Capital Music Group (CMG, owned by EMI), is rolling out the red carpet at The Tower, its new virtual nightclub setting up shop in There.com, where users can listen to its artists' music, see virtual performances, and meet the artists themselves. The long-term aim is to actually sell music through kiosks in the nightclub that link to online stores.

CMG will start by promoting five artists on There.com: The Beastie Boys, Korn,Yellowcard, Lily Allen and Mims-- the latter will give the first concert in The Tower on July 10th.

"It's an opportunity to see if this is a really good opportunity for merchandise to be sold," said Syd Schwartz, Senior VP of digital strategy at CMG. "Like anywhere on the Web, you have to make it one click away. If you have the Beastie Boys in chat, why wouldn't you have [their album] one click away?"

While There.com, which also runs MTV's Virtual Laguna Beach, only claims about 1 million registered users as opposed to Second Life's 7 million, it was attractive to CMG because of prime positioning-- users will receive info and announcements about The Tower when logging on, and well-positioned real estate will make it easy to find.

Schwartz wouldn't estimate how many people they expected to have at the Tower's first concert, but said: "If you have several hundred or several thousand people, you've got a successful event. When's the last party you went to that had several hundred people that sucked?"

[via AdWeek]

Next-gen console game and virtual world development company Trilogy Studios has announced it has raised $3.2 million in its latest round of independent equity funding. This new round comes on the heels of a "significant" investment in its virtual worlds endeavors from Chichen Itza Ventures, the lead investor in There.com producer Makena Technologies.

Trilogy and There.com have enjoyed a long-term working relationship, partnering up to build MTVN's Virtual Pimp My Ride (a collaboration it recently reaffirmed) on There.com's technology, and now Makena CEO and There.com producer Michael Wilson will join Trilogy's board of directors.

The partnership aims to merge the spheres of online social worlds with gaming, in large part to enable media companies to monetize their brands in online worlds through avenues like microtransactions, sponsorship and advertising. Trilogy says it will allocate the funds to expand the company's virtual world and casual MMO business.

Trilogy was originally founded in late 2005 by former Electronic Arts Los Angeles executives Rick Giolito and Mark Skaggs, along with former Vivendi Universal executive vice president Michael Pole. Worlds in Motion talked with Michael Wilson about the partnership and what There.com can learn from gaming vets.

"Virtual worlds are amazing social platforms; that’s what we built our virtual world about. The things we're known for -- PG-13, IP protection, and how all PCs can run There -- were all things designed to make the platform available socially to more people," he explains. "The thing is that in virtual worlds, just as in real life, people look for entertainment. Just standing around socializing -- there’s more to life than that. You go to movies, watch TV, entertain, play games, go to school, et cetera. We’ve been trying to bring a lot of that to our platform, because we think that’s important. It's the reason we partnered with MTV – they certainly know how to get a lot of people to spend time in front of the TV!"

So how will Trilogy help? "We look at their sensibilities, and ask how we can bring that to our platform. We're coming out and saying that the skills that the game industry has been honing for 20 years, we need them in these social virtual worlds. The fact we’re embracing it so much is important," Wilson says.

Wilson said that the first project the partnership will tackle is improving the worlds There.com has built for MTV. "We’re going to look at bringing “player compulsion loops” to the table," Wilson said.

Compulsion loops? "I’m going to point at World of Warcraft, because everybody knows they're really good at this," Wilson explains. "We study them all the time, because they do such a good job. There is something in their platform that compels you to go and do stuff; you want to do it, and keep doing it. Eight million people do that for World of Warcraft. So this whole compulsion element with the whole design of gameplay is part of a 'secret sauce' to make these worlds successful."

He elaborates: "Giving people interesting things to do, achieving status, being able to display that status, whether that's with exclusive merchandise or, say, a dog that nobody else can get. These are the sorts of things you can engineer to make the world more interesting and get people interested in spending time there; that’s where compulsion comes from.It's a great adjunct to the social nature of the world; you’ve got people meeting each other and now 'how good am I' at various parts of this game, at making clothes or holding events, becomes a way to have your own status to start conversation."

Since many people have historically seen the world of game design and internet socialization as being related but disparate, what's it like to work together now? "It’s great because they come from a completely different side of the world; they focus very much on art and gameplay and it’s really a lot of fun," Wilson says. "The cool thing is that, when we started getting art assets from them for Pimp My Ride, they were so tight, and good, because they know that the gameworld is very demanding. So it’s a great thing, and for them, I think they like hanging out with us because we’re MMO-plus-user-generated content."

