FUTURELAB

Home   -   Services   -   About us   -   Team   -   Marketing Innovation Blog   -   Publications

January 30, 2007

Søme SL News Here
And I'm back, if only fleetingly, due to some first life issues (I knew I shouldn't have gotten a First Life). At any rate, here's a bit of news straight off the Beeb: Sweden will open an embassy in Second Life (link).

Also, We The Sheeple has an article on AOL beta-testing their SL island.

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

January 29, 2007

Second Life Shorts, Set 2

image: moomoney via Giff Constable

A number of interesting Second Life developments happening all at once:

Continue reading " Second Life Shorts, Set 2" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

Reverse Product Placement in Games
BrandWeek has a follow-up on David Edery's HRB piece on reverse product placement in games (see David's earlier post on the topic, my old post on the fictional brand Sprunk in Grand Theft Auto, and a summary of the HBR article in Gamasutra). What's reverse product placement (I call it "proxy branding") ? BrandWeek writes: "While traditional product placement refers to integrating a real brand into a fictional environment, an idea that's gaining traction is to create a fictional brand in a fictional environment and then release it into the real world."

Continue reading " Reverse Product Placement in Games" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1) • Email this article to a friend

January 26, 2007

NASCAR Gets 3-D

adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/01/nascar-gets-3-d.htmlImage: NASCAR SimRacing 2005, Gamespot

Continue reading " NASCAR Gets 3-D" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

NY Times On Ads In Games
New York Times has a good story on ads in games, focused on the well known Big Fish Games and PopCap Games. Read it here.

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

January 25, 2007

Rumor: Google Planning Virtual World
For the record: Blogs today are widely broadcasting a rumor "from an academic who heard through the PhD grapevine" and passed on by a VC that Google is putting together pieces to create a SL-like virtual world based on Google Earth. You've heard it all back in May. It makes more sense now that another rumor has it that Google is shopping for a ad-to-games serving company. ZDNet blog warns, "I'd be careful not to pay too much attention to a rumor put out by a partner in the VC firm that owns a substantial stake in Second Life — any news of Google creating its own virtual world is sure to drive up acquisition interest in Second Life from the search giant's competitors."

Continue reading "Rumor: Google Planning Virtual World" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

January 23, 2007

Gamevertising News
As you might have figured out, my "In The News" posts are anything but a grand collection of fresh and useful information which might interest a larger audience. These news are highly personalized (ie: I only post stuff that I find interesting) and sometimes I just can't be bothered to link to stuff 500 big gaming websites already reported. For today though, I'll try my hand at a more coherent summary and attempt to build a short list of gamevertising information.

Continue reading "Gamevertising News" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

BBC Launching A Virtual World For Kids
CBBC, the channel for 7-12 year olds, said it would allow digitally literate children the access to characters and resources they had come to expect.
Those building CBBC World said the emphasis would be on safety and responsibility, with no chatrooms or facilities for building new parts of the virtual world.

BBC article

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

January 22, 2007

Revenge!
This is a link I got from Stefan Kolle and I bloody love it. I chuckle every time I look at the damn site.
Get a First Life - well, I suppose it's less amusing if you can't tell what it is it's spoofing. Then again, if you can't, why are you reading this anyway?

Work, Reproduce, Perish.
Ahahahaha..

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

Early Edition
Opening my feed reader today, I ran into an article that, for a few moments, made me wonder if I didn't land in a show like Early Edition. Blimey, even the cat's a tabby, it all makes sense!

Continue reading "Early Edition" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

Marketplace for In-Game Ads
"V-Lodge is aiming to create the marketplace of choice for in-game advertising. The market is still undeveloped, but a novel aspect of the V-Lodge model calls for creating relationships between game developers with companies seeking product placement in video games." (press release)
-- thanks, John
Original post: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/01/marketplace-for-in-game-ads.html

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

Google Could Buy In-Game Ads Firm
CNN: "Google is in talks to acquire Adscape Media in a move to expand beyond its traditional Internet search advertising business and into video games, a news report said Saturday. The Wall Street Journal [sub.], citing people familiar with the matter, reported on its Web site that Google [the] closely held San Francisco firm whose technology allows for the placement of ads over the Web in video games. A deal could be reached as early as next week, the report said.

Continue reading " Google Could Buy In-Game Ads Firm" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

Study: Brands in Virtual Laguna Beach
"MTV's 4-month-old virtual world has been testing advertiser integrations with Cingular, Pepsi and Procter & Gamble's Secret. So far, according to MTV, 350,000 registered users are spending an average of 36 minutes on each visit."

Continue reading " Study: Brands in Virtual Laguna Beach" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

January 18, 2007

No Ads On My Battery!
Found an article on in-game advertising over on 411mania.com.

