Alan Boyle Science Editor of MSNBC.Com and author of "The Case For Pluto" made an appearence worth seeing on The 1st Question - so much so, he has it on his blog, the Cosmic Log!
29 Mar 2010
Alan Boyle from MSNBC blogs The 1st Question
Alan Boyle Science Editor of MSNBC.Com and author of "The Case For Pluto" made an appearence worth seeing on The 1st Question - so much so, he has it on his blog, the Cosmic Log!
24 Mar 2010
The Business Benefits Of Second Life
Asked to write a guest blog on using Second Life for business, Pooky describes with supporting video the many reasons this is the best platform for the next wave of industry, meetings and conferences.
9 Mar 2010
2 Feb 2010
PookyMedia features in Vizworld with Philip Rosedale
Vizworld embeds Philip Rosedale's presentation to Singularity University where one of the advantages of Second Life he describe is to hold business meetings. PookyMedia's Agile Dimension Conference video is a great illustration of this and embedded alongside.
26 Jan 2010
Second Life TV
*door opens*
Woman walks into living room and immediately drops briefcase on couch as she negotiates her way to the fridge where she takes out a drink and goes to sit down in front of her computer.
Looks at time and smiles, taking a sip she types in one key stroke and the website appears for her favorite game show, “The Dating Casino.” As the Avatars are talking, smiling and interacting on the screen, a chatbridge allows her to register her answers and comments as well. She is prompted to predict which man and woman will match up on the next question, and when she guesses correctly, she is invited to accept a promotional code which will give her a discount on a 6 pack of a beverage she is not drinking……yet. She starts to flirt in text with a man who is also in the chatbridge, in fact there is a community of people who are logging in this time of day to watch and play right along with the program going on. She recognizes some and welcomes the others as the community is building. During the break to the next show, she will actually become an Avatar and go to the set of that show, seeing where one of her favorite events of the week takes place, joining the audience this time in the 3D virtual platform, she will meet her friends from around the world, and take part in the next show called “Typonese.” PS it also has a mobile component.
What I have just described is the future of TV and entertainment. It is where the lines between the screen and the audience completely blur. So much in fact as to become non existent. In 3D immersive worlds we are an audience which is playing on the show, we are interacting with the action, sometimes helping direct it with comments. We can access the show, and with a chatbridge (which is a text box embedded on a site for real time commentary) can play right along and be part of the group that is watching. It is a form of entertainment better then the collective dark of the movie theatre as we are able to communicate to the person sitting virtually next to us without any fear of being hushed. Our opinions and sentiments matter, we are sharing our reactions in real time as the programming is going on and we are also developing that sense of community around a program which appeals and interests us.
There is also the very great chance that we can also participate on the panel or as a contestant. The shows’ host, though many physical miles away is there reading our every word and if we really want to, we can send a message they will immediately receive. Even if we just want to say, “Hey, this is cool.” We can. This is immediate TV, this is immediate interaction. This is the best kind of entertainment there is because it’s live and completely engaging. This is Second Life TV. And yes this is what I am doing every week because the rewards of being able to inform and entertain with this much feedback are one of the greatest experiences I know. “Sit back & relax” has become “Lean forward & Engage.”
Second Life TV is a fantastic form of communication and entertainment. It enables people from all around the world to be present together watching and participating in the proceedings before them. It means laughs, it means learning and it is exciting. The audience can not wait to be part of the show, and to be honest they are an extremely important component of it. In the 1st Question, the panel ignores the audience a their own risk, yes the audience is that good!
I have developed these game shows for many reasons:
1- Real time interaction is something I believe enriches people and offers value.
2- Second Life has unique tools for this including scripts and the ability to build what I envisioned for them.
3- Giving a great population, intelligent and technically savvy, dynamic excitement.
4- Location Location Location – being able to play right along at our new favorite place; the computer is a draw
5- It is very cost effective to produce on this platform. Traditionally games shows are always less expensive to produce than heavily edited dramas or comedies – A real life game show costs roughly $90,000USD to produce. On Second Life the cost is a small fraction of this price.
