Virtual World Standards and Marketing

PC World editor China Martens asks Do Virtual Worlds Need Standards? in the face of growing sort-of popularity of 3D Worlds for internet users to play and interact in. These aren’t standards like always put the toilet seat down, more like marketing standards to decide how best to understand the user’s behavior and sell them stuff. I would venture to say this conference being held is trying to set the ground work for a marketing initiative that can be applied accross different 3D worlds so each 3D service has essentially a consistent Media Kit PDF file to email to marketing companies and corporate branding services. Or, set the ground-work for a 3D advertising megabranding marketing service company. Someone will get smart and bank on that soon.

In other words…something simple so XYZ VP of Marketing can trust that his XYZ brand will consistently be displayed across various new virtual billboards.

Amidst the constant marketing buzz over worlds like 2nd Life, this entertains me (Get a First Life) ...

My point is, if there is one. After reading the Virtual World Standards article, this was my comment.

By the time they figure out all these silly, yet still interesting, marketing details, the technology that drives it will be out of date. Besides anytime a novel idea is taken over by corporate decision making like this, it only bleaches the concept into something stale.

Really, nothing holds broad interest on the internet for very long. Especially something as gimmicky as 2nd Life. People will have moved on to something more entertaining, sociable, PRETTIER, and less marketing driven. Already 2nd Life is looking archaic. It brings to mind images of the Dire Strait’s video “Money for Nothing” with the blocky 3D animation that was so cutting edge for its time. The geeks may still be enthralled because they can create scripts and code to interact with the environment. But normal folks are starting to yawn already.

And, with any luck this blog entry will reach the top of Google’s results because THIS is might be what Virtual World Standards and Marketing is all about.

Posted by Tom Purcell - Jun 13.
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