When I first started my blog, I thought I would periodically change the blog’s banner according to the subject of the most recent post. However, I quickly fell in love with my first and only banner: a section of a webcomic that satirizes fantasy adventure roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons, called the Order of the Stick.
Although I recognize that the hilarity of the comic is lost on many non-D&D players, I decided that changing it, for any reason, would be a violation against my blog… it really just wouldn’t be the same without it.
Seeing as D&D just recently came back into my weekly routine (my level 2 brutal scoundrel rogue, Feye, is pretty awesome), I thought I would share the most recent of Rich Burlew’s work, which pays homage to D&D co-creator Dave Arneson, who died last week, on April 7, 2009.
Arneson’s campaign settings and creativity have inspired incalculable video games, movies and fantasy adventure games.
Isn’t it great when two personal interests come together at a glitzy awards ceremony? Well, that’s exactly what happened on April 8, 2009, when marketers, advertisers and PR professionals met to honour the best of the best in PC and video game promotion at the fourth annual MI6 Awards in San Francisco.
Since 1994, Blizzard Entertainment has been known as a leading developer and publisher of computer games. Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft universes include some of the top selling video games of all time.
However, after a decade of playing Blizzard video games, it’s hasn’t just been the consistent high quality gaming experience I’ve had with their products that has made me loyal to their brand. My loyalty has also been built on years of engaging in mutually beneficial relationships with Blizzard and other Blizzard customers through the company’s various social media tactics. For within each of Blizzard’s video game universes is a social media presence matched by few other companies.
Blizzard employees, often recognized on Blizzard community forums by their use of blue text, are constantly engaging in conversations with customers. This two-way communication usually involves answering customer questions, providing technical support and asking clients for feedback and suggestions on Blizzard products. In fact, Blizzard just recently asked Diablo II users for their input on new patch content.
With over 11 million users worldwide, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is the best selling computer game of all time. In order to engage this audience outside the game, the World of Warcraft online community features monthly comic, art and machinima (movies using video images, footage, music, sounds, speech, or other assets from copyrighted products) contests for fans to submit their work based on the World of Warcraft universe.
World of Warcraft Comic
Furthermore, BlizzCast, Blizzard’s podcast, allows listeners to learn more about the creation of Blizzard computer games from the artists and developers.
And finally, the most recent and impressive of Blizzard’s social media tactics is the official Diablo III fansite kit, a downloadable package for Diablo III fans to create their own websites. The kit includes forum avatars and messenger images, site building tips and images, and a Diablo III factsheet (just to name a few).
However, my one critique of Blizzard’s social media presence is that it usually takes place on Blizzard endorsed communities; I rarely see Blizzard representatives communicating with customers outside of the Blizzard forums.
The one social media tool I wish Blizzard would embrace is Twitter, seeing as it is my preferred method for receiving information. That I need to scroll through the World of Warcraft website, the Diablo III website, and the Starcraft II website to find the newest patch notes, trailers or fan art, is a major inconvenience. Why not just send all this information through a single channel like Twitter?
Furthermore, although Blizzard has a presence on Facebook with over 20,000 fans, the Blizzard Entertainment Facebook fan page isn’t used as an effective communications tool. Even though it features discussion boards and comments, the fan page lacks input from Blizzard representatives. Once you join the fan page, you are left to converse with other fans without a word from Blizzard.
So, although Blizzard has embraced social media, the company is by no means perfect. By interacting with customers solely through a limited number of social media tools, Blizzard is not only inconveniencing users (like myself), but also missing an opportunity to communicate with potential customers.
What do you think of Blizzard’s social media presence? Have I left anything out?
I use social bookmarking sites like digg, delicious and technorati as means of learning about new and interesting web content, especially content that has to do with my personal interest in video games, sci-fi and fantasy. Social bookmarking allows me to easily weed out topics that I do not find interesting by means of tagging, searching and categories.
If you’re new to social bookmarking, Lee LeFever’s video, Social Bookmarking in Plain English, is a great resource to learn more about these useful tools.
Alliance Blue
Because of social bookmarking, I no longer get news from its source, but from social bookmarking sites. For example, I first heard about World of Warcraft’s recent partnership with Mountain Dew to create the Alliance Blue (wild fruit) and Horde Red (citrus cherry) flavoured soft drinks through digg.com. On Friday, WoW Invades Game Fuel, Splits Gamers on Flavor and Character had over 500 diggs and was the most popular article on digg’s gaming page. Because of my interest in video games, I visit this page daily and don’t need to visit the World of Warcraft website for WoW-related news.