6- The opportunities to try new elements in game show development are endless, I do foresee using a chatbridge to allow people to play without even logging in soon
7- Product placement and brand sponsorship are both this close to happening. This means that the commercial is built into the program – and the product is sold during the show, which incorporates the viewer additionally into the commercial, as they are not clicking through or around it.
8- AVATAR based entertainment will get bigger and bigger with the virtual platform being more widely adopted and readily acceptable. My viewer base is growing all the time.
Game Shows are a great draw for the public, “The Price is Right” has been broadcasting since 1956! People do love that “play right along” aspect to TV shows, and being able to offer a game which is this, with friends in real time is a formula for success.
I do two very different kinds of shows in terms of content, however both are funny, accessible and informative. Both are played in real time and both are recorded live.
The 1st Question is a science quiz show which is pretty smart and funny. It is a competitive game as well between the 4 panelists, usually Second Life All – Stars and people of interesting backgrounds and accomplishments inworld.
I break news on the science, technology and education front through a series of questions, and true and false statements. The panels are asked to tell what element of the Periodic table they most identify with and why, which brings them back to something most of them haven’t studied since High School. And it also makes them think what qualities they identify with. The Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen “Clubs” are the most populated and the reasons given for this are always interesting. It is truly great theater and a wonderful way for people to introduce themselves in a science milieu. We move on to Yay Me or Nay Me, and I try to include some very funny and absurd statements, which make for a hilarious segment.
We have the audience guess a quotes, we have a secret word (In the “You Bet Your Life “tradition, when it is guessed we set off a rocket and give them $500 Lindens, the coin of Second Life) The panel comes up with a Nugget of Knowledge for Hydra Shaftoe, my co-host, to determine if its right or wrong, and this makes for an incredibly diverse kind of knowledge base, and then the panel supply’s a made up word of their own for the PookyPedia I am compiling. Here they have to sell the word to the assemblage which is about 50 – 60 people per week, as the audience here does some real time voting and the high score wins points. It’s a great exercise in real time voting, and there are no hanging chads.
The show’s last segment is “AVATARO Y AVATARO” and here we use a buzzer system and the audience is again encouraged to help out, often providing a lifeline to the answers. It’s smart, it’s funny and it’s broadcast live. Doing a live show where anything can happen has it’s own element of Adrenaline, one I have been familiar with for so long, it is almost second nature. But be sure, it is break neck and risky. It is The Golden Age of The Internet for many reasons, this is certainly among them. And like the Golden Age, I know that programs of this sort are going to be growing and growing. They must, people want that level of engagement and also respect. You will sell a lot more products respecting your audience, than putting them down.
I was in fact tired of being dumbed down in my entertainment choices so this led me to be pro active and create my own, better entertainment. An entertainment I would find interesting to watch and be part of, something smart and with humor. The show has evolved greatly over time, since I first launched it in April of 2008, and we get about 40,000 views a month from the inworld televisions of Treet.tv, my network and from the website both live and recorded views. We offer persistent entertainment.
In order to stage a great show I have a tremendous team who help this enterprise take off each week. While I write and book each show, I have an expert sound director Petlove Petshop, a stage manager who has been with me from the beginning, Robwag Soothsayer and a great opening act Kat2 Kit a tiny panda in a space suit is our show mascot and Emmo Wei a tiny Koala in various outfits too amazing to list, is our show daredevil. My co-host who is a wolf, Hydra provides an incredible warm and funny brilliant foil for me, as well. I couldn’t do it without them and like all great productions it is a group effort.
After I got the world to be smarter I wanted it to be more loving, and so to demystify the relationship between men and women and with a deep and persistent vision in mind for how a game show showing matches between people who have not only similarities in taste but also tolerance for each others weaknesses, I invented “The Dating Casino.”
I wanted to do this show because I saw it start to finish, the sets, the use of tools and how I wanted the show to run. While “The 1st Question” has evolved its format overtime to some extent, “the dating Casino” was something I saw and knew I had to do. Second Life TV means if you can imagine it, envision it and have he strength o make it happen, you can do it. The “DC” as we call it, is a fantastically funny 30 minutes where the contestants answer very personal multiple choice questions. The questions and their answers bring great responses which are incredibly hilarious and the audience again plays right along.
