What I wrote about Second Life four years ago can be applied to Foursquare check-ins and other emerging media behaviors that haven't yet reached enough of a critical mass to be useful to advertisers in a traditional way.
"If it’s not about fame and if it’s not about money, why bother at all? The answer is knowledge.
Some experts predict that in the fairly near future at least part of the Internet will turn 3-D with online destinations either adopting some form of 3-D interface or expanding into the existing virtual environments (3pointD.com is one of the blogs tracking the signs of change). The argument goes that the companies that are playing inside Second Life and similar worlds today will be better prepared for tomorrow."
Read the rest of this 2006 post on Hill Holliday's blog.
Enjoy August reruns of some of our most popular articles while the editorial team (of one) takes a long-overdue break away from all things digital.
I recently noticed that a virtual London (http://london.nearglobal.com/) has sprung up but you have to download the programme at present... It has an incredible degree of realism and I suspect this will really appeal to people as you are in essence exploring London from your living room. Will have to see what happens in the coming months.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, there are similarities with other emerging advertising media such as LBA and social apps, social games/advergames, etc.
ReplyDeleteEven with critical mass, because social media are more involved than mere display advertising and push strategies (part of the "traditional way" mentioned in your post), social media require ways to assess how to translate social interaction between brands and users that benefit the latter into measurable conversion goals and paths that advertisers can understand.
Very interesting post. In my take - SL is stone dead because there was a lack of purpuse. It was neither beautiful nor addictive - and who would use their time in such a place. http://london.nearglobal.com/ is beautiful at least... so it's gonna be exciting to follow their succes.
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