While MTV lucked out with its purchase of NeoPets for its younger Nick viewers, the network kind of missed the boat with its music service (that's IE based and doesn't work with iPods), online video and social networking (it didn't buy MySpace and can't really compete with YouTube). They are definitely putting a stake in the ground by being the first media company to build virtual worlds as brand extensions with Virtual "Laguna Beach" and "The Hills." The Wired Magazine story is now online and offers up some interesting stats about how it has been going:

Virtual Laguna Beach officially launched in September and drew almost 300,000 sign-ups in its first 10 weeks. (It took Second Life three years to attract that many members.) Just register on the Web site for free membership, download the application, pick your outfit (lowrider jeans? sundress? cowboy hat?), and you’re a virtual teenager loping along the beach. Every character you meet there is just like you: a cute, youthful avatar steered by a real person. If Second Life is like an anarchic frontier town, VLB is like Disney’s Frontierland….

…Advertisers can’t help but love an online space in which the hard-to-reach demographic of teenage girls makes up around 55 percent of members (which explains why a guy who signs into VLB is usually mobbed with potential admirers). About 40 percent of all members are under 17. On average, users visit six times a month for 35 minutes a session. (The typical Web site devoted to a television show receives just five six-minute visits per user per month.) And sign-ups have continued to rise since the end of the Laguna Beach season in November.

At the same time, Nickelodeon is also venturing into the virtual space with today's launch of Nicktropolis (aimed at tweens ages 9-14), which Paid Content reports will offer:

…a variety of interactive experiences, such as a social network, chat rooms and downloadable video. And while Nicktropolis will eventually make room for user-generated content, the site’s most prominent feature is its games section.

They have also apparently worked through the safety issues:

Nickelodeon also noted that it has worked with the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a nationwide advocacy group, to ensure the site’s kid-safety features. Aside from other protections, Nicktropolis also requires that each time a kid logs in, parents are notified via e-mail.

Paid Content characterizes the launch as a preemptive strike against Disney.com, which is relaunching soon. But both Disney and Nick's real competition will be sites like Whyville, Habbo Hotel and Club Penguin, which already boast large active virtual tween-centric communities. What Nickelodeon, Disney and popular MTV shows like "Laguna Beach" and "The Hills" have going for them is strong television brands with loads of young fans – a built-in audience, as the Laguna experiment has shown. They also have TV networks to constantly plug their virtual communities. Still, adding new features, programming activities, events and content and building/sustaining community in these worlds is a separate business than just being an interactive group within a huge television corporation. According to the Wired story, it appears that MTV's Leapfrog unit (which is behind Virtual "Laguna Beach") gets this:

In the Leapfrog model, the virtual world becomes an equal partner. Your experience there isn’t secondary to a TV show or video rotation; it is the show, and it is the rotation.

It will be interesting to see how Nick deals with integrating advertisers — from the Paid Content post, it appears they haven't really figured it out:

At the moment, there are no advertisers on the site, though executives noted that there will eventually be space for banners and other advertising. [hello...banners?]

Here is where they have to tread carefully since they are dealing with parents who may just want to pay a for a subscription service like Club Penguin, which is ad free.

The virtual/avatar space is hot and only getting bigger — I give MTV kudos for dusting itself off from losing ground on other "Web 2.0″ fronts and deciding to trailblaze here.

Remember – Rajiv Mody who is part of MTV's Leapfrog unit is speaking at the L.A. Mashup. There's still some room so RSVP if you haven't already.

P.S. You can no longer bid on WOW characters or other virtual stuff like weapons on eBay (although interestingly, they haven't ban virtual goods from Second Life)

Update: Ypulse reader Matthew, who is a VP at MTV and works on Urge, called to tell me it's not that Urge "doesn't work with iPods," it's that Apple's technology is actually not open to other music services like Urge. Subtle but important clarification.

Categorized under: Gaming, TV, Tweens, Web

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