There are 7 questions and the moment of “Flirtrage!” a segment where the women are given a situation they have to “flirt” their way out of. The men are pre-asked questions 1 – 6 and their answers are recorded, the women are asked first during the show. This strategy prevents collusion. For the last question which is the bonus round, the women have been pre-asked, and the men have to bet a total of 5 hearts distributed among the 3 women, before they even know what the question is on who will match their last answer.
When I say, “everything I learned about love, I learned on The Dating Casino” I am not joking. It is a remarkable show.
PookyMedia grew from more than a pixel and a dream. It grew from years of devoted work on my part in pushing the way we could use virtual worlds for entertainment. From 6 years of producing live events ranging from Shakespeare festivals to Improv to talk shows on the text based only site of Habbo Hotel. When going to see one of my plays was the hottest ticket in town, and sometimes people waited 24 hours to be guaranteed a seat to watch “The Bizkit Show,” I knew this form of entertainment was a powerful new wave. And the programming, the ability to act and be part of the show from all over the world on a virtual platform had also broad age and gender appeal. When I came to Second Life, I knew what I was doing, and how to do it. Having been forged in the highly charged emotional atmosphere which is no stranger to behind the scenes drama, I can attest to needing fortitude, foresight and determination to getting a live show on the boards. If you want to put on a show you must have fortitude – people will cancel last minute, people won’t always take what you are doing seriously, you must plan and prepare for any and all emergencies. Pre -Production is key, and in live recordings, sound is THE GOD. Recording on Skype has been a huge benefit to the shows, I recommend it.
PookyMedia is also about something greater than the shows itself, it’s about real entertainment value and real use of the platform of Second Life as a media platform. I believe in Video as the new way of distributing content to people. MarketingVox supports my thinking -
“The December 2009 Nielsen VideoCensus reveals that unique viewers of online video topped 137 million for the month, representing a 10.3% year-over-year increase. Total streams viewed totaled more than 10.7 billion, a nearly 12% increase over 2008. Approximately 78 streams per viewer were watched, a 1.4% increase over 2008. Time per viewer increased 13.2% to 193.2 minutes, Nielsen said. In a comparison with the Nielsen data, comScore Inc. - which uses a different methodology to measure online video viewing - recently reported that more than 170 million US internet users watched online video during November 2009, and a record high of nearly 31 billion videos were viewed during the month.”
These are huge numbers, video is the answer to the question, “What do you want to watch tonight, Honey?”
PookyMedia is the answer to “What do you want to Do tonight, Honey?”
Woman walks into living room and immediately drops briefcase on couch as she negotiates her way to the fridge where she takes out a drink and goes to sit down in front of her computer.
Looks at time and smiles, taking a sip she types in one key stroke and the website appears for her favorite game show, “The Dating Casino.” As the Avatars are talking, smiling and interacting on the screen, a chatbridge allows her to register her answers and comments as well. She is prompted to predict which man and woman will match up on the next question, and when she guesses correctly, she is invited to accept a promotional code which will give her a discount on a 6 pack of a beverage she is not drinking……yet. She starts to flirt in text with a man who is also in the chatbridge, in fact there is a community of people who are logging in this time of day to watch and play right along with the program going on. She recognizes some and welcomes the others as the community is building. During the break to the next show, she will actually become an Avatar and go to the set of that show, seeing where one of her favorite events of the week takes place, joining the audience this time in the 3D virtual platform, she will meet her friends from around the world, and take part in the next show called “Typonese.” PS it also has a mobile component.
What I have just described is the future of TV and entertainment. It is where the lines between the screen and the audience completely blur. So much in fact as to become non existent. In 3D immersive worlds we are an audience which is playing on the show, we are interacting with the action, sometimes helping direct it with comments. We can access the show, and with a chatbridge (which is a text box embedded on a site for real time commentary) can play right along and be part of the group that is watching. It is a form of entertainment better then the collective dark of the movie theatre as we are able to communicate to the person sitting virtually next to us without any fear of being hushed. Our opinions and sentiments matter, we are sharing our reactions in real time as the programming is going on and we are also developing that sense of community around a program which appeals and interests us.
