Ypulse Sponsored Interview: Pano Anthos, CEO, Hangout Industries
Posted by anastasia on 10-28-2008
One benefit to sponsoring Ypulse events is that we offer sponsors the option of writing a Sponsored Guest Post or doing a sponsored Q&A with me. Hangout Industries, one of our Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup East conference sponsors, opted for the interview to share their vision and plans for Hangout.net, a new player in the teen virtual world space.
Ypulse: How did the idea for Hangout come about and what has been the biggest influence on its direction and development?
Pano Anthos: Hangout was borne from watching my teenagers interact on Facebook, watching the growth in fascination with Second Life and remembering the impact that the Sims and other video games had on them.
I was introduced to David Brock, a scientist at MIT, who had been working with virtual reality by way of robotics and a large virtual reality Defense Department project. David was interested in building virtual conference rooms for businesses to use. I was brought in to evaluate his thesis. At the demo, he showed me how a PowerPoint presentation could be shared in real-time by one or more users in the conference room. I was and remain very skeptical of business users moving avatars around to conduct meetings on training sessions, instead of using tools like Webex, etc.
But seeing the growth of social networking, the immersive nature of the Sims and the power of casual Flash games, I asked David if he could play videos and music in these spaces. Within 3 weeks, we had a demo that we put in front of 20 high school students. The reaction was phenomenal!
YP: How is Hangout different from other virtual worlds for teens like Habbo, Gaia, VSide, etc.?
PA: The quality and nature of the Hangout experience differentiates it in three principal ways from these other virtual worlds:
Hangout is much more immersive, personally expressive and realistic. Having full videogame-like 3D capabilities, where you can walk around in 1st person is very powerful. Experiencing a virtual world in the online equivalent of cinematic “objective camera” is fun and compelling.
Hangout is much more casual and web-focused than 3D virtual worlds: We run in the browser. Our download is 300K as compared to downloads that are 24Mb-60Mb. Our on-ramp is no more involved than loading Flash player on your computer. Hangout is a wider audience opportunity than the 3D spaces because we run across all platforms PC and Mac and run on much lower end machines than any of the 3D virtual world environments.
Hangout is much more secure and personal than any virtual world: Hangout is about your room and your friends’ rooms within your existing social network — it’s not a world where you go around and meet strangers. Your room can travel across any of your social network systems (FB, Myspace, etc.). Strangers cannot enter your room nor meet you without your invitation to do so. Security and privacy is VERY important to teens and to their parents (who are concerned for their kids).
YP: Describe a typical brand interaction inside Hangout.
PA: Hangout’s brand interaction is entirely realistic — as it includes virtual representations of real-world brands (with physical products and services). You wear real T-shirts, headphones, etc. You put real posters on your wall. You watch real videos on your virtual room’s TV. Everything is as it would be in the real world. Consequently, brand interaction in Hangout is as close to buying the real product as a teen can do without actually buying it.
Our virtual goods can be purchased with Hangout currency called coin. Like other virtual environments, you can earn the coin by playing games, inviting friends and achieving new levels of attainment. The difference is that the brands are naturally self-selective and naturally tiered in terms of value. A Prada bag is going to be inherently worth more than a non-branded bag.
Before the end of the year, Hangout will be releasing a powerful tool that will enable Hangout to absorb THOUSANDS of brands for users without having to build it in 3D, pulling all of the relevant Web data in with it so kids can see product reviews, pricing, and “click to buy”. We are announcing a relationship with Zappos where we are importing all 200 styles of Vans shoes into Hangout automatically. Normally, you would need a 3D artist to render the sneaker and its corresponding textures. We have eliminated both that cost and that process, while integrating the brand and 3D much more tightly.
Hangout currently has the ability for teens to modify existing objects and “morph” them. We are going to migrate each and every object to have that capability. It’s the next step in personal expression. If you don’t like the size of a Prada bag, re-shape it. And then you can start selling that variation to your on our goods market and make more coin from that.
YP: What can Mashup attendees expect to learn from your preso/demo?
PA: They will see the next generation of social networking activity in action. They will see brand interaction at a level of intimacy that wasn’t possible before with existing web or 3D applications. They will see media sharing in real-time that content providers are desperate to share with interested audiences. We’re looking forward to the YPulse Mashup and look forward to connecting with what promises to be a great collection of attendees!
Categorized under: 2008 Mashup East