December 3rd, 2009 Posted by: Andrew Reeves Comments (0)
Farmville
Earlier this week my colleague Sam Granleese posted an entry on this blog debating the notion of user pay content? I thought therefore it might be a nice follow up to have a little look at another emerging market; that of Virtual goods.
Now, virtual goods are certainly not a new idea. We would all hopefully be able to recall from our ever diminishing short term memories the story of Anshe Chung, the first Second Life Millionaire who was successful in selling virtual land and property in a virtual world. Of course there are also WOW (world of warcraft) and other such fantasy gaming communities / worlds where there are existing markets for goods, powers and secrets. There are even companies dedicated to the dubious and sometimes illegal accumulation of said powers and weaponry which they then on-sell to eager gamers for ‘real’ dollars. But let’s be honest these are still relatively niche markets and unless you are a participant in these games you are unlikely to have seen and certainly not paid over your hard earned dollars for a virtual item. Yet that is.
Enter facebook and gaming applications are suddenly readily accessible to over 250Million users world wide. Currently the most visible and successful one is farmville
“FarmVille is a real-time farm simulation game developed by Zynga, available as an application on the social networking website Facebook. The game allows members of Facebook to manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops, trees, and livestock.[2] Since its launch in June 2009,[3] FarmVille has become the most popular game application on Facebook ….”
I checked, and the Farmville application is currently being actively used by 69Million users. Much like the a fore mentioned virtual goods sellers Virtual Goods are at the heart of the Farmville experience with users earning or paying for virtual currency ‘coins’ and trading with one another to buy land, seeds, equipment livestock or even a duck. Interestingly advertisers are also allowed to provide offers or actions to users of this application asking them to conduct brand interactions; Watch a commercial, sign up for our newsletter or apply for credit in exchange for ‘coins’ provided by that advertiser.
Now Farmville is a very popular game and I assume is highly addictive, as are other such games like Mafia Wars where users can also pay for virtual items to help them achieve missions. Here is the draw dropping bit though; Virtual goods sales are estimated to hit $1 billion USD in 2009. (for reference the entire AU online ad spend for an established market is estimated at $1.7 billion for 2009)
So back to the question at hand. Are people likely to purchase virtual goods? They most certainly already are, and I think we can expect a lot more frivolous micro spending where that came from.
If anyone wants me i’ll be out on the farm with my virtual tractor working toward a holiday in 2020.
November 18th, 2009 Posted by: Andrew Reeves Comments (0)
On Monday I spent the day at DMMS09 an event that saw string of digital marketing and agency types address a large and mostly awake crowd at the Hilton on the Park Melb.
I was bristling with caffeine and so managed to capture quite a few notes which I’ll drop highlights of here for your review and historical reference. (note i missed the first 2 speakers so don’t have notes from sessions by The Population or Publicis Digital) Read more
November 10th, 2009 Posted by: Sam Granleese Comments (2)
Google and mobile advertising marketplace AdMob both announced today that AdMob had agreed to be acquired by Google for US$750 million.
AdMob are a mobile advertising marketplace and platform, connecting mobile site and application owners with mobile advertisers – theoretically the same as Google’s AdSense and Content Network work on the traditional internet. AdMob has served more than 100 billion ads since launching in January 2006, and over 10 million in September alone.
For each ad served, AdMob leverages handset and operator data, which enable demographic, device, and operator targeting for advertisers. They also offer cost-per-click buying options that fit into Google’s traditional performance & relevance oriented auction model.
Until recently, Google has concentrated it’s mobile efforts on two fronts: growing mobile web usage (via distributing its Android mobile operating system amongst as many phones/carriers that Google can convince) and mobile search. But by adding the AdMob platform to their offering they now have a huge inventory and distribution that now gives Google undisputed ownership of the total global mobile ad market. By Google’s own account, they now have a dominant position in three of the four pillars of mobile advertising (see below). Read more
October 21st, 2009 Posted by: Sam Granleese Comments (0)
This weekend Mojo & ZenithOptimedia launched a campaign for Jetset Travelworld Group’s new website Ready Rooms.com with a TVC, performance media and a complimentary paid search campaign.
Ready Rooms offers fantastic deals on hotels and, unlike most other travel sites, you can book up to 12 months in advance.
Check it out at www.readyrooms.com when you’re planning your next getaway. There are lots of amazing launch deals and some great rooms for under $100 per night.
October 6th, 2009 Posted by: Sam Granleese Comments (0)
Last month we launched a Facebook community for women to discuss and celebrate the films they love, the Chick Flick Club, for Skinny Cow Icecream. Since then over 8,000 Australian women have become fans of the community and continue to visit the site regularly to interact with Skinny and other like-minded chick flick connoisseurs.
Based in Facebook, where over three quarters of Skinny’s core audience log in each month, women can engage with Skinny to discuss and review ‘chick’ oriented films much like a book club. They are then able to rent a selection of DVDs free* from a list of over 500 chick flicks with home delivery through a partnership with online DVD rental service Quickflix.
“One of our main objectives was to leverage the positive sentiment and loyalty The Skinny Cow Ice cream had generated since launching in Australia last year. The Chick Flick Club is a unique content platform to encourage women to talk about and try our brand” says Mauricio Alarcon (Head of Marketing, Nestle Peters). Read more
August 25th, 2009 Posted by: Sam Granleese Comments (0)
Earlier this year at Mobile Monday Melbourne Robert Murray, founder of Melbourne-based iPhone gaming developer Firemint, spoke about the risks of building a handset game from scratch, versus doing mobile development work for overseas based console gaming companies. Firemint mainly create mobile game versions of broader game releases for companies like Electronic Arts and Disney. However, it is their original IP game Flight Control for which they are most widely known.
Flight Control was created last year at an estimated budget of $50,000. Game play centers on challenging users to manipulate and drag aircraft with their iPhone touchscreen to designated airport landing areas. The main challenge is to avoid mid-air collisions of different aircraft which become progressively congested. In Australia Flight Control costs $1.19 to download from the iTunes AppStore (USD $0.99) and has now sold 1.3 million downloads.
Back in February Read more
