Layered virtual world the next big thing?

Thanks Personalised Media for this on intersting SN site: Rocket on

RocketOn & On & On - Twitter 2.0?

Posted by Gary Hayes in Advertising, Brands, Business, Comedy, Companies, Distribution, Events, Games, Innovation, Interactive TV, Layered Virtual Worlds, Marketing, Mixed Reality, Press Release, Social Media, Social Software, Transformation, Virtual Worlds, Web 3.0 on 02 3rd, 2009 | no responses

If RocketOn grows at its current rate it may be the follow-up to Twitter as a real time, web 3.0, animated avatar, 2D web integrated social application.

It will of course need much more sophisticated friend and group management and the following/followers paradigm would work wonders here. But no doubt the company have lots on the boil along these lines?

I have written for the past year or so about those half-way house virtual worlds, avatars that exist as a layer above the traditional, flat 2D web in posts here and here.

Leader of the pack of these ‘parallel’ virtual worlds (I still prefer layered btw!) by some way is San Francisco based RocketOn which now has 114 000 unique active users of the service that primarily operates as a browser plug-in. CEO Steve Hoffman has told me of some key developments that will lift the service firmly out of beta. First and foremost are six major new partners that will expose RocketOn to more than 2 million potential users.

RocketOn Launches Beta with Comedy.com, Hypster, Online Flash Games, Hotspot, faceDub and Boosh Magazine. Parallel Virtual World Platform Goes Live - “Imagine what it would be like if you could join a virtual world on your favorite site and interact with everyone on that site,” says Steven Hoffman, CEO of RocketOn. “And what if you could also take your same avatar to any other website and meet people there?” The result is a parallel virtual world that spans the entire Internet, where users rocket through cyberspace with their avatars and interact with virtual environments on any site they choose.

Having used RocketOn for some time on and off it reminds me of the web equivalent of the flash-mob - adhoc social gathering where you share brief experiences with others, ‘above’ web content, sometimes very compelling. It is fascinating too that there is a strong female demographic (67% in the US) suggesting parallel worlds being seen as (and used) as social vs ‘gamey’ space. More interesting in the stats is the high proportion of 12-34 year olds - often the ages where usage of social virtual worlds tends to dip. So RocketOn is definitely feeding on the traditional Facebook and MySpace network.

So the real time social element is best suited to comedy music, video and casual games where a live, real time’ness is key. Being able to call your friends together for activity and discussion around primary content in this way perhaps turns the back-channel (as in textual chatter) into the front-channel (where physicality comes into play). There is something about synchronous fun (and learning, there is a killer app hidden here for remote learning folks) over full screen video too - so RocketOn over full screen web video starts to remind me where IPTV was meant to be heading back in 2004! Participatory TV via the web back door anyone?

Here is the official press release that is going out today Feb 3rd

Parallel Virtual World Goes Live

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — February 2009 — RocketOn, Inc., a venture-funded startup located in South San Francisco, is rolling out its virtual world platform by embedding virtual worlds on partner sites. RocketOn’s partners range from comedy, music and game sites to community networking sites and college magazines.

“Our goal”, says Bryan Suchenski, partner manager, “is to build social interaction and community on our partners’ websites, thereby weaving a virtual environment into the very fabric of the Web.”

RocketOn has built a platform for easily embedding virtual worlds into partner sites, allowing their users to interact in real-time with one another. Every partner site is part of the overall community, and with the click of a button, users can take their avatars anywhere they like on the site.

“Imagine what it would be like if you could join a virtual world on your favorite site and interact with everyone on that site,” says Steven Hoffman, CEO of RocketOn. “And what if you could also take your same avatar to any other website and meet people there?”

The result is a parallel virtual world that spans the entire Internet, where users rocket through cyberspace with their avatars and interact with virtual environments on any site they choose.

