The longer range plan, according to Mike Goslin, VP of Disney’s Virtual reality Studio, is to “have a large number of virtual world for a range of different audiences… sort of like a theme park.” The strategy also includes making the different worlds “feel like a common experience” including the ability to move your social contacts between virtual experiences. ![]() This year, Disney launched Pirates of the Caribbean Online to attract a somewhat older, but still teen aged audience (mostly boys) and Pixie Hollow (targeted at girls) is set to be launched later this year. Seeing business opportunity in the virtual space, they paid $350 Million to acquire Club Penguin last year. Disney’s launched Virtual Magic Kingdom in 2005 with a target audience of 8 – 14 year-olds. This high level of participation has made kid-oriented worlds like Habbo, Gaia Online, Neopets, Webkinz and Nicktropolis more successful that adult oriented virtual worlds. They are joining online social networks at increasingly early ages (pre-school in the case of Club Penguin) and in those spaces, they are forming relationships that are very real. If you have one of these living under your roof, you probably know that they are actively participating in online virtual/social networking spaces. Real world companies who came in not understanding what they were getting into quickly faded away after they didn’t get what they were expecting.īut one demographic seems to be doing quite well in the virtual space: Kids. The media hype that surrounded virtual worlds just a year ago has ratcheted way back. ![]() Second Life is looking for it’s Second Wind.
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