Xellular Identity - All About Mobile Content & Marketing

Communication Technologies in Fiction

I was going through Cellular News and found the following:

"A novel in which the entire narrative consists of mobile phone text messages was published Wednesday in Finland. "The Last Messages" tells the story of a fictitious executive in Finland who resigns from his job and travels throughout Europe and India, keeping in touch with his friends and relatives only through text messages.

His messages, and the replies, roughly 1,000 altogether, are listed in chronological order in the 332-page novel written by Finnish author Hannu Luntiala. The texts are rife with grammatical errors and abbreviations commonly used in such messages."

[via Cellular News]

This made me try to remember if I have ever read about a mobile phone in fiction (not in professional literature)... I couldn't think of any examples... However, I do remember that the first and only time I've ever read about an IM conversation was in Haruki Murakami's "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" written back in 1995! I don't want to spoil the fun so go grab the book, be amazed from the prehistoric IM chat session described and enjoy.

If you happen to know who was the first author to describe\write about the telephone, mobile phone, TV, PC etc' in fiction\literature please comment or drop me a line. Thanks :) 

Forgot Your Password? Try A New Identity

Danah Boyd has written a very interesting post about youth's tendency to forget things, like their login passwords etc and their approach when being locked out of mySpace/Xanga/Blogger happens:

"Sara created a MySpace using an email address that she made specifically for that purpose. After vacation, she couldn't remember her MySpace password (or her email password). She created a new MySpace page using a new throwaway email address. When i asked her if she was irritated that she had to do this after investing time in the previous profile, she said, "nah.. I had too many Friends that I didn't know anyways."

"Teens are not dreaming of portability (like so many adults i meet). They are happy to make new accounts on new sites; they enjoy building out profiles. (Part of this could be that they have a lot more time on their hands.) The idea of taking MySpace material to Facebook when they transition is completely foreign. They're going to a new site, they want to start over. [...] Some teens chew through IM handles like candy; their nicks are things like "o-so-funny" rather than the first name, last name standard that seems to pervade professional worlds. It's not seen as something to build an extensive identity around, but something to use to talk to friends in the moment."

[via zephoria]

Forgetting the password and creating a new account is a great opportunity to start over a new account with a new profile, i.e. a new identity. It is even more appealing for youth because adolescence is the age when many 'roles' are being tried/played with as part of the process of constructing an independent (from parents) identity.

in contrast, let's keep Cyworld with its 'real-name policy' and huge success among teens and young adults in mind...

SMSing Under The Dinner Table

Hi everyone,

The forth part of the mobile youth trends coverage will be posted to next Thursday due to the mobileYouth Tends Summit that will be held tomorrow (Friday 24th of November) at the Tower Hotel, London. If you’re thinking of attending - I’m sure it is worthwhile.

Looking for mobile news related to youth I’ve found a very amusing research related to the American holiday season held by T-Mobile which shows how mobile has created new family dynamics at holiday dinners and family gatherings.

In the survey:

• 70% of young adults (ages 18-22) and 56% of parents surveyed say they've made or answered wireless calls during a holiday gathering.
• 35% of young adults say they've read or sent an e-mail or text message under the dinner table during a holiday family gathering.
• In addition, 67% of parents and young adults now agree that it is ok to use their mobile phone during holiday gatherings. Moreover, 73% of people surveyed agree the mobile phone can improve the holidays by keeping people in touch with those not there in person.

[via Cellular News]

One thing wasn’t very clear and changes my opinion entirely (regarding the described findings): whether “using their mobile phone during holiday gatherings” means “SMSing under the dinner table” as the title given by Cellular News implicates. If we’re talking about literally texting under the dinning table, sneaking letters without accidentally getting caught - you might say I’m too conservative… I think it’s pretty rude to sit with your family and text to friends under the dinning table. That’s me. As Dr. Tracy Wellens said, it might “include more people than ever before at family gatherings”. Yet it seems more like bonding with teenager’s peer group at the stake of disrespecting the people who made a big effort to be able to sit together at the dinning table… How about waiting for after dinner to reply?