“What caught our attention about RocketOn is the potential for a new type of real-time social interaction on our site,” says Cahit Onur, CEO of Online Flash Games. “We felt this would help build customer loyalty and extend our brand into the virtual world space. We’re happy to be working with RocketOn and are open minded about new projects and ideas.”

RocketOn is announcing six partners now, with more to come in the near future.

ROCKETON’S PARTNERS INCLUDE:

Comedy.com is one of the Web’s leading comedy sites. It combines the best collaborative filtering tools along with exclusive, original-themed content, best-of-the-best lists, and timely topical material. www.comedy.com
Hypster is a music discovery site, offering Facebook, MySpace and Friendster users a personalized music player and playlists. www.hypster.com
Online Flash Games is a popular Flash games community. www.onlineflashgames.org
HotSpot is a community networking site to meet new friends, where users can store or share photos, create blogs, and share interests. www.98spot.com
faceDub develops fun and easy software that allows users to insert their faces into any scenario.
Boosh Magazine is the newest name in college entertainment. Boosh puts a unique twist on the whole ‘college magazine’ market and comes direct from a network of student columnists across the country. www.booshmagazine.com

ABOUT ROCKETON:

RocketOn is a venture-funded startup that is pioneering parallel virtual worlds. Its management team has worked at top game publishers, including Sega Sammy (SGAMY) and Electronic Arts (ERTS).

If you’d like more information, please contact:

• Contact: Bryan Suchenski
• FOR RELEASE FEB. 3, 2009
• Email: press@rocketon.com
• Website: www.rocketon.com

Voice Of The Consumer Not Leveraged

Thanks - Media post

According to a new study by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, with Satmetrix, 58% of the 480 executives surveyed said their companies do not compensate any employees or executives based on customer loyalty, satisfaction improvements or analytics. 38% said their companies have no programs in place to track or propagate positive word of mouth among customers, and only 29% said their companies rate highly in their ability to handle and resolve customer problems or complaints.

Senior marketers admit their companies are failing to take decisive, company-wide action to integrate customer voice and experience into key business and marketing processes, says the report. The study underscores critical deficiencies in the way companies measure, optimize and leverage customer experience to drive loyalty, improve brand value and increase business performance and growth, including:

Insufficient availability and aggregation of real-time customer experience data across touch points that should be shared across the organization
Poor use of customer interactions to collect insights and intelligence or maximize up-sell and advocacy opportunities
Lack of Internet processes and systems to track online word of mouth and drive customer advocacy
Intermittent or deficient monitoring of customer experience that fails to provide true and timely insights into problems and opportunities
Too few compensation programs tied to customer experience, loyalty and satisfaction gains


CMO Council executive director, Donovan Neale-May, says "Customer experience is one of the most critical determinants of brand strength and business growth... we are missing a major opportunity to turn customer pain into competitive gain... through better use of web and contact center technologies and processes."

Survey data shows that most companies are not taking advantage of opportunities to drive company-wide performance improvement and business growth:

Only 38% of companies gather customer insight from customer engagement situations
Just 32% look for ways to turn problems into new sales opportunities
Only 15% introduce new products or services to further monetize the relationship
Merely 17% use the opportunity to identify and cultivate potential customer champions and advocates


Although 34% of respondents said their companies have made no changes to the way they track and analyze customer experience in recent years:

45% of respondents say their companies have taken steps to better integrate and analyze customer data
39% said they have increased personalization and intimacy in their customer communications
20% say they have embraced intelligent Internet analytics


18% are capturing real-time information at the "point of pain."

Nearly two-thirds of companies do not have a formal Voice of Customer program in place, and other key findings of the study include:

13% of companies have deployed real-time systems to collect, analyze and distribute customer feedback
74% say they receive customer feedback via e-mail, only 23 percent say they track and measure the volume and nature of these messages.
14.5% track word of mouth on the Internet
12% are using a word-of-mouth marketing platform to drive online customer advocacy


Laura Brooks, Ph.D. and vice president of research for Satmetrix, concludes that "Companies must become more... committed to leveraging... customer experience as a key business metric... but measurement is not an end in itself... companies need to commit... to understanding the key determinants of their score... to improve their customer experience competitiveness."