There is also the very great chance that we can also participate on the panel or as a contestant. The shows’ host, though many physical miles away is there reading our every word and if we really want to, we can send a message they will immediately receive. Even if we just want to say, “Hey, this is cool.” We can. This is immediate TV, this is immediate interaction. This is the best kind of entertainment there is because it’s live and completely engaging. This is Second Life TV. And yes this is what I am doing every week because the rewards of being able to inform and entertain with this much feedback are one of the greatest experiences I know. “Sit back & relax” has become “Lean forward & Engage.”
Second Life TV is a fantastic form of communication and entertainment. It enables people from all around the world to be present together watching and participating in the proceedings before them. It means laughs, it means learning and it is exciting. The audience can not wait to be part of the show, and to be honest they are an extremely important component of it. In the 1st Question, the panel ignores the audience a their own risk, yes the audience is that good!
I have developed these game shows for many reasons:
1- Real time interaction is something I believe enriches people and offers value.
2- Second Life has unique tools for this including scripts and the ability to build what I envisioned for them.
3- Giving a great population, intelligent and technically savvy, dynamic excitement.
4- Location Location Location – being able to play right along at our new favorite place; the computer is a draw
5- It is very cost effective to produce on this platform. Traditionally games shows are always less expensive to produce than heavily edited dramas or comedies – A real life game show costs roughly $90,000USD to produce. On Second Life the cost is a small fraction of this price.
6- The opportunities to try new elements in game show development are endless, I do foresee using a chatbridge to allow people to play without even logging in soon
7- Product placement and brand sponsorship are both this close to happening. This means that the commercial is built into the program – and the product is sold during the show, which incorporates the viewer additionally into the commercial, as they are not clicking through or around it.
8- AVATAR based entertainment will get bigger and bigger with the virtual platform being more widely adopted and readily acceptable. My viewer base is growing all the time.
Game Shows are a great draw for the public, “The Price is Right” has been broadcasting since 1956! People do love that “play right along” aspect to TV shows, and being able to offer a game which is this, with friends in real time is a formula for success.
I do two very different kinds of shows in terms of content, however both are funny, accessible and informative. Both are played in real time and both are recorded live.
The 1st Question is a science quiz show which is pretty smart and funny. It is a competitive game as well between the 4 panelists, usually Second Life All – Stars and people of interesting backgrounds and accomplishments inworld.
I break news on the science, technology and education front through a series of questions, and true and false statements. The panels are asked to tell what element of the Periodic table they most identify with and why, which brings them back to something most of them haven’t studied since High School. And it also makes them think what qualities they identify with. The Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen “Clubs” are the most populated and the reasons given for this are always interesting. It is truly great theater and a wonderful way for people to introduce themselves in a science milieu. We move on to Yay Me or Nay Me, and I try to include some very funny and absurd statements, which make for a hilarious segment.
We have the audience guess a quotes, we have a secret word (In the “You Bet Your Life “tradition, when it is guessed we set off a rocket and give them $500 Lindens, the coin of Second Life) The panel comes up with a Nugget of Knowledge for Hydra Shaftoe, my co-host, to determine if its right or wrong, and this makes for an incredibly diverse kind of knowledge base, and then the panel supply’s a made up word of their own for the PookyPedia I am compiling. Here they have to sell the word to the assemblage which is about 50 – 60 people per week, as the audience here does some real time voting and the high score wins points. It’s a great exercise in real time voting, and there are no hanging chads.
The show’s last segment is “AVATARO Y AVATARO” and here we use a buzzer system and the audience is again encouraged to help out, often providing a lifeline to the answers. It’s smart, it’s funny and it’s broadcast live. Doing a live show where anything can happen has it’s own element of Adrenaline, one I have been familiar with for so long, it is almost second nature. But be sure, it is break neck and risky. It is The Golden Age of The Internet for many reasons, this is certainly among them. And like the Golden Age, I know that programs of this sort are going to be growing and growing. They must, people want that level of engagement and also respect. You will sell a lot more products respecting your audience, than putting them down.
