• Ross Fadner, Dec 31, 2007, 11:02 AM
  • Kiddie Virtual World Is Exploding The New York Times "Get ready for a total inundation" of kiddie-oriented virtual worlds, says eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson. Webkinz, Club Penguin and the like have been a smashing success where adult-oriented counterparts Second Life and There.com have not. According to comScore, Disney-owned Club Penguin attracts seven times the traffic of Second Life. Webkinz, a site where children create and care for virtual stuffed animals, has seen its traffic soar 342 percent in the last year.

    In all, eMarketer estimates that 20 million children will be part of a virtual world by 2011, up from 8.2 million today. Disney, for example, plans to follow Club Penguin's success with virtual worlds for "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Cars."

    Viacom's Nickelodeon, home of Neopets, is putting $100 million behind a similar expansion. Time Warner's Warner Bros. Entertainment division is also planning a cluster of virtual worlds based on brands like Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera and D.C. Comics. As Disney Internet Group President Steve Wadsworth put it last week, "There is a massive opportunity here." Read the whole story...
  • Gmail To Add News Feed? Google Operating System Google Operating System (GOS), a blog/rumor site, alleges that big G is planning on serving Gmail users status updates from their contacts. Gmail already displays contacts that are online, accompanied by a status message of their choosing.

    While it's not yet clear what kind of updates these will be, the blog surmises that they might be related to your friends' latest actions within Google's network--a la Facebook's news feed. Upon reading some Google code, Ionut, another blog, says there will be a universal opt-out for the new feature.

    Even so, GOS claims the feature would actually make Gmail closer to Plaxo than Facebook. Plaxo, a Web-based address book, "became a metaphor for spam in its early years," the blog says, adding that contact updates inside an email app--which is far closer to a utility than a social network--would be "nothing but spam." Read the whole story...
  • Microsoft Advertises Vista on YouTube IStartedSomething Microsoft Corp. has turned its attention to viral video to get the message out about its Windows Vista operating system. Unlike the $500 million flop that was last year's "Wow" campaign, the company has gone for the lower budget (only $300 million), lower-key viral approach.

    Blogger Long Zheng reports that last week Microsoft began uploading short videos/demos of its Windows Vista, Windows Live and Office 2007 products to Google's YouTube -- quite an interesting strategy shift, considering Microsoft's bitter rivalry with the search giant.

    Zheng provides links to each of the YouTube videos, which he describes as "well-produced." The videos are littered with comments from Microsoft bashers touting rivals' operating systems. Read the whole story...