For more information about the Giving Customer Voice More Volume study, please visit the CMO Council her

Digital Moms

Some summary outakes from Razorfish + cafe moms new report ' Digital Moms'. Get the full deal here: http://digitalmom.razorfish.com/publication/?m=4248&l=1&p=1

Here's Going Social Now's outake:

Digital Mom's Purchasing Behaviour Changes When Kids Turn 12, Razorfish study
By Shiv Singh on February 2, 2009 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Razorfish just released the results of a study done in partnership with Cafe Mom that examined how Mom's live in a digital world. Digital Mom consists of two companion studies. The first study, conducted by Razorfish focuses on how digital moms are adopting social and emerging technologies. The second study, prepared by CafeMom--the largest social networking site for moms-- concentrates on the role that social media play in helping to inform purchase decisions, among other key trends.

1,500 "digital moms"--defined as women with at least one child under 18 in the home who have engaged with two or more emerging technologies and who have researched, sought advice or purchased a product online in the last three months. Results confirm digital moms have moved beyond email and search, and are now active users of Web 2.0 technologies. The majority of moms are using social networks (65%) and text messaging (56%). More than half of these moms are also gamers, with 52% of them playing games online or via a console.

Some of the Key Findings include:

• Moms with children 12 and older are motivated to adopt new technologies to stay in tune with their children. Of those who use social networks and blogs, almost half (47% and 40%, respectively) monitor their children. Likewise, digital moms of children 12 and older, versus moms with children under 12, are more likely to watch online video, (40% vs. 34%), game (57% vs. 51%), read online consumer reviews (38% vs. 30%), and watch or listen to podcasts (13% vs. 9%); This trend can be explained by different leisure time patterns among women with older children and a compelling interest in understanding their teenage children's digital lives.
• The gap is closing between TV and digital channels in terms of creating awareness and affecting product decisions, and social influence channels are increasingly important. Although TV still has the most impact on creating initial awareness for a product (31%), social influence channels such as online consumer reviews, blogs, social network sites and RSS are highly influential in the learning/researching stage (29%).
• Moms' interests are broad; some interests change by life stage, and some do not. More moms show interest in clothing/fashion and food than in parenting information, with the exception of moms with children under six.

Take a look at the report which is freely available here and let me know what you think. Needless to say, Mom's are an important audience for any marketer and their use of digital technologies is changing at a rapid pace. It's no surprise that word of mouth and social influence marketing play a large role in their worlds. The study was led by Terri Walters who's our VP of Emerging Media and a partner in crime for all things Social Influence Marketing too.

And here an overview from Adage:

Technology No Longer Just Kid Stuff. Plugged-In Parents Still Spy on Their Children, but Most Take to Texting, Social Networking to Feed Their Own Interests
by Beth Snyder Bulik. Published: February 02, 2009

YORK, Pa. (AdAge.com) -- Everyone knows a mom who's joined Facebook to check out what her newly off-to-college daughter is posting (Please friend me. Or else. Love, Mom). Or the business-traveler dad who plays games with his tween son to stay connected while away.

But guess what: Parents aren't online just for the kids. Today's digital moms and dads are texting each other and hooking up with their own friends on social networks. Blending parenting and technology isn't easy, however -- 70% of moms say they have it tougher than moms did 20 or 30 years ago. Razorfish surveyed 1,500 online moms to find out what the 27 million digital moms are doing, and CafeMom surveyed 1,700 members to understand the different types of moms and what marketers can do to engage them.

First of all, "moms use [digital media] for themselves primarily and secondarily for their kids," said Terri Walter, VP of emerging media, Razorfish. They're most interested in fashion and food, regardless of age and their use of online video, blogs and DVRs have become mainstream, in the 29% to 36% range, while podcasting, RSS feeds and mobile-web browsing remain niche channels, used by 10% to 21% of respondents.

