Virtual events – Another area of success for virtual worlds

by justingibbs on May 8, 2009

I’ve likened the recent phase of virtual worlds to Web 1.0 – Virtual Worlds 1.0. Much of it was engineers building a solution in search of a problem. However one problem that has been pushed to the forefront by the collapsed economy is virtual events. Dannette Veale of Cicso believes it’s more than just the economy.

Virtual events have a lot going for them, not the least of which being crowds. It can be painfully obvious when a virtual world is empty. It can be the same for web sites, especially social ones. Jack Moffitt, creator of Chesspark an online community for chess players, faced just such a problem. With only a few dollars to devote to an AdSense campaign he like most people spread it out evenly. But it wasn’t until he switched to blowing it all in just an hour a day that he saw real returns. Users were guaranteed to find others on the site and consequently stayed longer.

Consumer virtual worlds spend a lot of their time just trying to keep users online. Time they could spend enhancing the experience when users are actually there. Think of all the tools virtual worlds employ to help you meet others who are online the same time you are? With virtual events this isn’t a problem. People bump into each other as they would at a real event – it’s natural. But as Drew VanVooren points out, it even goes beyond that.

There’s another component that’s come out of the analytics: participation,” explained VanVooren. “[A type A] personality at a physical event would walk down the center of a trade show floor and walk up and introduce themselves. There’s a lot of people that just hang out in the middle of the floor and never participate. Online, everybody has an A personality. You see participation from everyone who enters the event.

Not only do virtual events give context and introduce a time factor, they supply a crowd. That gives them a few legs up and puts them in company with other successful examples of virtual worlds – MMOs and kids worlds.

Related posts:

  1. Virtual worlds between a rock and a hard spot
  2. Reminder that virtual worlds start with community not technology

Tagged as: virtual events

  • It is very true, I guess people who just enter the virtual world business don't always realise that. It is very similar to entertainment places like a stadium, concert hall or movie theatre, most of the day there isn't much to do, but when an event is going, it is packed with people.

    Non game virtual world are about social activities and those needs some planning, initially from the designers of the world, but with the proper tools the users can do that too, and often a magnitude better. You can see this a lot in Second Life, it is bustling with social activity, but it isn't organized by the the designers or the other companies, it is 99,9% organized and participated by common users.

    It is really important to realize that events are the key for any virtual world strategy, it bring people together to grow that community you want around your game,brand,etc.

    The chesspark example is a great example on how to do is for a virtual destination that doesn't have a lot of users yet. It funnels people in a short time together, and if you plan for that and make sure to welcome everybody the stickyness of your world would increase more. If you expect people to enter at a certain time, you could also plan to do some other fun things, to give more to do then just meet each other, you give them something to talk and interact about.
  • I really like the stadium and movie theater analogy. But what gets people to a theater? A few people might show up with no idea what they want to watch and just pick one, but most will only make the trek down already sold one what to watch. In one way what that movie is giving the theater is context - I know what I'm going to get into. If I get an email for a virtual event on wood chips, I basically know what I'm getting into. I know what to expect and what I need to get done. Compare that experience with entering Second Life? I don't know what to expect, I don't know where to go and what to do.

    Not only are crowds important, but so is the context and virtual events force you to figure out your context.
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