****

And don't forget to drop by next Thursday for the last part of my "mobile youth trends" coverage!

Korean Avatars Market Review - Part IV (Mobile Avatars Offerings)

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.

Korean Avatars Market Review - Part III (Avatars Offerings)

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.

Korean Avatars Market Review - Part I

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:

• Does web self-representation resemble to the real-life self-representation?
• How users manage consciously and unconsciously their self-representation over the web?
• What message users want to promote about themselves?
• How users read and decode this visual information?

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.

WeeWorld Now on AIM

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:

 

Update: Interoperable Avatars?

According to jeff Hester from BigBlueBall Forums, the Yahoo and MSN IM interoperability doesn't include avatars... was obvious, ha?

Anyhow, you're welcome to follow the link for screenshots and install instructions.

Technorati Tags: Yahoo messenger, MSN messenger, interoperability, avatars, Yahoo avatars, MSN Dynamic Display Pictures

Interoperable Avatars?

Yahoo! and MSN have finally put up together interoperability between their messengers, starting with a limited beta test of a service that will enable users of Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger to connect with each other, creating a huge community of nearly 350 million accounts. Finally, I can have one messenger less on my taskbar :))

What I’m curious about is the avatars… up till now, each company has been promoting its own brand (Yahoo avatars vs. MSN Dynamic Display Pictures), having free as well as paid content. So how’s this is going to work from now on? Will MSN and Yahoo take interoperability all the way?

Technorati Tags: Yahoo messenger, MSN messenger, interoperability, avatars, Yahoo avatars, MSN Dynamic Display Pictures

The Klonies Now Available on Skype - Happy Announcement

I'm very happy to share our excitement: the Klonies avatars are now available on Skype!!

With the Klonies, Skype’s users can create and personalize their Klonies to reflect their looks, moods and interests and share with friends, family, and community groups. Check it out and tell me what you think :)

Disclaimer: I work at Comverse, on the Klonies project.

Technorati Tags: announcement, avatars, klonies, skype, IM

"Share" Your Personality

Yesterday I had a very interesting conversation with a new friend who shared some of his views about the future of mobile personalization. For Gilad, mobile personalization is all about presence and content sharing. You probably ask – what those have to do with personalization… I’ll explain :)

Remember the days, when the mobile was a newborn, batteries had very short life and we had mentality of wired communication? Oh, we used to turn on the mobile to make a call and then turn it off right away… funny. Thanks to technological changes and improvement of battery life (we still complaint, and yet, they’ve improved…), today we carry it everywhere and always available, sometimes switch to ‘silent’ (still available for SMS) but always ‘on’. It’s interesting to follow how it influences our mobile culture, how our grasp of ‘availability’ changed. First we used the mobile only in emergency, then we demanded everyone to be reachable 24-7 (“why didn’t you answer me when I called? Ha?”). Feeling unpleasant when screened and feeling intruded being called on all hours, we realized availability is fluid and has more then 0-1 sub categories.

BUT… tatatata - imagine that you could get the status (available or unavailable) of friends you want to call without initiating any kind of communication (call or send sms), just like we do today on IM? Even better – imagine that we could get the ‘emotional status’ of them: busy, on the phone, driving, on a date, tired, or maybe pissed off (pls call)… whatever they would want to share about themselves. There’s no doubt that end users would benefit from sparing wasted money on unsuccessful calls, for operators, it’s more complex…

All communication relies on personalization: all I need to do is personalize my profile, express my availability and emotional status and choose who can see/ be subscribed to my profile. As my friends/buddies/contacts, you will probably be moved to see my status changes from ‘cool’ to ‘pissed off’ or even from something very ordinary like ‘at work’ changes to ‘back home’ and initiate communication. Next you could subscribe to my list of 5 last downloaded ringtones/realtones/ ringbacks, learn that I’ve changed my wallpaper and see it, see my location, my last moblog rss… the sky is the limit! Sharing this info with friends is far more reaching self-expression, since more people get to see this mobile content. And from operator’s perspective it could be beneficial too - it urges users to get and share mobile content (the best sales agent is your friend).

