Virtual Worlds Forum

It was a packed day at the conference, with lots of information and opinion to absorb, so every attendee will have their own nuggets to take away. But since I'm blogging, here's mine... 1. It's second wave time. The second wave of brands engaging with virtual worlds, I mean. You can tell by the way Armani's Second Life store was described as "the classic 2006 model" - and it wasn't a compliment. There's a sense that while brands are still mustard-keen to get involved in these worlds, they're taking a much more pragmatic view, researching the likely return-on-investment more, and taking care to ensure that whatever they launch is relevant to the world and its users. 2. Google is the elephant in the room. Those rumours about Google launching its own virtual world won't go away - in fact, many attendees take it as a fact. As one panellist put it: "We know Google is making a virtual world: they've hired our friends to work on it!" And all the discussions about advertising, integrating virtual worlds with the Web, and personalisation will be impacted by what Google decides to do. 3. Scope for virtual goods to move into the real world. This cropped up during the discussion about Armani, when New World Notes editor Wagner James Au referred to a recent post on that blog about ten Second Life fashion designers who could make it in the real world. The idea that people are creating content within virtual worlds leads inevitably to speculation about whether they could then produce them in the real world. On a more esoteric tip, later panellist David Orban was very keen on the idea of 3D printers being used to make virtual objects real too. Once 3D printers are affordable, obviously. 4. The rise and rise of teen-focused virtual worlds. Second Life may have the media attention, but it's the kiddy worlds that have the numbers. Presenter Jess Mulligan outlined some of them: Habbo Hotel has 7.5 million active users.Webkinz has 4 million. Club Penguin has 700,000 paying subscribers, but 12 million active users. The session dedicated to these teen-focused sites outlined some of the opportunities and challenges, but the point that sticks in my mind most clearly is that kids don't talk about 'virtual worlds' or 'going online' - they just do it. A big cultural shift, whose ramifications are still being felt. 5. Mobile is the other elephant in the room. How do you add a mobile element to a virtual world, given the restrictions - small screen, keypad controls, low bandwidth? Finnish firm IronStar Helsinki presented its view in the form of MoiPal, while Vodafone is focused on bridging the communication gap between Second Life and real life, by letting people call and text between the two. But there seemed to be an assumption that when it comes to actual clients - putting Second Life on a mobile - it's so problematic as to be not worth considering. I wonder if those teen-focused worlds might not steal a march here, being less graphically intensive, and with a population who are heavy mobile users. In any case, is it really so unfeasible to think of a Second Life client on, say, the iPhone? 6. Some brands are happy to shun virtual worlds. For the moment, at least. Today's presentation from Heineken was a real curveball. They spent a lot of time researching Second Life, and how they could be a part of it. They weighed up the evidence. And then they decided that it's still not worth their while. I was particularly interested by Marco van Veen's assertion that stats were a problem. He says Linden Lab told him that 88% of its users were older than 21, but ComScore's figures claimed 68%. That's a huge disparity if you're a beer brand that's not allowed to market to under-21s. He didn't say who he thought was wrong, mind ;o) 7. Social networking and virtual worlds are coming together. They still have several differences, and it's rarely the same firms doing both (although Habbo maker Sulake has bought a social networking company), but there are clear intersections between the two. It'll be intriguing to see how companies in both spaces foster links: something we're seeing already in a few Facebook applications designed for virtual world users to show off their avatar. One important difference seems to be that you're yourself on a social network, but you may well be a completely different character on a virtual world - making linking the two a thorny process. 8. Kneejerk responses to criticisms are wrong. A standout point from Lord Puttnam's keynote, relating to the debate over virtual worlds/games and addiction. As the mainstream media becomes more aware of virtual worlds, there will be negative publicity, and debate around some features involving participants beyond virtual world users and the industry. My takeaway from Puttnam's comments was that the virtual worlds industry should learn from the mistakes of the games industry: not every criticism is automatically 100% wrong, just because it comes from outside / people who aren't steeped in the culture of your industry. 9. Challenges of co-creation. It was interesting to get Sony's Peter Edward's views on users creating their own content within virtual worlds - PlayStation Home isn't allowing it initially, although he did say it'll come eventually. That's down to functionality barriers apparently, but there are issues around user generated content when it's paired with brands selling / distributing their own items within a world. Would Coke be happy giving away branded t-shirts if users then go and mash them up to create a new garment? And as a side-note, what to do about the human race's infinite ability to be handed the keys to object creation, and use them to stick a sex toy on their head? 10. Virtual worlds set up by toy manufacturers. Another point from Lord Puttnam's keynote, casting doubt on whether it's such a good idea for toy firms to be launching their own virtual worlds - Mattel (with Barbie) and Lego being two examples. The idea of child entertainment funded by toymakers isn't new (He-Man and Transformers, anyone?), but Lego's Mark William Hansen had an elegant and considered response, pointing out that a virtual world launched purely to sell products is bad - but that kids will see that most quickly, and desert it.