda Zimmer/Znetlady Isbell

We will be holding the discussion on the Depo Business Hub, at Market Truths 50/185/34.

Join the discussion and bring your questions for the panel!

July 23, 2007

Second Life Entertainment Study Released: SL Accounts for More Time Than All Other Forms of Entertainment Combined

According to the newly released Market Truths research study, Second Life Entertainment Market, 80% of avatar time in Second Life is spent on entertainment activities, totaling just over 16 hours per week – more than all other forms of their real life entertainment combined.  According to the study, the median time spent on other forms of computer-related entertainment is just 4 hours per week, and 10 hours per week for non computer-related entertainment.

Among other things, the study examines the linkages between RL entertainment behaviors and preferences and those same behaviors and preferences in SL.  It includes notes on both SL and RL age and gender differences, as well as commentary on RL geographic preferences for entertainment activities in SL and RL.

The study concludes by pin-pointing some underserved entertainment categories in SL. 

Market Truths has priced their 41-page research report to appeal to in-world businesses, and at $50 (US) or L$5000, it is an enormously valuable service to the business community there.  However, for real life businesses looking at SL for marketing, this is the type of market research you would pay RL thousands for.  Grab it and read it carefully for the behavioral insights it contains.

The timing and findings in the study are particularly salient given the recent “disillusionment” reports (registration required) in the mainstream media.  This research directly contradicts last weekend’s LA Times article that stated avatars don’t shop.

In fact, shopping is the number one reported SL entertainment activity, going head to head with traveling.  Dancing, and conversation with known and new people round out the top five.  Team sports garner the least amount of SL entertainment time.

The top preferred SL entertainment activities do differ from RL, but shopping is at the top of the RL list as well, with discussion and conversation showing up in the RL top five.  Surprising to me was that driving for entertainment was the #2 RL entertainment activity (by frequency in the last year).

The study reports on preferences between RL and SL participation, and extensively discusses reasons why certain activities are more preferred in SL than in RL.  Some reasons are expected (cost), but several others offer some important insights for marketers.

Market Truths has also segmented the sample research population into Abstainers, Solitary RL, Discoverers, Entertainers, Creators, and RL Actions, examining the types of entertainment activities each particpate in.

Here is the Market Truth’s study breakdown of Second Life Entertainment (frequency in the last year).  There are several other graphs and charts in the full report.