Mashable has a great roundup of 27 best avatar builders.
As a big fan of avatars and a team member of the Klonies here at Comverse I was very happy to see the topic has been getting traction and coverage!
Hopefully in the next roundup we will see Klonies mentioned there as well... :)
Dear friends,
After answering a few readers queries through email, I realized that there is a growing reader's interest in mobile offering of avatars. Therefore, I decided to reply in a series of posts for the benefit of others who might be interested as well.
One of my favorite examples of a smart business model and a VERY successful avatar service is Mobile Game Town (Mobagetown) from Japan. It is the largest and fastest growing mobile Social Networking Service (SNS), available only on mobile. The site is a blend of casual games and social networking, multiplayer and singleplayer games coupled with chat, blogs and avatars.
An interesting fact is that Mobile Game Town is offered by DeNA, a Tokyo-based e-commerce company that runs virtual auction sites and shopping malls. This fact leaves a notable footmark on the business model (and makes a differentiator from other SNS sites). DeNA hooks the users with free mobile games with over 30 titles to choose from, supported by advertisement. Users buy from mobile e-commerce sites and get “mobile gold” which is then used to dress their avatars; by spending in the real world users get virtual money to dress their virtual alter ego, their avatar.
[via DeNA]
Mobile Game Town’s success is overwhelming: 5 million users with over 400 million daily page views back in May in less than a year from its official launch. Just to put the numbers in perspective, Mobile Game Town’s stats are four times larger than that of Yahoo's mobile portal!
And to give you a sense of latest (brilliant) marketing activities:
In June, DeNA announced "an interesting summer Yukata campaign. In co-operation with Aeon
dept. store the companies have set-up a virtual avatar catalogue from which members can build, for a modest fee, their outfit based on actual products complete with best dressed contest prizes. This would seem to be a rather slick ad campaign ultimately designed to drive purchases of the real thing just in time for the summer matsuri (festival) season. The company ran a similar campaign for Nike where customers who bought physical goods were rewarded with virtual prizes."
[via Wireless World Japan]
And a special treat from the Wireless Watch Japan - a video demo of both "Mobile Game Town" and Disney's "Wonder Days" (which will be reviewed here on its own in one of my next posts).
As a fan of David Pogue of the NY Times, I was very proud to see his review of the Klonies mobile Caller ID:
"You know how young people are spending $10 billion a year on ringtones, just because it lets them express themselves? The next big thing, I'm convinced, will be avatars. This feature, too, was on display: You design your own little character, or avatar, choosing a hairstyle, clothes, facial features and so on. Then, whenever you call people, your character appears on their cellphone screens. I'll bet avatars will be the next huge teen fad in 2010 or so."
[via NYT]
Let me provide some background info for those of you who are not familiar with Klonies; Klonies is a new service of personalized avatars by the mobile solutions provider Comverse, that enables the creation of avatars from a big content library of body types, eyes, hairstyles, hats, glasses, moods, clothes, branded accessories, etc., which can be used in traditional web forums, as well as to extend this experience to the mobile arena. Comverse has created a mobile Caller ID service, by which a user can create his Klonie either on the Web or on his mobile handset. Klonies let youth segment do something they could never even dream of doing before: create expressive avatars that represent them on other people’s phones. Klonies give the users extended means for self expression: they define how they are seen by their friends, on their phones.
The NYT published a beautiful series of portraits by Robbie Cooper in this weekend's magazine about people and their avatars, in virtual environments such as Second Life and Everquest. Follow the link for more pictures
The interesting is to witness how the created avatar is very closely tied to the personality of its creator in one of two ways:
Doing some spring cleaning at my files I've run into this cool video we made a while ago in order to present the Klonies concept.
