All posts by Pierre

Virtual Worlds

Second Life – definitely “out” ?

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Not a big news : Facebook and other Social Networks is the buzzword of 07 while the previous year was the year of Virtual Worlds, especially Second Life.
Since the beginning of last year, the first critics about SL was appearing. Since september 07, the situation was clear – Second Life was not the hot topic anymore.
And now, when I look at some figures, I wonder if Second Life is turning to be the completely "out" topic.

Hereunder, you’ll find Second Life’s alexa traffic – for those who are not familiar with this tool, alexa tracks the traffic of the major website of the web. Not 100% reliable, but it gives you a good idea of the trends.

Graph_2

The full graph

(just a funny fact – just add on the graphic the keywords "worldofwarcraft.com" or "facebook.com". Crazy, isn’t it ?). Clubpenguin.com is the famous virtual universe dedicated to kid acquired by Disney discussed in this previous article.

You can also check the google trends graphic for the same keywords which confirm the trend.

We’ve alredy discussed the topic in july 07. But I wanted to come back on this a few months after, and give 5 pro / 5 con ideas regarding SL, just in case to discuss with clients 🙂

5 reasons why second life is still an interesting plateform to visit / to investigate for you and your client

Now, my opinon : it’s not new, the trends is just going on – Second life is definitely not the hot topic anymore. But it’s not because people don’t talk about it that there is nothing interesting inside. Reasons why Second Life is still a universe to investigate :

1/ it is the most advanced social technology plateform of the moment (3D, voice, social capabilities, etc)
2/ Second Life has a strong community which remains dynamic : http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy-graphs.php
3/ Second Life is the most advanced community in term of Metaverse (a universe created and animated by its users)
4/ Second Life remains the best place to experiment Virtual Universes, 3D technology, etc
5/ Second Life is the most advanced virtual Universe while young generation are getting more and more used to interact with this new universes (see the previous article discussing the NYT article)

5 reasons why people don’t visit Second Life anymore

But despite the fact that I’m a Second Life enthusiast, I have to admit that people are not interesting anymore in that universe. And here are the main reasons I’ve identified.

1/ "Second Life sucks". The plateform in itself is unstable, require huge computer to work decently and … compared to actual 3D games, it’s just ugly. Welcome back to 90’s graphics.
2/ "Second Life is boring". Second Life for newbie is a very disturbing experience. People are so disappointed when discovering a virtual universe : rules are changed. How many avatars die after a few minutes lost in the newbie island ?
3/ "I’ve got Facebook, looser". Second Life completely missed the social network game. Making more bridges between identities and avatars would have been a good way to increase retention, and attract new people. Of course, facebook is not the same, but the social aspect of Second Life has been neglected.
4/ "It’s unsafe, it’s crowded with sexual pervert and it emits ton of carbons". Blablababla. At least, that’s what media says (the same media that never visited SL to write articles about it).
5/ "It is for Nerds". Or at least, you need to have a certain familiarity with a computer and a LOT of time.

My diagnostic would be : all these critics are true. But it also confirms that Second Life remains a fantastic place to experiment what Social web could be in the coming year – Second Life is a universe of Science fiction, a visionnary place built by technology pioneers.
A lot of people made the mistake to think it was mainstream.
Not yet. It requires to be open minded and aware of what it implies.

Let’s hope that the next plateforms will learn from Second Life present critics. But for the moment, the advice for our client remains the same :
"Go to second life to experiment and interact with your community"

Have you also the feeling the Second Life is going to be out ?
Have you identified reason why people may think that ?
Would you recommend it for a client ?
Have a different feeling about it ?

