Net

The Psychology of Immersion - Virtual Reality Is Reality

A recent article in Wall Street Journal talks about virtual relationships and their affect on real relationships. According to a recent study cited we can learn the following about the cognitive processes in players brains:

• On a neurological level, players may not distinguish between virtual and real-life relationships
• People socializing in virtual worlds remain sensitive to subtle cues like eye contact - in one study, participants moved their avatars back if another character stood too close, even though the space violation was just virtual
• Our brains are not specialized for 21st-century media - There is not switch that says "Process this different because it is on the screen".

More discussion at the MIT Advertising Lab and Neuromarketing

Frets On Fire - Open Source Guitar Hero

This is just awesome! Frets on Fire is a game about musical skill and fast fingers. The aim of the game is to play guitar with the keyboard as accurately as possible. It's an open-source project with hundreds of songs composed by the community and supports multi platform. In short it is open source guitar hero! How cool is that!

Features: 

• Unique inverted keyboard gameplay style
• Song editor  form making your own tunes
• Compete iwth others on the World Charts
• Supports importing Guitar Hero I-II songs
• Multiplatform
• Open source

Technorati Tags: fretsonfire, games, opensource, guitar hero, music

Frenzoo- Second Life in Hong Kong

I told you and showed you about HiPiHi - China's Second Life. Hold the fort! Here comes Frenzoo - Second Life for teenage girls in Hong Kong..According to Brand Republic "Frenzoo, an Asia-centric 3D virtual world aimed at teenage girls, will soon come out of stealth mode to connect consumers in a Second Life-like experience.".Via Angus.

Technorati Tags: Frenzoo, HiPiHi, Virtual Worlds, Hong Kong, Second Life, SL

Advertising On Loading Screens - New Oppertunity

Have you ever wondered why there are is no advertising on loading screens of Flash-heavy sites? So does Adverlab , and they really raised a good point. I actually tend to skip Flash-based sites if they don't load at once, and I dont think I am alone. Taking advantage of the loading time is actually a very good idea for either advertising or information snippets.

Virtual Worlds, Games and Avatars

Susan participated in an Avatar panel at SXSW in Austin and shared some of her notes with us on Avartars, Virtual worlds and Gaming. She also points to a very interesting academic study on Game Studies (download).

Main points:

1. Games need more laughter in the slaughter
2. Players want to help other players do well in the game even when the game is competitive
3. Games need non-white characters who are not gangsters or criminals.
4. Gamers are less social than you think they are, less social than even THEY think they are
5. How do players learn to play? If it looks like a sniper, it should act like a sniper
6. Gestural interfaces that make sense, make sense for specific reasons.
7. You can quantify which factors matter most in immersive game design.
8. There are multiple ways to approach realism
9. There is such a thing as ethical videogame design
10. Death matters..

A Visit to HiPiHi - Chinas Second Life

After a very good board meeting with Maxthon, I paid a visit to HiPiHi - Chinas answer to Second Life. This came about after I had written a short post on them earlier and got an invitation to swing by their office. Kaiser Kuo (Ogilvy) and Xinhua Liu (early investor in HipiHi & Technology Director at Burson-Marsteller).. also joined me.

Armed with camcorders, cameras and curious minds, we invaded HiPiHi physically and virtually. I must say that I was really impressed. I always felt like Second Life was too geeky and to inaccessible, and therefore had only signed in a couple of times and flied around out of boredom.

Not so at HiPiHi. They have been smart enough to realize that most of us deadly are not geeks and need a more user-friendly user-interface to motivate us enough to play around in this virtual world. Although they are just in private alpha, they have come along way with a team of just 60. The user is offered a bunch of pre-fabricated avatars, buildings, hills, rocks, objects and event water to furnish their own worlds. Should they feel for it later, the user can always customize or create any object from scratch as they see fit.

It is clear that HiPiHi has given much thought into making the virtual world more user-friendly. HiPiHi's CEO Hui Xu (beside me on the picture above) explained to us that the service will be launched in four stages based on traditional Chinese creational mythology (read Kaisers summary for an expansion on this).

Revenues will come from virtual property sales and advertising. And I can definitely see how advertisers will love this. Especially since HiPiHi is targeting the young and cool rather than a bunch of geeks in pajamas or "social media stars".

I shot a couple of short clips of a walk-through in HipiHi-land with a simple digital camera. Comments are both in Chinese & English. More clips here.

I have a very good feeling about HiPiHi and am waiting eagerly for the public launch.

(Image above: Sunset in HiPiHi-land).

Off to China & Piper Jaffray Conference

I'm off to China on Sunday for the Fourth Annual Piper Jaffray China Growth Conference, March 6-8 in Beijng. I will be a panelist on "Emerging Internet Companies" talking about Maxthon. Piper Jaffray is known for organizing top events (invitation only) and judging from past events - this one looks very promising indeed with a great line up.