Last thing to bear in mind – this is self expression in a non-invasive way, because my friends/buddies/contacts need to subscribe in order to view my content, and I can determine the access or restrictions to it. I guess some of you think – “it’s too much of exposure”… hey, look around at today’s teenagers, the MySpace etal generation, this is how they socially communicate… Be prepared.  :)

Technorati Tags: Gilad De Vries, mobile, personalization, presence, connectivity, availability

IM Goes Mobile - Avatars Too!

"there are currently slightly more than 2.5 million wireless IM users worldwide, about 0.6% of the 400 million Internet IM user base. It pegged wireless IM worldwide revenue at $54.9 million in 2005 and predicts this will grow to $265.2 million this year, $580.9 million next year and more than $3.6 billion by 2009."

[via telecomasia]

wow!!

You're probably guessing my thoughts... mobile avatars, that's right! :)

Technorati Tags: IM, mobile, mobile avatars, avatars

ICQ: Fly Ads\Users Away

ICQ is launching a new advertising platform, called Broadcast To User (B2U) which enables broadcasting commercials while users are chatting on real time. The commercial is broadcasted to the dialog window after one of the users has sent a message and is waiting to a response from his counterpart. After an appearance of 10-17 seconds, the commercial gets smaller into the size of an icon and remains on the top right of the dialog window, serving as a link to the advertising company. ICQ people see this new platform as a powerful tool to have a real dialog with their wide audience of teen users.

Picture yourself the following situation: you’re IM-ing about some private stuff with your friend. Let’s say you’re crying about a not-so-long-ago break up from your b\g-friend. And there you have ads popping on your dialog screen, preventing you from seeing the last sentences you just wrote. After 10-17 seconds, the ads fly to the side of the text - but stick there. How would you feel about that? -pissed off that’s how! You get ads on the banner (I can live with that), on the message banner, on the contact list, on the welcome screen (they should have a law against that annoying thing), on the extraz page and now instead of your conversation text you’ll get flying ads! Doesn’t that remind you those hideous pop ups before the days of Google AdWords?

I don't see how this brings ICQ any closer to "having a dialog with their teenage users". All they really tell them is "fly away to other messengers"!

Technorati Tags: icq, B2U, im, marketing, advertisement, pop ups

Reality? Check

"Klonies Blogging Idol" is still running... Causing the participants to nervously bite their nails not knowing who’s winning since many friends want to get the chance to try the blogging thing. For those of you who haven't heard about it, I'm looking for blogging talents among the Avatars Group, to get them blogging in our upcoming Klonies Blog. So let me introduce you to my fourth guest, Tom Sella, a dear friend of the group, a Klonies addict, a regular reader (I didn’t pay him to do so I swear) and a great blogger. Well, enough talkin’... Tom, knock ‘em down!

                                   *******

Several years ago I had a couple of paperback Asimov’s Journal (after looking it up, I think it is Asimov’s Science Fiction zine) editions, or something to that effect. These were collections of short science fiction stories by (I think) both known and lesser-known authors.

One story that I particularly liked was one which, among other things, described a message answering holographic video phone, where your (today more commonly known as “avatar”) attendant would answer, and filter messages. Both the complexity of the system, and unsolicited messages (today more commonly known as “SPAM”), were described, where one would try to fool the other to reveal its true identity – the avatar as message filtering service instead of the targeted “live person”, and the message as SPAM, instead of something of importance to the “live person”.

This would seem to be more science than fiction these days, in so many aspects. To forego the subject of SPAM and SPAM filters, we are now making daily progress in manifesting and/or changing our personal representation. We do this in our instant messengers, e-mail, blogs, and when Klonies and SeeStorm have it their way, on our mobile phone.

