Last night, I went to check out the opening party for Wired Magazine's new in-world presence, over in the Millions of Us Sim. To be honest, it's a long time since I last bought a copy of the magazine... I used to read it avidly in the early 90's (when it was quite difficult to get hold of in the UK), but kind of fell by the wayside as regular reader shortly after the UK edition was launched. Still, after reading some of the recent blogosphere backlash over PR events being run by the likes of Millions of Us / Electric Sheep / RRR, I thought it might be interesting to experience one of these events first-hand...
It was a slightly unusual event, insofaras nobody really seemed to understand entirely what the plan of action was - least of all the wired guys themselves, or - for that matter - Rodica MillionsofUs (who seemed to be the designated MoU co-ordinator). She repeatedly pointed out "this isn't supposed to be a press conference" - but at the same time, she didn't quite explain what it _was_ supposed to be either...
And so, we all filed into Wired's rather snazzy circuit-board presentation theatre, and waited for something to happen...
...and waited... and waited... and it was only after sitting chatting with neighbouring audience members for 30 minutes or so, that it occurred to me... whoever had built this (rather beautiful) auditorium had totally neglected the listening range of standard chat! The meet-and-greet had already begun, but at least 2/3rds of the audience (myself included) were completely oblivious to the fact, because we were out of hearing range of the stage, and the venue had no text-repeating PA installed - duh!
(there's got to be some kind of lesson about style over function here!)
Anyway, I pointed this out to my fellow audience members, and we all shuffled forward to the front few rows. To be honest, when we got there, the chat wasn't too illuminating... somebody in the audience asked the - not entirely unpredictable -question of what Wired hoped to gain from a presence in SL. Incredibly, this seemed to catch the guys off-guard, and they didn't really seem to have much of an answer - they floundered a little, and then turned the discussion around with a "well, what would YOU like to see from us?".
The resulting audience participation wasn't too illuminating... but the background music playing in the parcel - provided by Oskari Sorri of Planet Bolex - was worth hanging around for - so I went for a wander around the build instead and admired the architecture (which is *lovely* ...did I mention that already?).
By the time I got back to the auditorium, things had got a little less formal - which was a big improvement - the wired guys were no longer stood on the stage, and were mingling and chatting with the crowd instead. It was still kind of strange trying to engage with them though... I think, on some level, it was because they'd come dressed in robotic avatars, rather than avatar representations of their rl selves - somehow, it's hard to take Optimus Prime seriously, when he claims to be Wired's editor. Maybe they were just hiding embarassing newbie avatars; they both seemed to be surprisingly-recent sign-ups to second life ;)
People had started drifting away from this point, and there was maybe only a couple of dozen people left by the time the audio stream was switched over to the second act of the night ... a pre-recorded set by The Kleptones (who - unfortunately - had to cancel their virtual appearance, but were at least represented in audo form!). I can categorically state that the Kleptone's music was *awesome* ... it gave precedings a real party atmosphere, and everybody took to the dancefloor (or dance circuit board... whatever...). Philip Linden surprised those of us who remained with an appearance at this point - and the party continued with a nice, chatty atmosphere, lots of good humour. In the end, the event turned into quite an enjoyable way to spend an evening... it was 2am UK time before I managed to peel myself away from the screen.
So, ARE these high-profile SL PR events all smoke-puffing and hype?
I came away with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I'll not deny that I had an enjoyable time... but somehow, on some fundamental level, something was *missing*. It was evident that the event didn't really have much of a gameplan behind it - and for a 3 hour party ... even an "informal" party ... that doesn't seem wise.
They could have distracted us with stuff like a tour of the (rather impressive) build... or made a much bigger deal of the music that was being played... given out party favours... or maybe, even, primed the Wired guys with something interesting to say whenever they were asked the inevitable "so, why exactly are you here in SL?". There seemed to be a general expectation from the audience that we were there to be entertained, in some way ... and not much was delivered on that front, other than the amusement we created for ourselves. That seems to be the story that emerges from far too many of these events.
I kind of feel that agencies like MoU (and I guess ESC and RRR too) still haven't quite cracked that final step connecting their clients to.... well ...regular SL residents. Maybe that isn't important in their current gameplan - perhaps it's all about external column-inches at this point? They seem to do just fine at luring in the brands... there's no doubt at all that they have very talented creatives working for them, and - if Rodica MillionsOfUs is anything to go by - very personable co-ordinators too. But, somehow, that final - critical - link in the equation just isn't quite there.
Yet.
Recent Comments