GoPets + Windows Live Messanger = good?

Microsoft Casual Games announced today that it had integrated Windows Live Messenger with GoPets, a Korean-based virtual world that lets users adopt a pet, customize it to their liking and interact with other pet owners in the virtual world. The partnership will give GoPets, currently in open beta, access to the much larger user base of Windows Live Messenger, but it sounds like Microsoft is interested in exploring how to integrate social networking, 3D capabilities, and virtual worlds into Messenger. “GoPets on Windows Live Messenger takes instant messaging to the next level of 3-D interactivity,” said Chris Early, product unit manager for Microsoft Casual Games. “Teaming up with GoPets enables us to provide the Windows Live Messenger network with this new social networking experience.”

GoPets is a free-to-play game with a velvet rope-style premium option. Users can purchase shells that can then be exchanged for goods to decorate their pets. It is unclear how Windows Live Messenger will integrate all of GoPets functions. Currently the service is offered to the Messenger network in the United States, Australia, Japan and Korea, with expansion planned to more than 30 countries by the end of 2007.

Virtual Worlds News: Windows Live Messenger Integrates GoPets

Note the bolded sentence. That’s where my question lies. The target demographic on this is YOUNG. How are they going to keep content safe & secure for the youngin’s?

Time will tell. My eagle eye will be firmly focused.

technorati tags:youth, socialnetworking, messenger, chat, gopets, communities, virtual

Viacom’s 1 Meeeellion Dollar gift to its Virtual Worlds

MTV/Nickelodeon to Invest $100M in Casual Gaming, Changes for Nicktropolis, AddictingGames, Neopets

NMTV Networks’ Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group today announced that it would invest $100 million over the next two years in casual gaming titles, sites and platforms. Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group President Cyma Zarghami said that “with more than 86% of kids 8 to 14 gaming online, we see great momentum for online casual gaming. This investment will not only benefit our audiences, but also our marketing and distribution partners.” To build into that space the group will be undertaking three major changes for Nicktropolis, AddictingGames, and Neopets.

To capture some of the casual gaming market, Nicktropolis will now include cooperative multiplayer games as a part of the online world in addition to its social functions. Nick.com’s New Game of the Week franchise will also begin focusing on multiplayer experiences. From their grouping in the release, maybe there will be some crossover here.

In the other direction, MTV-owned property AddictingGames will be expanding into the virtual worlds space. AddictingGames recently partnered with Habbo Hotel and has an existing partnership with sister site
Neopets. The new project will be titled AddictingWorlds and will feature a variety of virtual worlds and casual MMOGs.

Lastly, Neopets will be changing to Neostudios. The group will continue to support Neopets, but it will also be focusing on developing new virtual worlds. The first world will launch at the end of 2008, and the company aims to release a new world each year.

Virtual Worlds News: MTV/Nickelodeon to Invest $100M in Casual Gaming, Changes for Nicktropolis, AddictingGames, Neopets

…Well well well. Interesting right?

While everyone else is shifting focus from social network platforms (myspace) to virutal worlds (webkinz & club penguin & second life) back to social network platforms w/applications (facebook)… MTV is sticking to it’s surreal life guns.

Thoughts:

a) “100 miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillion dollars” -Dr. Evil

b) Nicktropolis needs that money & the additions to the site. Again, my complaint is that it is based around “roaming roaming roaming” and barely anything interesting. I love Nickelodeon. I have high expectations. I’m hoping they come through with this money.

c) Addicting games is like “the place to be” — I swear. Whenever I ask kids where they go– consistently across the board for BOTH genders, it’s “addicting games” from kids 6 to 16. Creating addictingworlds will be interesting. I get this feeling where they were successful because they KNEW what they were– a gaming site. I’m worried that they’re going to spread themselves out a bit too much and lose the point of where they were. Hmmm… Plus, for as great as Habbo tries to make itself– I’m not a fan of their avatar system. Everyone looks like lego pieces. I don’t want me as a lego piece unless I’m on lego. Barbiegirl is awesome (college kids telling me they have barbie girl avatars for strawberry crepes sakes).

d) Neopets as Neostudios? Let’s see how the uproar goes on that (they’ve already offended their community by forgetting their “it’s free” stance with the NC mall & real money bit). Plus– I’ve seen the shorts on Nickelodeon and, I hate to say it, but they’re kinda cute yet forgetable. Hmm. Nothing to get psyched about. Wouldn’t you want to make them with enough “dun dun duuuuun” or energy that kids would be like “I want to go to Neopets and see more of what I’m missing!” and not so much “this is a short that reminds me of a direct-to-DVD disney flick and I am okay in the fact I don’t need to see any more”? Sigh. Neopets, Neopets, Neopets. Go to your community. Seek their guidance. Make it a community party to be on TV. Involve your users. UGC in the APPROPRIATE, excitable kinda way.