While there, I also learned about other gaming news, such as the official launch of Runes of Magic, a new free MMORPG, and the launch of Blizzard’s Battlenet 2.0, an online tool for Blizzard Entertainment users to register all their gaming accounts at one location.
I find these tools invaluable for researching new blog topics. When investigating Watchmen’s social media efforts, delicious was my first stop; I wanted to know what other Watchmen fans were interested in talking and reading about.
But, social bookmarking isn’t just for the casual blogger. These tools are easily used to track the online conversations and “groundswell” surrounding company brands.
Groundswell
Coined by the authors of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Media, the term “groundswell” refers to the “social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.”
Groundswell, therefore, is like hearing about the World of Warcraft Mountain Dew flavours from digg.com, instead of the World of Warcraft website. According to Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, my preference for receiving information from one location rather than having to visit several locations is not an uncommon occurrence.
So if you’re writing a blog or running an international company, social bookmarking tools offer the opportunity to hear the comments, praise and flames of your target audience. The next step is engaging in those social media conversations with them.
What do you think of social bookmarking? Do you use it for personal or professional purposes? And if you don’t use it, why not?
Social media has undeniably altered how we interact with one another. The speed at which we communicate (instant messages and comments), the languages we use to communicate with (leet speak and HTML), and the various methods we use to communicate with (wall-posts, 140 characters, audio and video), do not rely on face-to-face interaction.
However, what about social video games and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) like EverQuest II and World of Warcraft (WoW)? How have these socially integrated games affected our social interactions?
In 2007, the animated television series South Park parodied World of Warcraft, the most popular MMORPG ever created, in an episode cleverly entitled Make Love Not Warcraft. The opening minute featured a short, but powerful dialogue between Stan and his father Randy that questions our conventional understanding of social interaction.
Make Love Not Warcraft
Randy: “Stan, you’ve been on your computer all weekend. Shouldn’t you go outside and socialize with your friends?”
Stan: “I am socializing Rtard. I’m logged on to an MMORPG with people from all over the world and getting XP with my party using TeamSpeak.”
Stan and Randy’s argument touches on the recent attention being paid to the effects of gaming on our relationship building and social skills. And like their argument, there remains a definite lack of consensus on whether playing video games is beneficial or harmful to social interaction.
In 2008, Laura Walker, a professor at Brigham Young University, reportedly found a connection between increased video game playing and poor relationships. “It may be that young adults remove themselves from important social settings to play video games, or that people who already struggle with relationships are trying to find other ways to spend their time,” said Walker. “My guess is that it’s some of both and becomes circular.”
However, according to Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist with the Pew Internet & American Life Project’s survey on the effects of gaming on social interaction, “The stereotype that gaming is a solitary, violent, anti-social activity just doesn’t hold up. The average teen plays all different kinds of games and generally plays them with friends and family both online and offline.”
Lux Legis Real Life Raid 2008
A part of me is inclined to agree with Lenhart. Like South Park’s Stan, playing WoW allowed me to meet and socialize with people from all over the world and talk to them via TeamSpeak. We also ventured outside the virtual world of Azeroth (the fictional world in which the Warcraft video games are set). In August of 2008, I participated in a real-life guild meet-up and met some of my online friends from Canada and the United States at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Ohio.
On the other hand, I can recall numerous occasions where I procrastinated doing assignments, went to bed at 4 a.m., or passed up the opportunity to socialize with real-life friends in order to attend a raid. And every time I told my friends I couldn’t go out because I was playing WoW, I definitely felt the stigma associated with playing a MMORPG instead of participating in real-life socializing.
Perhaps, in an age of Facebook, Twitter and MMORPGs, it is becoming necessary to change our traditional ideas concerning what socializing should and should not look like.
The intersection of video games, comic books and movies is not a new marketing strategy. Comic books have been adapted into films, which have been adapted into video games, for years (think of X-Men, Spiderman, etc). However, the Picture Production Company, the organization responsible for the online marketing campaign for the film adaptation of Watchmen, took this relationship to a whole new level on Monday.
On Feb. 16, PPC announced that Watchmen director Zack Snyder and artist Dave Gibbons would enter PlayStation Home’s virtual world to participate in an online Q&A.
