SharkJumping

Fantasy Avatars vs Identity Avatars

With the launch of Meez Roomz on Facebook (here), I get asked a lot about whether our avatars and those in Second Life are similar.  The short answer is that the basic purpose of an avatar, which is to represent one in a digital world, is the same in both scenarios, but that how our audience uses them is quite different.

The best way to look at this is that Second Life avatars are often used to represent fantasy versions of users, which is one of the reasons gender switching is so high in SL, as it also is in Massively Multiplayer games like World of Warcraft.   Anywhere between 1/3 and 2/3 of female avatars in these situations are said to be male in the real world.  A recent Nottingham Trent University study (here) has recently come to the same conclusion.

Meez users could technically do that as well, but because Meez avatars are used primarily to represent the user in their real world social media and IM systems (MySpace, Live Journal, AIM, Facebook, mobile phone, etc.), our studies show that only a very small percentage of our users are switching genders.  We have what we call Identity Avatars, not Fantasy Avatars.  A Meez is a more flexible way to show everyone online what type of person you are, and you can easily change it as your mood changes - it's like the ring tone of the Internet - a song that makes you feel good, and also tells everyone around you what type of music you like. 

There is certainly room for both types of avatars in the world, but we believe strongly that Identity avatars are a much larger market in the long run (although fantasy avatars are great in early adopter markets), especially as our users go increasingly portable with their Meez, vs having different ones for each online venue.  Plus the advertising opportunities are far greater in real world scenarios than in fantasy-based ones, as we've shown recently with our most recent integrated brand deals with AT&T Digital World and Snapple.

Next we'll start running an online advertising campaign - "Come to Meez, where women are actually women" (somewhat kidding)

No Chance Spitzer Survives

I normally don't cover non-tech news, but the highly amusing story today (NYT link here) of NY Governor Spitzer getting caught in a federal wire tap prostitution investigation is a story directly from TV show, "The Wire".  There is ZERO chance Spitzer doesn't resign. 

Why?  It's highly unlikely this was his first foray into the extra-curricular side of life, meaning we will now see a steady stream of prostitutes doing interviews about his particular preferences, and we'll also see a lot of time spent investigating whether state resources were used in any of these activities - he's dead in the water.

At least with our own mayor Gavin Newsom, he was already a well known "player" with sky-high approval ratings when he had an affair with his close friend's/campaign manager's wife - he immediately claimed alcohol addiction and fled into treatment, and was later re-elected.   In Spitzer's case, he's married, is known as a moral crusader, she was a prostitute, and he is generally not beloved by anybody, unless you're concerned with the state legislature battles in NY, where it was just looking pretty good for the Dems until today.  It's unfortunate since Spitzer was a possible national leader for the Dems, and now he's been dragged down by personal issues.

Richard Wolpert Starts LA Media Fund - Great Move

The news broke yesterday (here)that yet another early stage digital media investment fund is starting, this time to invest it LA-based companies.  The investment partners are William Morris Agency, Accel Ventures, Venrock and AT&T.   None of that is too surprising, and I wouldn't normally focus on it since there are numerous players chasing the Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley dream, just as there were last Bubble, and most of them go away quietly or blow up spectacularly.

However, for me the key difference here is that Richard Wolpert (picture), my former boss at RealNetworks (NASDAQ: RNWK) will be overseeing the fund.  Richard helped lead the acquisition of the Rhapsody music service when I was running it, and then he did a great job at managing Real's consumer business for the year that I was there.  For those who don't know Richard, he is one of the few executives who can actually fuse business, technology and media, and he has a great track record of doing so, including running Disney's Internet Group, being Chief Strategy Officer at Real, and originally starting his own software company, which he successfully sold.

In addition to his executive roles, Richard is an angel investor in a bunch of early stage entertainment companies, such as 3 Rings, home of casual MMO Puzzle Pirates, and he's a frequent blogger as well (here).  Finally, he's a power player in the LA media scene, having formerly had an interesting partnership with billionaire Ron Burkle and super-agent Michael Ovitz, so all in all, it's a great mix of skills, experience and relationships for the new fund. 