Your thoughts?

technorati tags:MTV, Teens, Neopets, Nicktropolis, VirtualWorlds, Virtual, Worlds, Social, Networking, Viacom, Nickelodeon

Virtual Worlds Vs Social Networking Platforms

Richard Bartle: Virtual Worlds Will Lose to Social Netorking

In an interview with the Guardian, 1st MUD designer Richard Bartle says that virtual worlds will eventually be consumed by social networking site or wind up operating only as extensions of Facebook. “That’s my glum assessment of the future, yes. There WILL be the glorious virtual worlds we have today, only they’ll be of minority interest. Most people will use the technology but not care about the worlds as worlds,” he said. “If you want the intelligent stuff, you’ll be able to find it; however, if you don’t know it’s there, you won’t know to look.Then again, I see what’s happening in Korea with virtual worlds, and I wonder if maybe, just maybe, they do have a mass market
future beyond that of the banal?”

Virtual Worlds News: Richard Bartle: Virtual Worlds Will Lose to Social Netorking

Not for U12s though. Not for U12’s.

And there shouldn’t be social networking in the degree that we’re heading FOR anyone under 13. Let them be fun kids, explore worlds, tame beasts, and make SURFACE friends (the kind where you’re on the same team but don’t share real information).

Watch playground action. When I was a camp counselor– here’s out it went…

U10 kids go to the play ground and envision it as a world– they play hot lava tag, and become monkeys on monkey bars. Talking at length about stuff is “boring”… and we don’t necessarily want them adapting social life over play patterns quite yet.

10 - 13 bounced between ^ and v. They were “sorting their tween selves out”. They didn’t want to commit to either. They wanted hybrid– which is what Virtual worlds will become… a chance to build a limited profile where they can get distracted by the adventures offered (and hide in the need to be part of the play) while stretching their social skills and adapting profiles.

13+ kids go to the playground and sit on benches and talk about their lives and gossip and try to be as “cool” as they think they might look.

technorati tags:tweens, teens, socialnetworking, social, onlinecommunities, communities, youth, virtual, worlds, virtualworlds

Email dying a slow death at the hand of Social Networks?

SAN FRANCISCO–The future of e-mail might be found on the pages of MySpace.com and Facebook. Just ask a group of teen Internet entrepreneurs, who readily admit that traditional e-mail’s more suited for keeping up professional relationships or communicating with adults.”I only use e-mail for my business and to get sponsors,” Martina Butler, the host of the teen podcast Emo Girl Talk, said during a panel discussion here at the Mashup 2007 conference, which is focused on the technology generation. With friends, Bulter said she only sends notes via a social network.“Sometimes I say I e-mailed you, but I mean I Myspace’d or Facebook’ed you,” she said.

To be sure, much has been written about the demise of e-mail, given the annoyance of spam and the rise of tools like instant messaging, voice over IP and text messaging. But e-mail has hung on to its utility in office environments and at home, even if it’s given up some ground to new challengers. It may be that social networks are the most potent new rival to e-mail, one of the Internet’s oldest forms of communication. With tens of millions of members on their respective networks, MySpace and Facebook can wield great influence over a generation living online, either through the cell phone or the Internet.

And if you’re among those who believe teens are the future, then e-mail could be knocked down a rung. For example, Craig Sherman, CEO of Gaia Online, a virtual world for teens and college kids, describes the age group as “the first and early adopters of new trends. Things they are doing are what everyone will be doing in five years.”

To hear the teen panelists tell it, that means e-mail will be strictly the domain of business dealings.

“If I’m talking to any friends it’s through a social network,” said Asheem Badshah, a teenaged president of Scriptovia.com, an essay-sharing site that launched this summer. “For me even IM died, and was replaced by text messaging. Facebook will replace e-mail for communicating with certain people.”