How long would it take to bring us, our personal computers, and mobile phones, technology just as recently described as being used in movies, where one can come into the studio, and with no makeup and no special effects, appear 25 years his younger, or in fact, anything else? To judge from technologies brought forth by Logitech [videos here and here], combined with avatar technologies like Klonies, possibly not long at all.

As one Israeli child song goes, with a little twist “whomever stands behind in front of me, does not know who I am”.

P.s. if anyone can remind me of the author of the story, and where it may be found, I would be grateful.

Technorati Tags: tom sella, sciense fiction, avatars, mobile avatars, asimov, seestorm, klonies, logitech,

Welcome To The First Signs of Maturity

""It got too fake," 18 year old Summer Stoker said. "You have all these people saying they want to be your friend. It's just a waste of time.""

[via Star Telegram]

well, there are some more mature and more self-aware teenagers... Great news :)

Technorati Tags: myspace, web comunities, web, youth

The Proliferating Walled Messengers

MySpace launched yesterday their new MySpace IM, right after AOL launched their "MySpace rival web community" based on its AIM audience and Microdoft launched their Windows Live Messenger.

What irritates, bothers, annoys and pisses off the most(!) in this whole IM thing is the lack of interoperability between all the different instant messengers!! I got:

• Windows Messenger (Microsoft's monopoly)
• MSN Messenger
• ICQ (for the free SMS)
• Skype (for the VoIP)
• Yahoo messenger
• AIM (for all my american friends)
• GTalk (comes with my Gmail)
• and now - a new kid on the block - MySpace IM (cause I'm for friends too)

all that just to be able to reach friends...

Making this list makes me think that I might have more IMs on my taskbar than actual friends/buddies/contacts/you-name-it... :-|

Technorati Tags: windows messenger, MSN messenger, icq, Skype, Yahoo messenger, IM, interoperability, MySpace

Girls Watch Out (or get a masculine screen name)

Virtual world parallels to the real world - USA Today reports that a new study finds that female screen names elicit more threats than male or ambiguous screen names. Like in real life, women get more threats and abusive content than men. No news here...

Technorati Tags: IM, screen name, gender, research, malicious content

For Privacy Matters Please Text

These days every kid has a mobile phone. There's no surprise in seeing companies and organizations trying to reach teenagers through their mobile phones, or better said – via texting.

"San Francisco just launched the nation's first text-messaging program aimed to shoot instant cellphone messages to sexually active young people seeking advice about sex and health. The service focuses on everything from what to do "if ur condom broke" to whom to call "if ur feeling down... like u wanna xcape ur life."

Written in the abbreviated style of text messaging, SexInfo is open to anyone with cellphone text messaging. But it is aimed at sexually active 12- to 24-year-olds in San Francisco, especially blacks, whose rates of sexually transmitted diseases have increased in the past year, says Jacqueline McCright of the San Francisco Department of Public Health."
[via USA Today]

What I liked about this initiation is that the San Fransisco Department of Public Health people chose the right means of communication for the specific target segment and for the cause. Info about sex is an urging content for teenagers, yet you probably ask - why is the mobile the right means of communication and not - let's say - the internet?

Texting, like IM-ing, creates a new sphere of communication. Texting and IM-ing provide a protective shield, because the “texter” is less involved in the situation; unlike participating in a F2F or on a phone conversation.

In their essence, texting and IM-ing are very close, yet teenagers prefer texting. Why? Because the mobile looks better after their privacy. Teenagers don't share their mobile with other people like they share the PC (with family members, friends, and/or random people at internet cafés…). So on the mobile, no one could see the latest word searches, the ongoing text conversation, or opened web screen. For private matters, the mobile has greater benefit.

No need to explain that when it comes to "if ur condom broke to whom to call" or "if ur feeling down... like u wanna xcape ur life" teenagers must feel confident enough to express and not intimidated by the fear of possible exposure... To make sure that teenagers would get the important info, the Health Department people made sure that the means of communication answer the users needs – get the info and keep their privacy at the same time. Nice guys!