He adds: "We take our partners very seriously. We try to do fewer quality relationships than many non-quality relationships."

Makena Technologies has announced a partnership with the CosmoGirl magazine to extend the U.S. teen publication into its There virtual world, creating the CosmoGirl Village set to open on November 20th.

It will be located along a coastal area in There.com, where members will be able to enjoy dance parties, fashion shows, spa makeovers, photo booths, live events, rich media and shopping for virtual and real-world clothing and accessories. Extending a teen magazine into an online world makes sense, considering recent reports like eMarketer's, which found that, of 34.3 million kid and teen Internet users in the U.S., 24 percent will use virtual worlds at least once a month this year, a number eMarketer expects to rise to 53 percent by 2011.

“CosmoGIRL! is an ideal fit with There.com’s user demographics, since teen girls are an important segment of our members,” said Michael Wilson, CEO of Makena Technologies. “There.com is all about fashion, socialization and shared activities, which aligns perfectly with the main interests of CosmoGIRL!’s readers.”

Makena Technologies, parent of There.com, has announced a collaboration with the Humane Society of the United States, kicking off with a live in-world event on October 29th. A virtual storefront in There will offer users both virtual and real-world Humane Society merchandise, and all proceeds will be donated to the Humane Society by the charitable Maya foundation, a nonprofit, education-focused organization founded by Makena CEO Michael Wilson.

The partnership is an effort to highlight and combat animal cruelty, and There.com says it will continue to work alongside the Humane Society to promote its in-world activities. Said Humane Society president and CEO Wayne Pacelle, "There.com’s community has already shown a desire to support the humane treatment of animals, and helping animals in the virtual world can translate to meaningful gains for animals in the real world.”

Added Wilson, "There.com is very supportive of the work that The Humane Society of the United States does to protect animals and end animal cruelty. The virtual dogs that we offer in There.com are incredibly popular, and it’s clear that we have a large number of members who are animal lovers. We believe there's a huge synergy between The HSUS and There.com's community, and we're really excited about bringing them together."

There.com creator Makena Technologies has announced that Scion has extended the marketing campaign it began in There earlier this year with Club Scion by several months. This time, the campaign is focusing on user-generated content by allowing There users to create and submit their own decorative designs for Club Scion's exterior. The submitted displays will be rotated regularly, allowing an opportunity to showcase many different member designs.

Makena partner Trilogy Studios, who originally designed the drivable Scion cars that also appear in There, is also on board for the next leg of Scion's campaign, and the company says that the ability to customize the in-world Scions and compete will also be integrated. Trilogy also worked with MTV's Virtual Pimp My Ride world based on the network's car-customizing TV property.

Makena CEO Michael Wilson commented, “This initiative provides any of our members with the ability to paint a huge Scion car, and really let their creativity shine. Club Scion is about 100 feet high -- we can’t wait to see what our members do with that large of a canvas. Our virtual world is largely built around user-generated content, and this campaign allows our members to create unique items and contribute to Scion’s brand with their own personalized creations. At the same time, Scion gets consumers closely engaging with their brand in a much more hands-on manner than they could through any other marketing channel.”

There.com parent Makena Technologies announced a partnership with Coca-Cola that has migrated the Coke Studios virtual world to the There.com platform, unveiling a new community called CC Metro.

The CC Metro environment will offer activities focused on music, gaming, sports and entertainment, including a hoverboard skate park and a theater presenting Coca-Cola videos. There's also a "music mixer" tool that will let users develop their own music, and users can chat via text or voiceover IP. The avatar characters are called v-egos and are presented in a cute style (as opposed to high realism); add in the isometric 3D look and the package calls Habbo to mind.

Other brands associated with Coca-Cola, like American Idol, NASCAR and the Olympic Games, will also be part of CC Metro. The virtual world will also integrate Coca-Cola's My Coke Rewards online rewards program, allowing users to trade reward points for virtual items at a designated online store in CC Metro. Members can also customize their avatar and obtain property, pets and vehicles using Therebucks, the There.com in-world currency.

The companies say this new virtual environment will initially be focused on U.S. consumers, but may expand to other countries, highlighting the global availability of There.com's platform, which would allow different markets to customize CC Metro for regional consumers.

