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

Comments

[Chinese]

To enjoy your time on Hipihi, you can learn some basic chinese here:
http://www.chinese-tools.com

[Xinhua]

Hi Mr. Jacobsson, your ideas are really fasciating. I will pass that to HiPiHi's founders to see how they would take it.

Kaiser's interpretation was incorrect - the site is not skewed towards female users. It just happened that the product team used the avatars of a couple of female colleagues to produce the demo video.

If you want me to connect to the founders of HiPiHi, I would love to do that. You can reach me at [email protected]

[Net]

Hey thanks for the tool tip. And Xinhua, glad that you liked my ideas. I will be in Beijing next week so I would be happy to meet up with them then. I'll send you a mail separately.

[William]

I also learn Chinese on http://www.hellomandarin.com now in Beijing. I use Voice Connecting China often to practice Chinese with volunteers http://www.hellomandarin.com/connectingchina

[SuezanneC Baskerville in SL, SuezanneCB in Hipihi]

You closed with "so why should a virtual China world be a success?". I assume you meant "why shouldn't".

Hipihi is in limited public beta now, and there is an English guide to the Chinese interface.

The English language registration page is at http://www.hipihi.com/application/application_en.jsp .

For more info, such as how to get the language settings right to run Hipihi on English Windows XP, see my blog at http://suezannecbaskerville.wordpress.com and the Hipihi discussion group at http://groups.google.com/group/hipihi-group . The English interface guide is at the latter url.