They learn about new products from TV, friends and magazines, followed by e-mail, websites, podcasts, search engines and mobile-web browsing. Among mobile-internet users, web browsing was almost as important a new-product source as search engines in brokerage, telecommunications, electronics and cars.

Moms are also watching out for their kids online (or, as the kids might put it, spying). Moms with children 12 and older are more likely to watch online videos and play games -- and are more likely to be doing it because they're monitoring their children. Almost half of the social-network users monitor their children's behavior online; and 40% of blog readers mind their children's blogging habits.

CafeMom identified five segments of digital moms; and three additional psychographic profiles below are from a survey and profile analysis of digital parents by Mindset Media. Take a quiz from Ad Age and Cafe Mom to find out what type of linked-in parent you are.

SELF-EXPRESSER

These 30-something, outgoing women make up 40% of CafeMoms and are eager to connect with other moms. A self-expresser typically has a preschooler at home and is thinking about more children. Her favorite online discussion topics are parenting and shopping, although she still consults her "in-person" friends first. She gathers information and responds to online polls and most likely has at least some college education.

UTILITY MOM

The "veteran mom" denoted by this moniker defines 26% of CafeMoms. She has the most children of the five segments and is usually in her mid- to late 30s with tween-age kids. She spends the most time online, although she is relatively introverted, using social networks mostly to stay in touch with people she already knows. She shares the least number of photos with others, but likes to play games and puzzles.

GROUPSTER

This 30-ish mom is likely to have young, school-age children and makes up 12% of those studied. She's an active online participant, often joining and starting groups, blogging, and asking and answering questions. She is the most influenced by brand sponsorships on social networks but often gets more friend requests than she sends out. She uses private messaging more often than the other segments and is less likely to share photos or answer polls.

INFOSEEKER

Another 12% of the CafeMoms fell into this group, the youngest segment. The Infoseeker is typically a woman in her late 20s with a baby and maybe a toddler, and while she is most likely of all the segments to stay at home, she is also the most educated. She is not very social or engaged online, and instead prefers to go straight for the parenting information she needs. The infoseeker likes reading blogs and looking at other moms' pictures and will even willingly upload her own baby's photos.

HYPERCONNECTOR

The smallest segment of the CafeMom sample is also the most digital. The hyperconnector, in her 40s, has finished looking for parenting advice, for the most part, and is more likely to be looking for online friends to chat with and compare shopping notes. She uses social networking to check up on her teen children online. She blogs and uses personal messaging, and is most likely to respond to open-ended questions and comment on others' posts.

RESPONSIBLE RECYCLERS

Thorough, detail-oriented parents are 24% more likely than other parents to allow their children unrestricted internet access, according to Mindset Media's recent study of 10,000 parents with children under the age of 18. Indeed, the people who consider themselves most accountable are also among the most permissive when it comes to the web. "Maybe it's the expectation that their children will be as responsible as they are in the medium," said Mindset Chief Operating Officer Sarah Welch. Highly responsible people also index high for recycling and use of skin-care products.

SOCIALLY LIBERAL ORGANIC EATERS

Parents who rank low as being dogmatic are most likely to allow their children unrestricted digital and media access. In fact, these non-dogmatics, described as "socially liberal types who disdain so-called moral authorities, especially the conservative kind," are 39% more likely to never restrict internet access, 30% more likely to allow unlimited video games and 40% more likely to give no restrictions on music.

PUGNACIOUS TRUCKERS

So who won't let their kids online? Pugnacious parents, or those unafraid to tell others what they think. They value honesty and bluntness and are 30% more likely to cut the web cord. They also overindex as truck and BMW owners, which makes sense as they tend to be "own-the-road" types, Ms. Welch said.

Facial recognition software

Couple interesting posts about how this cool as hell (and rather scary) technology is making its creepy, but probably bloody effective, way into advertising.