Pierre from Paris

Virtual Worlds

Second Skin – a documentary about second lives

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I’ve just noticed this this week end somewhere lost in my RSS reader.
Some people are finishing a documentary about virtual universes – of course, there will be a strong focus on gaming, but Metaverses (such as Second Life) will also be in …

Second Skin takes an intimate look at computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by the emerging genre of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs). World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Everquest allow millions of users to simultaneously interact in virtual spaces. Second Skin introduces us to couples who have fallen in love without meeting, disabled players who have found new purpose, addicts, Chinese gold-farming sweatshop workers, wealthy online entrepreneurs and legendary guild leaders – all living in a world that doesn’t quite exist.

If you want to have a look at the trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPOxuOCGi9I
If you want to have more info : http://www.pwdocs.com/secondskin/?id=home
They have a blog : http://www.secondskinfilm.com/blog/

Social Media

A closer look at viral mechanism – who said that viral was simple ?

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Fred Cavazza, a french consultant discussed this article from Fast Company about the book of Duncan Watts who made research on viral spreading.
The article can be found here, and bring a new light on viral mechanism
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/122/is-the-tipping-point-toast.html

A short summary in bad english

1/ Viral mechanism do not rely on key influencers for the spreading. It’s more chaotic and unpredictable that a hierchical vision of information spreading. His conclusion : Viral spreading are only due to random interactions between people.

2/ The author gives the fire forest metaphor : if all the conditions are gathered (humidity, sun, firemen time of response, the sort of wood, etc) a fire could be a catastrophy just with a single match. On the contrary, if the conditions are bad (if it rains, or if the wood is not dry enough), even fire bomb cannot help.

Cf the scheme hereunder :

Conclusion : analysis of the context is key, muliplying the entry points for your campagne is critical to create a good beginning and having the chance to stand out.

As for Fred Cavazza, he underlines the fact that time is also a key factor : the faster you want to go, the higher the chance to fail will be. If the timing is good, and If the context and the conditions are there, success will be your.

As for me, I think that Influencers are also important. If they are not a guarantee of success, they act as echo chamber that speed up your campaign – they are some kind of entry point hard to avoid …

What is your opinion ? Any specialist of chaos theory ?

Pierre from Paris

blogs

Where is my post ?

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Have you ever wondered what become a blog post right after being published on the internet ? This fantastic animated schemes from Wired will show you the secret life of your post on the web.

Not necessary to know all the technic behind, but always interesting to be able to explain the machinery making it working 🙂

You compose a new post. You click Publish and lean back to admire your work. Imperceptibly and all but instantaneously, your post slips into a vast and recursive network of software agents, where it is crawled, indexed, mined, scraped, republished, and propagated throughout the Web. Within minutes, if you’ve written about a timely and noteworthy topic, a small army of bots will get the word out to anyone remotely
interested, from fellow bloggers to corporate marketers. Let’s say it’s Super Bowl Sunday and you’re blogging about beer. You see Budweiser’s blockbuster commercial and have a reaction you’d like to share. Thanks to search engines and aggregators that compile lists of interesting posts, you can reach a lot of people

http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2008/ff_secretlife_1602

Pierre from Paris

Virtual Worlds

2008 in Virtual Worlds

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Trends and issues
Yeah, yeah, I know, virtual worlds sounds so “2007”. But look at it carefully, and you’ll see that the whole industry is moving extremely rapidely.
And this report highlights the coming trends for 08.
http://www.virtualworldsmanagement.com/forecast2008/

I like this report, first because it’s free, second, because it brings several interesting observation on the evolution of virtual worlds.
Just a rapid summary in bad english:

  • The number of virtual universe will continue to grow, especially the one dedicated to teens and pre-teens
  • Virtual universe and social networks will go closer more and more rapidely
  • Virtual universe accessible from a browser will transform niche market in mass market (and do not forget the mobile market)
  • Education market and corporate market will be very active in term of adoption and development of specific usage
  • Virtual universe will be more and more monitored by administrations and governments, especially from tax administrations.
  • Tools to track engagement, traffic and activity will be improved or will appear
  • Second Life (hey, pay attention, that’s the most interesting moment) will probably not being the most privileged universe for brands – brands will probably look at more stable, more structured and more controlable universes
  • The asian market (with its technological and cultural specificities) will have a major influence in the development of these universes.