I was in fact tired of being dumbed down in my entertainment choices so this led me to be pro active and create my own, better entertainment. An entertainment I would find interesting to watch and be part of, something smart and with humor. The show has evolved greatly over time, since I first launched it in April of 2008, and we get about 40,000 views a month from the inworld televisions of Treet.tv, my network and from the website both live and recorded views. We offer persistent entertainment.
In order to stage a great show I have a tremendous team who help this enterprise take off each week. While I write and book each show, I have an expert sound director Petlove Petshop, a stage manager who has been with me from the beginning, Robwag Soothsayer and a great opening act Kat2 Kit a tiny panda in a space suit is our show mascot and Emmo Wei a tiny Koala in various outfits too amazing to list, is our show daredevil. My co-host who is a wolf, Hydra provides an incredible warm and funny brilliant foil for me, as well. I couldn’t do it without them and like all great productions it is a group effort.
After I got the world to be smarter I wanted it to be more loving, and so to demystify the relationship between men and women and with a deep and persistent vision in mind for how a game show showing matches between people who have not only similarities in taste but also tolerance for each others weaknesses, I invented “The Dating Casino.”
I wanted to do this show because I saw it start to finish, the sets, the use of tools and how I wanted the show to run. While “The 1st Question” has evolved its format overtime to some extent, “the dating Casino” was something I saw and knew I had to do. Second Life TV means if you can imagine it, envision it and have he strength o make it happen, you can do it. The “DC” as we call it, is a fantastically funny 30 minutes where the contestants answer very personal multiple choice questions. The questions and their answers bring great responses which are incredibly hilarious and the audience again plays right along.
There are 7 questions and the moment of “Flirtrage!” a segment where the women are given a situation they have to “flirt” their way out of. The men are pre-asked questions 1 – 6 and their answers are recorded, the women are asked first during the show. This strategy prevents collusion. For the last question which is the bonus round, the women have been pre-asked, and the men have to bet a total of 5 hearts distributed among the 3 women, before they even know what the question is on who will match their last answer.
When I say, “everything I learned about love, I learned on The Dating Casino” I am not joking. It is a remarkable show.
PookyMedia grew from more than a pixel and a dream. It grew from years of devoted work on my part in pushing the way we could use virtual worlds for entertainment. From 6 years of producing live events ranging from Shakespeare festivals to Improv to talk shows on the text based only site of Habbo Hotel. When going to see one of my plays was the hottest ticket in town, and sometimes people waited 24 hours to be guaranteed a seat to watch “The Bizkit Show,” I knew this form of entertainment was a powerful new wave. And the programming, the ability to act and be part of the show from all over the world on a virtual platform had also broad age and gender appeal. When I came to Second Life, I knew what I was doing, and how to do it. Having been forged in the highly charged emotional atmosphere which is no stranger to behind the scenes drama, I can attest to needing fortitude, foresight and determination to getting a live show on the boards. If you want to put on a show you must have fortitude – people will cancel last minute, people won’t always take what you are doing seriously, you must plan and prepare for any and all emergencies. Pre -Production is key, and in live recordings, sound is THE GOD. Recording on Skype has been a huge benefit to the shows, I recommend it.
PookyMedia is also about something greater than the shows itself, it’s about real entertainment value and real use of the platform of Second Life as a media platform. I believe in Video as the new way of distributing content to people. MarketingVox supports my thinking -
“The December 2009 Nielsen VideoCensus reveals that unique viewers of online video topped 137 million for the month, representing a 10.3% year-over-year increase. Total streams viewed totaled more than 10.7 billion, a nearly 12% increase over 2008. Approximately 78 streams per viewer were watched, a 1.4% increase over 2008. Time per viewer increased 13.2% to 193.2 minutes, Nielsen said. In a comparison with the Nielsen data, comScore Inc. - which uses a different methodology to measure online video viewing - recently reported that more than 170 million US internet users watched online video during November 2009, and a record high of nearly 31 billion videos were viewed during the month.”
These are huge numbers, video is the answer to the question, “What do you want to watch tonight, Honey?”
PookyMedia is the answer to “What do you want to Do tonight, Honey?”
