The Road to WrestleMania XXIV has been paved, the gauntlet thrown down! Who will rise to the challenge for a chance to party with a real Superstar in Habbo Hotel?

Following on the heels of two successful campaigns promoting Royal Rumble and No Way Out, World Wrestling Entertainment and Millions of Us brings you this third and final campaign promoting WWE’s marquee event WrestleMania XXIV. We are thrilled to tie together all three campaigns as we continue the narrative of the Road to WrestleMania XXIV with our “WWE Habbo Road to WrestleMania XXIV“ contest running March 19th - March 28th, 2008.

In this campaign, WWE will challenge Habbos to battle on behalf of their favorite Superstar in five WrestleMania matches - Triple Threat Match, World Heavyweight Champion Edge vs. Undertaker, Big Show vs. Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather – The Biggest Battles the Best, The Money in the Bank Ladder Match, and ‘Playboy’ BunnyMania Lumberjack Match. In the “Habboized” version of Road to WrestleMania XXIV, each of these matches is represented as a complex maze race taking place daily for one hour in the virtual world of Habbo Hotel. Each of the Superstars in these matches will call upon Habbos to “battle” for their victory by racing through the “Habbo Road to WrestleMania XXIV” - a virtual labyrinth built out of Habbo “furni” spanning 7 WrestleMania themed Habbo Hotel rooms.

To fully convey the WrestleMania story, the race begins within the No Way Out Elimination Chamber themed room, since the Road to WrestleMania goes through No Way Out! The Elimination Chamber room is just one of the 7 WrestleMania themed rooms. Habbos will also race through 5 other rooms, one for each of the five matches we are representing, and the final room which is the WrestleMania XXIV room. This maze will be complex, changing daily, and requiring the right selection of paths, doorways, and tunnels to find the finish line. Each time a Habbo successfully traverses the maze during the 1 hour window the race is in play, the Habbo is able to earn points for his or her favorite Superstar and bring the Superstar that much closer to winning that day’s respective match. At the end of the 5 days, points will be tallied for each Superstar and the Superstar with the most points (and support) from the Habbo community for each match will be the winner of the respective WWE WrestleMania XXIV match. The winning Superstars for each match will be announced at the end of the 5 days and all Habbos who enter and finish at least one race and have supported the winning Superstar(s) will have the chance to party in Habbo Hotel with a real WWE Superstar! This exclusive and private event reserved only for winning Habbos will be the first of its kind in Habbo history!

Special thanks to our long-standing client WWE and Tom Boland for all his support and rapid client approvals, as well as, Kristin Kanan at Sulake Corp. for her dedication and infectious enthusiasm throughout all 3 campaigns. It’s been a blast!

Habbo Road To WrestleMania XXIV Group Page:

Another sweet banner ad!

Questions -

Eliana Sur

eliana(at)millionsofus(dot)com

Millions of Us recently launched an ARG experience for a major network television show. I want to take a moment to discuss the experience of producing an ARG because I found it fascinating. First, designing an ARG is a lot like playing an ARG. It requires imagination, razor-sharp attention to detail, creative and collaborative problem-solving, a knack for detecting subtleties, and complete suspension of disbelief. I also find myself comparing the experience to being in a co-dependent relationship – a really intense, committed, delusional, romanticized, verging on obsessive relationship where both parties track each other’s every move, check in religiously, and are determined in making the partnership work… like marriage maybe? ; ) The happy couple in this case was the puppetmasters (Millions of Us and the fictitious entity known as Enitech Research Lab) and the players (the web community). A healthy relationship would require consistent effort, communication, compromise, collaboration, commitment, and most importantly, some imaginative role-playing to keep things interesting and evolving. Could we both deliver what the other was looking for?

Unlike most of the projects we work on where we design and deliver a tightly controlled experience, producing this ARG required us to design an experience around a lot of variables and in collaboration with a massive and distributed online community. Since the success of the ARG hinged on player participation, and especially since our narrative relied on this aspect, creating a well-defined plan of action was tricky. How do you create a detailed roadmap for producing a viral thriller where audience participation is uncertain but critical in establishing the storyline? We were in a risky position of assuming the audience would respond. Other unique challenges posed included figuring out how to make the gameplay explicit, yet discrete, as well as figuring out how to launch the ARG and seed it in the right online communities to gain visibility, interaction, and virality without compromising the perceived legitimacy and “reality” of the underlying story. Resolving these issues was a bit of an experiment - forming a hypothesis on what we expected, then testing, measuring the results, and recalibrating whenever necessary.