Let me provide some background info for those of you who are not familiar with Klonies; Klonies is a new service of personalized avatars by the mobile solutions provider Comverse, that enables the creation of avatars from a big content library of body types, eyes, hairstyles, hats, glasses, moods, clothes, branded accessories, etc., which can be used in traditional web forums, as well as to extend this experience to the mobile arena. Comverse has created a mobile Caller ID service, by which a user can create his Klonie either on the Web or on his mobile handset. Klonies let youth segment do something they could never even dream of doing before: create expressive avatars that represent them on other people’s phones. Klonies give the users extended means for self expression: they define how they are seen by their friends, on their phones.
What I liked in this video is that it literally presents the idea of 'inventing oneself' that usually is happens online, when the information about one's identity is very limited. Enjoy! :)
Over the past day, the issue of simulated and actual child pornography in virtual worlds has attracted the attention of mainstream media. The buzz was provoked by a report of a German TV news program which uncovered the trading group and members who pay for sex with virtual children at Second Life.
For those of you who haven’t heard of Second Life, it is a virtual world in which members create for themselves an avatar and use it to live out a separate existence at the virtual world of Second Life.
Now, Second Life is being investigated by German police following the allegations that some members were having virtual sexual contact between adult avatars and avatars with child-like appearances called "age play"; (which are groups that revolve around the abuse of virtual children);but also claims that photographs of real-life child sexual abuse have been made available in Second Life.
The incidents involving child pornography didn't stay within Second Life though, according to the investigator that carried out the report, Nick Schader, he was offered by this said trading group access to traders of real child pornography. Moreover, there were meetings within Second Life where virtual and real child pornography was shown.
Now, the police are trying to identify the Second Life members involved since under Germany law possession of "virtual" child pornography is punishable by up to three years in jail. In response, Linden Lab, creator of Second Life, said it would help identify users and pass on details to prosecutors.
[via BBC News]
Ever since the first allegation of sexual abuse at Second Life has been published, there is an ongoing debate whether “age play” is legitimate, and whether it is a healthy outlet for sexual fantasies. Virtually Blind states that -
“sexual age play practitioners are quick to differentiate themselves from pedophiles (who, they point out, are sexually interested in actual children, rather than in adults who role play children).”
One of the interesting things, apart from the debate about the legitimation outlawed behavior in virtual worlds is what measures Linden Lab has taken to law enforce within its jurisdiction. Virtually Blind states that
“several months ago, The Register, reported that a Dutch prosecutor was considering bringing charges against citizens of the Netherlands who engaged in sexual age play in Second Life.
Shortly after that story broke, the Second Life Herald reported that Linden Lab had begun quietly contacting residents who appeared to be running businesses related to sexual age play, with the following message:
"Dear Second Life Resident:
Linden Lab would like to inform you that your land or business is possibly not in compliance with Second Life’s Community Standards. The depiction of sexual activity involving minors may violate real-world laws in some areas, and the Second Life community as a whole has made it clear that it views such behavior to be broadly offensive. Linden Lab chooses not to allow the advertising or promotion of age play or related activities in any public forum — including in-world textures, classified ads, the Second Life forums, or parcel descriptions.
Advertisements, promotions, or descriptions of such activities must be removed to avoid account sanctions.
Any account asserting an age that does not meet Second Life’s minimum age of eligibility will be closed.”"
[via Virtually Blind]
I was reading some very interesting bloggers' opinions about the Klonies service at Skype by Jean Mercier and by Phil Wolff and wanted to answer both. As my comment was becoming longer and longer, I decided to post it here and offer a bonus - Klonies pics!
Before actually addressing the points raised by both Jean and Phil, let me provide some background info for those of you who are not familiar with Klonies; Klonies are a new service of personalized Avatars by the mobile solutions provider Comverse, that enables the creation of Avatars from a big content library of body types, eyes, hairstyles, hats, glasses, moods, clothes, branded accessories, etc., which can be used in traditional web forums, as well as to extend this experience to the mobile arena. Comverse has created a mobile Caller ID service, by which a user can create his Klonie either on the Web or on his mobile handset. Klonies let youth segment do something they could never even dream of doing before: create expressive avatars that represent them on other people’s phones. Klonies give the users extended means for self expression: they define how they are seen by their friends, on their phones.
