A creation of The Electric Sheep Company, WebFlock is an application for private-labeled, Web-based virtual experiences. It provides a visually immersive environment for social interaction, media consumption and game play, including 3D avatars, chat, games, and videos from YouTube.

Custom environments within WebFlock will offer brands “better ways to provide meaningful and fun brand experiences that improve both the quantity and quality of engagement points. Brands can create their own ‘experiences’ but be warned, they’re pricey.

Sources:
More Browser-Based Virtual Worlds: The Electric Sheep Company Releases WebFlock, Washington Post, 7/17/08
The Electric Sheep Company Website

Google has launched a beta of “Lively”, a “3D virtual world” that enables users to create customized avatars and interact with other users in real-time within the web-based environment. The site promises to help you “take expression to the next dimension.”

Some observers, such as the Gaming Insider, have pointed out that there’s not a whole lot to do in Lively once you get your rooms set up which is true. That’s where there’s a huge opportunity for marketers to provide branded interactive experiences that users can enjoy individually and with friends.  In a sign of things to come, National Geographic is promoting its "LA Hard Hats" series, with 3D construction site for visitors to navigate and watch video promos of the show.

Virtual worlds offer opportunities for brands and users to co-create rich more ‘realistic’ experiences. Lively takes us another step in that direction.

Virtual, 3D interactive environments that may provide marketing and branding opportunities

Some parents are finding out that kid-friendly websites, those that cater to children and teens by monitoring bad behavior and keeping out adult predators, are not as kid-friendly as they thought. The anonymity of online combined with the unlikelihood of getting caught, and the minor repercussions if they do, have spurred some kids to steal from, scam and cheat other kids.

“In virtual worlds, child avatars need protecting -- from each other”, LA Times, July 2, 2008

If the Internet is about facilitating connections, then anything that enriches those connections by making them more personal and multi-dimensional will be attractive to users.

That’s why I find the emergence of companies like ExitReality exciting. According to their website they are “a new social media platform that aims to improve your online experience with an enhanced 3D, multi-user, immersive messaging environment..”

You can create virtual photo galleries for you and your guests to walk through and discuss, post video clips that “transform into 3D flat-screen TVs that you can enjoy watching with your friends,” and “see and interact” with your friends while chatting with them online.” How cool is that? 

I'm curious to see if it can be used to facilitate online meetings and conference calls - could be a great option if the software isn't time consuming to learn to use.

ExitReality, via Techcrunch

Dizzywood is story-driven virtual world for kids.

Gaia Online is a virtual social network and community role-playing site whose avatars are styled after anime cartoon characters. The site offers anime, manga, and video game discussions as well as a links database and a fan-art gallery.

The site is targeted to 13- to 22-year-olds.

Related: Time Warner Ga-Ga Over Gaia 1-10-08

Stardoll is a virtual community for girls aged 9-17 focused on celebrities, fashion and friends. The site claims 6 million unique visitors per month.

Stardoll.com

Reverse product placement refers to creating and ‘launching’ a fictional brand in media such as movies, television shows, books, virtual worlds and games.

Once the brand gains critical mass and awareness, it could be translated to a commercial product and launched into the ‘real’ world.

While reverse product placement has occurred in movies, television shows and books, former MIT academic and current Xbox Live Arcade product planner David Edery suggests that reverse product placement in virtual worlds and games can save marketers “tens or hundreds of millions of dollars fighting mature competitors for mindshare and shelf space in the physical world” by launching “a new offering in an uncluttered fictional one" Source: Gamasutra.com

He notes that it happens with other media, such as "Every Flavor Beans," from Harry Potter books and movies, later converted into a real-world product by Cap Candy, a division of Hasbro.

“The Simpsons Movie” was promoted by selling real products under imaginary brand names like Buzz Cola, Frosted Krusty-O’s and so on, and certain 7-Eleven locations were temporarily re-branded as outposts of the show’s Kwik-E-Mart chain.

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