Now, with recent advances in technology, the premise of an alternate reality could just be real. The graphics and network capabilities of consumer computing technology have increased dramatically over the years. With 256mb or even 512mb video cards and broadbrand easily available, it has laid the groundwork for Massively Multiplayer Online Games(MMOGs) to emerge.

MMOGs are distributed applications that are played by thousands, if not millions of people simultaneously. Some, like Second Life are not even games at all since they do not even have a mission to accomplish. Hence, the whole idea of an alternate reality.

Immersive 3D environments like Second Life essentially allow participants to create their own 3D characters (avatars) and explore a nearly endless world. Since the world of Second Life is computer generated, the entire experience is free from the limits of reality. So you can fly from place to place in this environment, also called the “meta-verse”.

The fact is, alternate reality is now a reality! The emergence of a world like Second Life, with nearly 3 million registered members, validates this. Increasingly people are choosing to spend their time taking up residences in and exploring such virtual worlds.

In September 2006, Starwood Hotels engaged The Electric Sheep company, a virtual worlds consultancy to develop a virtual aloft inside Second Life. The whole idea was to provide people from around the world a glimpse into what the aLoft could be. A virtual world like Second Life is extremely suited for this as detailed 3D architectural models with full texture maps can be constructed within the world.

As part of their overall virtual world strategy,The Electric Sheep company developed a website: http://www.virtualaloft.com/ as a blog chronicling the development of the virtual hotel. The blog makes it easy for even non-Second Life residents to experience the development process through the use of screenshots and captured video from the ‘world’. This approach helped virtualaloft score a mention in BusinessWeek and numerous other press opportunities. The result of the media attention also drew in numerious buzz within the blogosphere that resulted in the site rising up quickly in search engine rankings.

Second Life is fascinating due to the vast amount of press coverage it has received. As a result, member registrations have shot up dramatically due to the surge in public interest. Concordantly, advertisers and brand marketers have also migrated where the masses have migrated: into the virtual world.

A 3-Dimensional virtual world like Second Life allows just about anything to be built. A structure can be made gravity defying as long as the designer deems fit. This has attracted many Second-Lifers to build the structures of their dreams as a manifestation of their unique identity in the meta-verse.

The building and real-estate boom within Second Life has also attracted the attention of brand marketers who see an opportunity to create immersive and interactive brand experiences that can only be executed within an environment like Second Life.

Instead of simply putting up bill boards and advertisements, these marketers attempt to recreate their brand experiences by setting up fun and playful pavilions. These pavilions draw in Second Life citizens to visit by flying their avatars there.

With consumers shifting dramatically away from traditional media, such virtual worlds present marketers with the opportunity to engage audiences in an immersive experience that is unique from all other forms of media.

Firstly, when an avatar is at your pavilion, you have his/her full attention span. Secondly, you have the opportunity to interact with these avatars in a two-way conversation. Thirdly, the reach is global as the denizens hail from all over the world. Lastly, if doing is the best way to learn or remember, then the activities you design for your visitors could etch a fond memory in your visitor’s mind.

But despite all these advantages, a marketer must remember that this is not any mass medium and what you’re paying for is access to a selective group of ‘early adopters’ – people who are savvy with technology and enjoy a cutting edge experience. This will not be the same kind of consumers that you would encounter through other forms of media but rather an audience that can neatly be summed up as the ‘influentials’.

These ‘influentials’ can be a talkative bunch as they have a high propensity to share their views through conversations or blogging. As a result, these ‘influentials’ can have a strong influence on the word of mouth about your brand.

If these ‘influentials’ like your brand marketing strategies, you can get them on your side to be your evangelists and form a powerful augmented marketing force. Notice how Apple has the following of thousands of evangelists ready to evangelize or protect the brand. However the danger lies on the flip side too, What if they somehow find fault with your brand marketing strategies?

A powerful mitigation strategy would be to begin your project in ‘beta’. This means incorporating a consultative approach into your project schedule. Instead of going into a virtual world with all your guns blazing, why not involve the participation of the community?

Witness the strategy of Starwood Hotels’s new aLoft project. aLoft is a new loft-style serviced apartment brand that Starwood is promoting. Instead of simply building a new pavilion in Second Life and holding a one-time event to bring about awareness of the new product, they opted to apply a unique virtual world strategy to their marketing campaign.

In the spirit of brevity, we have only managed to cover a small segment of the marketing possibilities available in this new frontier of virtual worlds and alternate realities. If you wish to find out more about virtual worlds marketing, why not give us a call or an email for a friendly discussion on the possibilities available? Together with our experienced partners in 3D Animation, The Pacific West Communications stands ready to serve clients seeking an experienced and capable partner in navigating these new worlds.