Both Jean and Phil talk about the workplace and the adult Skype users segment; both raise a certain feeling of discomfort with the young looks of the Klonies; this feeling is associated to the older users (of Skype and in general).
As a member of the Klonies team at Comverse, let me share some insights: at a trial we had at a European TIER 1 mobile operator a few months ago, we received very enthusiastic responses from young adults (19-24) and adults (25 and up) participating the trial. Both young adults and adults participants replied that they find the Klonies content to be appealing and fun to use and that they would be willing to pay for this mobile service.
As for the Klonies looks, yes, Klonies are good looking and juvenile, as they are primarily targeted to the youth mobile market. Klonies are good looking as they are our alter ego, our “wanna be web\mobile persona”. Klonies are also means for playing with our identity. Over the web we can “try” different characteristics as if they were different outfits (or costumes), we can express hidden parts of our personality that we don’t expose in daily life, such as our desires.
As for "rugged", "mature", "experienced", "damaged", “fat” avatars, the question is who would want to have his exact body shape and look to be his\her web representation? Imagine yourself this situation: I’m a very cool teenager but my face is all covered with pimples. Would I want my avatar to be polka dotted as well? -of course not! Would I want to have a button that adds zits to my avatar’s face? -no!! Nobody thinks zits are a good way to promote yourself. We all prefer to show an improved image of ourselves. If an “add a zit" option exists in the avatars building studio, and I’d deny its existence because I want my avatar to look cool and hip (who wouldn’t?!), my friends would say I’m lying about the way I look. The bottom line is that no button that adds flaws is welcome in avatars world. Better not have this possibility\option.
And last note about the Klonies looks - we are working on different skeletons to address different market tastes:
Also, different cultures have different conventions of how to present our body and how to pose:
Thanks Jean or sharing your thoughs and Thanks Phil for raising great ideas (I tried to reply to all of them at the comments section).
I was going through my feeds and was excited to read Gigaom’s post about Gaia online avatar social network.
First, a few words about Gaia for those who are not familiar with it; Gaia is an online world with a series of virtual cities where Gaian avatars can socialize (up to 100 in a single space), with apartments they can own, and treasures they can find with no combat, whatsoever). I have been familiar with Gaia ever since I entered the avatars business and learned the avatars market and offering of those days.
However, stumbling upon avatars websites is very common on the web. The real excitement is to be able to get usage numbers. Fortunately, Wagner James Au (correspondent for Gigaom) managed to bring us the usage numbers of Gaia online social network:
• 300,000 log in daily, according to the company; average unique visit is two hours a day.
• Average concurrency: 64,000 users. Maximum: 86,738.
• 85% of users are based in the US
• 10% are English-speaking but non-US (with 5% a nebulous Other)
• Breakdown by gender: 55% Girls - 45% Boys
• About 20% of subscribers put up their real life photo in their avatar profile.
• Number of Gaia gold “millionaires”, as of last week: 1385
[via Gigaom]
Putting the numbers on ice, one of the interesting features that are worth to notice at Gaia is the incentive mechanism where users get incentives for participating in the online community’s life:
“A unique innovation is the way the company distributes its virtual gold currency: instead of selling it for real money (as with There) or allowing its trade on the open market (as with Second Life), Gaians are automatically given gold for participation: You get gold for posting on the Forums, for riding events, for uploading content, for exploring the world. Subscribers are rewarded for engaging in Gaia, in other words— and the reward incents them to engage in Gaia even more.”
To summarize, every avatar social community that succeeds is a win for the entire avatar business. Way to go Gaia!
Yesterday Weeworld revealed its survey’s results on “Why generation Y loves avatars”; a survey which is very important for the entire avatars market. For those of you who are not familiar with Weeworld, Weeworld is an online web avatar provider looking like the South Park’s characters. You can follow this link and create a Weemee.
