Reality, a moving target at MTV
At MTV, reality has always been a moving target. Sixteen years ago,
the network heralded the era of reality television with "The Real
World." Three years ago, it pushed the genre further with "Laguna Beach:
The Real OC," in which the mundane lives of a clique of pretty teenagers
were presented in a way that appeared scripted and dramatic.
Now the cable channel aims to push the boundaries of false reality
one step further. This week, MTV will introduce Virtual Laguna Beach, an
online service in which fans of the program can immerse themselves - or
at least can immerse digitized, three-dimensional characters, called
avatars, that they control - in virtual versions of the show's familiar
seaside hangouts. "You can not only watch TV, but now you can actually
live it," Van Toffler, the president of the MTV Networks Music, Film and
Logo Group, said in an interview.
Wednesday's introduction of Virtual Laguna Beach is the first of
three virtual worlds that MTV plans over the next year as part of an
effort to steal a march on popular Web sites like MySpace and YouTube
that have diverted the attention of the MTV audience.
Virtual Laguna Beach will be making its debut two weeks after the
abrupt dismissal of Tom Freston as chief executive of Viacom, MTV
Networks' parent. One reason cited by Viacom's chairman, Sumner M.
Redstone, for replacing Mr. Freston was that the company had not been
aggressive enough in its online expansion. Judy McGrath, the chief
executive of MTV Networks, said the timing with the Web site was
unrelated to Viacom's corporate turmoil.
"As brilliant as we are, I don't even think we could pull this off in
a week," Ms. McGrath remarked yesterday.
Vertual words
Of the two other virtual worlds planned, VMTV is a music destination
where visitors can club-hop among hip neighbourhoods, buy music, watch
videos, sing karaoke or even start their own bands. The third virtual
destination, LogoWorld, an offshoot of Logo, the gay and lesbian cable
channel, will be designed entirely by its participants.
While avatars and virtual communities are a puzzling concept to many
people over, say, 35, they are old hat to players of video games and to
young people accustomed to revealing details of their lives online
through social networking Web sites. Avatar-based social Web sites like
Sims Online, Second Life and There.com have attracted hundreds of
thousands of users.
They are not so much games as three-dimensional chat rooms where you
can simulate just about anything else that can be done in the - pardon
the expression - real world. But the network, which has pushed the
boundaries of good taste on television, is restricting at least one
teenage impulse.
"The worst thing they can do is kiss - and it's Catholic school
kissing," said Matt Bostwick, an MTV senior vice president. "The lips
touch, but the bodies don't."
One of the appeals of virtual worlds for MTV is the possibility that
advertising can spill over into the real one. Visitors might buy a
digital outfit for parties using currency they earned watching an
infomercial or checking out a new product for an MTV advertiser.
Then, they might decide that they would like to buy the same outfit
for their offline selves, and, with a few clicks of the mouse and some
real dollars, have one shipped to their home. In trial form, Virtual
Laguna Beach has advertising relationships with brands including
Cingular, Pepsi-Cola, Secret and another Viacom company, Paramount.
Of course, that means that both MTV and its advertisers must be
prepared for unintended consequences, like having the fans run roughshod
over the show's locations. "Our content is a starting point for them,
not an ending point," said Jeffrey B. Yapp, an MTV Networks executive
who helped oversee the project. "There's been a lot of discussion about
letting go."
MTV executives declined to say how much they invested in Virtual
Laguna Beach, but they described it as more than an episode of the show
but far less than a season. They also did not say how much revenue they
expected from the venture, but said they viewed it as an experiment that
could lead to new sales opportunities.
For instance, residents of Virtual Laguna Beach will have the
opportunity later this fall to get a virtual car and a virtual house for
a gold membership fee of $4.99 a month. For $5.99, a platinum membership
will get them status: V.I.P. access to nightclubs and other events to be
staged "in world."
Mr. Toffler said he first became familiar with avatars when MTV
looked at introducing its first Web site a decade or so ago: an early
demonstration featured avatars of fish but, he recalled, they did not
work. When he was presented with the idea of building virtual worlds
around MTV properties in April, he said the idea scared him. Then he
added, "Please go build it."
To design Virtual Laguna Beach and the other forthcoming 3-D online
communities, MTV enlisted Makena Technologies, the creator of There.com.
Henry Jenkins, a professor at M.I.T. and the author of "Convergence
Culture," said such virtual communities were a natural next step for
mainstream media companies seeking to deepen their connections to fans.
He said "Laguna Beach" was an interesting choice for the first
venture because it had a heavily female audience and because the show
itself was such a blur of real, unreal and sort of real. "It's just
layer upon layer of reality and fiction," Mr. Jenkins said.
Some 22,000 people, drawn from a pool of 600,000 "Laguna Beach"
watchers who registered for fan clubs on other MTV Web sites, signed up
to participate in the test phase of Virtual Laguna Beach.
Several hundred of those are designated as volunteer "lifeguards" who
greet new arrivals online. Cast members from the television show's three
seasons are not part of the planned online experience, although they
could come as avatars of their own making.
Online controlling
Visiting Virtual Laguna Beach requires registering at the Web site,
www.vlb.mtv.com, and downloading a piece of software. The first step is
designing your avatar - which can be made to look as much like or unlike
your actual self as you wish. During a demonstration last week at MTV,
Mr. Bostwick played the role of an avatar named Violet Jade whom he
configured - scrolling through an extensive menu of eye shapes, hair
colors, skin tones and so on - to look like a typical character on the
show: blond, tan and scantily clad.
Ms. McGrath said the company's push into virtual worlds based on its
brands was part of a strategy to move a generation ahead of what media
rivals were doing online. (Part of Mr. Redstone's concern was that the
company had been regarded as slow to establish itself in areas like
online video and social networking.) While many movies and TV shows have
video games built around them, these are the first attempts at 3-D
online communities.
"MTV speaks uniquely to a group of people who are endlessly
fascinated with watching themselves," she said.
(NEWYORK TIMES)
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