Other Virtual Worlds:

Second Life www.secondlife.com Linden Labs, San Francisco, CA

Fully 3D immersive environment with scripting language that allows interactive objects to be built.

There.com www.there.com There Inc, San Mateo, CA

An everyday gateway for PG-13 crowd. Mmebers are encouraged to explore various exotic virtual locales and socialized

Habbo Hotel www.habbohotel.com Sulake Labs, Finland

A virtual world for teens where residents can create their own “guestrooms” and purchase furniture to decorate them.

WhyVille www.whyville.net

Educational virtual world targeted at children and teens from ages 10-16

Numedeon, Inc,, Pasadena, CA

HiPiHi www.hipihi.com

HiPiHi is a yet to be released Chinese language clone of Second Life that has great potential.

A detailed list of various virtual worlds can be found at: http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/index.shtml

Our client, ChainFusion Pte Ltd is the creator of the BuyButtonz online payment system. BuyButtonz will be Singapore’s most affordable, most flexible and fastest payment platform for those wanting to conduct any online, e-commerce transactions over the Internet.

The BuyButtonz system employs a mobile phone 2-factor authentication tool such that buyers receive a security PIN via an automated telephone call every time they use the system to make payment. This means that the merchants are protected against fraudsters who may make the purchase and claim later that they had not approved the payment.

As part of its launch activities The Pacific West Communications will be putting together a Fair & Flea Market showcasing ecommerce and blog-commerce stores in a popular shopping area in Singapore in mid April. If you’re interested in setting up a stall together with us, do give us a buzz. Or email apglobal@gmail.com for an application form for the event.

Entrepreneur27 Singapore Web 2.0 Unconference last held on Feb 15, 2007, SMU . “You Are the Media”.

Entrepreneur27 Singapore is the sister organization of the original Entrepreneur27 group founded by Noah Kagan in Silicon Valley/ San Francisco Bay Area.

At the E27 events and on their websites, they seek to engage you in a conversation. A conversation that will not happen without you contributing and collectively learning from other contributors in the community. More often that not, we listen too much and might fear to think for ourselves. As entrepreneurs, we have to find the way forward, even if it is wrong sometimes.

E27 Singapore was founded in January 2006 by a group of students who returned from year-long technology entrepreneurship programs in Silicon Valley.

Their exposure to the entrepreneurial culture of Silicon Valley culminated in an appreciation of the importance of an open knowledge-sharing culture that was pervasive among Silicon Valley innovators, entrepreneurs and investors. Such a culture was found to be lacking in Singapore upon their return hence the creation of E27 events here.

Visit the website at: http://www.entrepreneur27.org/sg/

The Digital Movement, Nexus 2007 Conference, to be held on Mar 24^th, 2007, NTUC Centre

The Digital Movement is forming a community of young people who are adventurous, ambitious and curious about the latest happenings in technology and business, like Web 2.0, Mobile Web Explosion, and New Media Marketing. They are focused on creating a “culture of playfulness” within the community, one that rewards curiosity, informality and fun, rather than hierarchy and formality

Nexus is a major interactive conference where they will discuss fundamental changes happening in business and technology, and how individuals can take a lead in them! These include Web 2.0, citizen journalism, mobile web explosion, open source communities, and globalization.

More than just a conference, Nexus marks the rise of a community of fun, enthusiastic and ambitious young professionals and entrepreneurs.

Speakers include:

Saw Ken Wye, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Microsoft APAC
Steve Russell, President, Salesforce.com APAC
Reza Behnam, MD of Yahoo! SEA
Derek Callow, Regional Marketing Manager, Google
Nathan Torkington, OReily Radar, Perl Foundation Board Member
Andreas Weigend, Former Chief Scientist, Amazon.com
Kathy Teo, Managing Director, CNET Networks Asia Pacific
James Seng, Editor, Tomorrow.sg
David Dan, Former President of Intel China
Walter Lee, Vice President, Consulting, SMB/Partnering Research, IDC Asia/Pacific.
Farzad Naimi, CEO, Founder, Litescape
Girija Pande, Head of APAC, Tata Consultancy Services
Wilson Tan, President ASOCIO, Former Asia Pacific Vice President, Mercury
Mark Organ, Founder, CEO, Eloqua.com
Roberto Mariani, CEO, Founder, XiD Technologies

The organization: http://www.thedigitalmovement.org/
The conference: http://www.nexus2007.com/

Do speak to us if you’re interested in getting involved in these communities.

We felt that our readers would not only want to read about the on-goings at The Pacific West Communications but also be able to interact with us. Hence the blog format of this newsletter would make it really easy for you to leave us a comment or feedback after every article. It would also allow us to keep every newsletter that we send out brief: instead of sending you a newsletter that you will scroll on forever, we decided to send out a very short email with only the excerpts. All these, with you in mind.

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