Worlds in Motion spoke to Carol Kruse, vice president of Global Interactive Marketing at Coca-Cola, about the evolution of MyCoke.com and the new endeavor.

Can you tell us about the previous incarnation of Coke Studios, and why you chose to migrate it into There?

“Coke Studios,” the first Coca-Cola virtual environment originated almost five years ago (January 2002) as CokeMusic.com. Coke Studios is a popular, interactive virtual community where people can connect with each other through personalized avatars. Coke Studios is primarily focused on music related content and activities.

Coke Studios was a pioneer in consumer product virtual environments when it launched, but as the digital world has exploded, virtual worlds have become incredibly sophisticated. Recognizing this, we wanted to take Coke Studios to the next level and create a more life-like, multi-layered experience for our members.

To evolve Coke Studios we needed a digital partner that offered technology and capabilities that we didn’t have. Working with There.com we‘ve built “CC Metro,” a richer, proprietary Coca-Cola virtual experience where people can connect and have fun. There.com’s digital platform offered more flexibility and creativity to develop a more lifelike world through which we can deliver greater and more varied content.

What might you advise from your experience on the benefits of a major brand having its own disparate virtual world as opposed to being part of an existing one?

The answer to this question isn’t really an “either/or” answer. We’ve seen benefits from our own virtual world with Coke Studios, but we also see benefits in joining an existing virtual world. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be launching our new community, CC Metro, within There.com. While we learned a great deal from Coke Studios, moving forward we‘ll see even greater benefits through our virtual world within There.com.

Ultimately we knew we wanted to create a better virtual experience for our members. Bringing together our experience and brand expertise with Makena’s technology and the flexibility and creativity provided through There.com, we think we will have the best of both worlds.

Why does a virtual world presence appeal to Coke right now, and do you see the brand's role in online worlds persisting?

Since we’ve had a virtual world presence for almost five years, it’s not about whether the concept is appealing to Coca-Cola right now. Based on our experience, we already know that virtual worlds can be successful. Our focus for right now is taking the experience we’ve gained with Coke Studios and our marketing expertise and collaborating with a partner, in this case There.com, to take our virtual world to the next level.

And, yes, we see our role in virtual worlds persisting. We’ve had a virtual world presence for almost five years, and we have several other virtual worlds in other countries like Spain. Plus, we’re launching a new and improved virtual world with CC Metro. We think all that speaks to our focus on continuing to use virtual worlds a way to connect our brands with consumers in the digital space.

What made you choose this particular way of integrating with There, as opposed to simply putting, say, Coke vending machines inside the world and rewarding users for using them, or using realistic in-world ads like virtual billboards or video spots?

We have learned from our experience with Coke Studios that a virtual world must be experiential, interactive, offer a variety of activities, and provide people with multiple ways to connect within the community. While more traditional “advertising-type” tactics can deliver a message they don’t provide an experience.

With CC Metro, our focus is on offering an experience rooted in the uplifting, optimistic attitude of the ‘Coke Side of Life,’ which is our core brand focus. Choosing to live on the Coke Side of Life – in the real world or the virtual world -- is choosing fun and CC Metro reflects that attitude.

Following the recent announcement that Coca-Cola had migrated its brand presence onto There.com's platform, Worlds in Motion spoke to Ben Richardson, vice president of business development at Makena, about why huge brands like Coke -- which has had a virtual world presence since 2002 -- and MTV are so drawn to opportunities in online worlds.

Redefining Brands

Gaining those both of those heavy-hitters is definitely a big gain for Makena, but we asked Richardson the big question -- what about the users, and their gain? "This is a very large topic of discussion among advertisers," notes Richardson. "The reason there’s so much positive discussion has to do with opportunity. Specifically because virtual worlds are allowing brands to redefine themselves completely by providing new types of experiences around their brands. It's completely immersive and real-time, and that allows the brand to provide any type of compelling user experience that it wants to associate itself with. It becomes anything but advertising."

So the advertiser's goal of providing meaningful interaction associated with their brand presents an opportunity for the platform, also. Both users and advertisers are looking for engagement and a positive experience, and the challenge for virtual worlds like There.com is to provide them to both sides.

Richardson discussed the extensive campaigns that Toyota's Scion has been doing in the There.com world, which he says is a successful example of meeting the needs of advertisers and users at the same time. They built full-sized nightclubs based on the Scion cars, and created activities through which users could customize and present their own art designs on the clubs. "It's a campaign we've been running for almost 6 months, and it's still delivering great numbers to Scion," Richardson says. "That's an example of how a brand can completely redefine how consumers are interacting."

