Friday, November 7, 2008

Innovation in Virtual Worlds - Strap Up - New Virtual Economics

Virtual Worlds Creating New Market Dynamics

Just like blogging and the ability to comment on news items online are, in essence, popularizing and decentralizing the news industry, so too are virtual worlds popularizing and decentralizing the gaming, meeting, and 3D graphic design industries, reports In-Stat (http://www.in-stat.com).

Virtual worlds-especially the 3D kinds-are classified under the Web 3.0 category because of their profound ability to integrate multiple types of content, information sources, and feeds into one highly engaging and interactive format, the high-tech market research firm says. Virtual worlds are online, computer-generated simulations of life-like or fantasy environments where users guide their "avatar," or digital representation of their physical selves, to accomplish various goals.

Evidence supports the conclusion that the 'killer application' that is critical to virtual worlds-and, by extension, to Web 3.0-is, in fact, already here and it is none other than social networking.

Recent research has found the following:

*Total registered users of virtual worlds are expected to exceed
1 billion and total revenue is expected to exceed US $3 billion by 2012.

*70% of the more than 300 million registered users of virtual
worlds are younger than 18.

*Virtual world companies earn close to 90% of their revenue from
the sale of virtual items, currency, land, and fees associated with these items.

The Ten Pound Gorilla is Second Life, and my firm has been researching the evolution of the brands in SL for over two years and we will soon be bringing to market an unprecedented research assessment of over 60 leading brands in SL.What is clear from the initial research is - the Good, The Bad, and The Ugly are very evident in SL. The failures of so many great companies in understanding the community dynamics and continual requirement for content refreshing with engaging, and entertaining experiences is disappointing.

The reality of the new world is based on collaboration economics, or the network effect, or now easily dubbed crowd sourcing economics.

Wealth will be created from companies that create community experiences that are deeply embedded into all their business processes. Business engagement practices are now undergoing a steady evolution. With the Gen Virtuals growing up and hard wired to WebKinz, Club Penguin, There.com, etc.....the integrated experiences of working with our avatar personas will simply be universal in time.

Wake Up Call.

Is your company starting to experiment with Virtual Worlds? Do you understand what they are? If not, give us a call, and we welcome help you develop your business models more effectively in this area.

2 comments:

MakeMoneyInStocks.net said...

Hey
sory to write to you like this, but i could not find the contact form. I really like your blog and i was wondering if you would maybe like a link exchange with my website www.sayeconomy.com . My site has many good articles and gets many new visitors each day. I think we would both benefit out of this exchange alot.

Next to link exchange i would like to offer you an option to publish some articles of yours about economy on my blog, send them to me and i will publish them. You can add link to your blog under each article and i will publish it as a source.

Well let me know on info@sayeconomy.com . I would really like a link exchange with your blog (i like it alot).

Thank you in advance for your reply.

Cheers,
Matt

Dr. Cindy Gordon said...

Hi Keramika. Always open to collaborate. I will check out your site and we can go from here.
Kindest Dr. Cindy Gordon.

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