“Based on more than 750 unique respondents, the survey revealed that U.S. Millennials ("Gen Y," born between 1978 and 2000) are using avatars such as WeeWorld's WeeMees because they like having a cartoon version of themselves for entertainment and to express themselves online.
The survey results also revealed key industry trends, significant variations by age and gender, and specific insight regarding WeeMee usage. Key findings include:
Based on the wide array of respondents, variations by age or gender also became apparent such as:
According to Wikipedia's definition, Gen Y was “the first to grow up with the Internet in a developed, prolific form, including music downloads, instant messaging and cellular phones” and “even before they could type and mouse-click their way through the Internet, they grew up with modern media choices: television remotes to encourage channel flipping; cable, with its wealth of channels among which to switch.” Many consider Gen Y as the most important generation for marketers based on their expansive spending power and significant influence over their parents’ purchases. However, with the continued evolution of Web 2.0 and the growth of widgets, APIs and avatars, the motives behind this unique generation’s immersion in the digital arena and how to effectively engage it challenge today’s marketers.
With approximately 76 million Millennials in the United States and 15 million people worldwide having created at least one WeeMee, there is a lot of room for growth. A WeeMee is born every three seconds and 700,000 new WeeMees are born each month.
The survey revealed WeeMee-specific findings on how and why users interact, for example:
Pulse Mobile, a San Francisco company that lets you send mobile messages with an animated avatar, has raised $7 million in a second round of financing according to PEHub.
Since last December, Cingular users can use Pulse Mobile’s “Veepers” in order to create an animated avatar and send it to friend's mobile phone or email address. Users can upload a portrait photo or pick an image from the gallery. Then, the image turns into an image with 3D animated qualities. Users can direct their avatar to nod, shake or wink and choose what kind of accent the avatar speaks the message when it is delivered to friends. Finally, friends will receive a fully animated personality delivering the chosen message with voice by MMS. To get a sense of how Veepers works click here
Little by little, we see more players populating the mobile avatars arena. The fact that investors believe in the avatars market and are putting the $$$ in it - is very good news for the entire world of avatars! GO avatars!
Lately, I keep getting readers emails saying that I haven’t written about the Klonies for a while now… So I decided to give you a peak of the Klonies backstage. I’ll start with the Klonies content and continue with the making of in my next post.
We all know that when it comes to mobile, content is the king. You can have a cool sharing app or community but if you don’t have attractive or compelling enough content - you’re doomed.
Just a quick note - Klonies, for those who don’t know, are a new service of personalized Avatars by the mobile solutions provider Comverse, that enables the creation of Avatars from a big content library of body types, eyes, hairstyles, hats, glasses, moods, clothes, branded accessories, etc., which can be used in traditional Web forums, as well as to extend this experience to the mobile arena. Comverse has created a mobile Caller ID service, by which a user can create his Klonie either on the Web or on his mobile handset. Klonies let youth segment do something they could never even dream of doing before: create expressive avatars that represent them on other people’s phones. Klonies give the users extended means for self expression: they define how they are seen by their friends, on their phones.
To be able to cover the Klonies content I met Ronen Ventura, the Klonies Chief Graphic Designer and Tali Perel, the Klonies Styling Adviser. Here’s what they told me:
Usually we start with a meeting of the designers, Styling Adviser and Marketing for a brain storming, to raise upcoming events (Valentines, Halloween, spring break etc’), topics, characters and that sort of leads. For example, when we launched the Klonies on Skype last year, we offered a wide collection of Football Mania clothing as it was only a few days before the world cup.
Other lead is analyzing users downloads; we can share with you that we were amazed to find out that men and women are very different in their preferences:
Most women want to be either bad or cool:
We see a lot of laid-back men:
As for dressing up:
Also, sport is the strongest theme amongst males, which nonexistent with the ladies. So, by analyzing downloads we get to learn a lot about tastes and trends. Also this is a great pointer of which areas to need to be broadened.
