VizWoz, a UK virtual world targeted at kids, has announced content deals with Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney and Universal to display trailers and secondary content such as interviews at their virtual world cinema. Up to this point, the ‘cinema’ has been showing fairly minor cartoons, so a deal which brings in commercial content, even if not the films themselves, will be a big boost. The studios, of course, are keen to find as many ways as possible to advertise their films, and are likely to seek as many deals with sites targeting children as possible.
VizWoz may have a considerable educational element going forward; its CEO and another executive are former teachers (with the latter described as ‘taking a lead on educational projects’). CEO Daniel Laurence also has past form in this area as the founder of School Stickers and subsequently online reward system MyStickers, both providing a means for schools to reward their students. The potential educational use cases for virtual worlds have been well rehearsed, but a further aspect which may work well is the ability to offer in-world currency as an educational reward – perhaps a feature to look out for in the future from VizWoz.
The site, launched earlier this year, reportedly has over 60,000 users. That’s not very many, particularly when compared to behemoths such as Club Penguin which are aimed at roughly the same age group of 7-14. However, it is not insignificant and if VizWoz can continue to provide valuable content in its world it stands a good chance of success.
[via NMA]
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