Continue reading "No Ads On My Battery!" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

January 16, 2007

In The News: Buy More Lizards!
First off, as you know, The Burning Crusade was released today. As one who managed to shrug free of the damn virus a while ago, all I can say for now is "great, now I'll never see my friends again". Bloody addicts, the lot of them!
Now then, it looks like IBM is once again pushing tennis into Second Life. Here's a video:

Continue reading "In The News: Buy More Lizards!" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

January 15, 2007

SL Screens: Sears, Circuit City


As announced earlier, Sears got itself some Second Life presence on IBM's island. Right next to it is a Circuit City building (press release). Unlike many other corporate builds, these ones offer a degree of interactivity. Both solicit visitor feedback that can by simply typed into the chat line. Like Dell, Sears allows to place orders for certain items through its website, which opens in a separate browser window.

Continue reading " SL Screens: Sears, Circuit City" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

January 12, 2007

Study: In-Game Ads Fail to Engage

Gamers stare at Lara Croft's butt, not ads.

Continue reading "Study: In-Game Ads Fail to Engage" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

Burger King Sells 2 Million Game Copies in 4 Weeks
Burger King "announced that its trio of games for the Xbox and Xbox 360 had broken the 2 million mark in just four weeks" (GameSpot).

Continue reading "Burger King Sells 2 Million Game Copies in 4 Weeks" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

January 11, 2007

Sears Carries Cheap Fabricator, Enters Second Life
Two seemingly unrelated pieces of news that showed up next to each other on my clogged RSS reader and made me jump:

Continue reading "Sears Carries Cheap Fabricator, Enters Second Life" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

To: Advertisers, Subject: Hi
This article was indirectly triggered by this press release, which mentions in-game advertising company Double Fusion hiring a gentleman called Richard Willoughby, management expert, as their vice president of Human Resources.

Continue reading "To: Advertisers, Subject: Hi" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

Best Selling Video Game Franchises
Gamasutra posts a list that first appeared in British newspaper The Independent, a list of the supposedly 20 best-selling video game franchises of all times.

Continue reading "Best Selling Video Game Franchises" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

Generation Next?
A couple of days ago, the Pew Research Center released a forty-some pages report on "Generation Next", basically the young adults that grew up with the PCs and cell phones and the internet and whatnot. This subject has already been covered on the main Futurelab blog so this article will have a different approach, as far as the extracted data is concerned.

Continue reading "Generation Next?" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

January 10, 2007

Snippet: Brands In Second Life
Following are a few screenshots of places where real life brands decided to set camp in Second Life. Couldn't decide if to present each shot or just slap them on the page,  "no comments" style. I would have went with the latter but the image quality isn't as good as I had hoped for some reason so confusion might ensue.

Note: images may take a while to load if you're on a slow connection.

Continue reading "Snippet: Brands In Second Life" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

January 8, 2007

IGA Worldwide To Serve Ads To Acclaim Games
As you know, Acclaim's keeping busy with ad-supported MMOs. I tried BOTS myself but couldn't get the blasted thing to run (kept crashing at the patch menu) and then completely forgot about it. Woe is me. At any rate, someone was needed to handle these ads and if it isn't Double Fusion then chances are it might be IGA, no? But of course. The deal is for 6 MMOs apparently, namely BOTS!!, 9dragons, 2moons (who's making these titles up?), DANCE! and another two, hitherto unrevealed. Stay tuned. I'll go see if I still have that BOTS!! kit. (And I just wonder...will the future bring titles such as MECHS!!1!!..?).

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

Second Life Goes Open Source
Yep. Details right here. Also a FAQ there from which I quote:

Wait, doesn't that mean anyone will be able to change anything in the code? How are you going to keep people from inserting malicious code and exploits into SL?

Anyone will be able to create a new viewer for their own personal use, or share that modified viewer with others. Anyone will be able to submit code to Linden Lab, which we will consider including in the Second Life viewer that most people download from secondlife.com. However, we will carefully review any submission, and ensure that it is safe and stable code that will be of broad benefit to all before we accept it into the mainstream version of the Second Life viewer.


It's the "carefully review" part that makes me wonder. However, I'll hold out from making any predictions or comments yet and see how this works. More on this later.

 


digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

Sears’ Using Second Life for Previewing
Interesting bit of news from 3pointD (Link) as word is that Sears, in partnership with IBM, will be using Second Life as a kind of preview system for their customers. From the blog entry:

Continue reading "Sears’ Using Second Life for Previewing" »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend

January 5, 2007

SL predictions...
...and other assorted articles you could read and pretend not to notice I haven't updated this in a while now. Yes, I'm talking to you. Anyway...

Continue reading "SL predictions..." »

digg this| del.icio.us| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) • Email this article to a friend