It's too bad Meez is located here in SF :(

Great NYT Article on Children and the Internet

New York Times technology columnist David Pogue recently posted one of the best articles I have seen rationally discussing how dangerous is the Internet actually for children.  I have posted an excerpt below, but the entire article should be read here.

“Sure, there are dangers. But they’re hugely overhyped by the media. The tales of pedophiles luring children out of their homes are like plane crashes: they happen extremely rarely, but when they do, they make headlines everywhere. The Internet is just another facet of socialization for the new generation; as always, common sense and a level head are the best safeguards.”

As a father of 3 children and CEO of social entertainment company Meez with millions of teenage users, I spend a lot of time looking at how young people use the Internet and drawing the line in the sand over different types of behavior, whether at home or at Meez.  But I find myself constantly arguing with friends who are completely and irrationally convinced that stalkers are after their children, whether it's in the local park or on a PC.  I recently even sat on a panel with a young social network CEO who repeatedly argued that the key differentiator for his service was that he had hired a former FBI profiler (Jodi Foster, maybe?) as a key part of his team.

I realize that fear-mongering is a way for certain companies or reporters to break through the clutter of every day news, and that some individuals will try to play up the risk in order to help their businesses, but it's nice to see the subject tackled in a rational way unlike most of the drivel I normally see around the topic.

Friendster - SE Asian Tiger Social Network

I love living in the Bay Area, but there are some times when it amazes me how provincial some of the amazingly smart tech folks are here, mainly when it comes to discussing Los Angeles (loathed) or Twitter (loved).  However, this strange behavior recently occurred when I told friends that Meez had negotiated a deal to be featured as a games and avatar partner for large social network Friendster - this was followed by blank stares and eventual questions as to why we bothered to do so.  Well, this is the answer.

Friendster is a top 15 web site in the world (that's the whole world, not just Northern California).  It gets over 30M unique visitors a month and more than 10M daily visits - those are extraordinary numbers.  Its users are clustered primarily in a contiguous region (Southest Asia) whose GDP and populations are increasing quickly and which is relatively US-recession proof.   Oh yeah, the site is growing rapidly.

Once you hear those facts, you have to make a couple leaps of faith.  First you must forget that Friendster was once the hottest and arguably first social media network in the US since that is no longer relevant, but most Silicon Valley people can't seem to forget that missed opportunity - now they have a different team, different investors and mostly different site.  For a somewhat harsh view of the company's earlier trajectory, see INC Magazine article here.   And then you must agree that there are countries outside the regions of Northern California, Western Europe, China and India that matter, and in fact, matter a lot - that's as hard for my peers to believe as it is that there might be great companies in the US mid-west.

Southeast Asia has over 500M people, and has multiple economies growing at 7+% per year.  As a comparison, SE Asia had 1/3 of Europe's population 100 years ago, and is now larger than it - and Friendster is the dominant social media network in many of those countries, and that they form a mostly contiguous region, unlike being the top network in Turkey, Ecuador and Bulgaria, for example.   

Is the short term SE Asian revenue potential much lower  than the US or UK, especially when it comes to advertising?  Of course.  Could other players like Facebook and MySpace start to take share in the region?  Yes, but it's not a core focus for them, and Friendster is evolving rapidly, with local language support and an open developer platform just being two of the most recent feature releases.  Is it logical to assume that some of the growth we see in China and Korea in gaming, SMS revenue, and virtual items would come to at least some of the countries in SE Asia?  Of course, which is why we chose it as our first expansion area.

Does that mean some people will never forgive Friendster for not being Facebook or MySpace?  Yes, but once you point out the geographic opportunity and the dominant position the company currently enjoys, then it's no surprise that we believe Friendster is are our key partner for Meez in SE Asia.  I'm not the only one starting to see the value - see recent post by TechCrunch here.