mcantamesse.net Wandering on virtual reality, social psychology and new media.

Virtual Press Conference

A VR Press conference may be not more exciting, with the hype about SL Reuters, SL IBM and similar initiatives.

But…

This time we’re speaking about a Press Conference in WoW!
There are a lot of differences between World of Warcraft and SecondLife, but IMHO a main issue is the context: WoW is a contextualized world, with explicit goals… well, you know: it’s a GAME… and it’s still Virtual Reality, and it’s still a social environment.

I’m guessing how WoW users could perceive  and react to a press conference, but I saw marriage parties and work meetings, in Wow.

Anyway:

[From http://www.wowinsider.com/2006/11/15/pr-conference/]

MBAzeroth points us to what might be a first in the World of Warcraft: Socialtext, headed up by CEO Ross Mayfield (a.k.a. Kalevipoeg of We Know on Eitrigg-A) is planning to hold Azeroth’s first ever press conference. On December 1st, 5pm server time in Goldshire, Socialtext is going to take questions from players in the game. About what, we have no idea, but considering that Second Life has been getting all the marketing attention lately, it’s interesting to see a company trying to mesh the real world with WoW.
If that’s what they’re doing, that is. Socialtext’s site has no announcement about a December 1st press conference anywhere on their blog, and Mayfield’s “announcement” of the conference includes more than a few jokes– no ninjas allowed, “questions will only be taken from journalists in PVP mode,” and a link to Project Azeroth (for those Hordies who might be a little confused by all the Common going around). I’m not quite convinced this is a serious commercial entry into Azeroth– it could just be a dig at companies like Dell who “hold press conferences” in communities like Second Life without actually incorporating the community they’re entering. The guys at We Know, umm, “know” Warcraft, and it could be they’re suggesting holding a press conference isn’t possible (especially not in Stormwind– you should hold it somewhere fun like on a run through Deadmines, guys). [...]

[Read more on http://www.wowinsider.com/2006/11/15/pr-conference/]