It will be a great opportunity for networking and potential Maxthon deals. Top executives from Chinas major Internet , Wireless, Game and Technology companies will be there. I am in particular interested in the Chinese focus group conversation, since I many times wonder what makes Chinese Internet users tick'.

Following the conference I am meeting with Maxthon Fan & supporter No 1: Kaiser Kuo, rockstar & Group Director at Ogilvy Interactive in China, followed by a Maxthon boardmeeting. It will be great to meet Bill Tai (CRV), David Zhang, Yuzhu (WI Harper), Jeff and Carol (Maxthon) again - just hope it will not be as cold as the last time..

If you want to meet up in Beijing please let me know, schedule is quite tight - but long is the night..;)

Who knows, maybe I even will have time to shoot some cool Beijing street scenes?

Technorati Tags: Beijing, China, Maxthon, Ogilvy

The Science of Venture Capital

Paul Kedrosky, made me aware of a very good overview on VC and Innovation by Gilman Louie. Since I am lately asked by many fellow entrepreneurs about what one should look for in a VC, slide 11 is a good summary:

Attributes of Great VCs

• Bets on people not trends
• Driven by the big idea
• Looking for the homerun
• Not afraid of failure
• Knows how to thread the needle to get success
• Understand how to develop and manage a portfolio of risk
• Serves as a fantastic coach
• Does his/her best work outside the board room
• Not waiting for validation from other VCs

I would definitely agree on: people not trends, not afraid of failure, fantastic coach, and does his/her best work outside the boardroom.

Technorati Tags: Entrepreneurism, Gilman Louie, Innovation, Paul Kedrosky, VC, Venture Capital

HipiHi - The Chinese Second Life

My good friend Kaiser Kuo, made me aware of a Chinese Second Life wanna be called HiPiHi. It is still in private beta, but there is a demo video on the site that you can download. What I find interesting here is that as Kaiser points out, there is a female element here which seems to indicate that the site is going after female gamers: female narrator and avatar, emphasis on the outfits, the landscaping and the houses.

I agree with Kaiser that it would be interesting to see if they will give HiPiHi a more Chinese touch. I personally would find it much more compelling wandering around in a Chinese environment with a Chinese architecture, marble lions guarding my house entrance etc. And here is my personal advice: Why not offering foreigners like me wandering around in HiPiHi to learn Chinese? I could not think of any better way to learn and practice a new language in a virtual world. Just imagine, taking a taxi from the airport, telling the driver where you want to go., going shopping at the market, or join a Chi Gong class? The reverse could also be a great way for Chinese locals to learn English. I would definately be the first to sign up for such an opportunity.

Finally, Kaiser asks if we are going to see advertisers lining up, companies building themselves a presence there just like in SL? I definatley think that can become very big. Just considering the Olympics 2--8 around the corner. Creating a virtual olympic inside HiPHi could be great fun, enabling you to run with the stars. Then, arrange competitions live that could be broadcasted live as well with prices... The site should obviously implement a full mobile payment mechanism so you can by avatars, apparel and real-estate on the fly. Oh, and HiPiHi should definately provide a mobile version as well.

China is such a huge country with so many opportunities, so why should a virtual China world be a success?

Technorati Tags: Avatars, China, Second Life, Virtual Worlds

Bunchball & Toyota Scion xB

The guys at Bunchball have just launched this really cool project with Toyota. Its a fully immersive world around Toyotas Scion xB. Bunchball customized all their games and integrated them into a flash world.
I must say this is really cool and the idea of integrating their games into a immersive world rocks! It's quite addictive too which is probably very good for brand association and should work well for Toyota.

I met Rajat Paharia Bunchball's CEO and founder and was very impressed of how fast he managed to launch Bunchball and the quality of the games. When we met a year ago, the business model wasn't very clear, but with customized games like this, it seems that Bunchball is on the right track.

Check out the game here!

Technorati Tags: Branded games, Bunchball, Games, Gamevertising, puppy, Rajat Paharia, Toyota

Navigation based blogging, Second life & mobile

What does navigation-based blogging, Secondlife-like gaming and mobile phones in common? Well, this is the platform run by Japan based mobile marketing firm Naviblog now looking to enter the Chinese mobile space.

China Business Cast has an interesting interview with Naviblog CEO Mandali Khalesi on saying that mobile marketing will drive the adoption of the mobile Web in China.

Exclusive Launch : The Passenger by Nokia

Since I have been working together with the London-based interactive agency Hyper Happen on a number of projects, and been loosely involved as an advisor on this one, I've got an exclusive preview of Nokia's new ground-breaking piece of marketing.