The other challenging aspect of producing this ARG was producing the weekly video series. Since we needed to tell a story where we took into account player feedback and content and had to inject these elements into our storyline, we had to keep the creative flexible, adaptive, and somewhat improvisational. In order to guide the ARG experience, we created a tight feedback loop between us and the players, responding and communicating diligently and often directly to a growing online community of invested players all over the country. Through emails, blog posts, video posts, and more subtle forms of communication such as subliminal messaging in our videos or through affiliated fictitious sites and entities, we endeavored to drive the experience, but also invited the randomness and chaos of a massively multiplayer design in the storyline. It was entertaining for us as the puppetmasters to be entangled in a complex process of trying to anticipate the players’ moves, respond to it in kind, and stay in-step in this weekly frenetic dance. Lastly, and possibly the most difficult challenge was generating the gameplay. Designing these highly complex puzzles within the framework of our story and delivering it with clever subtlety to a super discerning community of Terminator geeks was an ARG in and of itself (thank you Evan!). These puzzles included everything from cracking code, to assembling cryptic diagrams, to digging up geocached “cameras-of-the-future,” to adventuring into real world venues and interacting with the right people to retrieve a hidden item.

Capturing the essence of an ARG experience is a lot like trying to capture the essence of a healthy relationship. You can map out some of the key elements in advance, but ultimately, you have to feel your way through it. You have to intuitively understand your players and feel this vague thing called “chemistry.” Working with Blair Erickson, Creative Director at MoU, and Evan Jones of Stitch Media, aka ubergeeks, we had an intuitive understanding of what our audience wanted and were able to effectively anticipate what would keep them engaged. What was pleasantly surprising, however, was how increasingly engaged and excited we were by the players and the content they were producing as the ARG progressed. It was a great relationship. Without a doubt, we had chemistry!

Though the campaign has ended officially, fans continue to create, distribute, and promote content inspired by the ARG, a testament to successful campaign virality. This experience has taught me some valuable lessons as a marketer. You have to know your audience (target market). You have to anticipate their needs (market research). You have to deeply and genuinely care about the relationship (engagement versus reach). And if you do all this, it’s truly rewarding (high ROI).

Special, special thanks to Blair Erickson for all his effort, vision, and diligence throughout this campaign. You’re inspirational.

Recap of ARG via BoingBoingTV:

Questions

Contact - Eliana Sur

eliana(at)millionsofus(dot)com

What we mean is that we have teamed up with World Wrestling Entertainment once again to bring a taste of their next pay-per-view experience into Habbo Hotel. For the next week, Habbos are competing to build their own Habboized versions of the infamous WWE No Way Out Elimination Chamber of doom inside Habbo Hotel. The room design contest merges the two activities Habbos love the most: building stuff and role-playing in it!

Inspired by the last campaign where Habbos virtually Royal Rumbled in their creatively decked out Royal Rumble themed rooms (a nice viral by-product of the campaign proper) we couldn’t help but be amused by the spectacle and generate an entire campaign based on their enthusiasm. So this time, we are calling all Habbos to don their creative caps and build the most badass Elimination Chamber they can put together in the next few days using their wit, imagination, and whatever “furni” (Habbo furniture) they have at their disposal. There are 2 rules to guide them:

1.) They must have the initials “NWO” displayed somewhere in their rooms

2.) They must have their rooms on the designated guest floor of the Hotel named “[WWE] Habbo No Way Out.”

To see what develops, stay tuned! I’ll be posting some designs soon.

The winning design picked by WWE at the end of the week will win a replica Championship Belt inscribed with a personal message from WWE. Top 5 designs picked by the Habbo community will receive a virtual trophy personalized by a WWE Superstar, a pocket full of gold to spend on their favorite Habbo virtual merchandise, and most importantly, Habbo infamy as the coolest designer of death cages.

As a side competition, we are also giving away prizes for Habbos who submit screenshots of their designed rooms filled to capacity with their fellow Habbo friends. I will post pics of the Habbo No Way Out flash mobs shortly. For now, check out the cool Habbo No Way Out group page and sweet banner ad below.

