Corporate interest in tapping virtual worlds to market brands and products have surged in recent months as marketers test new technologies to reach consumers who now split their leisure TV-viewing time with the Internet.
CBS to invest in virtual designer Electric Sheep | Tech&Sci | Technology | Reuters.com
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“We want people to come directly to our site, but that’s part of why we’re doing this,” said Sarah Chubb, president of CondéNet, the digital arm of Condé Nast. “To see if we can find people that we haven’t found in other ways.”
Media companies also want to keep control over their relationships with advertisers. Google sells ads in its network for Condé Nast videos, but in a similar content-ad test with MTV Networks last fall, MTV sold the ads (sharing the revenue with Google).
Adam Cahan, executive vice president of strategy and business development for MTV Networks, said that his networks want to make sure that when their content is distributed on the Web, that it links to their sites.“
In the same way that Harry Potter book sales grow from a Harry Potter movie, you would not give the movie away to support the book sales,” Mr. Cahan said. “There is a balance between promotion and consumption that is up to the original content producer to manage.”
Google in Content Deal With Media Companies – New York Times
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The American Psychological Association claim a generation of girls will suffer eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression as a result of marketing taking an unfair advantage of their need to conform.
The report blamed the marketing of products which sexualise children – mini skirts, plunging necklines and sequinned crop tops. The report specifically criticised Bratz dolls, which outsell Barbie dolls in Britain two to one and come in hot pants, fishnet stockings and feather boas.
Girls ‘corrupted by wrong toys’ | News | This is London
I will defintiely track this. It seems too simple of a thesis to be true… – joi
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Just because you’re the daughter of Bill Gates does not mean you get to play on your computer all day long.
The Microsoft founder said his 10-year-old daughter, his oldest child, was not a hard-core Internet and computer user until this year, when she started at a school where the students use tablet computers for almost everything.
Gates sets limits on kids’ online time
I think it’s funny when we treat celebrities like they aren’t real parents, i.e. surprise when Bill Gates parents or pardoning Britney Spears from being a good one. <shrug> joi
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As kids keep getting plugged into the Internet, toy makers are following them online.
At the annual American International Toy Fair this week, toy makers showed playthings like Power Rangers helmets which store secret missions found online, plenty of online games and even devices that take kids to secure websites where they can play activities without wandering into the darker corners of the Internet.
“Toy companies are looking at where kids are playing and targeting products against it. Younger and younger kids are becoming more comfortable with the Internet,” said New York-based toy consultant Chris Byrne.
Children as young as three years old are using the computer, said Julia Fitzgerald, vice president of marketing at VTech Holdings Ltd.
New plugged-in toys follow kids online – USATODAY.com
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One of the challenges we faced when I worked at Current TV was how to balance the desire for widespread participation with the reality that there is a finite number of producers who have the skill set to produce high quality “pods” (short 1-7 minute non-fiction pieces). I was really excited to hear Amanda (at the L.A. Mashup) say that Current was moving in the direction of letting people send in snippets – 30 seconds or so of their take on a news story or issue, and that the network would edit them together into cohesive pieces. The challenge, of course, is that it’s very labor intensive to do this — you have to sort through potentially hundreds of submissions to find the one that will work and then create a story made from small pieces. I’m sure that’s why we’re not seeing cable news networks do this unless it’s in response to a huge breaking news story like the Tsunami or the London bombings.
I stumbled across this article today, about how Vh1 and Nokia are teaming up in India to give viewers a chance to create a music video composed of user generated video clips (assuming they will be mobile clips). What’s funny is that Current actually did this awhile back (a la Beastie Boys Awesome; I F–kin’ Shot That!) with The Shins. The producer blogged on Current that “I’m not sure I ever want to edit a piece like this again, it was a bit of a nightmare, but we’re proud with how it came out and how much support we got in putting it all together from The Shins and all the fan/cinematographers who participated.” The Yeah Yeah Yeahs also did something sort of similar by editing together YouTube fan clips for their video Cheated Hearts.
Ypulse: Media for the Next Generation
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As a result of that comment, I just got a preview of an as-yet-unnamed new product from Adobe that allows video sharing sites to provide editing tools to their users. I’ve learned that PhotoBucket (which, despite their name, is also the #3 video sharing site after YouTube and MySpace, with 35-40,000 videos uploaded per day) will be rolling out this functionality to their pro users early next week, and to all users by early March. Editing functionality is basic: you can choose selections from various clips, splice them together, add photos, captions, and a simple soundtrack.
O’Reilly Radar > Adobe to launch online video editing with Photobucket
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“We don’t have hard data on teens buying and selling these products, but it makes perfect sense,” Bates said. “Teens just own more electronics today and because they do, they have technology that’s still working and they want to redistribute it. We see a shift in how people are using their tech. Teens like to get something newer before the old product is no longer unusable.”
And the demand is there from lower-income youths without deep-pocketed parents, said Lance Ulanoff, a technology columnist and reviews editor at PC Magazine. It’s like a “digital flea market for teens,” he said. “It’s a tiered system of teens. There are those that can get the latest and greatest and those that can’t.” He added: “It might be used, but if it still looks cool they’re willing to go with that.”
A review of listings on Web sites like Craigslist, eBay and MySpace, the social networking site, points to a secondary market of teenagers involved in tech gadget commerce. And sales are not limited to the Web. Many teenagers said they were also selling their old electronics to classmates, in the hallways of high schools and colleges.
Inside Bay Area – Teens turn profits selling used gadgets
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Club Penguin is a leader among a tidal wave of new community Web sites designed specifically for tweens and even younger kids: think of it as MySpace in braces. At Club Penguin, which launched in October 2005 and had 4 million unique visitors in January, according to comScore Media Metrix, your 8- to 14-year-old can waddle through a virtual world as a flightless waterfowl, interacting with other penguins of her choice. Registration is free, but if junior wants to decorate her penguin’s igloo or use other advanced features on the site, you’ll need to pay a $5.95 monthly membership. And Club Penguin is just the tip of the (sorry, can’t resist) iceberg. A new site designed for the skinned-knee demographic seems to pop up nearly every day. Their potential market is huge: there are some 28.5 million kids between the ages of 8 and 14 in the United States, according to emarketer.com. A 2006 Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg survey found that an equal 38 percent of both male and female teens aged 12 to 14 use MySpace (even though the site’s age cutoff is 14) or some other social-networking site.The sites geared specifically for youngsters tend to fall into one of two categories. Most of them—like Club Penguin, Whyville.net (286,000 unique visitors in January) and Habbo Hotel (704,000 uniques)—are fantasy virtual worlds, reminiscent of Second Life, the three-dimensional online planet built, owned and inhabited by its 3.8 million members. Otherwise, a few networking sites for tykes are more like Imbee.com, which launched in July and already has 20,000 members despite a complete absence of advertising. Imbee resembles MySpace much more closely in that kids can create blogs, post photos and share music. Where it differs from MySpace, which has had no shortage of child-predator horror stories, is that Imbee “helps parents and kids control the scope of the publishing,” says cofounder Tim Donovan. “When you connect with friends, it’s not six degrees; you’re not connecting to all your friends’ friends. It’s point-to-point.” You can’t be “friends” with anyone you’re not actually friends with.
Tech: Social Networking for 9-Year Olds – Newsweek Technology – MSNBC.com
technorati tags:club penguin, tween, disney, kids, Nick, kids, webkinz
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Star Farmers watching the Chinese New Year Parade together. awww..
this is a dragon dancing for a local merchant.