The Beginning Of The Big Migration?

"Coke gets this," Richardson asserts. "Five years ago they launched Coke Studios. They were one of the leaders in the space. And it was very successful, it met their goals at that time, and then they made the decision that they wanted to step to the next level in virtual worlds. They wanted to make it 3D and immersive and introduce new functionality that would let their users do more things in the world."

Richardson feels Makena's partnership with Coke will grab the attention of other advertisers, paving the way for continuing advertiser participation in online worlds. "I think there are a lot of advertisers that are watching the virtual worlds growth rate exponentiate – it’s really growing very significantly – and there are a lot of advertisers out there saying, 'we need to be in there, how do we get in?' Seeing such an establish brand come in not just for a campaign, but acknowledging that virtual words are a core part of their strategy going forward."

Since virtual worlds offer advertisers opportunities to interact directly with their target audience, do they learn from user behavior? "There’s no doubt about it," agreed Richardson. "And there are definitely do’s and don’ts. And there is learning, and it’s not just advertisers learning, it’s everyone -- because our users are telling us what kinds of interaction they respond to."

He continued, "Basically, what we're learning is that advertisers that essentially force their campaign, they don’t give the user a choice to participate in their offering, are ending up with negative awareness, which is not a good thing. And advertisers that don’t spend enough time thinking about a totally unique kind of campaign don’t do as well as advertisers that introduce something completely fresh into the world. What we do know besides that is that brands who have significant cache in the real world absolutely translate into a virtual context."

Case Studies

"We have done a number of case studies that resonate that as well," Richardson added. "So we looked at some past relationships we had with Nike and Levi, and we looked at the value of the virtual Nike shoes we have for sale, and the virtual Levis jacket we have for sale—they're selling for up to $200 for a virtual version of the item. What it tells is us that people who have affinity for these brands want this same identity in the virtual worlds space. And that’s pretty powerful, and this isn’t widely available info because there haven’t been a lot of case studies done for advertisers in the virtual world."

Makena did another case study, following the brand extension that Capitol Music Group built in There.com. Over the course of two months, four artists on the Capitol label -- Korn, Mims, the Beastie Boys and Yellowcard -- participated in in-world events centralized around a designated Capitol Music Club virtual night club, The Tower, in There. "We looked at, over the course of that 2-month period, how much time people spent inside that nightclub. It was 2600 hours total, and when we netted that out to the number of minutes per visit, it netted out to almost 8 minutes per visit. Additionally, the CMG campaign clocked 42,774 visits to interactive kiosks, 17,463 visits to The Tower, 4,363 attendees to four live events, 2,616 hours spent in The Tower and 1,258 pieces of virtual band merchandise sold.

Eight minutes, and all of those numbers -- so what? Is that good? Richardson admits that at first, it was hard to tell, as benchmarks for virtual worlds advertising metrics are still a new idea. But Richardson said he had a place to start, looking at online advertising media provider PointRoll's data from 2006. "We did some research on the average amount of time consumers spend interacting with all the different types online advertising – rich media, surveys, videos, reminders, all those different interstitials, all of the different online ad vehicles. And there were about 30 different kinds -- and within the entire verticle, the average amount of time they spend is 12 seconds. So you've got 12 seconds versus 8 minutes -- that’s like a 6000% increase in the average amount of time that you have per interaction."

That is the absolute underlying key metric that advertisers are understanding, or are starting to understand," Richardson said. "It’s time spent interacting with your brand -- and why is time spent important? Time spent is engagement, and that leads to influence, which ultimately leads to a transaction or a change in brand perception... things like CPMs and click-throughs, those kinds of things are irrelevant in a virtual world. You want to reach as many people as possible, obviously."

There.com creator Makena Technologies has continued its long-running partnership with MTV Networks, recently unveiling a new virtual skate park inside of MTV's virtual worlds based on its shows Rob and Big and Life of Ryan. As with MTV's virtual The Hills and Laguna Beach, Makena provides the platform for all of the network's franchise-related virtual activities.

Users can skateboard virtually in the new hub, and events and team competitions will take place around the skate park. Cast members will also make appearances, given the overall aim of the skate park seems to be to "bring users in direct contact with the skateboarding lifestyle featured on the two hit shows."