Habbo No Way Out group page with over 4K fans!

Awesome!

Questions?

Contact - Eliana Sur

eliana(at)millionsofus(dot)com

Last week, Millions of Us helped launch the Superstars of WWE into the virtual world of Habbo Hotel with the WWE Habbo Royal Rumble campaign. What resulted was viral mayhem! In addition to the ridiculous number of Habbos participating in the campaign proper, Habbos went well beyond the call of duty, building their own Royal Rumble and WWE themed rooms, role-playing as their favorite Superstars and rumbling virtually. It was wildly entertaining and satisfying to see!

Habbos role-play in their WWE Royal Rumble themed room

Here are the results from the WWE Habbo Royal Rumble:

• First WWE Superstar to enter the ring: KEVIN THORN

• First WWE Superstar to be thrown out of the ring: BATISTA

• Last WWE Superstar to be thrown out of the ring: DH SMITH

• WWE Superstar who WINS the Habbo Royal Rumble: JEFF HARDY

For all Habbos who have voted and answered at least one question correctly - CONGRATULATIONS, you are well on your way to gently being sprayed by the sweat of your favorite Superstar, that is if you’re lucky ; ) I will post which lucky Habbo wins the sweepstakes for a trip for two to Wrestlemania24 in the comments section shortly.

This week, World Wrestling Entertainment and its Superstars are invading the virtual world of Habbo Hotel, injecting the cyber-community with a level of excitement usually reserved for the wrestling ring. Millions of Us is proud to present this chair smashing, spandex ripping good time! ; )

The craziness ensued yesterday when 59 digitized WWE Superstars (wrestlers) called upon Habbos everywhere to campaign for their entry into the WWE Habbo Royal Rumble.

My assigned WWE Superstar

Campaigning can be done in a variety of ways including sending shout-outs from the Superstars themselves using a rad web-to-mobile service called Kadoink. Since these Superstars are totally at the mercy of the Habbo community and their assigned “campaign manager,” some of these Superstars have personal messages they’d like pass on to you. Tommy Dreamer, for instance, would love to call you up and greet you with “…give me some votes alright or else I’m gonna come to your house and maybe BASH your head into the computer screen. Thanks!” Well, how’s that for motivation?

From the pool of 59 Superstars (shown below in all their pixelated glory), voting amongst the Habbo community determines the top 30 most popular Superstars which make it into the Habbo Royal Rumble. Like the real Royal Rumble, our digitized version has Superstars competing to be the last one standing in the ring. Habbos vote for who they believe will be last man standing, along with first to enter the ring and last to enter the ring. Who will win this digital battle of the brawns? You’ll have to wait until this Saturday to find out! Along the way, Habbos get virtual buttons and stickers, but the coolest prize of course is the grand prize - a trip for two to WrestleMania24. For those in the know, these tickets are hotter than you-know-who’s temper ; )

So far, engagement has been one of the highest, if not the highest, in Habbo US history. Our Habbo Royal Rumble group membership filled to cap shortly after launch on Monday requiring us to create additional groups to accommodate all Habbos interested in membership. Impressive! Seems like Habbos <3 WWE!

Habbo Hotel is now officially the 4th virtual world we have entered and to be able to inaugurate our presence with our longstanding client WWE is especially pleasing. As Reuben, CEO of MoU, states - “Habbo pioneered the booming youth virtual world space and is one of the most internationally successful communities of its kind. It’s a very significant addition to the portfolio of platforms we can offer to our clients.”

Special thanks to Kristin Kanan and team at Sulake Inc. for their contagious enthusiasm, lightening-fast turnarounds, and badass pixel art!

Questions?

Contact Eliana Sur - eliana(at)millionsofus(dot)com

WWE Habbo Royal Rumble group page showing all 59 Superstar avatars in their pixelated glory.

Sweet banner ad!

