You can download the full report free of
charge here.
The team of Indiana University School of Informatic's researchers led by Shaowen Bardzell,
Ph.D., Jeffrey Bardzell, PH.D., and Tyler Pace,released findings that compare
player engagement in some of Second Life's most successful user-generated areas
compared to some of the more ambitious corporate-sponsored efforts in Second
Life.
Jeremi Karnell, Co-Founder and President of One to One Interactive, t=zero's parent company states:
"Our first publication,
focused on Serious Games for Marketing, is meant to take a step
back and objectively evaluate what worked and did not work in the
rush to establish early footholds in Virtual World spaces. Our hope
is that these findings will help guide future efforts as we see new
entrants and innovations in that space, such as what we are seeing with Google's Lively and others."
Future reports will focus on Online Games,
Social Networks, and Amateur Multimedia. Included will be
insights gleaned from our Neuromarketing research group, Quantemo.
High impact ads may be located at both frequent and terminal game play points such as finish lines, save screens, menus, etc.
If you know your brand is not familiar to the player base of the game/genre, highly visible placement will improve recognition and association.
If your brand is familiar to the player base for the game/genre, placement is less important to success.
Primary research to quantify player physiological engagement with specific game titles may help in media buying selection process and ensure higher brand recognition/recall.
The above video was posted to YouTube by Johnny Chung Lee, Ph.D. Graduate Student at Carnegie Mellon Universitie's Human-Computer Interaction Institue. Using the infrared camera in the Wii remote and a head mounted sensor bar (two IR LEDs), Lee demonstrates an approach to accurately track the location of your head and render view dependent images on the screen. This effectively transforms your display into a portal to a virtual environment. The display properly reacts to head and body movement as if it were a real window creating a realistic illusion of depth and space. For more information and software visit http://johnnylee.net
OTOinsight's t=zero research division bowed its initial set of findings focused on Serious Game Marketing by comparing corporate vs. amature virtual world builds at the MITX Digital Marketing Conference (hosted by UK Trade & Investment at the British Consulate in Cambridge, MA.). This is an early insight to what will be the inaugural report that t=zero will publish in Q1 2008.
[NOTE: If your company is interested in participating in one of the limited
sponsorship positions available of the above scheduled research, please contact
[email protected].]
"Serious games" refers to the use of games and game technologies for non-entertainment purposes. Traditionally, the education, health, and military sectors were the primary actors in this domain. But in the past few years, marketing has arisen as a major subdomain of this area. This presentation compares player engagement in some of Second Life's most successful user-generated areas compared with some of the more ambitious corporate-sponsored efforts in Second Life.
Download a PDF of the Presentation by click on the image below:
Since last year, after One to One held the "Get a Second Life" conference in conjunction with MITX, I have agreed with the idea that the next major player to enter the virtual world market (i.e. Second Life) would be Google. In fact, I am a staunch believer that any major player with a 3-D mapping platform in place (Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth, etc.) will be looking to add some type of metaverse/social networking functionality to their efforts in the near future.
Well, it seems as if there is some signal intel generating from the blogsphere regarding a "major Internet company" recruiting beta testers at Arizona State University to experience a new 2d/3d social network/virtual world platform called "My World".
Taking into consideration that the sign-up form only asks for a GMail Account and that ASU is also involved with a program around Google Apps, that idea that "My World" is in fact a Google initiative is not that far out of the question.
Below are some additional links that may be useful to anyone who finds thi development interesting:
Above is a new piece of Machinma that was produced by OTOi's Second Life partner Millions of Us that introduces Comcastic! Island. The footage runs a total of 4 minutes and covers all of the major attractions within Comcast's official Second Life outpost. Its a very nice piece...check it out.
Below are video segments that represent just some of the activities made available to residents of Second Life who visit Comcastic Island. This footage was shot prior to our final release, so some small things have changed (enhanced really). However, this will give you a good idea of Comcastic Island if you do not have a Second Life Account and wish to check it out.
Yesterday, Comcastannounced the opening of Comcastic Island in Second Life, officially becoming the first major North American communications company to establish a presence in a virtual world environment. Comcast, a client of OTOi, started planning a Second Life initiative at the end of last year. OTOi developed the strategy and outsourced the build to Million's of Us. There was a concerted effort to not do anything overtly marketing. Instead, efforts were focused on creating value for the overall Second Life Community by developing a massive entertainment venue where in-world residents may go to play and have fun.
Comcastic Island, which may be accessed by typing in the Keyword "Comcast" within Second Life's World Map search bar or by visiting the following SURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Comcast/128/128/0, contains a futuristic race track, jest ski course, jet pack course (where the jet packs may be acquired for free and used by residents as transportation anywhere within Second Life), parachuting, an entertainment complex, cafe, and a secret lab (which you are going to have to try to find on your own).
This is the first of many initiatives planned by Comcast within Second Life. Ultimately, this project will help inform them on how to engage with individuals in this and other up and coming virtual worlds (see Dr. Bardzell's post titled "Tourist vs. Resident Research"). This learning is vital for Comcast has they continue to transform themselves into one of the worlds leading entertainment companies.
Additional articles and posts about this launch may be found below:
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