Apart form events, locals fashion also inspires the Klonies content. Our styling adviser explores fashion and teen magazines to get the sense and taste of specific audiences. Klonies sales people usually buy local magazines as part of their tasks when flying on business trips.
And you'll have to tune in later on for the second part of 'The Making of Klonies' :)
Virtual worlds are becoming a sphere for children as well - the BBC plans a virtual online kids's world where they can inhabit and interact.
"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. Users would be able to build an online presence, known as an avatar, then create and share content. Bosses said CBBC World would not have the financial aspects of other online worlds such as Second Life. [...] "It will give children a chance to move around a safe, secure world where they can not only interact with familiar characters but have an opportunity to make that world a more fascinating place with their own imaginations.""
[via BBC]
It makes me think about the messages that will be conveyed, targeted marketing and segmentation, child's psychology...
I was tipped about the launch of the talking avatar ringtone application called U-DOO. U-DOO is a ringtone application for mobile phones that allows users to create talking animated avatars with their own voices and use the characters as ringtones on their mobile phones and send them to friends. In addition, U-DOO lets users publish the talking avatar to their MySpace web pages. The company behind the taking avatars is no other than web avatars provider Oddcast, which is looking for new partnerships to expand to the mobile arena.
How does it work? U-DOO users can create personalized ringtones and avatars with their own voice or from pre-recorded messages, and email them to friends, who can then download the ringtones to their phones. The phones can be set to sound the ringtone whenever the friend associated with the avatar calls. This means I create my avatar ringtone and I send it to you and hope you'd associate it with my profile, so whenever I call you, you'll see and hear my avatar. So I need my friends' cooperation in order to decide how do I look when I call them. Other thing is if I'd have several different ringtones, each associated with a friend, how would I know my own mobile is ringing? Each time I choose to change my ringtone it takes me a few seconds to realize that the mobile ring actually belongs to me... I guess more people will use U-DOO to make their own personalized avatar ringtone and leave the Caller ID function aside.
The email and MySpace options are free to end users, but the wireless download option is offered by subscription through wireless carriers under a 60-day free trial, with a $5 monthly charge after. Enjoy!
Thanks Katie! :)
A dear friend and fellow mobilist, Rudy De Waele of m-trends, pinged me about a very cool social programming tool called partyStrands. partyStrands is designed for bars, clubs, and other socializing venues or private/public parties. It allows partygoers to influence the music being played all through their mobile phones.
-So how does it work? -partyStrands starts to run on a playlist chosen by the bar or club owner. Then, partygoers can influence the music by sending an SMS containing an alias + favorite artist. As more people join in, the sequence of the songs is influenced by the collective tastes in music of the people who join that party.
To create a seemingly online community experience, partyStrands runs on a screen that displays the current playing song, album and the messages that the partygoers send via SMS. It can also display photos sent by MMS, and several other innovative features such as cool animations targeted to the audience, and what I personally liked (the reason is obvious) - is the ability to display member’s avatar :) Also, the playlist, partygoers, and SMS is accessible on real time from the party's webpage which can be visited during or after the party.
For the partygoes, partyStrands brings the virtual experience of online social network to the physical space (and vice versa). On the same time, advertisers, venue owners, music labels and operators enjoy the newly created context of consumption and the newly created place to advertize and promote mobile and music services/products. Smart!
Recently I was asked to give a presentation about the Korean avatars market, trying to understand the craze and predict other mobile markets’ behavior. Knowing it might interest some of you, I’ll be publishing the content of the presentation at this blog. Due to the length, I’ve been posting it in a few parts every Thursday. If you missed the opening, here’s the link to the first part, second part and third part.
****
Mobile Avatars Offerings
The medium of avatars is naturally focused on community, since users need an audience to present their character. As such, avatars can increase operator's attractiveness using its viral affect to mobile operators. Also, operators can use avatars in order to utilize the loyalty established by online communities.
However, the mobile industry had stumbled upon barriers to provide a mobile avatars offering: the mobile internet hasn’t reached the web’s speed, latency, and user interface. Also there’s a big difficulty in implementation.
