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Sep 28, 2004, 11:54pm

Anthony's Rant for the Year (Anthony? Ranting? Once in a blue moon, I'd
say.)

DISCLAIMER: This is my opinion. I force it upon no one, but I do recommend
what I am saying, so at the very least, take it into consideration.


1) Advertising and the state of Public Relations.

Advertising- (Ad-ver-tis-ing) Noun: 1 : the action of calling something to
the attention of the public especially by paid announcements


To the AWI staff specifically, I'm not sure weither you knew that definition
or not, but you do now. Now, with AW being basically the GRANDPA of Virtual
Reailty as we know it, especially considering that (correct me if I'm wrong)
its a very high probababilty that it is the oldest commercial virtual
reailty program that is still in circulation. I was a member of the
Knowledge Adventure 3d Program in the mid 90's, granted I was about 6 or 7
years old, but as I recall, the interface was strikingly similar to
activeworlds. So lets just name that the great grandpa. Its not in
circulation anymore, so we've buried it and gone on, so this would be the
oldest one I believe.

But to my point, you guys REALLY need to advertise a lot more. One of the
problems I think is that you don't know who to target it to. My suggestion-
the area of about 12-32 year old people. Over the year and three-fourths
I've been on Active Worlds, I've seen two or three of the upgrades, and with
each one it seems to be leaning more and more towards teen oriented type
things, also more game-like features have been added. This is good, as your
getting it to target towards a general demograph with those features.

My suggestion for advertising is to include something about AW being the
"Grandpa of Virtual Reailty" in the banner ads or such that you would
concieveably produce. That way, the user viewing it would know that while
you wouldn't have cutting edge, top of the line technology, but you wouldn't
be a junky program either, as you've been in the game for what, 9 years now?

Now, where to advertise? My suggestions personally,
http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com and www.nuklearpower.com. Both of the
webmasters of these sites are very reasonable, well-balanced people, so they
wouldn't charge a King's ransom or anything for advertising. Also, these
are very popular websites, particularly to teenagers/gamers/geeks, and they
have a very loyal fanbase to the site, and ads that are placed on the site
usually generate a lot of hits in the following days. Ctrl+Alt+Delete alone
averages Eleven Million page views A MONTH. Thats our total citizen
population, what, 50 times over? So just think about the possibilitys there
guys. It sounds like a pretty awesome deal.

Now, what to do to keep these people once you've lured them? Its really
simple, and it would take hardly any effort at all. Give your P.R.
department a major jumpstart. Here are my suggestions.

1) Start up a more Young-Adult oriented weekly game. Maybe paintball, or
capture the flag. And though Daphne did die, that doesn't mean AWTrivia had
too. How about some events in AWGames too? Its rotting in the ground with
the lack of people in it right now.

2) Give discounts to worlds or citizens who are helping you guys by keeping
members. Some of the RPG worlds do an incredible job with keeping
entertainment in the community, and also keeping a variety of RPG
oppourtunites on Active Worlds (I like role-playing and fishing in Neua as
much as the next guy, but I'd much rather be slicing through a dragon with a
bunch of my friends)

3) Stop hiding in your hole of non-existance. You really need to keep people
like M.M. on your staff, they are the only ones who hear the voice of the
community. Rick, J.P., would hanging out in AW or AWTeen GZ for a couple of
hours every week to answer questions or pick up suggestions kill you? Don't
you think your reputation would be a little better if had a head-to-head
chat with the little people?

4) Spruce Alpha World up a bit, its the oldest world, but it doesn't have to
LOOK like that. AW GZ world is there for a reason.

Now, here are the effects of such a substantial exposure to the communitys
if they do in-fact come on to Active Worlds.

1) Possible large citizen registration time, IF you take steps to keep
people interested in AW long enough.

2) Large influx of people in AWNewbie, AWSchool, and AWUniversity. Seeing
these organizations flurish once again would be an awesome thing.

3) Overall User's in Activeworlds increase, AW gets more revenue, AW can
finally get out of the hole and hire more programmers.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Death Threats?

(350539)
-Hyper Anthony

Sep 29, 2004, 12:08am

It's too late, bail out now. Like i did.

--
Brock,
IceFlare Network
Founder/Administrator
http://www.iceflare.net


[View Quote]

Sep 29, 2004, 12:18am

im working on the PR thingy yeahs give a guy a break :)

wine wine wine :) join my AWpromo orginisation, been workign with alpha, and
MM on an org made for doign awi's advertisign and promotion for them (cuz
duh e n zo is programming!)...so what if we get nothing out of it well
nothign that you would consider valubale, but the feeling of showing others
this proggy makes me proud :)...
[View Quote]

Sep 29, 2004, 12:37am

> to


Prolly the most important thing they should work on...finding ways to keep
existing citizens interested (and more importantly, paying). A well
maintained public world like AW would peek my interest personally...

Sep 29, 2004, 12:43am

Rick, program?

HA!

--
Brock,
IceFlare Network
Founder/Administrator
http://www.iceflare.net


[View Quote]

Sep 29, 2004, 4:13am

It's not like we are having people slowly trickle in. The rate is pretty
good, considering the events over the past 3 years. We need some way of
keeping the newly subscribing citizen's interest, like what comit said.
Right now, AWGate isn't that appealing, especially when some people are
getting ejected for stating the place they came from "I came from there.com
to see this place." First impressions is key here.

Sep 29, 2004, 5:46am

Hi everyone:

[View Quote] And I've been running those videos that Pineriver produced on a regular
basis on my Internet TV station at http://jeeperone.winamptv.net/ as part of
the station's programming. If the audio portions were usable, I'd put 'em
on my radio station on Live365 as well (maybe I'll produce a few MP3s
sometime when I'm bored or something). :-)

As for sprucing up Alphaworld, ONLY YOU can do that by building something
really really nice. Whether it's a building or a whole town (or a fraction
thereof), you're doing your part. You could also add to an existing town
(though if you listen to some people whom I shall keep nameless, you run the
risk of being accused of TRAMPLING on it. But don't let that stop you as
these people are typically just full of themselves IMO).

Cheers for now :-)

PC Hamster
Mayor - City Of Hamsterville
pchamster at comcast.net
Denver, Colorado (my REAL city :-))
http://hamsterville.tripod.com/
HAMSTERVILLE GROUND ZERO - AW 5029N 500E (NEW COORDINATES!!!)

Sep 29, 2004, 8:27am

Not around ground zero we can't. You know, where the newcomers get their
first impressions of the world?


[View Quote]

Oct 3, 2004, 3:46am

And even if you try to build close enough to GZ, you will still get error
because there's restricted building radius around it. So it's pretty much
the past that remains there within that limits (except for MINOR updates to
GZ by AWI such as updates to media sign thingy...etc. etc.). Eep would
probably call that "lame". ;)

--
Legion
Chairman of Rockford Township, Phin County, Alphaworld
Governor of Commonwealth of Rockford (state)
[View Quote]

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