Just one last word about virtual universes for teens and kids.
Look at this NYT article you’ve probably already read … Who said Virtual Universe has no future ?
Article on the NYT : Web Playgrounds of the Very Young

Extract :

Forget Second Life. The real virtual world gold rush centers on the grammar-school set.Trying to duplicate the success of blockbuster Web sites like Club Penguin and Webkinz, children’s entertainment companies are greatly accelerating efforts to build virtual worlds for children. Media conglomerates in particular think these sites — part online role-playing game and part social scene — can deliver quick growth, help keep movie franchises alive and instill brand loyalty in a generation of new customers.Second Life and other virtual worlds for grown-ups have enjoyed intense media attention in the last year but fallen far short of breathless expectations. The children’s versions are proving much more popular, to the dismay of some parents and child advocacy groups. Now the likes of the Walt Disney Company, which owns Club Penguin, are working at warp speed to pump out sister sites.

More

(you’ll probably have to register on the NYT – for those who are not yet registered, it’s free).

PS : just a reminder : the map of the virtual universe discussed here will help you having a clear idea of the actual situation of the industry

Pierre from Paris.

Reading

All these blogs …

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And all the fantastic content in it … A new section for links has been added to the disruption blog (on the right column, under the tag cloud).

I’ve extracted the list of blogs related to Text 100 to put them in, and I must say I’m pretty impressed by the blog network we currently have at Text 100 …

Did you know all of these blogs ? Did I miss anyone here ?

Virtual Worlds

Virtual Paris 2007

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Logo_VirtualParis2007.jpgI owe you this debrief of a conference we’ve talked about a few weeks ago, dedicated to virtual universes that took place in Paris in October (argh – more than a month that I should have send you this debriefing :S)
This conference gathered people from various backgrounds around the theme of virtual universe, with an audience composed of prospective leader of French company.

Sorry for the delay, as the input I’m going to share with you is really interesting.

The idea of this day of conference was to gather all the expertise and experience in virtual universes for companies.
We were the only one company speaking for communication perspectives on Second Life.

Among the speakers :
A consultant named Fred Cavazza, well known for its 2.0 expertise and specialized in interface. He drew up a map of virtual universes, Media agencies, big advertising companies, 3D designers, builders, scripters … and ourselves (Philippe – GM France and Myself) for our insight regarding communication with these universes.

Here is a quick debrief of this day, with a few useful documents that I would like to share with you.

Map of virtual universe.
We do speak about Second Life, but it’s a good thing to observe the whole ecosystem of virtual universes. The map hereunder give you an idea of all the universes and their public.
By the way, he published after the event a map of the universes with interesting comment I encourage you to read : http://www.fredcavazza.net/2007/10/04/virtual-universes-landscape/

VirtualUniversesLandscape.jpg

Brand design in virtual universe.
Logos, brand image and corporate communication needs to be adapted to 3D universe – interaction and community habits break down traditional model of brand identity. This brand identity has to be rethought with new codes.

3D and virtual universe
Creation of object and universe obey to strict technical rules and oblige to comply with new competencies.

Second Life and Open source
Linden lab unveils its code very rapidely. So developers invest this new code to create new solutions and to imagine more bridges between reality and virtuality.

Events in Second life
This intervention was a case study of an event organized by a credit company, sponsor of a cycling company in Le Tour de France, which created a cycling event inside Second Life to promote its activities.

Communication and Second Life
This was our intervention, dedicated to the disruption created by these universe on traditionnal media, and the new rules and habit you have to keep in mind when investing these new universe. We focused on the necessity to have a real investment in the long term with the community to leverage such an investment.

And know, I would like to share with you the content unveiled during the event.

http://www.divshare.com/download/3012155-db1
pass : Text100

Some of the presentation might be in French. If you need help to know what it is about, do not hesitate to ping me.

