Pittsburgh Social Media Buzz #11

We are back with the 11th edition which has the latest in social media from rue21 and a look at Google's new Lively.

Adventure on a Subway

rue21 is at it again. They have again pushed their social media program to new heights with the launch of The Metro. The Metro is a sub area of their website for their social community to connect and in turn have some fun. The Metro has stops at their other social media places on My Space, Facebook and YouTube as well.

Another stop on rue21's Metro is the rueVenture: Quest for The Hidden Temple of Denim game. Players must navigate a series of challenges following the clues to open the Temple and the treasures that lie within.

To ride the Metro you have to be a member of the 'rue community'. Sign up is free and simple.

A Lively Addition to the Edition

Google announced a competitor to Second Life in virtual entertainment. The new world is called “lively”. It features 3D Avatars common in other virtual spaces as well as rooms that can be furnished and visited. Lively will also play YouTube videos on screens, taking advantage of other Google properties.

Here are some thoughts from around the web on the new site:

Earlier in the week, we reported on the social media initiative from Google called Lively, a virtual entertainment site. Several responded with some excellent insight that I would like to share with you today.


Pierre DeBois -
Although new, I think the ability to display visual content relevant to your firm and have the world of Lively linked to the company website or blog to add a new component of branding. To a degree it may make either a website or a blog irrelevant if the content is combined in a certain way.

Gerald Inman -
There is some merit to a “Virtual World” concept for conveying information. IBM and Linden Labs have begun to work together to create an “Open Sim” concept in which an avatar can move from one virtual world to another.
(http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/07/08/ibm-linden-lab-interoperability-announcement)
Since information transference has been the goal of these virtual systems, there is merit for this technology. “Wallace Jackson” hit on a key point in that computing power at the desktop level has increased significantly over the years so the success of this technology is far better now than the mid 90s when “The Palace” first came on the scene.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Palace_(computer_program))

I suspect that Google’s interest has to do with running advertisements in these virtual worlds. Although the security is not as strong as “IBM’s Metaverse”, as Google matures the technology, I am sure there will be opportunities for business.
(http://www.product-reviews.net/2008/07/09/googles-lively-vs-ibm-metaverse-and-second-life-virtual-world)

With so many eyeballs in these environments, advertisers would want to capture that market as well. If Google can build an advertisement model for their Google Lively, then they will be a viable competitor.

I hope this information helps you Christopher.
Links:http://www.raphkoster.com/2008/07/08/googles-lively/ http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9984909-2.html

Tim Whale-
As a keen proponent of virtual space and a develop of 3 years standing in second life, I have great enthusiasm for developments such as this.
I created my 3d room on day one and sent out a subscriber list invitation to an event in the room for the weekend.

Within 3 hours of that invite going out, I had received 18 acceptances, despite the recipients not having heard of lively, for obvious reasons.

There is no real comparison between lively and second life. Lively has the potential to being a superb tool for marketing events, I would expect my rooms to be empty when events are not being hosted, as when I seek to drive 3d continual traffic, I use second life, as it is a far more interesting ‘hang-out’ platform.

But for an event, lively suits my target market and requires no lengthy or steep learning curve.
The main issue with lively is the inability of mac users to gain access.

In the next issue:

Banking on IPod

Rockin Out with More Retail

The Pittsburgh Social Media Marketing Buzz is a publication of UniversalWit. More information on UniversalWit is available at www.universalwit.com. Submit your new media news to blog@universalwit.com