Almost on cue, a Microsoft executive sitting in the audience chimed in with a question to the teens, saying that given his work, he’s “interested in people not using e-mail.” He asked the panelists to comment about the fact that e-mail transmits to mobile devices, for example. Also, Facebook will send its members an e-mail anytime someone sends them a message on the social network.

Butler replied that she uses Facebook on her cell phone. “I need (Facebook) everywhere I go, but I log into e-mail only once a week,” she said.

More and more, social networks are playing a bigger role on the cell phone. In the last six to nine months, teens in the United States have taken to text messaging in numbers that rival usage in Europe and Asia. According to market research firm JupiterResearch, 80 percent of teens with cell phones regularly use text messaging.

Catherine Cook, the 17-year-old founder and president of MyYearbook.com, was the lone teen entrepreneur who said she still uses e-mail regularly to keep up with camp friends or business relationships. Still, that usage pales in comparison to her habit of text messaging. She said she sends a thousand text messages a month.

[Click link below for remainder of article-- very enlightening!]

Kids say e-mail is, like, soooo dead | CNET News.com

Hmmm. Interesting.

I hate getting email in my social network platforms (unless it’s a pleasant surprise from a Long lost friend). Why? Because there are too many barriers to quick retrieval. I want my email and I want it now. I have it popping up like texts on my phone. MUCH BETTER than having to log into facebook on my phone, or myspace, and link surfing to get to my embedded email.

I think email will stick around. People are lazy– it won’t be long before people get tired of the 3/4 door passage to the things they want (log into facebook, log into email, retrieve emails, open specific email). Unless they figure a way to make the barrier of entry immediate (or non existent). That could be the next step. Hmmm… could be indeed.

Thoughts?

FYI: Online Safety = part kid/part parent

As it turns out, most teenagers are taking to protect themselves online from the most obvious areas of risk, according to the report. Many actively manage their personal information as they try to maintain
important information confined to their network of trusted friends while at the same time creating content for their profiles and making new friends. The report indicates that most teens believe that some
information should be shared while other information needs to be protected.Not altogether surprisingly, the report also suggests that teens do face potential risks in cyberspace. Indeed, 32 percent of online teenagers and 43 percent of social-networking teens have been contacted online by complete strangers, and 17 percent of online teens and 31 percent of social-networking teens have “friends” on their social network profile who they have not met in person.
The following are statistics relating to how teens use social-networking sites and how they handle related privacy issues:

• Fifty-five percent of online teens have set up online profiles, while 66 percent of teens with profiles limit access to their profiles in some way. What’s more, 46 percent of teens whose profiles can be accessed by anyone online provide at least some false information on their profiles to protect themselves.
• Ninety-one percent of social-networking teens use networks to stay in touch with people they already know, while 49 percent of social-networking teens use networks to make new friends.
• Thirty-two percent of online teens have been contacted by strangers, and 21 percent of the teens who have been contacted by strangers have engaged an online stranger to find out more information about that person. Also, 23 percent of teens who have been contacted by a stranger online report that they felt scared or uncomfortable as a result. (This translates into 7 percent of all online teens.)

Teens do post various items on their profiles, as follows:

• Eighty-two percent of teens who have created profiles have included their first names. Seventy-nine percent have included photos of themselves, and 66 percent have included photos of their friends.
• Sixty-one percent have included the name of their city or town, while 49 percent have included the name of their school.Forty percent have included their instant-message screen name. Forty percent have streamed audio to their profile, and 39 percent have linked to their blog. Twenty-nine percent have included their e-mail address, and 29 percent have included their last name
• Twenty-nine percent have included videos, while 2 percent have included their cell phone numbers.
• Six percent of online teens and 11 percent of profiling teens have posted their first and last names on public profiles.
• Three percent of online teens and 5 percent of profiling teens have disclosed their full names, photos of themselves and the town where they live in public profiles.

The report demonstrates that not all teens rampantly are disclosing their personally identifiable information. However, many teenagers, across different categories, do disclose such private data. And while
only a small percentage discloses their full names along with photos of themselves and the towns where they live, this small percentage still represents a large number of actual teenagers. Plus, the fact that practically one-third of online teenagers have been contacted by complete strangers is troubling.

