We’re 2 days in to the WWE Invasion of Gaia. John Cena arrived on Monday to a frenzy of fan response and controversy over the perspective outcome of his match against Randy Orton at Sunday’s pay-per-view event at Summerslam. So far we’ve had over 25,000 forum posts on Gaia. Unreal.

Below is a picture of Jeff Freedman of Millions of Us next to Andre the Giant’s boots.

Today is a big day for us at Millions of Us. At 1 PM PST, we officially launched our first campaign in the virtual world of Gaia Online. Within the first 31 minutes, we’ve had over 50 pages of comments.

Over the next week, we’ll begin to unfold a new form of storytelling and narrative using virtual worlds. Stay tuned for the twists and turns. (BTW, to those Gaians wondering, yes, the wrestlers are all real).

This blog is awash in Lingerie Legends, and we’ve got just a little bit more for you. USA Today covered the competition today, noting in its ad industry rundown that the winning avatar will get a two-page spread in the September issue of Second Style, an online fashion magazine for Second Life users.

Our own Chief Creative Officer, Douglas Gayeton, is a slow food aficionado and spends part of the year in Tuscany…he’s also a widely-recognized photographer. The result is a selection of eclectic photos that will have you thinking not only about delicious food, but the character of its origins, its preparation, and its consumption. Food, like photography, is in some ways just as much about process as outcomes. You can sample Douglas’ photographic outcomes at an opening for his work this weekend in Petaluma. The gallery describes the show as follows, reprinted from Boing Boing’s review of the exhibit:

“Douglas Gayeton has explored Tuscany and the heart of Italy’s “Slow Living” culture since the early 90’s. With a keen eye for stories and an ear for Italian dialect, he intertwines the literal with the figurative in a photographic approach he calls the flat film. To become immersed in one of these works is to experience a world where time is at once collapsed and expanded.

Regarding his work process, Gayeton says, “I’ve always seen photography as being about a single moment, whereas film is about orchestrating a sequence of moments (scenes) to create a larger narrative.”

We’re happy indeed to announce that we’ve just hired social media marketing pioneer Gregory Kennedy as our Creative Director.

Gregory brings us over a decade of wide-ranging experience. We’re especially excited to be bringing him on board from Cyworld USA, where he led a team of five. He redesigned the website, launched the logo, and localized the Cyworld brand identity for the US market. Before that he was Senior Art Director at Carat Fusion, where he led creation of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” MySpace page – it attracted over 250,000 friends in its first 30 days.

On weekends, Gregory can be found creating pixel-art hip hop parody videos. Top that.

I’ve been having a lot fun with Facebook the last month or so.

4 days ago I thought I’d start a group called “People Generated Media” in opposition to an acronym that always made me cringe: CGM (Consumer Generated Media). I didn’t think it would have wild adoption, but I thought there would be some people that could identify with being a person over being something that consumes.

Well last night after 69 hours, the People Generated Media group broke 200 registered users! The coolest part of this is that it has now passed up the CGM group! This CGM group is run by a very well respected professional who is the CMO of Neilsen BuzzMetrics and was one of the co-founders of WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association).

We’ve moved so fast, that he even mentioned the PGM group in a video post yesterday, and believes there should be a “healthy open discussion” into what we should really be calling this new democratization of media. Well, I believe the message is clear: We are people not consumers. Moreover, I believe when Millions of Us creates solutions for our clients that reflect this, we will win every time.

If you haven’t already, please join the People Generated Media group. Start a conversation. Post some media. Tell your friends about the PGM group in Facebook. Having a great start in membership is important, but we need to spark a lively conversation and bring more thought provoking ideas into the discussion.

What does People Generated Media mean to you?

This Thursday, August 9th from 9 – 11 PM SLT (PDT) will be the second Budweiser Select and Stuff Magazine’s Lingerie Model Search in Second Life. While the real life contest is taking place at the Tao Nightclub in Las Vegas, 30 lucky virtual contestants will compete at the Select Lounge on the Style sim. MJ Garrett from MTV’s The Real World, as well as Aspire Modeling Agency’s Bianca Darling and Second Style’s Celebrity Trollop, will choose five finalists and a winner, who will compete with July’s winner, Scarlett Niven, for the title of Second Life Lingerie Legend. The ultimate winner will receive a two-page spread within the September 2007 issue of Second Style, an online magazine dedicated to high fashion within Second Life.

Millions of Us is expecting to hit capacity at this event, as the last model search event on July 26th was a great success. Please email celebrity@millionsofus.com for event access. The virtual event will be streamed to budweiserselect.com for those who are unable to attend.

Saw a great post on TechCrunch recently about the ecosystem of virtual worlds platforms that enterprises, marketers and content creators now get to choose from. The choices are perhaps a bit overwhelming for the uninitiated - but they’re important; these communities have wildly varying demographics and trajectories, but most of them are thriving or have the potential to do so. There’s a handy grid attempting to capture and contrast these environments (we’ve seen a few of those lately).

The best part is the comments section - meaty commentary from domain expertise heavyweights like Eric Rice and Chris Sherman. Worth a gander.

I just ran into Scion Snook, or the “Scionic Man” as he’s become known to Second Life residents. He pointed me to his myspace page, where I watched a video of him flying around Scion City. What’s his secret identity? Could he be the first caped superhero with a gun?

After the exciting Lingerie Legends Model Search event last Thursday (7/26), Budweiser Select and Millions of Us are adding five (5) contestant slots to the upcoming August event at Select Lounge on the Style sim. If you think you have what it takes to compete against Second Life knockout Scarlett Niven, please enter by following the contest guidelines below.

The last Budweiser Select Lingerie Model Search event was at capacity. Please RSVP in advance to Celebrity Millionsofus to obtain access to the event, which will be held next Thursday, August 9th at Select Lounge.

Contest Rules & How to Enter:

To enter, please complete #1 and#2 by Sunday, August 5th, 11:59 PM PDT:

1. Drop two (2) Second Life texture files on avatar MJ Garrett:
a. A full body shot in lingerie (please name file YourName_Fullbody)
b. A headshot (please name file YourName_Headshot)

2. Drop a notecard (please name file YourName_LingerieLegend) with the following qualifying information on avatar MJ Garrett:
a. Are you 21 years of age or over?
b. Can you attend the August Lingerie Legends contest on 8/9 from 9 PM – 11 PM SLT and the rehearsal on 8/8 from 4 – 5:30 PM SLT?