In this directory, you’ll find :

Pierre from Paris

blogs, PR, search

[DRAFT] Toolkit – Search Engine Optimized Press Release

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http://www.cyberbricoleur.com/Img/fiches/14boite_outils_metal.jpgI talked about it a few weeks ago. I’ve been asked what would be the things to do to write a search engine optimized press release.
I’ve answered a few basic points, but I do think that creating a toolkit might be useful, especially since the audience is changing, and if you want to target journalist, but not only.
Of course, press release will remain for the press, but we have to keep in mind that Google is the biggest wire on the planet. If you want to exist somewhere, you have to be on it.

Preamble :

  • The recommendations hereunder are a draft version – any additional comment is more than welcome
  • The purpose of this toolkit is to facilitate the optimization of press release for Search Engine. It is not designed to become "blog release" (a press release dedicated to blog – a wrong idea), but to facilitate the recognition by a larger audience.


Content

  • Title of the press release : keep it as short as possible, with key figure to immediately attract attention, keyword and the name of the brand, the name of the product.
  • The text : keep it also short – keep in mind that it will be read on a computer screen. The choice of the font and the formatting is also to consider.
  • Media : people pay more attention to pictures. Embedding picture on a text to illustrate it will attract more attention. I would also recommend creating a specific link to make available high res illustration and eventually a short movie hosted on youtube/dailymotion (could be an interview of a spokesperson, a demo of a product, etc).
  • Include keywords / tags : could be easily identified by search engine – 3, 4 tags, no more.
  • Submit the press release on web services : we’ve previously identified services on the web – they are supposed to distribute releases. Not sure that it is very efficient, but could help for the referencing (look at the list on mashable previously seen by Aaron for example – I also know that some services exists on a local scale, depending on your country)
  • Link the release to social news site : digg-likes, delicous-likes, etc … You’ll find over internet services to add buttons to rate news or to add it to the major social news services (addthis for example).
  • Link to content : Do not hesitate to link to previous release or to content on the company website.

Be sure that your online press room is up to dater

  • Integrate a dedicated RSS feed to let reader be alerted of the latest news (we’ve discussed that topic in the past with Erica, but since then, I’ve discovered additionnal services for those who don’t have feeds such as magiepieRSS or Feed43 …)
  • Create a media resource directory with your media content (HD Logo, HD Shots of products, screenshots, video, press kits, etc)
  • Make an obvious access to your contact
  • Create an archive section
  • If you have an online press review somewhere why not integrate it (via del.icio.us) …


From a technical point of view

  • Check with your IT guy that the HTML formatting of your page is well done, and that the code has all the info (because that’s where search engine looks first).
  • Check also that the website is correctly declared to Google, and that Google is advised when the content of the website changes (some tools can help – thank you Google)

Just to be clear : these recommendation does not replace our work with journalists and our precious relationship with influencers. But it might help to give visibility for messages.
And if a blogger can find enough information he can use (with screenshot he can link or video he can embedd in his post) inside a press release, why not ?

Now, it’s your turn : do you think these recommendation could be helpful for some of your clients? Is it just not relevant? Do you have additionnal recommendation to share ? Have you already tried similar things?

Pierre from Paris

blogs, search

Pipl – explore the dark side of the web

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Pipl HomepageMMmmmh web 2 is spreading all over the web, and more and more people are joining everyday. And the good thing about web2 is that it turns into a giant identity orgy – you leave your identity behind on all the services you use.
Search engine are now giant directories of your life, describing who you are, and if you know how to use google, you can track tons of info about people.

And if you don’t want to use google (or if you prefer the simple way) here is a search engine dedicated to the gathering of your ID over several services.
http://pipl.com/

Could be very convenient if you want to get rapidely info about a specific journalist, blogger. Could be very creepy if you care about privacy over internet (Bill Thomas discussed about this a few months ago) …
You can give a try …

Sorry if you already seen this reference somewhere 🙂

Pierre from Paris.