Technorati Tags: SexInfo, texting, SMS, IM, youth

Virtual and Mobile Satisfaction (**careful with kiddies around)

More things you can do with your avatar: get satisfacion. Run a romantic virtual/real life. More specifically, you can flirt, court, go on date, cuddle and even have sex.

-Crazy? -Maybe. But it’s real:

IMVU integrated their IM avatars to allow their users to push further their chats into virtual social interactions. Instead of just having a verbal interaction, IMVU enable users to take the “traditional” chat and run it over a cup of coffee on the virtual “Starbucks” or smooch under the moonlight sky.

-Naive? -Maybe, but I’m sure you’ll agree that most people would choose this IM to flirt/ look-for-a-date/ have cyber-sex rather than just to chat with their best friend…

On the mobile sphere, Digital Chocolate apparently targets teenagers and their mobile phones with its new dating video game. According to its last announcement, with “The Hook Up: AvaFlirting” we could create a mobile avatar and flirt with other peoples’ cell phone avatars. No word on how this is going to work, so we’ll have to be patient…

The app that takes it to the verge is “Naughty America: The Game”, a multiplayer online dating game where “players can create their own character and explore an exciting, sexy, and vibrant world. Escape from your day-to-day life by creating a Naughty Persona and interact live with other players from around the world.”

What’s so special you’re asking? Well, while you can have some “ordinary” experiences of a virtual multiplayer world of chatting with people, shopping for clothes or having other outdoor activities, you can also try the “sex mode”! This mode allows you to try sex positions with your avatar partner, turn on the webcam, “or just visit the voyeur club and get a sneak peak at someone else's wild side”.

Very creative, kinky and daring. Really. What I don’t like in these apps is the potential to replace (to a certain extent) a normal social interaction. There’s no harm in meeting a potential date over an online dating service, over any IM jabber or flirt through SMS. There is no wrong in having a place to express ourselves and our fantasies more easily and freely either. But these apps exist in an evasive sphere, not totally real and not totally imaginary. They provide an alternative experience which is easier and safer to dating (in the real world) which many find as very stressing, intimidating and exhausting. By providing a detour, many just don’t need to cope with/ face their difficulties in order to get satisfaction.

Would next step be feeling embraced to initiate a small talk with people without having technology as a mediator? Will we (need to) hum/ scream out loud Rolling Stones' "I can't get no satisfaction"? ;-)

New - GTalk's Lame Avatars

As you’ve probably heard, there’s a new version of Google Talk at a special setup URL. It seems to be a pre-release, since the official Google Talk homepage doesn’t have this link just yet. In this update is included the ability to display avatars. Apparently, Gtalk doesn’t have its own avatar brand but some lame cliparts that can be used to personalize your account. Nice move, but not good enough considering the very developed avatars on the IM sphere.
BTW, if we're talking about instant messengers, take a quick look on Weeworld's recent launch of WeeChat.

Confused? Don't Be

How much time would be reasonable to wait for a reply to an SMS? How long can I wait with replying on an e-mail? Evidently, we’re a bit confused, or so says a study called “Digital Etiquette” held among office workers. Most interesting is the fact that we all agree that firing a worker over any kind of means of communication, instead of over a private meeting, is totally rude. However, regarding the time intervals between getting an SMS, IM or email and replying the sender may vary.

Putting stats on the ice for a moment, it is a great opportunity to look at the 24-7 connectivity’s etiquette. We all rant about being always connected, online, reachable, in range… It usually sounds like this: “how the !@#$@#!! did they manage when there was NO mobile\ internet?! They had no other choice but handle the crisis without me. So they can manage it again!”** But, if we do a reality check, we actually have found the golden path between the 24-7 connectivity’s social demands and our own pace of doing things and our privacy.

