A new study by Rubicon Consulting states that word of mouth and online reviews are the most influential factors in consumer purchasing decisions. According to the study, the Internet is also an important medium of providing customer support. Following are few other survey findings in the periphery of consumer’s use and perceptions of different websites:
- The Web is the #2 resource for customer support information, after user manuals. It ranks ahead of calling the manufacturer or asking a dealer.
- Website categories that get the most daily usage are search, social communities like MySpace and Facebook, general news websites like CNN.com and NYTimes.com, and online banking.
- The websites that Americans value most are (in order), Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Facebook.
- Although Yahoo’s financial challenges have generated a lot of press attention, it continues to have a very large and loyal following.
- Facebook appears to be ahead of MySpace in terms of number of users in the US, and perceived value of the site.
- Despite extensive publicity, the community sites SecondLife and Twitter reach only a few percent of US Internet users.
- Democrats are more active online than Republicans. Democrats are more likely to participate in online communities, and say they are more heavily influenced in their voting decisions by information they find online.
- Young people (age 22 and under) account for about half of all the content and comments posted online.
Learnings from the survey:
- Its important to go beyond website. include Search marketing, Social Media in your marketing budget
- Work towards developing an efficient online customer service platform.
- Do not downplay the importance of online communities
- Increase your focus to those few to write about your brand & build content for you. Connect with them, nurture these online communities. Because these online communities connect to most other internet users who get influenced by the reviews they read on internet.
@ anishvshah
Call it an online community, e-world, second life or 3D avatars, etc
the fact is that investors are pouring money over the Virtual World! In third quarter of 2008, investors poured $148.5 million into virtual worlds.Though, this number is lower than Q2’s investment of $161 million & $184 million in Q1 this year. But if we see the bigger picture, there has been a total investment of $493 million so far in 2008. Again this number is lower that 2007’s investment of just over $1 billion, but the number was mainly influenced by the $700 million acquisition of ‘Club Penguin’ by Walt Disney. Last year there were 35 companies to receive the money; but till now, almost 51 companies have received the investment this year.
As per a report released by Virtual Worlds Management in April 2008, there are now over 100 virtual worlds operating or in development with a focus on the youth market (18-and-under). Companies like Disney and Viacom’s Nickelodeon unit have been diving into virtual worlds as stand-alone properties and as adjuncts to existing franchises. Post the acquisition of ‘Club Penguin’ in last year, Disney has at least nine more in development, including one based on its animated movie “Cars.” Rival Nickelodeon, is doing their bit too.
Some of the most popular online worlds are tied to real-world merchandise. 
Toymaker Mattel has created a virtual home for Barbie and pre-teens have been flocking the online homes of their Webkinz & Neopets stuffed toys. For the Lego fans! go to Lego Universe – an official site of the developing Massively Multiplyaer Online Game (MMOG).
Under 18 in focus:
In April 2008, Virtual Worlds Management announced that there are now more than 100 virtual worlds now operating live or are currently in development that have at least a general focus on the under-18 market.
In all there are 60 youth worlds currently live. Another 53 are in concepting, development, or testing phases. The general tween category (here looked at as 8 to 12) has the most interest with 62 worlds live or in development, followed closely by kids worlds (7 and under) with 52 worlds live or in development and then teens (13-18 years old) with 44 worlds live or in development.
“…When a parent’s choices are between $60 for a one-off, triple-A video game, $10 for a two-hour movie, or a free-to-play virtual world for their children, it’s clear there’s still plenty of room to grow.” said Christopher Sherman, executive director at Virtual Worlds Management.
This is the worst possible time for anyone can be in. But, even when the economy is taking a downturn, consumers still want to have fun. The amount of money invested in this period of time is staggering. We don’t see any slowing in the market adoption of virtual worlds technologies and expect investment in the space to continue. In fact the market is growing significantly, with the adoption rate of virtual worlds increasing & evolution of technology, I am sure more is yet to come!
OBAMA 2.0: Barack Obama flourishing on new media
October 15, 2008
Barack Obama's online campaign for 2008 presidential elections
Be it your Inbox or LinkedIn, Be it Twitter or now iPhone. Barack Obama is everywhere. One thing clearly established in Barack Obama’s campaign is his interest in using new media tools to reach an audience. Through this post I will give a detailed account of online tools used by Obama, or Obama supporters.
Obama’ 08 Online model
Obama' 08 online model
Campaign website:
Barack Obama’s website is immensely integrated with social media. If you want to know anything about him, website is the place you go to. The site is integrated with a blog that updates his events, speeches and appearances. His website encourages visitors to create be a volunteer, support Obama campaign to ‘knock more doors’, plan & attend events, find supporters, network with your friends, write a blog & even be a part of Obama’ 08 fund raiser team. Obama campaign use the website to sell ‘Obama merchandise‘ too.
I loved ‘BarackTV’ an integral part of the website that brings visitors close to Barack as a person. Visitors get to meet Michelle Obama & Joe Biden, it also includes channels like advertisements, issues, Barack’s speeches. you got to see it to believe it! There are highly identifiable badges, buttons and links to popular social media sites such as social networking site Facebook, photo sharing site Flickr and No1 video site Youtube.
My personal favorite – My.BO, an acronym for My. Barack Obama. My.BO has become an online community with over million members! This community has taken Brand Obama to the virtual World of ‘Second Life’ this is exciting. really exciting!
web analytics
Obama billboard in Xbox 360!!!
October 15, 2008
Presidential candidate; Senator Barack Obama’s campaign has made incredible use of virtual media. Obama already has a group of followers on ‘Second Life’, He is connected to people through his website, all their campaign events have been streamed live on his site; they use Twitter to keep people informed about them. Recently the campaign launched an iPhone application ‘Obama 08’ – and they’re not done yet.
Barack Obama billboard on EA's "Burnout Paradise"
The Obama campaign is now advertising in a very popular video game for the Xbox 360. Obama campaign has bought ad space within video games including Electronic Arts’ “Burnout Paradise”. One in-game ad, seen on a virtual billboard in the racing game, informs gamers that “Early Voting Has Begun” for the election, and includes a link to an Obama website.
Electronic Arts confirmed to GameSpot (a very popular gaming site) that the ads have been appearing on virtual Obama billboards since October 6, and will continue to run until election day in November.
According to the Seattle Times, the ads were sold by Massive, a Microsoft-owned ad agency (Microsoft makes the X-box, for the non-gamers here). The ads are also highly targeted and are only visible to gamers in the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio and Wisconsin.
The deal with Massive suggests that the ads are appearing in the following games: Burnout Paradise, Madden 09, Nascar 09, NBA Live 08, NFS Carbon, NFS Prostreet, NFL on Tour, NHL 09, Skate
In a report on GigaOM, Holly Rockwood, director of corporate communications at Electronic Arts, told GigaOM. She adds, “Like most television, radio and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates,” she continued. “Like political spots on the television networks, these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams.”
In my earlier post I spoke about Google leveraging this medium & future of in-game advertising, but for a political campaign to be savvy enough to realize this opportunity exists and take advantage of it is really impressive. To my knowledge, this Burnout ad is far and away the most prominent use of a major online game to promote a presidential candidate’s campaign.
Now that Obama has entered this periphery! I really believe that we will see more in-game advertising & effective use of virtual media in next presidential elections. However, the challenges in this periphery will be very game-specific: advertising message will have to blend with the game & avoid falling into those obviously loud marketing tactics. Last thing a gamer wants is, an intrusion of marketers in their me-my time with their hobby time. If the advertising message is communicated in a clever & non-intrusive manner, the message will be received positively.