Notwithstanding the independence that teenagers crave, parents must be vigilant when it comes to educating their teenagers as to how to protect themselves in cyberspace. Oftentimes, teenagers understand information technology better than their parents; thus, before parents can educate their teens, they must educate themselves.

For some teenagers, education may not enough. For them, parents should do their best to observe how their teens behave online. One simple solution is to keep the family computer in a public area, such as the living room, so
that parents can keep an eye on how their teens surf the Web. Some parents as a matter of technology actually monitor the online movements of their teenagers. Other parents (and certainly their teenagers) would view this as an invasion of teens’ privacy.

Are kids playing it safe online? | Perspectives | CNET News.com

Okay… so yes. We’re talking about teens here– ages 12 (even though in my book, that’s NOT a teen) - 18. I understand that ‘teen’ is about exploring individuality and responsibility and adulthood.

But that can’t stop me from CRINGING when i see info about kids STILL keeping personally identifiable information in their social networking profile for friend/stranger (or “new friend”) contact.

Things to remember:

1. Yes, OTHERS are always surfing profiles to make “new friends” (strangers = danger, yes, but also… in this day & age, people are genuinely eager to meet new people)… HOWEVER– it would be wise to remember that YOUR child could be one of these random-friending-people-surfers. Why? Because your child thinks he/she is harmless/normal, not one of those crazy weirdo stalkers… And if they’re such a harmless/normal surfer (and anyone would want to be friends with them, naturally) what could it hurt to ‘friend’ someone?

- It is VERY easy to surf new individuals while looking for old friends in social networking platforms. Why? Because when you search, you are given several ‘options’… if someone’s profile has a sparkle that catches your eye, you’re going to friend them.

- Kids don’t think of “friending” as REAL. It’s a) racking up the popularity in #s, b) Not face to face or voice to voice, c) a great way to keep an interesting profile handy (maybe a funny blog or a cute kid, etc)

2. Keep HAMMERING HOME the idea that a) The more information you place on your profile, the easier it is for people to TRACK YOU DOWN, b) Any information can come back to haunt you, c) People who are NOT your friends could be tallying up facts & info (aka, a little paranoia could help with your kids)

- I’ve already mentioned that I denied a potential hire because of the easily accessible journal he has live… it had information that condemned him to me (sounds harsh, yes, but he didn’t get the job now did he?)

- The more live info you have, cell phones/emails/IM NAMES(!) the easier it is for unwanted individuals to harass and/or contact (even ex-boyfriend/girlfriends, people at school, etc)

- Not to mention, computer bots troll the web looking for random emails to collect and spam.

- GOOGLE YOURSELF AND YOUR CHILD’S NAME. Google, google, google. Why? Because it’s the quickest way to see who is talking about your child and where. And it’s just good policy in general. BE IN CONTROL OF YOUR WEB DESTINY!

3. No matter how “independent” you want your teen to feel… internet access is a 50/50 deal.

- Parents should show interest in their kid’s web surfings. Keep open communication. Try to minimize all secret hiding places (because a teen’s profile becomes a secret hiding place… like a burn book or best friend hideout). If your child knows that YOU know about profiles they’ll a) be a bit more conscientious what they make public, b) might be more apt to share problems & issues connected their friends (issues at school tied to issues on their profiles)

- Internet is a PRIVILEGE. Like a car or a cell phone. If they can’t act appropriately and show the required about of responsibility or maturity… then perhaps that privilege is NOT for them, ya savvy?

4. There have been a few articles lately talking about how social networking can help your teen become a better entrepreneur. Social Networks are gateways to the world– where MANY possibilities lie. Charge.org, Dollars for Darfur, etc– perhaps partner with your teen on a social network site that might help them become a better citizen– both on web and off.

5. Take some interest in the SAFETY info & Privacy Policies of the sites your child is surfing. Be proactive in knowing who is behind the screen & what their goals & objectives for their site is… I’m a community manager for U13… I’ve gotten 5 emails in the last 4 months asking about safety of our site and our procedures. That’s it. 5. We have THOUSANDS of kids cruising our site.

You want to know who is babysitting your kid, teaching your child, coaching your tater tots, right? Well, their just as open and REAL online as they are off… remember that.

technorati tags:teens, safety, onlinecommunities, profiles, myspace, facebook, bebo, parents, web, friending