PlayStation Home, launched in December 2008, is available to all PlayStation 3 owners and allows users create avatars and interact with other users in the Home online community.
Here’s an informative PlayStation Home video:
10 guests from across Europe, consisting of bloggers, journalists and fans, were given the opportunity to create avatars and enter the virtual PlayStation Home world to ask Zack Snyder and Dave Gibbons questions about the upcoming film.
The live video, streamed by Ustream TV, also enabled chat, allowing viewers to not only comment on the Q&A as it happened, but pose questions to Snyder and Gibbons (however, only one viewer question was asked).
Virtual Watchmen Q&A
Nevertheless, despite the nifty technological feat, the virtual Watchmen Q&A was one of the most boring videos I have ever watched.
Visually, it was like spending 40 minutes watching your friend play The Sims, except your friend’s Sim didn’t interact with its environment or other the Sims, it just sat there. The most exciting moments occurred when an avatar decided to standup, sit-down, clap, or walk into the room.
The audio even sounded like Sim language from time to time. Feedback, faulty mics, cut-off sentences and the moderator’s constant reminders for participants to hold the “R2″ button on their PlayStation controllers when speaking, often made it difficult to understand questions and answers.
Here’s the first nine minutes:
The virtual Q&A compliments a broader marketing program to promote Watchmen in PlayStation Home. Home users can watch exclusive Watchmen footage in Home’s cinema with an introduction from Zack Snyder. Beginning Feb. 27, virtual merchandise, such as character costumes, T-shirts and Doomsday clocks, will be also available from the Home store.
However, despite my criticism, the virtual Q&A was definitely a unique method for gathering a diverse range of Watchmen enthusiasts from across Europe. Participants from France, England, Italy and Spain (just to name a few countries) engaged in a revolutionary method of discussion, where social media took a central role.
The use of a virtual forum, the participation of bloggers, as well as the live stream and chat, definitely added an exciting new element to the typical movie marketing campaigns.
What did you think of the virtual Q&A? Are virtual worlds and platforms the next step in interactive social media marketing campaigns?
It seems that several online and social media platforms found new and interesting ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year.
Twitter Valentine's Day <3
Twitter, for example, allowed users to express their feelings for one another through heart icons, simply using the “<3″ characters.
World of Warcraft hosted its annual Love is in the Air event, a five-day celebration featuring V-Day related items, quests and achievements. Beginning last Wednesday, players could exchange perfume, flowers, chocolates and heart-shaped candies and enjoy romantic picnics together. This Saturday, I was surprised at how many of these virtual gifts appeared in my virtual mailbox from guildies and RL friends. Candies, flowers and even a new robe from my boyfriend, awaited Ophelea upon login.
WoW Valentine's Day Items
Other MMORPGs (massive, multi-player, online, role-playing games) and MMOs, such as Second Life, Star Wars Galaxies and EverQuest, celebrated the day of romance with in-game special events and gift-exchanges (read a summary of the gaming world’s V-Day celebrations here).
However, Facebook definitely took the heart-shaped cake for capitalizing on V-Day gift-exchanges this year.
Since February 2007, users could use Facebook’s Gifts application to send friends digital images or “gifts” for US$1 each. In November of 2008, Facebook Gifts progressed to a micropayment system, allowing users to purchase gifts for credits instead of US dollars at a rate of US$1 for 100 credits. Ranging from 100 to 50,000 credits, over 400 gifts are available for sale on Facebook’s Gift Shop, which features the occasional free or sponsored gift.
This Valentine’s Day, Facebook made another update to the Gifts application with the launch of “wrapped” gifts. Upon visiting a friend’s profile, users were immediately prompted with the option of sending a Valentine’s Day gift up to seven days in advance. Gifts remained “wrapped” on friends’ Walls until Valentine’s Day, when the contents were finally revealed.
Facebook's "wrapped" Valentine's day gift
According to The Facebook Blog, “This way, you will know if someone special-or someone unexpected-is planning a Valentine’s Day surprise. You’ll get the delight of receiving a gift twice, and you’ll also have a chance to reciprocate.”
In January, Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners concluded that in 2008, Facebook made between US$28 and $43 million from these gift purchases alone (about 10% of its revenue). The ability to now schedule holiday and birthday gifts will almost certainly increase this source of revenue.
Although I participated in the exchange of virtual gifts this Valentine’s Day, I did not and can never see myself paying real money for a gift that does not exist. Yet even as I write this, I feel a tinge of hypocrisy; I have spent three years paying US$14.99 per month to farm virtual items, levels and reputation in World of Warcraft. Is paying for a virtual gift really any different from paying to play in a virtual world, filled with virtual items?
The fact still remains that these virtual items aren’t real; they’re digital images that exist within a Website or a virtual world. Yet somehow, we still spend real time (up to days in World of Warcraft) and real money (up to US$500 on Facebook) acquiring them. Furthermore, not only do we enjoy giving and receiving these incorporeal gifts, but it’s a lucrative and multi-million dollar business as well.
So, I guess it really just is the thought that counts.
What do you think of virtual gift-giving? Did you give or receive any virtual gifts this Valentine’s Day? Did you pay for any?
Film releases, particularly of the superhero variety, are becoming more impressive, interactive and engaging; especially through the use of online marketing and social media tactics.
My first experience with an extensive viral campaign was in the form of an alternate reality game (ARG) for the newest installment of the Batman series, The Dark Knight (released July 14, 2008). In May of 2007, 42 Entertainment began a revolutionary marketing campaign that immersed fans into a fictional Gotham City using online and real-life platforms. Highlights included the Joker’s website, Harvey Dent’s campaign website and the website for the in-fiction newspaper The Gotham Times. (Read FilmSchoolRejects’ comprehensive article on the entire campaign here).
The Dark Knight scavenger hunt
In December of 2007, one of these many online strategies sent me on a scavenger hunt in downtown Toronto with nearly a hundred other fans. Following online clues relayed to us by “The Joker,” we chased masked goons to our final prize: a viewing of the film’s latest, unreleased trailer.
It seemed that 42 Entertainment had created the most extensive viral marketing campaign in history.
However, I recently began reading the 1986 graphic novel Watchmen, and the social media campaign used to market its upcoming film (set to release March 6, 2009), will be one for the books.
Unlike The Dark Knight, the online campaign for Watchmen isn’t an ARG; there aren’t any games, at least not yet. The Picture Production Company, the agency heading Paramount’s viral campaign (read PPC’s blog here), doesn’t make fans work for information.
Instead they’re providing a wealth of information and social media tools for fans. I Watch the Watchmen, for example, is being called a “social media microsite” and allows users to create Watchmen-themed profile pics and site skins for blogs and social networking profiles. I’m most intrigued about the promised fan banners (possibly a new banner for my blog?) and iPhone apps.
Even YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, FriendFeed and Digg are used to promote content on The New Frontiersman, a website for the right-wing conspiracy-theory magazine in the original comic. This website reveals supplementary material to the film, such as photos, video clips and articles from the years leading up to the comic’s 1980s setting. Together, these videos, pictures and articles really set the scene in the upcoming film.
One of these videos, a fake 1970 NBS newsreel celebrating 10 years of Dr. Manhattan, has been viewed over 400,000 times.
The latest video, “The Keene Act & YOU” (released on Feb. 4), is a government PSA set seven years later and depicts a change in public opinion. No one is celebrating “costumed adventurers” anymore.
Engaging and interactive social media tactics like those of The Dark Knight and Watchmen really get fans excited for a film’s release. Twitter, YouTube, Digg, Flickr and FriendFeed are great, inexpensive ways to inform fans about new content. I love being tweeted updates about new a photo on Flickr or a new video on YouTube instead of having to find the information myself.
I for one, will be standing in a line filled with other costumed social media adventurers to see this film, opening night.
I wanted a blog title that demonstrated the connection between my newfound interest in social media and my lifelong obsession with the more nerdy things in life.So, I compiled a list of the most nerdy quotes and sayings I could think of.My page was filled with references to 1337 speak, video games, Dungeons and Dragons, comic books and sci-fi and fantasy movies.Yet, nothing was expressing the link between social media and my nerdy interests.
After much contemplation, I recalled a humorous T-shirt slogan: Talk nerdy to me (a geeky variation of “talk dirty to me”).
But, the problem with “talk nerdy to me” was that we’re not just talking to each other anymore; we’re blogging, tweeting, texting, IM-ing, podcasting and digging.Communicating has evolved from face-to-face conversations to worldwide exchanges using 1337 speak, webcams and HTML.
So, I altered the slogan to “Blog Nerdy 2 Me.”A title that, I hope, encapsulates the topic of my blog: how social media shapes the ways we experience, create and communicate about my nerdy hobbies.
I invite your comments and any ideas for future posts!