First this one about Smile recognition from Switched

Smile-Measuring Device Knows How Happy or Sad You Are
by Evan Shamoon, posted Oct 12th 2007 at 9:17AM

Facial-recognition specialist OMRON has unveiled its latest catalyst in bringing about the impending marketing and focus-group apocalypse. It's a "smile detector" -- essentially a piece of software capable of objectively measuring the smiles of humans (and eventually humanoids, we presume), and attributing to them a percentage rating. Enjoying that television show/site/"adult film"? Pretty soon "They" will know, down to the nearest self-loathing grimace.

The system -- which was shown at the Japanese consumer electronics show CEATEC last week -- analyzes faces using a 3D model-fitting technique; it's able to tell identity people, estimate age and gender, and track pupil or eyelid movements. The company claims the OKAO, as the recognition-system is called, is also an "unbiased piece of software, capable of measuring the facial features of all ethnicities." Even Michael Jackson.

We tried out the age-recognition feature last week in Tokyo and were disappointed to see it get our age wrong by 10 years (that said, we were flattered, because OKAO thought we were a decade younger).

Of course, there are other, somewhat less apocalyptic uses for the technology as well, including identity theft prevention, building-entry management, driver monitoring systems in cars (to make sure you don't fall asleep and what not), access control for age-restricted content, and cameras that ensure everyone in the frame is smiling before the picture is taken.
Say (String) Cheese(TM).
From Gizmag

------------------
And this from PSFK - Ads That Watch Their Audience
February 2, 2009

TruMedia Technologies and Studio IMC have developed technology that enables electronic advertisements to evaluate the age and gender of their audiences and track how long individuals are watching these ads. The technology utilizes small sensors or cameras that are embedded in or around video screens in combination with facial recognition software that manufacturers claim can accurately determine gender 85 to 90 percent of the time. Age is more difficult to predict and for the time being at least, falls into broader categorizations - child, teen, adult, senior - with a higher margin of error.

While the industry is still in its infancy, advertisers are starting to catch on, lured by the ability to measure the effectiveness of their ads in reaching a target demographic. The further applications of this technology allow advertisers a means of creating a tailored ad experience that can seemingly be changed on the fly depending on the person watching. Imagine a cosmetics commercial cutting to the latest brand of power tool as an adult male steps in front of the monitor and our Sci-Fi futures are being realized as we speak.

This worries some privacy advocates who feel this new technology smacks of Big Brother pervasiveness and for good reason, considering that most viewers won’t even be aware that they’re being watched. The makers, however, insist the technology is innocuous and assure that none of the information being gathered is stored for longer than the amount of time necessary to properly assess the audience. And while it remains to be seen how widely this service will be adopted, it’s a good reminder of our relationship to the advertisements that follow us throughout our daily lives. If they’re going to be observing us then perhaps we need to be holding them a little more accountable for what exactly it is they’re trying to sell us.

Couple stat grabs for social networks:

Top Social Networking Sites by Unique Visitors, December 2008 - thanks commscore via Clickz

Property	December 2007 (000)	December 2008 (000)	Change (%)
Total Internet audience	183,619	190,650	4
Social networking audience	120,201	135,715	13
MySpace.com	68,905	75,919	10
Facebook	34,658	54,552	57
Flickr	13,540	20,698	53
Classmates Online	10,002	16,553	66
MyLife.com**	N/A	15,018	N/A
Buzznet	4,973	9,781	97
AOL Community	40	9,208	22,701
Yahoo Buzz	4,864	8,724	79
AIM Profiles	2,587	8,618	233
Webs.com	N/A	8,053	N/A
Digg	6,026	6,844	14
LinkedIn	2,868	6,323	120
imeem	N/A	6,003	N/A
Tagged.com	1,156	5,778	400
Yahoo Groups	6,447	5,620	-13
Webshots	6,625	5,216	-21
DeviantART	4,102	4,905	20
Bebo	4,279	4,867	14
hi5	2,483	4,047	63
Windows Live Spaces	8,912	3,846	-57
Scribd.com	1,613	3,054	89
BlackPlanet.com	1,919	2,871	50
CafeMom.com	1,287	2,796	117
Sodahead.com	166	2,291	1,277
Notes: 1. ComScore audience measurement data report n media usage, visitor demographics, and online buying power for home, work, and university audiences across U.S. and worldwide Internet auciences. 2. Data excludes blogging sites. **MyLife used to be known as Reunion.com
Source: comScore, 2009