Having said that, there are already some players in the Korean mobile avatars arena. The first player was NEOWIZ which began supplying mobile avatars to KTF in August 2001, to LG Telecom in April 2002, and SK Telecom in August 2002. According to company’s reports, mobile avatar sales grew to over 2 billion won per month in 2004 (which are about $1.5 B).
The second player was NATE. SK Telecom's Nate launched its avatar service in October 2002 and provides avatar service similar to those provided by web portals. This move was the result of the wired-wireless convergence with SK Telecom’s acquisition of a Korean web portal. Nate offers clothing brands for avatars, providing its users with replicas of the genuine clothing lines. The fashion and consumer brands companies enjoy the advertising by increasing actual product sales, while NATE profits from avatar sales.
What avatars demonstrated to the mobile industry is that mobile phones are a strong extension of self for many users. By personalizing the mobile with avatars, the mobile becomes much more than a communication tool. It has become an extension of either how the user views himself\herself, or would like to.
To summarize, avatars should be linked with other services and not just be a cute application to play with. Avatar service has been generating sales related to community-based services like gaming, forums, chats, IM, and minihomepies. Integrating the web and mobile increases the usage of avatars provide the ability to use the digital identity created practically everywhere.
I've been invited to join the mobileYouth and w2forum virtual networking event being held in the popular youth hangout - the UK branch of Habbo Hotel on Friday 27th of October at 14:00-16:00 BST. This is a great opportunity to play around with avatars and meet some very interesting people - so I'm inviting you to join!
Also, starting next week, I'm having my November special coverage. A very interesting guest will be visiting Xellular Identity, and will talk about mobile youth trends... It smells like teen spirit around here... :)
Recently I was asked to give a presentation about the Korean avatars market, trying to understand the craze and predict other mobile markets’ behavior. Knowing it might interest some of you, I’ll be publishing the content of the presentation at this blog. Due to the length, I’ve been posting it in a few parts every Thursday. If you missed the opening, here’s the link to the first part and second part
***
Avatars Offerings
Consumption of all kinds of online content has extremely grown in Korea ever since broadband internet service became popular. I’ll also add here a little piece of valuable info I got last week (Thanks Melanie) to get the idea of “heavy connectivity” that was discussed last week: on average, Korean Internet users spend 12.2 hours online per week and participate in 3-4 community websites!
South Korean users were the first to adopt avatars as their web representation. Respectively, the demand for avatars has grown with the fast adoption of online social interactions in a bodiless, ageless and sexless sphere. This amorphous presence has evoked the need to establish a visual presence by nominating a visual representant.
Most of the avatar providers are portal companies which entered the avatar market to upgrade their web offerings. This companies recognized that avatars can increase revenues by promoting more frequent and longer visits and by serving as a bridge to additional services. Only later down the road service providers realized that avatars are a consumer goods which should have a business model of their own. The avatar service evolved to a pay service which increased the quality of the offerings.
What makes the avatar phenomenon so interesting for many, is the fact that so many users are willing to pay to dress their avatar with clothing and accessories. Understanding that the avatar has a major role in self-representation in the social world over the web, service providers offer only a basic avatar. Many times the basic avatar doesn’t wear more than pajamas or a fig leaf. Service providers understood that users want to have an avatar that resembles them as much as possible, so they offered premium content for extra charge.
The major avatar providers in Korea are NEOWIZ (SayClub), Cyworld, Daum, MSN Korea and Yahoo! Korea.
NEOWIZ operates one of the most popular avatar sites - SayClub. SayClub has over 20 million subscribers which are equivalent to nearly 50% the population of Korea! Neowiz launched the first avatar service in 2000 and has occupied one of the leading positions among Korean internet companies offering avatars and games ever since. According to the company’s reports, Q1 2006 avatar revenues reached $2.4 M!
