Red Herringreports:

• The well-funded San Francisco-based company is trying to tie together the trends of online advertising instant messaging, and online gaming. Like many youth-oriented companies in the wake of concerns about safety in public chat rooms and on MySpace, Doppelganger thinks it can walk the line between cool and wholesome”

I don’t know….I just don’t know! There’s supposed to be live DJs and bouncers but there is ‘no punching, hitting, or kissing’ – I can’t help but wonder if that’s just not a tad too boring!

Social places like this need som kind of common denominator – like gaming. The article doesn’t really dwell on what gaming features are available – so I may be wrong here. I very much agree with Mortensen that in order to create new social spaces there has to be a common background and challenges and tasks (she lists more, but I’m sticking with these two for now). I’m not so certain that this can be found by going to a virtual nightclub – but ofcourse if they’re looking at the MySpace tendencies they’re hoping that groups of already established friends will come there to hang out. But this is still different. It seems they’re focusing their attention on the consumer culture and the bodily form of the avatar and things.

• “In-game advertising is hot, and Doppelganger says it’s ready to pull out all the stops – in a tasteful way, of course…Doppleganger’s immersive advertising will include clothing and media for purchase, both digitally and physically. The ad-coated buildings surrounding its clubs are meant to resemble nighttime hotspots in New York or Tokyo. and the company wants to build out its world, with users decorating their own apartments near the clubs”

So how come this is going to be popular and There never was? And yet…social games like Habbo Hotel are a huge success! Spot the difference?

They’re marketing towards teenagers, but the article fails to mention if it’s restricted just for teenagers. But here’s the thing I think is smart though, “But unlike Linden Lab’s popular Second Life and other massively multiplayer online games, Doppelganger isn’t primarily a full-screen experience. The idea is to slide into the multitasking world of teenagers, with a minimized buddy list screen open at all times”.

This is a type of convergence I can see working (and I’m hating myself now for going to the South Park talk and not Eirik Solheim‘s lecture ‘(?)at the Nordic Media Festival). Just like BBC 1’s festival and their virtual BBC 1 radios in Second Life! I was fortunate enough to experience David Zach‘s talk on Friday – and as he mentioned – the culture today is very obsessed with not letting anyone tell us what we can and cannot do, say or buy – yet most teenager rooms are EXACTLY the same. So I don’t know! Maybe it will catch on, but if it does I’m certain that there needs to be some form of ‘complete individual freedom to do, say and buy’ illusion for these teenagers to think it’s cool! After all, isn’t that some of MySpace‘s allure?

Speaking of My Space…have you noticed the new proposed bill:

• To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms