Avatar Nation: New Virtual Worlds Attracting Young Demos

Virtual worlds and other 3D web experiences are expanding beyond Second Life and starting to gain sustainable traction e.g.: The Tower, Gaia Online, Club Penguin, Webkinz, Neopets, Nicktropolis, Pirates of the Caribbean Online, DisneyFairies.com, Toontown, FusionFall, vSide, MiniMatch.

Last word: Virtual environments are potentially a very rich content experience and are definitely will play a major role in future online communities. There are huge opportunities for marketers to run test and learn campaigns and build capabilities as the environments mature and tools catch up to other web 2.0 driven expectations. Many successful sites have not tried to over promise on graphic quality and have concentrated on delivering a value-added experience within current hardware and bandwidth limitations. The avatar persona that people create to represent themselves in these virtual worlds is capturing imaginations and providing a rich form of self expression.

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