At the beginning we felt obliged to answer every incoming call on the mobile or apologize for being unable to answer. The technology was new and there wasn’t a clear convention on the subject. With time, etiquette has evolved: we know we can turn off the mobile when we need to, get the voicemail later on and reply when convenient. From total presence it turned to be “when I choose to be available” kind of presence. It looks like other means of communication like SMS and IM are walking on the same path. While it is rude to disappear in the middle of an ongoing conversation, it is very common to have an online status like “be right back”, “on the phone”, “not at my desk” or “busy”… this is the golden path between total connectivity and our needs and our boundaries (“I’m not answering now, need to do something else”).

BTW, It looks like apps like RSS will push it further to optimize the different kinds of “presence” and our accessibility through different means of communication.

So if you’re confused it’s because social norms regarding these new technologies haven’t totally evolved yet, but good news - it's in process.

**There are various phrasing options here, so you can help me. Try to remember the little voice in your head saying it the last time you were ranting on it. And... write a comment. Thanks :)

Big Little Helpers

A bit late, but I just had to comment on something I’ve read on Ad Age. The recent post of “Media Morph” covers the phenomena of Avatars, from marketing point of view. Yet it did that only to a very poorly extent, the concept was so reduced and badly presented…

First, Avatars are a visual mean of self representation in a limited environment, where we can’t use our physicality as our representation. The environments vary from virtual games, to chats, instant messengers, forums, different social softwares and they have even reached the mobile sphere.

Avatars can be used also for interacting with friends, like in more evolved instant messengers (IMVU for example), or like in virtual societies (“Second Life” for example). On these platforms, avatars can have all kinds of interactions with other people’s avatars: they can go on a date over a cup of coffee, shake hands, hug or kiss... Avatars can have formal interactions like buying or selling stuff too. Whatever comes to your mind – your avatar could interact for you!

And to the marketing perspective: Since avatars are our representation, we want them to be as close as possible to the way we are, as close as possible to what we wish to be. That is why from consumer’s perspective, there is no difference between branded content for  avatars to other branded merchandise (clothes, gadgets, cars… you name it). Whatever brands we own in real life we’ll probably want to have for our avatars as well. Here lies the big benefit to marketers - make branded content to be used in the virtual sphere. This can advertise and promote the consumer brand in real life. But it could be another major route for revenues.

So, don't just go underestimating Avatras (or you'll get me writing another post about it! ;-))

Who Wants A Pimpled Avatar?

Lately, I see everywhere I look around, a new avatar service emerges to the world. This week I came across the Imstar Instant messenger’s 3D avatars. I’ve looked around their demo site and even downloaded the messenger (I really love playing with new apps).

With Imstar’s 3D avatars you can personalize the shape of the body and face to really look like yours. Then, you can try out different clothes, make up and accessories of different brands, buy them if you like the way you look or sell items if you’re tired of that ol’ dress. The other day, I saw great pics published by Heather Meadows, who tried to build her Imstar avatar to look just like her – as much as possible with Imstar’s 3D graphics.

Imstar’s avatars are really great, but 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 (it happens to the best, right?). 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!!

Why?

-Cause 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.

So, have Imstar guys lost their minds adding the option to make fat 3D avatars? Not really… There are segments that will welcome a very realistic avatar to represent them on the web. These people don’t want to upload their real picture and get the inevitable exposure. Think about the dating scene, for example. When flirting on the IM with a potential date we’ve just met, we want to show our best and to protect our real identity at the same time. After gaining trust, we’re ready to provide more details about ourselves and we’re more confident to send a real pic of ourselves. So in our online lifestyle, even not-so-perfectly-looking-avatars have a role. But cool-looking-avatars have a so much bigger role…!

Let Your Avatar Call in Sick for You

I was reading Stowe Boyd's post about face-to-face technology (a.k.a. F2F). He thinks that real time F2F technology will be the next hit, using video chat through PCs and mobile phones. According to Stowe Boyd, the only hurdle is the lack of interoperability which is needed to be cleared out of the way. Looking at Google’s last moves, it’ll happen sooner than we think. Stowe also brings great examples of situations when you would prefer to use F2F communication.

