Twitter’s announcement yesterday that they will soon be cracking down on fake celebrity accounts brings to mind Andy Warhol’s quote, “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes”.

I’ve thought for a while now that the lines between people and celebrities are blurring; my friend Liz Strauss likes to say that “People and stars are made of the same stuff”.  There are many indications that this macro trend will continue, as reality television and internet-enabled celebrity continue to grow in popularity and reach.  We’ll see ordinary people become famous, people become famous for being famous and watch with schadenfreude as the famous burn out and become ordinary again.

While some of this endless fascination is voyeuristic (the famous take risks that we would like to, but cannot), much of it is also aspirational.  Our sister company, Virtual Greats, is pursuing the idea that ordinary people, in virtual worlds, games and social networks, will enjoy appropriating traits of identities of famous people.  Second Life, City of Heroes and Twitter celebrities prove out this central hypothesis in a “destination-based way” — the team at Virtual Greats is now taking the elements of known brands or famous identities and equipping the denizens of many worlds with them.

Will it work?  Who knows, but I’m guessing that the rush that comes when Trick or Treating as a hero or operating a fake Shaquille O’Neal Twitter account is universal.  Only time will tell.

Hot off the virtual presses — our sister company Virtual Greats, in partnership with Wee World, is now selling Roca Wear branded virtual goods in Wee World.  For those of you over the age of 25, Roca Wear is rapper Jay Z’s highly successful clothing label.  Screenshot below gives a sneak peek at some of the new blingy merch now available.

I am so excited about this news from our sister company Virtual Greats for a number of reasons.  First and foremost, it is the first time we’ve extended premium virtual goods into virtual worlds running within the world’s largest social networks.

For those of you not up to speed, Super Pets is a virtual pet experience that allows you to adopt a pet, train it and battle it against your friends’ pets.  Within Facebook, Super Pets has 417, 000 monthly Active Users and within Myspace, it has 4.5 million monthly Active Users.  One of the challenges brands had in being sucessful in Second Life was that while the monthly active population was large (and the time per user, enormous), there was no good way to get in front of all those users.  Well, in Facebook with Superpets we’re now in front of an audience half as large as Second Life, and in Myspace, in front of one 4.5 times bigger than Second Life.

As for what we’re selling, we’re starting simple with items like winter hoodies for your pet that say Snoop’s cathcphrase, “Drop It Like it’s Hot” (you can see one on my avatar below, styled as a raccoon as a nod of the hat to my man Loic LeMeur and his Seesmic Logo.

Snoop Virtual Goods in Facebook with Rockyou Super Pets