NEOWIZ was the first provider to employ an “avatars distributed for free, clothes and accessories sold for small amounts” business model. According to this model, users can buy designer avatar clothing and other premium content, with licensing fees being paid to actual consumer brand. This has led to the reality where Korean avatar owners spend more money on clothing for their avatar than they do for themselves. In a society where most of interactions happen over the web – this makes sense.
MSN Korea launched its MSN messenger in 2003 which includes “dynamic avatars”. Dynamic avatar changes according to the typed emoticons or certain words like ‘happy’, ‘angry’, etc’ in the chat window. Dynamic avatars require server capacity which is equal to the online games; which makes it harder for small portals to provide similar services. MSN Korea offers users a “multi avatar feature” which enables the user to employ up to 4 avatars. The displayed avatar depends on the chat partner. To initiate the service, users need to pay cyber money.
The last major avatar provider, which got a lot of coverage after its entrance to the U.S. market, is Cyworld. Cyworld is a social networking leader in Asia with localized sites in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, owned by a subsidiary of SK Telecom, the country's largest wireless provider. The Cyworld service is a combination of minihompies, online communities, music downloads, picture sharing, messenger and eBay. Cyworld’s users have avatars that visit (by linking) each other's "minihompy" [= a miniature homepage that looks like a 3D room which contains user’s blog, photos, and virtual items for sale]. Cyworld users also buy and sell music, ringtones, and clothes for their avatar. They can also buy skins to furnish their virtual minihompy. The service is free yet a big part of the content is available only for a fee, paid in virtual currency. Cyworld has astonishing penetration rates with 90% of the 20-year-old Koreans.
Daum, another major avatar provider is one of Korea's largest portals. Currently it has more than 35 million subscribers.
Next week - I’ll be talking about the next big thing... avatars entering into the mobile arena! So don’t forget to tune in on Thursday.
As I told you last week, I was asked to give a presentation about the Korean avatars market, trying to understand the craze on the web and predict other mobile markets’ behavior. I started to post it in a few parts every Thursday. If you missed the opening, here’s the link to the first part and now let’s move forward to the second part:
***
South Korean connectivity culture
South Korean users were the first to adopt avatars as their web representation and very quickly it has turned to be a very prosperous market for avatars providers. To understand this phenomenon we should look into the South Korean connectivity culture.
South Korea has quickly become the world's most wired nation. A friend of mine who just got back to Israel after being relocated in South Korea for 1.5 years shared that he "couldn’t grasp how much the web had to offer until I got to Korea. You suddenly realize how FAST it can be! An average South Korean apartment has a high-speed Internet connection of 8 megabits per second” - which, just for the comparison, is 8 times the typical broadband speed in U.S. households. That's FAST!
But we’re not only talking about the speed. Korean broadband penetration leads the world being one of the fastest, and its subscription rates which are among the lowest in the world. 78% of the total Korean households or some 11 million homes, have broadband accounts. This makes Korea a fertile land for broadband services.
Massively multi-player online role-playing games or MMORPGs are one of the beneficiaries of Korean broadband’s high penetration. These games form entire fantasy worlds (and economies), where players meet, interact, and even fight (together or against one another). All is done by using their avatars, their web representations. MMORPGs where the first arena where the need for having a personalized self-representation was understood and answered.
The demand for avatars has grown with the fast adoption of online social interactions in a bodiless, ageless and sexless sphere (at MMORPGs and elsewhere on the web). This amorphous presence has evoked the need to establish a visual presence by nominating a visual representant.
Service providers, on their behalf, entered the avatar market to upgrade their web offerings, recognizing that avatars can increase revenues by promoting more frequent and longer visits and by serving as a bridge to additional services; wherever you go, you take your avatar with you. For the different Korean Avatars offerings you'll have to tune in next Thursday... :)
Recently I was asked to give a presentation about the Korean avatars market, trying to understand the craze and predict other mobile markets’ behavior. Knowing it might interest some of you, I’ll be publishing the content of the presentation at this blog. Due to the length, I’ll be posting it in a few parts every Thursday.