In the passenger, Nokia shows a new way for users to control video on the web. To support its push to be part of the growing in-car communications market, Nokia has released a super cool site which has been developed to take interactive video to the next level.

The story:

A mysterious woman is in need of your services. She needs to reach three addresses in Paris in a short amount of time.  It is going to take all your driving talents to get her to her destinations.

‘The Passenger’ experience sets the viewer in the murky ‘film noir’ world of night time Paris. The video is superb, fun and coupled with great interaction.

 
Along the way, you have to utilise the functions of the Nokia Multimedia Car Kit CK-20W in order to reach the destination and get the pay-off of the final scene. And if you drive the wrong way, you'll find yourself insulted by the the rude Femme Fatal in your back seat. Who reminds me of Meryl Streep in the Devil wears Prada..

 
Background:

The driving footage was shot with a car-mounted camera in all the streets of the iIle de St. Louis over 3 nights in November 2006, with additional scenes filmed at the Tour Eiffel, the Arc de Triomphe and the Heliport de Paris.

Daniel Goodall, Digital Marketing Manager for Enhancement Products at Nokia says that “The Passenger’ mixes video and gameplay in a way that we don’t think has happened before. All the driving is real video, real streets and fully controlled by the user”. I find it really a creative way of promoting a mobile GPS device since it puts you in the right context immediately and is fun at the same time.

‘The Passenger’ concept has been developed in conjunction with digital strategy agency Hyper Happen, working with Fuel Industries & Karbon Arc on the game engine build and video production.This is actually the phone I have been waiting for since I all the time find myself renting a Garmin GPS every time I travel to California. With this kit, it's just plug and play :)

Nokia - you know how to reach me...;)

Technorati Tags: Advertising, CK-20W, Fuel Industries, GPS, Hyper Happen, Karbon Arc, Nokia, Paris, Mobile , The Passenger

PeaceMaker - Become A Peace Maker

I really believe that games are excellent for learning and practicing new tasks, but to making peace in the Middle East? Impact Games have just released PeaceMaker, a video game to promote peace. PeaceMaker is a role-playing game were the goal of the player is to establish a stable resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and win the Nobel Prize before his/her term in office ends.

I find this a very creative approach to problem solving. While the game starts as a zero-sum game, the key to success is to gain momentum and create a win-win scenario. Now that is great - win by create a win-win scenario! Although I don't believe the game will have any impact what so ever on our daily affairs here in Israel, I support anything that can make even one person change his or her mind.

What I especially like is that the game encourages players to play on both sides of the conflict, thus being forced to see and experience the other side. I can imagine how this could be applied in other areas as well such as business, intercultural communications, politics, relationships and psychology in general.

Or what about role-play games for :

• Parents & Children
• Politicians & Voters
• Spouses
• Prosecutors & Lawyers
• Recruiters & Employees
• Agreements negotiations
• Police & hostage takers

Technorati Tags: Games, PeaceMaker, Israel, Peace, Impactgames

Skyrider - Riding the P2P Networks

Welcome out of stealth mode Skyrider! I met with Ed Kozel Skyrider's President & CEO (currently serves on the boards of Yahoo, Reuters and Applied Networks) and Or Cohen, Skyrider's Co-founder last week in Palo Alto and am really impressed by their technology and the business model.

Skyrider is a developer of a new peer-to-peer (P2P) networking platform who's technology will allow the P2P environment and the web to coexist, creating three fundamental opportunities, including keyword-based P2P search; unrestricted and more dynamic access to content; and an explosion of new applications based on P2P architectures.

The company’s unique platform enables businesses to promote commercialization of P2P through cost-effective content distribution and targeted marketing, and enables consumers to get the greatest opportunity to be creative and connect through P2P networks. Skyrider is located in Mountain View with R&D in Kfar Saba in Israel.

Guess what, Skyrider is  just like Maxthon funded by Charles River Ventures (George Zachary is on their board) and Sequoia Capital - a great company with a very promising future.

Breakfast with Chinese Entrepreneurs

Yesterday I was speaking at the Chinese Entrepreneurs in Beijing for a group of 30 entrepreneurs (mostly non-Chinese) about the Maxthon story. It was really a very nice gathering of both Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs active in China. It seems that everybody is so fascinated by the Maxthon success story and I really enjoyed sharing it with them.  At the breakfast I finally got to meet some longtime virtual friends, like Richard Robinson in person as well as chat with Manec & David from newly launched Recruit.net, a tri-lingual (English, Chinese and Japanese) job site focused on jobs in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, Singapore and India. I also met with George Kellerman (frmr. Yahoo executive responsible for Japan) now CEO and founder of ValueLogix, relocating to China and Jason Ma, CEO of JiSharp.  Jim James and Ben Han, from EastWest Public relations, Ted Teo, from the Citigroup, Michael Zhu from 3Com people from Norway and Sweden as well and man others interesting people. What a mixture!

