Just a second ago, we mentioned that GSD&M has partnered with Metaversatility to begin taking survey and acquiring data in virtual worlds. See it here. We decided to take our own suggestion and ask Greg Verdino, CEO of crayon, what he thought about this new journey for Idea City.
“Strange indeed.
Virtual ethnography isn’t a terrible idea – there are other companies walking down the same path and I think it’s a path worth walking — but I’m not clear on what any of this has to do with GSD&M. I know they’ve done some work in Second Life but they hardly seem to be at the epicenter of the virtual worlds movement. In theory, I’d think Metaversatility could have done this on their own – no?
Plus, I wonder if ‘lack of data’ isn’t a red herring. I’ve never had a client tell me that they won’t experiment with virtual worlds due to lack of data; lots of them shy away due to lack of scale, especially with worlds like Second Life and There.com. The real virtual world action seems to have shifted to youth-oriented worlds like Webkinz and Club Penguin and into worlds that seem to be more marketer-friendly like virtualMTV or inherently brand-focused like Virtual Magic Kingdom.”
Full disclosure: GSD&M was a crayon client – but hasn’t been for a while now.
March 28, 2008 at 4:56 pm
I’m only slightly disappointed that you didn’t also file this one under “sexiest men in advertising” but my fragile ego shall recover.
Oh – and the survey bots are INTERRUPTIVE? Boo.
March 28, 2008 at 5:16 pm
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March 28, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Going to post a response, figured I’d let you all look it over first
The bots are actually pretty docile, they aren’t pushers, and will only reply to instant messages sent directly to them.
The key thing to keep in mind here isn’t that they’re doing market research, plenty of people are doing market research and it’s an option there for those who /want it/ not anyone and everyone like it or not, but that they’re doing so in a way that is sensitive to the community.
Many other market research systems in virtual worlds just dump people out to a web survey, are very impersonal and don’t include the community at all. Our system started off with community input on the look and feel of the bots, allowing the community to design the avatars used for the project. Our system also keeps the experience in world, coming as close to a personal experience as possible without being bothersome or “spammy”. In some cases, client allowing, the data will be given back to the community to practice what we preach. You can see an example of this with some market research we did (not using the IdeaBots) for Orange at http://www.orange-island.com/?page_id=129
Also, another key thing here is that it’s not just focused on Second Life. Metaversatility has always seen the value of virtual worlds without being stuck on a single platform. We’re happy to have GSD&M join us in this effort, understanding the value in the technology rather than the specific platform. It is, after all, about connecting with people. As you rightly point out, those people aren’t all in Second Life and There, but extend out into other branded spaces.
I would say that kids worlds are the “ooh, shiny!” of virtual worlds, but I don’t think they define a trend of where the “virtual worlds action” has gone. I think there is still a strong commitment to 3d worlds and the technology continues to grow, making standalone worlds (like you saw with MTV) much more reasonable and affordable. In fact, Metaversatility is building a number of these and believes that we’ll see the 3d internet continue to evolve to fit a more mainstream audience. It is important at this stage to understand how people are using virtual worlds and what needs to change in order to bring these worlds to a broader audience. This is something we’re committed to, this is something our clients our committed to, and I think it’s something of vast importance for anyone helping to build virtual world spaces. GSD&M understands the importance of this, and has partnered with us to help run these studies and apply the findings to any work they will do for their clients.