Forrester Research releases Virtual World report
And it could be yours for merely $279.
Cheap for a business, a bit spendy for the VW enthusiast. Regardless, it looks like some pretty good information. They say “within 5 years, the 3-D Internet will be as important for work as the Web is today.”
It is 24 pages, so there is a lot in there (I haven’t looked at it, I’m just basing this from their website)
So my initial thought is this… if Virtual Worlds are going to be important inside of 5 years, what companies should be there now, and which should wait? I remember sometime in the 90’s I had the thought, “Every company and organization is missing out if they don’t have a website.” I know that time is coming for VWs as well, but it is years away as Forrester has said.
However, companies can benefit today. Clearly Disney sees a benefit, having built their own VW and then purchasing Club Penguin. MTV, Barbie, and others have their own personally branded VW. Many other companies have built a presence within existing VWs like Second Life. I would argue that the personally branded VWs have been more successful then creating a presence with an existing VW, and it seems the trend is toward more personalization.
Sadly, I probably will never read this report, however, I have been going through the forecast published by Virtual Worlds Management and the price there is much more accessible. :)
Thanks again to Mark Forman at bbluesman.com for providing me the link to Forrester Research.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Thanks for noting this — and I agree, $279 is cheap for a marketing report, but I disagree that 24 pages is going to contain much. My gut tells me they’re just asking you to pay for data any diligent, intelligent person working on a business plan in any particular world could do with a few weeks of evenings and a little elbow grease. There are so many virtual worlds out there, there’s no way it can be that in-depth. Even if it argues mostly for SL as having the best business potential, it seems short to me. The Virtual Worlds Management report is a far better value (you can’t beat free–so thanks to them for that) and looks to have a bit more than Forrester–which I’d bet is just a bunch of marketing people with some business cred selling nothing for something.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Interesting question you present, what companies will benefit from jumping in at search an early stage, instead of waiting for others to make mistakes and learn for the next years to come.
I think part of the answer is in Seth Godins latest book, the Meatball Sundae. He argues how old media and new media don’t mix well.
New marketing companies could enter today, their marketing is ‘web2.0′ ready - aka permission marketing. They know how to play the ’social’ field. think of companies such as google, MTV, iTunes/Apple. The question is whether Virtual Worlds are a valuable addition to the things they are already doing at this early stage.
Old marketing companies often have trouble adjusting to the web. They are used to printmedia, billboards, Television, - interruption marketing. They will find it hard to adopt these new Virtual words, and if they don;t want to miss out in 5 years, it might be best to start looking into the requirements of successful marketing in these worlds to prevent the ‘meatball sundae’.
Read http://digado.nl/todays-special-meatball-sundae.html for a better explanation of the ‘meatball sundae’ effect for virtual worlds.