11 Jan 2010
Vizworld cites PookyMedia
State of the Second Union
Pooky Amsterdam and Draxtor Despres see it as a virtual media platform, complete with configurable studios and environments and capable of everything from sitcoms to documentaries game-shows to music videos.
Pooky Amsterdam and Draxtor Despres see it as a virtual media platform, complete with configurable studios and environments and capable of everything from sitcoms to documentaries game-shows to music videos.
24 Dec 2009
The ROHI or The Return On Human Investment
Given that this is the holiday season, we stop, supposedly and reflect upon what has made this year special, what has made this year memorable. Of course one of the greater stories is the rise of Twitter and the rise of the now ubiquitous term “Social Media.” Companies are now hiring social media managers because it takes a lot of time and effort to keep putting that message out on channels which the public now “listens” to and spends time on & with. Twitter and Facebook spring to mind. What is the ROI? This phrase was sung over and over again, “How do we make money on it?” Slide Shares were created which amused and enlightened, @thebrandbuilder's recent slideshare, hilarious to look at had a few key points which discussed this – but the bottom line was on slide 44 that attention to the brand will create traffic to the site which will increase sales,…. ultimately. Social media managers who can raise awareness through being followed by brand leaders, who can come up with a new way of attracting friends and fans to Facebook are important. It is an interesting time. One that MySpace wishes it could really be a part of.
It is end of the year, it is family time………let’s reflect on this for a moment, our first experience with social advertising was probably over hearing our parents talking about how great a product was they bought. “Yes, Bob, I couldn’t believe the Rice A Roni came in 5 different flavors, including Kumquat…..your favorite. And the A & P had a huge sale on it too so I got a carton. We’re set!”
Or the way the cute little red headed girl in school you liked always had Charleston Chews, and so to impress her, you began to stock up on it. We are socialized into brand affiliation early in our lives. The media holds the message, so thrown out wrappers of candy in the playground aren’t technically media but they represented another impression upon our young minds.
So when we are talking about the Return on Social Media, aren’t we also talking about how we are going to get that media to become the message to get people to want to buy our goods and services? Especially now that attention is split to near atomic levels, and marketers with budgets being cut in this new economy are looking for new ways to engage their audience. We are no longer held captive at the dinner table so to speak with 4 networks, no longer in the walled in playground of printed content. We are out there and we are spinning our own stories. How can we, the marketing and advertising community get people to listen and buy?
Was MySpace worth $650 Million? Is Twitter worth $100m? Club Penguin $750m? Don’t those huge valuations tell you something? That even in this world of a million channels, there is limited opportunity for investment in this arena. So that means this arena has a lot of users but they are funneling towards a few channels. I think that we should wait and see how the Social Media marketplace works out ultimately. And to do this takes a longer view. In this economy we don’t have the luxury, but in this economy we don’t have the luxury NOT to as well. Social Media spend is both increasing and paying off. It is a longer term investment because it deals with a human investment.
As reported in Marketing Vox, “New figures from an Econsultancy study show these channels are becoming more important to marketers. In the newly released Social Media and Online PR Report, Econsultancy and bigmouthmedia found that more firms are planning to increase social media spending next year and - more intriguingly to those loitering on the sidelines of this space - that those firms that have focused heavily on these channels have made it pay off."
An overwhelming majority of companies (86%) surveyed plan to spend more money on social media in 2010, and a further 13% are planning to keep the same budget levels.
The report does go on to say that those companies who have efforts in this area have typically reaped some reward. More than half (52%) who are heavily involved in social media advertising say that they have gained real value, compared with only 13% of companies who have "experimented but not done much." Marketing Vox goes onto discuss the new tools including the Push to Social for email enabling crossover of platform.
A.J. Leibling said “The power of the press belongs to those who own one.” In this day and age we all own a press each time we hit submit, what we need are those eyes to read and digest what we are writing. What we need is a community to share that with, and this kind of human investment does take time.
It is Holiday time, and though we will be involved with Twitter and Facebook telling “everyone” what we got for Christmas, it is also time to spend it with those from whose social sphere we migrated, namely our families.
