Community Mobilization

Virtual Worlds, Real Laws

One of the major intellectual quandaries in the virtual space arena is what are the roles of real world laws, if any? New York University Law School and Harvard's Berkman Center, with the direction of Professor Beth Noveck, even set up the State of Play conference to address some of the concerns. They included legal questions on Intellectual Property rights, taxation, pornography, and free speech. Now Virtual Worlds Management is conducting a Virtual World Law conference in New York this spring. I am not sure of the attendees or the nature of the presenters, academic or professional, but their conferences have been well attended in the past and their content is consistently very good. The conference will involve the American Bar Association's committee on Virtual Worlds and Multiuser Online Games. Their participation will help in world business owners address legal questions they have in the wake of some of the more public virtual world law suits.

More Crowd Sourcing real estate prices

Part of what impacts home prices are the outside forces such as interest rates, supply, demand, schools, and other business and neighborhood factors. Personal perception is a major factor in the market value of a home or neighborhood, and it is valuable information for any buy looking to get a fair deal, and any seller looking to market their property at a reasonable price. So here is Home Predict, website that is allowing people from all over predict the value of homes and neighborhoods. What is important is that market value is a function of the Wisdom of Crowds. If 90 of 100 people think that a neighborhood's average home is worth $200,000 it is good bet that as a buyer  you should be looking to pay about that much, and as a seller it would be wise to list it as such. In the market boom what we saw collectively was a skewing of the perception of value. We all thought homes were worth more, and therefore the price tags went up. Now as the market cools, and the economy slows we collectively are correcting our perception.  Potential buyer's value perception are the most important information to have, but a community wide poll would probably return similar results. I'd like to see a group of us getting on and helping to set the value of our homes and real estate here in Cincinnati.

Advertising Age is wrong again

In a recent article 'Second Life Still a Waste of Time' Ken Wheaton exposes on how virtual world environments are a waste of time energy and money for advertisers. Ken not only does not get Second Life, Ken does not get 'community'. Ken is used to putting adds on TV and radio, and maybe a banner add or two. Ken can not carry on a conversation with his market - all that traditional marketing knows is that you have to broadcast the message loud ad far and hope that it sticks to something or someone. If you throw enough of it on a wall something is bound to stick.

Jaffe Juice has a great set of ideas on why traditional marketers are afraid of SL and virtual worlds. It is outside of of the traditional marketers frame of reference. This is why brands are not going to marketing firms to carry out their virtual world marketing - they are headed to specialty metaverse development firms.  Seems like clients would not be shrugging their shoulders and leaving virtual worlds if their marketing teams did a better job of helping them understand the environment, set realistic goals, expectations, and developed a conversational approach to consumer engagement. But hey ... marketers like Ken just don't get.

The Long Tail Strikes Back - Becoming a Big Hump?

Chris Anderson has blocked a number of PR firm employee comments on his Long Tail Blog. He has had enough of product pitches and has collected the pitcher's e-mails and blocked them. Rival PR companies are bragging that they were savvy enough no to get blocked and it has turned into a children's game of finger pointing.

Deeper than that what does this say about the power of infinite market place? Has the Tail gotten a taste of recognition and now wants more? As more consumers begin to explore the Tail will our consumption curves switch from a Long Tail to a Big Hump - and isn't that just another name for Wal-Mart? Where we all consume in mediocrity but there is significantly more mediocre to chose from - Superstore anyone? I think that was an initial complaint about the web, that it is a haven for a ton of garbage and finding the jewels is hard. That is why they are jewels.

In A Charitable Competition Like This One, Everyone Is A Winner

My friend Dan Green, author of the Mortgage Reports Blog is in a duel with one of his partners regarding whose blog generates more actualized business. In short it is a 'my blog is better than your blog' competition and the winner is charity. Dan's beneficiary is Hospice of Cincinnati and I hope that anyone who happens to read this will go look at his blog and make an inquiry.

Virtual World Therapy

Duke University is developing therapeutic experiences in virtual world settings. The experiences are designed to address addition in particular but may be used to also treat phobias in minimal exposure settings. When temptation arises in certain situations, the patient rates his or her own craving level. But the magic moment comes when a high craving subsides, which it does, because the patient won't be taking drugs in the virtual world. Thanks to Masively and ABC!

Marc Canter Reveals the Next Moenetzation Strategy

If Marc Canter were not so far away right now I would hug him. He gets the purpose of these massively huge social networking spaces. The real purpose is to create a marketplace for brands to engage thier customers and find ways to interact and project value.

I am slightly skeptical of these systems because I want to see if this is nothing more than hyper targeted advertisement or real genuine customer engagement, the later being so much harder to do than the earlier - which I am so happy to see (oddly). Facebook’s new ad system,  Google's Open Social, and Hivelive are all looking at how to do a better job of targeting adds to those who want / should see them.   

I had an interesting conversation with an advertising executive the other day and he and I really got to foundation of things - Advertising has alwas been a funnel - you throw a big wide scope out there in hopes of getting to the correct one consumer. But the Net has turned that upside down. You cast a very small targeted piece to the right people and they in turn spread it all around for you. I'll be interested to see how intrusive these systems are and if I can tweak my own profile to get certain products.  

GlobalGiving - Tis Almost The Season

GlobalGiving is a site that allows you to participate in individual grassroots community based construction projects in the 3rd world. You too can be a sponsor and make a small impact by buying pieces of a bridge, or a community center, or even  just nails and a hammer. It is a fantastic example of surfing th elong tail of giving as it taps into the basic needs of a commuinty and asks individuals who may care to support in small ways.

Mochila - An Open Syndication market

Mochila has created a content service where content creators can create and post their contet up for news agencies to purchase and license. In shot it serves as an open marketplace for freelance writers, artists and various other content creators. Content ranges from videos, to articles, to photos and sound clips all available for licensing with a few various revenue sharing models that range from flat fee to add revenue sharing.

Bowling Alone No More

I love Putnam's book Bowling Alone, but this video and the program it is promoting is just such a perfect refutation to the theory of societal deterioration. I LOVE this video from Erickson that supports the importance of electronic community, even Wii bowling, to people. If seniors get it, and love it then the concept of online community can not be that far out there.