Posts Tagged ‘habbo’
July 28th, 2008
I picked up on a podcast interview and NMA profile of Habbo’s regional MD Europe, Phil Guest on the re-emergence of virtual worlds. It was for me a timely reminder that “it’s all about the kids”. While I’ve struggled with the adult vworlds, out there are more than 100 child-friendly worlds – and Phil said there were many more on the way as leading brands piled in to create playful spaces to build connections and trust with their young customers. Maybe that’s it – there’s a point to these places FUN!) and users who know how to connect, cluster and make the most of their time there. Phil had no doubts that worlds like Habbo sat on the blurring line between real and virtual that young people understood – and that these worlds were a next step in the development of social networks because they were immersive, playful spaces with meaning beyond connections and self-reference. Look forward to the Feast of the Avatars, coming to a social network near you soon.
Pulic Relations in Virtual Worlds
May 27th, 2008
As part of the social media mix, how do PR agencies engage in virtual worlds?
Text100’s optimistic, if slightly aged, view is that virtual worlds are an essential part of the social network – and will grow in importance over the next few years.
A more sanguine views from brand communications agency Cow suggests there are opportunities but also current issues that make engagement in virtual worlds like Second Life problematic for agencies.
We’ve seen a few PR companies working in SL including: Text 100, Leo Burnett, crayon, Edelman, GSD&M, Lewis PR and Press Dispensary. Measuring the effectiveness of their engagement is a fuzzy process.
Recently, senior Second Life residents voted to ban PR from their environment (over-zealous marketers) but are still discussing exactly how to do that!
However, management consulting firm McKinsey & Company reports that virtual worlds are on the cusp of a major expansion - particularly as a way to reach younger customers - and that companies were “ignoring them at their peril.”
I wonder if there will be a second coming for worlds like Second Life – and with that, opportunities for PR agencies to engage. My experience of them has been largely negative – and recent upgrades in Second Life have not changed that view. But Second Life’s in-world economy is growing at 15 percent annually with user hours, concurrency, and economic transactions all showed robust growth.
Against that there’s been a recent slowing in Second Life new account sign-ups. In March only 408,000 new accounts were created, the smallest gain in absolute numbers since September 2007, and the smallest monthly percent gain since Second Life’s debut in April 2001. Second Life shed 1,656 paid accounts in March, the fourth month in a row more people got out of the land trade than entered it. Total premium accounts stand at 89,875, below last summer’s 94,607 peak.
Estimates of active users also vary from 500,000 to 11.7 million (total accounts: 13million).
Right now, there may be up to 20 virtual world companies developing in stealth mode. They may see the light in the Autumn at the Virtual Worlds shows in San Francisco and London. Multiverse has just released a platform upgrade that gives developers the choice to build worlds in 3D or 2D Flash.
And Apple’s iPhone games initiative opens up the potential for 2D/3D mobile social spaces.
At the younger end of the market, Habbo Hotel remains the benchmark. There are currently Habbo communities in 32 countries on six continents. To date, more than 94 million Habbo characters have been created globally and 9.5 million unique users worldwide visit Habbo each month (source: Google Analytics). The average Habbo user spends nearly 40 minutes on the site per visit.
In-game advertising company Double Fusion signed up recently to manage interactive brand campaigns with retail, fashion and sports companies in US. Over 200 advertisers have used Habbo globally - in-game billboards, contests, interstitials and instant-console messaging, customized brand rooms, sponsored quests.
Right now, I think that my advice to brands would be to watch and wait for Web 3.0, where hopefully the current technical and cultural dislocations in virtual worlds will have been resolved. Meanwhile, we could be thinking through exactly how to advise and engage when the time is right.