I had the opportunity to go to the Smithsonian this past Thanksgiving to see mine. At the Smithsonian, prior to admiring the Hope Diamond and the jewels of Peggy Hopkins Joyce I chanced to read about Potlatch, and Indian festival of the pre-European days on the American continent. One quote, from an Indian Chief which struck me from the 1800’s was “the white man had a bank, where money is kept which generates interest – we have the potlatch and I have over 2,000 dollars in the hands of my Indian brothers and sisters. This will keep me with food and the materials I need as the gifts will come round to me again.”
In other words, the potlatch which is in the form of gifts to the community is what will replenish the individual. Was it a form of investment? Clearly so, in terms of a families status and also in terms of actual goods for consumption, food and sundries. It was a return on human investment. It was built up over time, and so will this return on Human investment we make in the social media community we belong to be. 27 million tweets a day and counting. You can hear us “singing” as soon as you tune in.
Engaging people is what will pay off. Of course there are other ways to engage, and my prediction for the next decade is to the virtual worlds which are 3D and dynamic, which have people at the edge of their seats and tips of their fingers as the next big frontier for advertising and brands. In the first quarter of 2009, the virtual world of Second Life saw $120 million USD exchanged through user-to-user transactions, with a record monthly $45 million USD in transactions in March. This is where the product meets the grid meets the people.
So here we have something that has both a monetary value and a human or social one –
Virtual assets which people will buy for real money to enhance their virtual lives or virtual social media lives. If Twitter could come up with a monetary widget that people could buy for one another in micro transactions would they do it? And I come to the question is social media = virtual media?
In other words as this exists on the Internet platform solely, as differentiated from traditional media of our newspapers we hold in our hands, of the TV sets that sit in our living rooms
Are we living virtually through this media – this glimpse into other people’s lives, thoughts, drives and observations?
We are investing hours of time on blogs, Twitters and posting onto Facebook. We want to be heard, we want our thoughts and observations shared, we are part of the greater potlatch of contemporary media and this virtual society at large is one we feed and feed on.
How can you measure the time we spend on answering emails, in LinkedIn group discussion and monitoring our inbox in a quantifiable way?
We read what we want, when we want and for how long we want to - we are caught up in a tide of finding things out and broadcasting what we have discovered. The return on investment for time is knowledge and entertainment – this is a new form of activity, broader and with farther reach but still a human activity, we are around an electric campfire now sharing stories, information and modern lore. Word of mouth is the most important form of advertising there is today - our attention level has been spliced, and so we trust in that most ancient of organizations, our friends and extended family.
The return on human investment is indeed a return on time spent acquiring knowledge about areas we want to be a part of. What is the price on knowing? What is the price on being heard?
In many ways my potlatch is on Second Life. I still Twitter though, follow me @pookymedia.
888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
It is end of the year, it is family time………let’s reflect on this for a moment, our first experience with social advertising was probably over hearing our parents talking about how great a product was they bought. “Yes, Bob, I couldn’t believe the Rice A Roni came in 5 different flavors, including Kumquat…..your favorite. And the A & P had a huge sale on it too so I got a carton. We’re set!”
Or the way the cute little red headed girl in school you liked always had Charleston Chews, and so to impress her, you began to stock up on it. We are socialized into brand affiliation early in our lives. The media holds the message, so thrown out wrappers of candy in the playground aren’t technically media but they represented another impression upon our young minds.
So when we are talking about the Return on Social Media, aren’t we also talking about how we are going to get that media to become the message to get people to want to buy our goods and services? Especially now that attention is split to near atomic levels, and marketers with budgets being cut in this new economy are looking for new ways to engage their audience. We are no longer held captive at the dinner table so to speak with 4 networks, no longer in the walled in playground of printed content. We are out there and we are spinning our own stories. How can we, the marketing and advertising community get people to listen and buy?
Was MySpace worth $650 Million? Is Twitter worth $100m? Club Penguin $750m? Don’t those huge valuations tell you something? That even in this world of a million channels, there is limited opportunity for investment in this arena. So that means this arena has a lot of users but they are funneling towards a few channels. I think that we should wait and see how the Social Media marketplace works out ultimately. And to do this takes a longer view. In this economy we don’t have the luxury, but in this economy we don’t have the luxury NOT to as well. Social Media spend is both increasing and paying off. It is a longer term investment because it deals with a human investment.