A great thanks to Ori Elraviv for inviting me.

Now I’m off to a Maxthon board meeting followed by a party thrown by the guys at WangYou.  

 

Bunchball

Today I met with Rajat Paharia, the founder of Bunchball. Bunchball is really cool Flash-based leisure game site enabling users to cut and paste games like Pac Man, Astroids etc directly to their blogs and websites. Users can the play with each other as well directly through the blogs. The Bunchball games also have a very nice and simple Chat function as well enabling gamers to chat with each other. 

I see great potential for this type of "social-gaming" applications from branded games and dating services to building communities within blogs and websites. Bunchball also have some very cool photo slideshows, radiostations and shout boxes - all based on the same concept, and very simple to add to blogs.

VISA + In-Game Advertising

Visa USA has entered into the world of video-game advertising with a PC game based on the CBS hit "CSI" that hits stores today. Although the Visa brand is also incorporated into signage and other background elements of the game, the really smart thing is the way Visa actually became a central part of the plot: In one of the five criminal cases that make up the game, "CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder," Visa's fraud-monitoring capabilities take center stage when a suspicious charge on a victim's credit card triggers an investigation by the forensic-sciences team.

I think that is really a smart way of incorporating a brand into the story. The idea came from game publisher Ubisoft who worked together with Visas media buying agecny OMD to build the script. Another interesting aspect of it is what Jon Raj, VP-advertising and emerging media platforms, Visa USA said, that Visa is actively seeking out the emerging media where consumers are spending an increasing amount of time. "Our consumers are shifting their habits," he said. "Just throwing out a TV or radio spot doesn't work anymore. We need to look at new ways," citing platforms such as cellphones, interactive TV, digital-video recorders and in-game integrations.

Hey big media guys, did you hear "TV or radio spots dosen't work anymore"...It is good to see that such a "serious" brand like Visa, dares to think outside the box and look for smarter advertising solutions.

Tags: Visa Tags: In-Game Advertising Tags: Games Tags: Advertising Tags: Ads Tags: CBS Tags: CSI Tags: OMD Tags: Ubisoft Tags: TV Tags: Emerging Media Tags: Media

 

 

China: Strength in Advertising Suggests A Stable Year Ahead

According to a fresh Industry Note from Piper Jaffray, strength in advertising suggest a robus year ahead in China. Although both online as well as other channels of advertsing appears to be strong, online seems to be gainging share from traditional media such as print. Piper Jaffray, also reports that although Beijing Olympics is still two years away, the buzz is already taking place, and this might serve as a catalyst for increased advertiser spending. The most important factor will be increased consumer spending on FMCG (fast moving consumer goods). Search will be another strong beneficiary of the growth as more online content and transaction based companies turn to search. (guess if Maxthon will benefit from this....). I attached some key China Statistics from 2005, that might be of interest.

Tags: China Tags: Advertising Tags: Piper Jaffray Tags: Online Tags: Search Tags: Maxthon Tags: Beijing Olympics

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Consumer Generated Ads

I love this! Like Adrant's rightfully points out, this is true brand love! It's all advertising , leads us to a couple of links featuring people performing their love for Nintendo, all without logo, brand name of irritating announcer. Or what do you say about this:

• Chourus singing for Nintendo (with some great moves)
• Group acting out a Nintendo game
• A very talented guy playing Super Mario on a 11-string bass!

Can you get a better brand recognition than this? I really believe this is one of the futures in branding, people naturally engaging and acting out their love for the brand. Furthermore, it's all natural and comes from the heart. A lot of lessons embedded here for advertisers and their agencies...

Tags: Advertising Tags: Nintendo Tags: Super Mario Tags: 11-string bass Tags: Branding Tags: Marketing Tags: PR Tags: Media Tags: Music

Would You Like A Download With Your Fries?

Here's an interesting story from CNET: If Walt Disney has its way, McDonald's Happy Meal toys could be replaced with portable media players that hold Disney movies, music, games or photos, according to a pending patent application. Users could add files to the devices by earning points with food purchases. The plan could work something like this: A customer enters a restaurant and buys a meal, receiving the portable media player and an electronic code that authorizes a partial download of a movie, video or other media file, which can be downloaded while in the restaurant, according to a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office application filed by Disney. Then, with each subsequent return, the customer earns more downloadable data, eventually getting an entire movie or game. Smart way for Disney to reach out to the kids. Now the kids will want to go to McDonalds even when they are not hungry...

Technorati Tags: Disney, McDonalds, Advertising, Media, Movie