Makena CEO Michael Wilson says, "We are very excited that our partnership with MTV Networks continues to expand and flourish. Coupling our technology with the exclusive content that MTV provides allows their fan base to experience their favorite shows in an engaging way that has proven to be very successful.”

There.com creator Makena Technologies announced five new partners for its virtual merchandise marketing program -- apparel providers K-Swiss, bebe, and Eberjey, as well as music merchandiser Bravado and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

Each retailer will create a virtual storefront in There.com where members can purchase both virtual and real world merchandise, such as T-shirts, hoodies, bathing suits, pajamas, and shoes. The new brand partners will introduce between five and 18 virtual goods each into the world.

Other current partners in There.com's virtual merchandise marketing program include Coca-Cola, Scion, CosmoGirl, and the Humane Society of the United States.

Said Makena CEO Michael Wilson: "As virtual worlds continue to grow in popularity, more brands are entering the space because the quality of virtual goods has become so realistic that consumers can now begin to make real-life purchasing decisions based on an item’s virtual counterpart. As virtual worlds continue to become more mainstream, I believe we will see more brands introducing virtual goods to help increase consumer engagement, and in turn, we’ll see a ‘halo effect’ that crosses into the real life."

There.com developer Makena Technologies has made several new announcements concerning the virtual world (recently profiled in an Online World Atlas here at Worlds In Motion) – There.com is to become available for Mac OSX "before the end of the year"; the development of ThereIM, a 3D instant messaging tool that integrates with the virtual world; and a There.com Facebook application, "Facing There".

The release states the impetus for these announcements, noting that while according to NPD sales of Windows desktops and notebooks has been flat in the first quarter of this year, they found that "Apple has increased its market share," with sale of Apple notebooks experiencing 50 to 60 percent growth, while desktop sales were up 45 percent in the quarter," plus a recent comScore report that claimed that Facebook had 115 million members.

Makena Technologies expects a beta release for the OSX platform before the end of the year, offering all the features and functionality of There.com for PCs.

"Social networking continues to explode and in order for virtual worlds to continue to grow, we, as site operators, have to make it as easy as possible for consumers to access them," said Michael Wilson, CEO of Makena Technologies. "We've seen awareness for virtual worlds increase dramatically over the last year, and There.com has seen steady growth. To foster further adoption by mainstream consumers we have to offer several ways to access the virtual world platform so they can experience how the 3D experience takes socializing to another level. These three new access points will enable us to reach more consumers with our platform."

There developer Makena Technologies has announced that it is to run a holiday charity drive to support Child's Play, the games industry charity "to improving the lives of sick children in hospitals worldwide."

Members of There have bid on and purchased trees located in a "Charity Tree Park" located within the free-to-play virtual world and are now decorating them as Christmas trees, with all proceeds from the tree sales to go directly to Child’s Play’s forty-five partner hospitals.

Trees that members have bid on in Charity Tree Park will be on display until December 27th.

This is the third year There has hosted an in-world charity event and the second time that they have raised money on behalf of Child’s Play. The company is to also donate $10,000 worth of toys to Toys for Tots.

“There members have shown themselves to be incredibly generous during our holiday charity drives and we know that this year will be no exception,” said Michael Wilson, CEO of Makena Technologies. “Setting up a virtual tree park allows our members to give back while they showcase their creativity and holiday spirit, and we expect that the campaign and the mission of Child’s Play will really resonate with our community.”

Makena Technologies, developer of 3D social world There, has announced four new partners participating in its virtual merchandise marketing program—entertainment companies Fandango and the Academy of Country Music, apparel provider Blair Wear and virtual sports memorabilia creator Beelya are now offering virtual clothing and goods in specialty shops within There, for users to purchase for their avatars.

Each retailer is to sell items including T-shirts and hoodies, with Beelya to offer autographed framed replica jerseys of athletes such as Brett Favre and Matt Hasselbeck that members can use to decorate their virtual homes.

In addition, Makena has announced that NBC has extended its virtual merchandising partnership with them, releasing virtual merchandise for NBC shows including Heroes, 30 Rock and The Office, following the sale of virtual clothes related to Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Battlestar Galactica, House and Psych, which began in November 2008.

“Despite tough economic times, the virtual goods market continues to flourish as people look for inexpensive forms of entertainment,” said Michael Wilson, CEO of There. “NBC and our new partners understand both the expanding opportunity in the virtual goods category and the importance of branded merchandise as a form of self-expression for our members.”