As reported in Marketing Vox, “New figures from an Econsultancy study show these channels are becoming more important to marketers. In the newly released Social Media and Online PR Report, Econsultancy and bigmouthmedia found that more firms are planning to increase social media spending next year and - more intriguingly to those loitering on the sidelines of this space - that those firms that have focused heavily on these channels have made it pay off."
An overwhelming majority of companies (86%) surveyed plan to spend more money on social media in 2010, and a further 13% are planning to keep the same budget levels.
The report does go on to say that those companies who have efforts in this area have typically reaped some reward. More than half (52%) who are heavily involved in social media advertising say that they have gained real value, compared with only 13% of companies who have "experimented but not done much." Marketing Vox goes onto discuss the new tools including the Push to Social for email enabling crossover of platform.
A.J. Leibling said “The power of the press belongs to those who own one.” In this day and age we all own a press each time we hit submit, what we need are those eyes to read and digest what we are writing. What we need is a community to share that with, and this kind of human investment does take time.
It is Holiday time, and though we will be involved with Twitter and Facebook telling “everyone” what we got for Christmas, it is also time to spend it with those from whose social sphere we migrated, namely our families.
I had the opportunity to go to the Smithsonian this past Thanksgiving to see mine. At the Smithsonian, prior to admiring the Hope Diamond and the jewels of Peggy Hopkins Joyce I chanced to read about Potlatch, and Indian festival of the pre-European days on the American continent. One quote, from an Indian Chief which struck me from the 1800’s was “the white man had a bank, where money is kept which generates interest – we have the potlatch and I have over 2,000 dollars in the hands of my Indian brothers and sisters. This will keep me with food and the materials I need as the gifts will come round to me again.”
In other words, the potlatch which is in the form of gifts to the community is what will replenish the individual. Was it a form of investment? Clearly so, in terms of a families status and also in terms of actual goods for consumption, food and sundries. It was a return on human investment. It was built up over time, and so will this return on Human investment we make in the social media community we belong to be. 27 million tweets a day and counting. You can hear us “singing” as soon as you tune in.
Engaging people is what will pay off. Of course there are other ways to engage, and my prediction for the next decade is to the virtual worlds which are 3D and dynamic, which have people at the edge of their seats and tips of their fingers as the next big frontier for advertising and brands. In the first quarter of 2009, the virtual world of Second Life saw $120 million USD exchanged through user-to-user transactions, with a record monthly $45 million USD in transactions in March. This is where the product meets the grid meets the people.
So here we have something that has both a monetary value and a human or social one –
Virtual assets which people will buy for real money to enhance their virtual lives or virtual social media lives. If Twitter could come up with a monetary widget that people could buy for one another in micro transactions would they do it? And I come to the question is social media = virtual media?
In other words as this exists on the Internet platform solely, as differentiated from traditional media of our newspapers we hold in our hands, of the TV sets that sit in our living rooms
Are we living virtually through this media – this glimpse into other people’s lives, thoughts, drives and observations?
We are investing hours of time on blogs, Twitters and posting onto Facebook. We want to be heard, we want our thoughts and observations shared, we are part of the greater potlatch of contemporary media and this virtual society at large is one we feed and feed on.
How can you measure the time we spend on answering emails, in LinkedIn group discussion and monitoring our inbox in a quantifiable way?
We read what we want, when we want and for how long we want to - we are caught up in a tide of finding things out and broadcasting what we have discovered. The return on investment for time is knowledge and entertainment – this is a new form of activity, broader and with farther reach but still a human activity, we are around an electric campfire now sharing stories, information and modern lore. Word of mouth is the most important form of advertising there is today - our attention level has been spliced, and so we trust in that most ancient of organizations, our friends and extended family.
The return on human investment is indeed a return on time spent acquiring knowledge about areas we want to be a part of. What is the price on knowing? What is the price on being heard?
In many ways my potlatch is on Second Life. I still Twitter though, follow me @pookymedia.
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