Digital Hollywood - Virtual Worlds are popping up everywhere
Another interesting note that I picked up during the Digital Hollywood Conference was regarding Virtual Worlds. There was a panelist from WeeWorld (a virtual world that enables kids to create a virtual avatar of themselves and dress them up with various types of virtual goods (flair/bling/schwag)) provided some interesting data regarding their site:
- They have over 21M users
- 21% of their users actively manage/update their avatar on a daily basis
- 73% of their users manage/update their avatar once a week
These types of sites are becoming extremely popular with kids and are making money through micro-transactions (by selling virtual goods) and through advertising (advertisers creating virtual environments and goods). Facebook also sell these types of virtual gifts - in case you were wondering what exactly a virtual gift was.
One panelist shared a funny story about American Apparel attempt to open a virtual store on Second Life. Basically, it was something they hoped would create some buzz but totally backfired when the Second Life Army blew up the virtual store within three hours of its grand opening. American Apparel has a press release about the store’s closing.