I’m sure F2F will become more popular over time, but what about all those instances that you don’t want to be totally exposed? Like when...

• You’re calling sick from an exotic island or you're really sick in bed with high fever.
• The phone has woken you up and you don't want your partner to see your puffed eyes, your messed hair and your polka dotted pajamas.
• You’re answering the phone in the toilet (I know, nobody does this kind of disgusting things… absolutely n-o-b-o-d-y…).

I believe there’s another channel of communication that we should consider here, and that is communication through Avatars.

Avatars are our web representation. We can personalize them to better fit our look & feel; we can choose their clothing, hair styles, accessories and scenery… absolutely everything! The ease in changing appearance allows us to use this sphere to explore ourselves. In every social encounter we can change our appearance\ characteristics: a hippy, a gallant cavalier or a rapper, and define who we are and who we aren't.

But actually, we can use these avatars for communication everywhere: on the web (IM, blogs, forums, greeting cards, signatures), on the mobile (wallpapers and screensavers), on daily interactions (business cards, ads, bumper stickers… you name it). Think of the day that your Avatar could stand in for you absolutely everywhere…!

What would that give us? Avatars can stand in for us when we don't want to disclose ourselves. They can easily represent us when we want to separate our real life from the social impression we want to make. So next time the phone wakes you up, friends would see your neat and tidy Avatar. I guess when you’re reading these lines now you come up with a lot of more good examples too.

We can communicate using Avatars on the web and in real life when communicating visually. The mobile phone links between these worlds. And this is where the Mobile Avatar is utilized to bridge these spheres. A Mobile Avatar can be your caller ID, so when you call a friend, he will see your personalized Avatar on his screen, just like on the web. This way, your web representation could serve you over the real world as well. Needless to say, that you can use this avatar wherever else you want (like on your business card, etc…).

So… back to F2F communication. Avatars aren't F2F communication by all means; they are just part of widening visual communication. Yet, Mobile Avatars will integrate the web and the real world.

You Are What You Pretend To Be?

Well guys, I don’t know what about you but I just love trying different personalities while on-line. Most of you would probably say that I’m a fraud… But if you think for a moment - trying different personalities is just like trying out different costumes for a costume party, trying out different clothes at the mall or in front of the mirror at home – we experiment different characteristics or personalities to explore ourselves.

I’ll give you another example: Avatars are used to stand-in for us when we’re online. That is why a lot of people want their avatar, their web self representation\alter ego, to be as close as possible, if not identical, to how they are seen in real life. But can they really do that? I mean, who hasn’t experienced the pain of “self-creating” a digital image\web persona? Who doesn’t remember how difficult it is to decide which pic to upload, what witty lines to write while on-line?

You probably run into chats like this all the time:

Night Rider: knock knock…

Crazy Diva: who’s there?

Night Rider: who do you think I am…?

Crazy Diva: do I know you?

Night Rider: maybe… I’m the man of your dreams.

So who is really the “Night Rider”? A mysterious suitor or your shy hometown neighbor? Have you noticed that over the net everyone is “the most”… the most attractive, the most beautiful, the most sexy, the most cynic, the most charming… or at least “more something” than in real life? Assuming that this self representation isn’t artificial, how come there are differences between self representation over the net and self representation in real life? The characteristics are supposed to be constant, aren’t they?

Maybe here comes the resolution to self representation “pains”. Avatars are not just our representation on-line. Avatars are also means for playing with our identity. Over the net we can “try” different characteristics as if they were different outfits (or costumes). We can also express hidden parts of our personality that we don’t expose in daily life, because we simply are too shy or unconfident to expose them.

Back to the Night Rider: your neighbor can be both shy and a great suitor at the same time. On daily interactions he’s probably just too shy to let himself express the romantic sides of his personality. So the different self representations are all real.

Or in a MUD participant’s words - “You are who you pretend to be.”

So, keep trying out different outfits, keep playing around with your Avatar, let your imagination go wild, and feel free to express who you really are… But who are you really?