And on this 7^th day, after a cross-country tour and killin it at the El Rey Theatre in LA, Cary Brothers is not resting, but still enthusiastically posting on the Gaia Online entertainment forum. Today, he’s in the forum chatting with fellow Gaians as a video collage of his life on the road plays in the Gaia Cinema. The video gives viewers a brief glimpse of this indie rocker’s life on tour, in concert, and behind closed doors. MoU’s very own Biz Dev Director, Jeff Freedman, conducted part of Cary’s interview in the video (rock on Jeff!). I sheepishly called it a “rockumentary” before, but now, feeling a bit more brazen with my cornyness, I will stand by my original description. It’s a rockumentary and it’s great.

Cary in the forum:

User: “Even if I didn’t like your music I would still support you solely based on the fact that you’re toughing it out trying to do the independent thing, which I imagine is a lot more complicated and tricky than most people understand/appreciate.

I’m generally not a huge fan of the sort of alternativey rock sound or whatever they call it these days, but listening to your sample I actually liked it. A lot of people pursuing a similar style to yours come off as a little on the contrived side, but I get a more sincere feel with your music. Still isn’t exactly my style of choice, but that’s more a matter of my taste, so this is my way of saying that I like your music even though it’s not exactly my style. ”

Cary: “thanks for the support. it’s a tough road doing it indie, but it’s more than worth it at the end of the day. i love the fact that so many people on gaia have been honest about not listening to my kind of music but still digging it. that was the point of all this - to throw the music out there and hope people give it a chance no matter what their music tastes are. i couldn’t ask for anything more.”

User: “Wowwww… so your sound is like… ear candy. (Which sounds a little icky, but I hope you’ll take it the way it’s intended.)

So out of curiosity, what was it like being involved in Garden State? It’s probably one of the craziest movies I’ve ever seen (Rocky Horror being the exception), though the craziness distracted me from the soundtrack. And who are some of your favorite musicians?

Thank you for taking the time to get involved here, whether or not you find time to answer all of our questions- honestly, I would never have expected half the posts you’ve found the time to make. Thanks so much! (And welcome to Gaia!)”

Cary: “garden state was such a crazy experience. i got involved when it was just this tiny independent film, and no one really believed that zach (who they saw as just a tv actor) would be such an amazing director. then it sold at a film festival, and the next thing i knew the soundtrack had sold a million copies and won a grammy. it worked because zach basically made a mix tape of his favorite songs - there was no one telling him what to do. he just followed his instincts, and it worked. i’m so proud to be a part of something that successful mostly because it was so organic how it all came together.

a pleasure to be your ear candy… um, that sounded weird”

Also available today are two new virtual items Cary’s giving away. Gaians can grab the virtual cd of Cary’s latest album “Who You Are” in the cinema and a Cary Bros. t-shirt (designed with subtle irony for Gaians wanting to show off their hipster fashion-savvy) in the forum.

This campaign has been an absolute joy to work on. Bluhammock’s laid-back, chillaxed attitude combined with Cary’s uber-cool approach and style has made my job a Producer’s dream. I’d like to thank them for embarking on this experiment with us, which by all measures, has proved to be successful.

Special thanks to David Wei and Joe Hyrkin at Gaia Online for executing this campaign fast and furiously.

Final thought - hope this campaign will serve as an example of how simple it can be for artists to connect to their audience. Being talented and having a great personality is important, but investing the time to directly engage fans and have them understand “Who You Are” as an artist is a big step in the right direction.

The name of the recipe for today’s success story is Music Distribution via a Virtual World! Ingredients include Millions of Us, bluhammock music, Gaia Online, musician Cary Brothers, and tech-savvy music fans of today’s generation.

Today, Millions of Us, bluhammock music, and Gaia Online have teamed up to do something brand-spankin’ new! (Mini-disclaimer - These days, I can’t assume anything worth doing hasn’t already been done, so when I say “new” I mean new to us.) We launched indie musician Cary Brothers into Gaia Online! Cary Brothers himself began posting live in Gaia’s music forum today at 11 am PST. The response has been overwhelming! Gaians everywhere are going crazy for his music, the cool virtual guitar he’s giving away, and the opportunity to message back and forth with the musician himself.

What makes this campaign unique (and successful) in my opinion is the artist’s direct and candid interactions with the online community. Several months ago when we connected with bluhammock music we knew we had the recipe for a successful campaign when Cary himself (with bluhammock’s blessing) was more than excited to spend several days engaging directly with the Gaia community. Cary wanted to be represented accurately so instead of having his publicist or some other marketing “genius” post on his behalf, we created an account for him and said “Go and engage your fans!” Today, he did just that and the response speaks for itself. We’ve already generated almost 100 pages of posts and counting.

