As reported by Virtual Worlds News in March, we’ve been working to create spaces for Playstation Home the last several months. Today, we got a little shot of excitement, as SCEA CEO Jack Tretton gave a sneak peak of HOME and our work. Nice job all. I think I heard applause at 1:57. . . . .
[Edit 7/16] Here’s a better copy of the video from gametrailers.com.
In the past 2 years, virtual worlds have received a great deal of media coverage. The Gartner Group predicts that by 2011, 80% of internet users will participate in at least 1 virtual world. Globally, sales of items in virtual worlds account for $1.5 billion.
About a year ago, I became fascinated by the almost complete absence of copyrighted material in the virtual goods market. This was especially weird given that the audience was largely teenagers with a provable affinity for celebrities, heroes and copywritten material. What I discovered was that legally, “virtual merchandise” had never existed as a class of rights and therefore belonged to the owner of the core IP (in some cases a recording artist, in others, a studio). As we struggled to think how to use this insight to transform this market, we also noticed that from a distribution perspective, the market was extremely fragmented; globally there are 130 million users split between some 60 different worlds. The problem this presents IP owners is that they would need to seek out dozens of worlds in order to achieve scale.
Today, I am proud to announce the launch of a company built to address this market, bringing incremental revenue to IP owners and virtual world operators while allowing the audience to aspirationally connect with the stars they idolize. We’re upping the ante in virtual goods by introducing “virtual greats” – premium virtual goods.
To achieve this, we have entered into partnership with the world’s most iconic personalities and characters. Starting today, we will begin making announcements about our exclusive license and distribution partners. The story will break in Variety in Hollywood, with a press release and general coverage to follow.
The virtual merchandise we create and market in partnership with celebrities will fall into several categories:
Most importantly, I’d like to thank all the people who made this launch possible. First my wife and kids. Second, my partner Christian Lassonde and all our colleagues at Millions of Us. Then, our friends and allies at Omnicom – Jonathan Nelson and John Wren. Then Gary Stiffelman, Jamie Young and Alicia Sydney at Ziffren Brittenham. Also Craig Sherman and Joe Hyrkin at Gaia Interactive. And of course, Mitch Kanner.
Finally, and most importantly, our leader. This is a completely separate company from Millions of Us. We searched long and hard for a great CEO, capable of building a game-changing company and leading it to large scale. Dan Jansen is that person. Prior to joining us, Dan led the Media and Entertainment practice at the Boston Consulting Group. He is dynamic, expert and lots of fun to work with.
This is going to be a brilliant ride. Can’t wait.
ARG - An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants’ ideas or actions.
For several months here at MoU, we’ve been working on a top secret project we’ve been dying to tell you about. We’ve begun developing on a new virtual world platform: real life.
2 weeks before the launch of the new Fox show “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” a website for an unusual company appeared. In their first video they claimed to have developed a tachyon camera that sensed faster-than-light particles and could therefore generate images of the future. Their first blog post generated significant online controversy, with 53 posts suggesting ways of testing the camera’s capabilities. In their second video, the researchers followed the audience’s suggestions, taking photos of mirrors, newspapers, and cityscapes. The images they revealed suggested a dark and apocalyptic future. Soon the audience became directly involved in the story, digging up similar camera devices around the United States. Finally, the researchers found themselves being hunted by a deadly entity seeking to stop their work permanently. The drama built to an explosive conclusion in the Sausalito parking lot of Enitech’s offices.
Now that it’s concluded we’d like to show you a bit of it. If you want to know more, check out Enitechlabs.com.
Links to more press coverage of the Enitech saga here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Special thanks to Evan Jones over at Stitch Media for all his incredible help and expertise on this project.
Forgive us our local pride, dear readers. Millions of Us has the honor of facilitating a virtual conversation between San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Second Life‚Äôs Philip Rosedale/Philip Linden at 3pm PT tomorrow. Mayor Newsom‚Äôs appearance is related to his second inauguration on Tuesday, highlights of which will be streamed into the SL event venue prior to the conversation tomorrow. Newsom and Rosedale will discuss the parallels of managing two famously diverse and tech-savvy communities with global profiles: the City of San Francisco and Second Life. If you’re interested in attending virtually, please contact celebrity@millionsofus.com
It’s no surprise that a virtual community as creatively, technically and economically dynamic as Second Life was launched in San Francisco. Both the city and this pioneering virtual world share many traits that have cross-pollinated. These include a pervading sense that technology can be a force for good in pushing the frontiers of human cultural and economic development.
All that aside, Mayor Newsom enjoys broad support from San Franciscans for his leadership on a host of issues…and we hope his avatar can live up to his affectionate local nickname: “Mayor Dreamboat.”
The Hollywood Reporter profiled Reuben as one of five innovators setting the entertainment industry’s agenda.
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It’s official! At 2PM PST today we launched a project that we have been working on since May.
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.
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.
We’ve had a few strategic arrivals in recent weeks, but we’re especially proud to welcome our new Chief Creative Officer, Douglas Gayeton. Douglas’ eclectic career has found him at the cutting edge of filmmaking, video game design, and social media. His documentary film, “Molotov Alva: Video Diaries from My Second Life”, was the first machinima ever screened at the Cannes Film Festival and is the first piece of its kind to be acquired for distribution as a television series. Prior to joining Millions of Us, Douglas also worked with MTV on their virtual world initiative.
Douglas’ arrival is a key development in Millions of Us’ strategic plan to assemble the world’s leading talent across multiple virtual world and social media platforms. He’ll mentor our production teams and inject a fresh perspective into all of our client campaigns. And who better - Douglas created “Delta State”, an award winning animated TV series, and also directed and co-wrote “Johnny Mnemonic,” an interactive film based on a story by cyberpunk author William Gibson. He is also among the earliest architects of social networking technology, having built applications for AOL, Microsoft, Vivendi and Napster.
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