***
Email, IM, VoIP, P2P file sharing, online social networks etc’... we all use these to communicate with other people. It makes our lives easier, it extends our availability (and our working hours) and it makes us manage more "mediated" relationships than we used to have in the past; meaning we communicate more through emails\mobiles\IM and less in person, face to face. Having said that, we should examine the influence of these medias on our lives and what we gain from them.
One of the key attributes of the internet is that users are liberated from their body, age, sex and occupation. For many, this is a major attraction while others loathe the lack of boundaries. Either way, users need to supplement information that otherwise can be gathered easily, like age, sex, personal traits etc’. To do so, users adopt a personal referent that stands for them over the web. It can be a screen name, a user ID number, an email address… Yet many users find that a graphical representation provides a better service for this purpose.
That graphical representation is what we call an avatar. An avatar can be based on the user’s physical appearance as close as possible, if not identical, to how he\she is seen in real life or, in contrast, present a desired but imaginary appearance; a manga fairy, a medieval warrior, cute Hello Kitty... Anything or anyone. Thus, avatars empower users. Avatars are users’ alter ego.
Also, users can change their avatars frequently to better fit their mood and the actual settings.
Scholars have found major interest in the self-representation over the web mechanism, and dealt a lot with the following questions:
Moving to South Korea...
South Korean users were the first to adopt avatars as their web representation and very rapidly it has turned to be a very prosperous market for avatars providers. To understand this phenomenon we should look into the South Korean connectivity culture. So don’t forget to tune in next Thursday for the second part.
Congratulations to WeeWorld people for steping into AIM with their WeeMee avatars. Now AIM users can have their personalized WeeMee as their AIM expression. This is great news for the entire world of avatars. :)
And here is my Weemee:
The encounter of reality with the virtual has led to a very interesting and creative implementation of consumer brand offering in a virtual world:
Adidas is now selling its "a3 Microride" shoes for L$50 to Second Lifers. “Like the real-life shoe, the Second Life counterpart provides “the ultimate blend of bounce and flexibility with minimum weight.” In fact, it’s a great virtual-world product, acting like a kind of pogo stick for your feet, and with the option to keep bouncing you around as long as you’re walking over open ground”, says Mark Wallace.
[via 3pointD.com]
So these “a3 Microride” shoes leverage the power and attractiveness of the consumer brand Adidas in reality while also benefiting from being a virtual product that can have fantasy features\powers. Come to think of it, these Adidas shoes are better than the real ones!
This makes me think what more can be done when brands get extra fantasy benefits at the virtual arena... awesome! :)
Hi everyone,
I wanted to share the latest news... Starting yesterday, I'm joining the Comverse Fun Dial business unit. You probably know our service under its common name of ringback tones.
For all Klonies fans among you - don't worry! This doesn't mean I'm leaving the Avatars Group. As a positive outcome of the company's latest reorganization, The Avatars Group and the Fun Dial now belong to the Content line of business, so I will be working for both at the Marketing Department.
Naturally, in the near future I will be mostly learning, however it would be great if you have interesting ideas\ findings\thoughts to share about the mobile music industry which I'm joining. Your welcome to email me or comment.
Idan sent me these pics from “Boyds Personalization Center” in NY (correct me if I'm wrong about the store, dear). As you can see, girls are now offered to personalize their dolls and choose from a wide selection of color and hairstyles (no need to make improvised haircuts that end up in tears), color of skin tone, color of eyes, and of course many clothes etc’… (If I was given this task of choosing as a little girl it would have taken me ages to decide which items to buy or even worse, all of my spending money; because a girl needs a wide wardrobe to select from...) ;)
I don’t know if this is influenced by the wide world of personalization that rules the world of virtual identities (MMOGs, IMs, chats, forums and even mobiles) or vice versa. Yet in both, “the user” identifies with the doll\avatar during “the playing time” and is willing to invest money in the looks of the subject of identificati
on.