Here’s an example of one of Cary’s most recent posts.

User asks: “So, what’s it like having your face(s) animated and placed on a digital-representation body? And how do you like your waffles? What’s the most exciting thing you’ve come across here on Gaia Online?”

Cary’s response: “it’s crazy. i’ve never had an avatar before. in real life my head is twice as big, though ; ) as for waffles, i’m pretty plain jane - just gimme syrup and butter and i’m good to go… i used to make waffles when i was a little kid and watch “mr. roger’s neighborhood”… strange admission… hmmm…

i haven’t been able to get around gaia much because i’ve been on tour (until tomorrow), but the people seem pretty cool, so that’s a start… looking forward to seeing what’s out there…”

In addition to Cary’s forum participation, we are selling two of his albums including “Who You Are” and an exclusive live set made available only through Gaia Online. And, on December 20th, Cary Brothers will be in the Gaia Cinema showing a video of him on the road, what I’d like to call a rockumentary? Okay, that was really corny.

Lastly, I’d like to mention how awesome my job is. You know you’re working on something totally weird and cutting-edge when you can help a rock star say, “Yeah, I’ve got a pretty big following in New York, LA, and Gaia… “

Questions:

Contact - Eliana Sur

eliana(at)millionsofus(dot)com

What would you ask Maria Sharipova? One question pops into mind - what’s the secret to your deadly backhand?! Now, hold that thought and play our quest.

Today, Millions of Us and InterActive Corp. Search & Media (IAC) are launching the Zwinky Field Reporter Quest Sponsored by Nike. This quest offers players with a unique opportunity to volley one-liners with the hottest sports celebrities around!

Based on the Nike Field Reporter contest which ran just this past month, Nike, IAC (creators of Zwinktopia), and yours truly, Millions of Us have created a quest and contest in the virtual world of Zwinktopia.

The quest in a nutshell:

1.) Enter Zwinktopia and make a cutie or hottie avatar.
2.) Join the Zwinky Field Reporter Quest Sponsored by Nike. Prove you are sports celebrity savvy by answering some tough questions and solving clues to find the locations of Maria Sharipova, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Abby Wambach, and Serena Williams. You may have heard of them.
3.) Escort them in your sweet stretch hummer to the press conference.
4.) Pick up some hot Nike gear, a trophy to display on your profile page, and bragging rights to all your friends.
5.) Upon quest completion, enter to become the first ever Zwinky Field Reporter Sponsored by Nike.

IAC’s virtual world Zwinktopia currently boasts over 10 million users with an average usage time of over an hour per user. Zwinky users are young, hip, and clearly engaged with the community. We couldn’t be more excited to be launching into this new platform and with a cutting-edge, world-class brand like Nike no less! This marks the third virtual world Millions of Us has created branded experiences for (after Second Life and Gaia Online) and we suspect this will be a big hit with the Zwinky crowd.

Special thanks to Mike Primiani and Bill Maslyn (IAC) for their phenomenal work in executing this quest.

See you at the virtual press conference. I’ll be rollin in my stretch hummer limo!

Questions?

Contact: Eliana Sur

eliana(at)millionsofus(dot)com

Last week, I blasted into the future at WIRED Mag’s annual future-fest WIRED NextFest.2007. If you’re not familiar with NextFest, let me bring you up to speed. Over 100 emerging technologies exhibited in pavilions aptly named “The Future of…” including Entertainment, Design, Play, Robots, Communication, Education, Security, Transportation, Green, and Health. It’s a veritable playground for engineers, scientists, artists, educators, designers, technophiles, and futurists of all types to gather and get their hands on some of the best innovations in technology. As a producer of this event last year and the year before, I have first-hand knowledge on the caliber of people they invite to exhibit, and amongst this visionary crowd, Millions of Us was honored to exhibit the Future of Education with our demo on educational applications of virtual worlds.