Facebook Fans by Brand- January 2009: Thanks ED100
And finally:
Now Even the Mafia's on Facebook

by: Matt Rhodes

We know that Facebook has seen staggering growth in 2008. Reports in January of this year showed that every 20 days, Facebook is adding another 10 million users. We know that it’s not just college kids on Facebook anymore, with 276% growth since October 2007 in members aged 35-54. We even know that people are now having to deal with their parents and even their boss befriending them on Facebook.

But now there are reports that show an even deeper acceptance of Facebook, of it penetrating new areas of society. Last week the New York Times showed how one rather unexpected group seems to be surfacing on Facebook: Cosa Nostra. The Mafia.

In recent weeks it seems that the Italian authorities have begun investigating groups on Facebook that are discussing the Mafia, and in particular Mafia bosses including Salvatore Riina, the ‘boss of bosses’, who was arrested in 1993 after more than two decades on the run. They think that those joining these groups may have more than just a passing interest in the Mafia, may be more than just fans. They think that the membership of these groups may include some Mafia members themselves.

It’s not a surprise that people would use Facebook to start groups about the Mafia and Mafia leaders - we know that social networks are a great place to find people with other interests. I’m sure there are many online communities devoted to the Mafia as we know that niche groups benefit from online communities. What may seem more surprising is that members of the Mafia are willing to identify themselves by joining such groups. We’ve written before about how you need to be careful what you say in Facebook. You also need to be careful what you do.

Social networks can seem like very private spaces - you build networks of friends and share things with them. Most people know that their actions may also seen by the rest of the members of the site, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that. When you and your friends are discussing something in a group you can forget that anybody else can see this. Including the Italian Police.

So I’m not surprised the Mafia are on Facebook, and for me that’s a real sign of mass adoption and acceptance of this social networks as a tool. People are using it for their own particular purposes, to connect with friends or to express their support or solidarity for a cause. One of the problems we are going to have to accept and then deal with as social media tools grow in popularity is that people will use them for things that we didn’t necessarily intend them to be used for in the first place. Facebook was originally a way for college friends to stay in touch. It may now be being used by criminal gangs to, at the very least, express their support or solidarity for a cause.

How we deal with this matters. The change in usage is a powerful form of innovation, really it is co-creation with users of the site finding the ways it can best support them. This will mean that new uses will develop with every new user that joins. Some will gain mass popularity and others will be restricted to just one or two users. You can control what is discussed in groups or on profiles by enforcing the terms and conditions of the site, but with a membership as vast as Facebook this will only get more difficult to do. But there is always another way of looking at a situation.

So the Mafia is on Facebook. Perhaps this is a good thing after all. Rather than tapping phones or reading emails, the Italian Police had a ready-made list of people to watch and conversations to follow. They just need to join the same groups and see who their new friends are.

Some more reading

• Rome Journal: Facebook ‘Fans’ of the Mafia May Be More, Authorities Say (nytimes.com)
• You Have Requested To Add Michael Corleone As A Friend (techdirt.com)
• Little Italian mafia worshippers on Facebook stir anti-movement (thenextweb.com)
• Mafia bosses prove a hit on Facebook (telegraph.co.uk)
• World Briefing | Europe: Mafia Finds Fans on Facebook (nytimes.com)
• Popular Facebook Fan Page Calls for Sainting a Mobster (allfacebook.com)

Original Post: http://blog.freshnetworks.com/2009/02/now-even-the-mafias-on-facebook/