The next speaker set was the "keynote", a group of 3 people from MTV announcing their work in Virtual Worlds. Again, do I have to say it? My own opinion, my mistakes, just my notes.
Announcer: our Keynote speaker is Jeffrey Yapp - MTV is announcing a platform that goes beyond virtual worlds and beyond TV.
Jef: Actually 3 of us in the keynote. The other folks are matt bostwick and steve edwards. We've made Virtual Hills, Virtual Laguna Beach and Nicktropolis. With the launch of VLB last fall MTV was the first media company to meld 3d tech with programming.
Now viewers can actively engage with and become part of programming they see on TV. Our motto: watch Tv, live tv. (Jeff sounds like he is reading from a script. Sounds like a press release: MTV defined popular culture. MTV is one of the most recognized brands in the world. We are the only ones who understand teens, that hard-to-reach demographic.)
Television is at its highest level, as is time spent on the Internet. And nobody leaves home with out their mobile phone. A recent survey found that today's youth are cramming 35 hours (?) of activity into a 24 hour day.
As cool as Second Life and There.com is, it's just the tip of the spear. Remember when AOL first had chatrooms? That first gen technology gave way to social networking sites that define the current internet environment. Our marketing partners want to get their messages into our environment. Our audience is more than consumers of content, they are producers and creators. Marketers can benefit.
Brands that come inworld must be compelling and interactive. 99% of the audience is exposed to the brands, and 85% choose to interact with the advertising partners. It's an emotionally driven, multi-layered social experience. Matt and I met working in product management at General Foods.
Matt: I realized a few things listening to this panel. I need to take a smart pill!
Maybe because I'm a marketer, I'm less equivocal and more bullish. Yes it's uncertain. It's like broadcast tv in 1950, or cable tv in 81, or internet in 94. everyone was saying the same questions. What are the measurements? Have the courage to believe it and make it so, this separates the leaders from the also-rans. We're the next people coming in and figuring out what do we do with this thing?
In 11/05 we formed our own little group within MTV. We didn't start out virtual. We started out with consumers, going for the holy grail of depth. How you you take them deeper with our brand, our content? I believe that passion, lifestyle and community separate great brands from the commoditized and forgettable.
20% of your users produce 80% of your revenue. That's an old saw. I remember googling the term virtual world in 11/05. it's gone from 15 million hits to 250 million hits today. But we saw a media where people were going so far down that rabbit hole that people were actually living separate lives. You can't get any deeper than that.
We call it 4d TV. This will profoundly change the nature of how brands like MTV interact with their audience.
(Matt shows some videos. When the cast went on the prom, they have a prom on There.com. Announcers go in to the virtual prom, then go on TV to talk about it and show it on TV. Dreadlock DJ: "It feels like it's real, I'm actually kicking it with all these people." )
This gives them a place to go when they get there, gives them a starting point, motivates them to go. You can't overemphasize the importance of it. This is social networking on steroids, and the avatar is the next generation in social expression. last week in virtual mtv, 200,000 chats, 320,000 invitations to talk privately, added people to buddy list 92,170 times, shot paintballs 380,000 times, used 6.3 million emoticons.
another video: The audience is the content. (They did a voiceover of a machinima, with actors reading the chats, Cute! A girl meets a guy for a date, but 10 other girls come up and say he was supposed to chat with them.)
MTV's virtual world has its own currency and auction system. $5.5 million MTV bucks and bought 75,000 items (sorry IWH missed time period for these stats).
We're doing guilds where customers can master skill ladders and become virtual djs', etc. Buy the real-world item if you see you like it in Virtual Hills.
MTV virtual cribs. the concept is simple. Ask friends over to watch premiers of MTV content on your bigscreen TV. This has to be a place where we would feel comfortable bringing our own kids, a world that respects intellectual property, an interface that's simple to use. We chose the Makena technologies platform because they gave us avatars with emotional resonance, they gave us the intellectual property we want.
Results to date:
600,000 registered in 6 months from two shows
median age: 20 yo
gender: 85% female, the same demographics of our show
64% of users come back multiple times
1.4 times/week for 37 minutes a visit
daily visits up 300% from january and 600% over 2006
I'm assuming most of the audience is Fortune 500 and Ad buyers (IWH is not sure this is true)
Our ad model is to say how do you take people from the current exposure model, to get them to go from seeing an ad to interacting with your brand? Not as advertising, but as content that adds value to their inworld expeience. this is the 4th direction. Get people talking about your brand, it's the holy grail, as world of mouth has the highest credibility. And get people to buy your brand virtually. We call this 4d branding, it copies the 4dTV model we created.
The Pepsi master skill ladder drives audience discovery and mastery of new skills.
Cingular- users' chat shows up in cingular-shaped window instead of chat window, avatars carry cinngular phones.
Pepsi - banded scooters, skateboards, clothing, and carrying pepsi. pepsi machines available in world.
Secret deodorant - teen girl "confessions" - avatars watching them in a virtual cinema and voting for the best one.
Steve - our world must be user-driven, but without professionally-created content, it's not fun enough. And it must be easy to use.
We don't think it must be 3d.It must be a safe environment, something our brands trust. our business models are: brand promotion and engagement, great way to build a new brand - subscription fees - item-based sales - advertising - sponsorships. We're working closely with these partners.
We want the dual revenue stream. We bought Neopets in 1999, it's an incredibly strong virtual world. (IWH says the Neopets logo looks like Second Life logo!)
Neopets: the virst online virtual world. Incredible engagement. The knowledge we have from them has helped educate us. It's a studio for us.
(Neopets video: girl saw her friends had cards, and she got some cards, and then got online. Another girl - it became a daily habit, you can personlize your pets with paintbrushes. Kids like to play the games, they get points. It's a communication mechanism)
Neopets - 5 billion page view a month, 11 million uniques. the largest vw on the web. global with a family audience.50% under 14-15, 50% older. single player and multiplayer games. user-generated aspect. virtual commerce community with a bank, shops. Has a revenue stream that started as advertising, now we show movie trailers, we're annoucing item-based action (buy the object you see in RL).15% growth over february. Daily 7 million items claimed. We have 6-7 years of immersive knowledge, we're going to expand the user-generated content and of course we need more games.
Launched on 1/30, the first kid-targeted multiple media virtual world. Nicktropolis. Create your own avatar, decorate your own room, play games, earn points, watch videos, chat rooms with stars. "The playground that kids rule". Talk to SpongeBob.
We're the fastest-growing virtual world today. Launched less than 2 months ago. Now have 2.4 million registered users. 1.3 million user-created rooms. 7.5 million visits, 27 min. average visits, 50 m gameplays.
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