So what does the future hold? Well, in the future, we won’t be using devices like mice and keyboards to interact with our electronics. Everything’s touch activated, voice activated, breath and even brain activated. In fact, there was a moment where I felt a bit sheepish for not having a fancy multi-touch display when kids began pawing at our 40″ LCD in an attempt to interact more directly with what they were seeing. After explaining to them, “no our screen is not a touch-screen” they seemed perplexed to see that I was driving the demo using a rather antiquated device for NextFest - a mouse. The future ensures we will be nice and close to our technology, interfacing intimately, directly, and with discriminating precision without the need for “external devices.” Hooray for wearable computing, biometrics, multi-touch displays, facial and gestural recognition.

The future is also keen on augmenting our reality. Virtual spaces, experiences, and people were all the rage and if you know what our company does, you know we’re invested. Several applications attempted to extend traditionally 2D environments (like your desktop) into the 3D. If NextFest is an indicator of future trends, there is a clear desire to transition from flat 2D spaces to the more fluid and immersive 3D environments native to real world interactions. I have to admit, interaction in these 3D spaces seemed more cumbersome for certain applications (like scrolling text), however, with good UI design and input methods, it will only be a matter of time before we’re fully immersed in our virtual environments be it your desktop, website, or video game.

Lastly, the future focuses on connectivity. Teleimmersion, telecommunication, just pre-fix it with “tele” and it was exhibited. In the future, telepresence technologies will allow us to seamlessly socialize, do business, and have shared experiences without attention to proximity and geography. Want to give your friend across the Atlantic a hug and have her feel your gentle squeeze? Done.

Walking away from NextFest as an exhibitor, I felt privileged to be working at Millions of Us. Like most of the futurists exhibiting at this event, I believe we are headed in an exciting direction, one in which we will help shape the future of interactivity. All of the technologies exhibited converged on one idea: bridging the gap between humans and their interface, making their digital experiences richer, immersive, dynamic, and immediate. My job is to produce engaging virtual experiences so I understand this desire, but with most passions that become professions, sometimes I forget why I’m doing what I’m doing and what excited me in the first place. Doing the demo at NextFest was invigorating. I was able to rediscover the power of virtual worlds. Everyone who stopped by our modest booth, from children to well versed technologists, was captivated with our presentation on Second Life. (I remember one fairly savvy 6 year old saying ‚ “It’s kinda like the web but you can fly.”) Though they were surrounded by a sea of stimulation - shiny gadgets, larger than life displays, androids that look identical to their human creators and other amazing innovations, their child-like enthusiasm for our work was just the validation I needed to come home and pound away on another intense work week. How can I not? I’m building the future baby!

Today, Intel (in cooperation with MRM Worldwide and Millions of Us) will be unveiling the consolidated Intel presence in Second Life known as Intel Island. At the heart of this 3-sim build, including the previously launched Intel OCC (Intel’s partnership sim with Orange County Choppers) and Intel Software Network, is what we like to refer to as “the journey.” Should you decide to partake in this journey to the depths of Intel Island, you will encounter a visual feast complete with flying laptops, a gigantic Intel Core 2 Duo chip, and lava ‚Äì yes, lava. The visual feast isn’t quite over when you’ve explored the build. From videos showing creative ways of re-purposing your “obsolete pc” to the hip Intel “Multiply” ads done Second Life style, there is plenty to see on the 6 different screens placed throughout the sim.

Just exploring this underground build can provide quite an experience, but aside from the eye candy, the sim is full of interactivity. Grab an Intel jetpack and embark on a quest to find the Intel Core 2 Duo chip halves to power your pack to the max. Or, if you want to know about the latest and greatest Intel has to offer, connect to Intel using the conference phones and download brochures, pdfs, and other informative packets. For our bike enthusiasts, don’t forget to check out the new bike path connecting all 3 Intel sims. Just build your custom Intel OCC chopper and ride up Intel Island in style. Like the music in the Intel “Multiply” ads? Check out the New Young Pony Club and other great musicians at the Summer Music Festival on Friday, June 29th. All in all, there’s plenty to do and see. It’s designed to keep you engaged and informed for a long time to come, so check it!

When: June 28, 2007 9:00 am PST
Where: In Second Life on Intel Island - 125,9,134
SLurl: http://tinyurl.com/2jrso6

Got Questions?
Contact: Eliana Sur
Email: eliana(at)millionsofus(dot)com
Second Life: Eliana Millionsofus