On March 30, There will unveil its very own Paradise Island of iVillage women. Although the island is described by There as a "a special iVillage sanctuary" the boundaries between the iVillage island and the rest of There's world will be far fuzzier than the original fabled Paradise Island, as males will be able to freely access it and interact with "the natives."
This will be an interesting experiment for several reasons:
1 - It's a virtual space doubly marked by gender and commercial co-branding. (Is this the first of its kind? Anyone know of any precedents?)
2 - iVillage is a text-based community of women whose bonding often takes place specifically around members' relationships to their RL bodies in the form of pregnancy, dieting, health, and beauty tips. While there may be the rare case of role-playing and gender-bending in the iVillage web community (ie. men posing as women), most participants' online identities are extensions of their RL (female) selves. Will this direct tie between offline/online identity carry over into a virtual world? Or will iVillage women use There to role play, whether that means creating an avatar that looks radically different from their RL body, or even choose a male avatar?
3 - The branding of a virtual space as female automatically sexualizes it. Already some of the male community members in There are viewing the addition of iVillage island as a welcome opportunity to increase their chances for romance. How will the iVillage women respond to these romantic overtures? Is There prepared to deal with any Mr. Bungles that show up?
We'll find out soon. Next Tuesday the experiment begins.
In my experience in There, many women already use it as a way to discuss their "relationships to their RL bodies," as you say. The first time I went in There for the beta a year ago, the first people I met were women who were treating the service as a virtual world iVillage.
What I wonder is, what will be the effect of the iVillage branding? I think this is the first time a text-based online community will be *explicitly* implicated inside a virtual world, but I am pretty sure such places existed in other, older online services like Prodigy and eWorld.
Posted by: Ian Bogost | Mar 27, 2004 at 11:45
... This sounds like trying to broadcast Oxygen and Spike TV on the same channel....
Posted by: Sourtone | Mar 27, 2004 at 14:23
What I wonder is, what will be the effect of the iVillage branding? I think this is the first time a text-based online community will be *explicitly* implicated inside a virtual world
Good question, Ian. I think the There and iVillage brands will mesh well together, actually. But I do wonder if they plan on bringing third party branding from iVillage's partners into iVillage island. Ads within ads.
Damn. I was going to finish my paper about advertising and branding in virtual worlds this weekend but maybe I should hold off to see what happens here.
Sourtone wrote:
... This sounds like trying to broadcast Oxygen and Spike TV on the same channel....
Indeed. Two gender stereotypes for the price of one! But I don't want to prejudge. I really want to see how this plays out in the (virtually) real space.
Posted by: Betsy Book | Mar 27, 2004 at 15:25
Speaking of islands in Virtual Worlds: is there any news of what has happed with the 2L island purchased by Fizik (2L's Virtual Land Sales Attract Investors, Controversy)?
Posted by: Ren | Mar 28, 2004 at 05:46
1 - It's a virtual space doubly marked by gender and commercial co-branding. (Is this the first of its kind? Anyone know of any precedents?)
I'm not aware of any. (Richard? Other sages out there?) I know there have been gender-specific and sexuality-specific MUDs out there. E. Reid talked about JennyMUSH (which was an acronym, not the real name) an all-female MUD, but it wasn't commercially branded I'm sure.
2 - iVillage is a text-based community of women whose bonding often takes place specifically around members' relationships to their RL bodies in the form of pregnancy, dieting, health, and beauty tips. While there may be the rare case of role-playing and gender-bending in the iVillage web community (ie. men posing as women), most participants' online identities are extensions of their RL (female) selves. Will this direct tie between offline/online identity carry over into a virtual world? Or will iVillage women use There to role play, whether that means creating an avatar that looks radically different from their RL body, or even choose a male avatar?
According to Nick, 1/20 should if this is like EQ, though women only gender-bend a third as often as men. (In EQ, at least). http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2003/10/the_demographic.html My guess is that contemporary social VWs will be like the MMORPG worlds in terms of the likelihood of gender-bending, though it would be really interesting if that were wrong in this case. We can safely say "yes," we're very likely to see more gender-bending here than usual unless There tries to architect it out. It always happen, and besides, it's a staple of Holly comedy -- Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire, Sorority Boys, Juwanna Mann, etc., etc.
3 - The branding of a virtual space as female automatically sexualizes it. Already some of the male community members in There are viewing the addition of iVillage island as a welcome opportunity to increase their chances for romance. How will the iVillage women respond to these romantic overtures? Is There prepared to deal with any Mr. Bungles that show up?
I really wonder what they (There) are thinking -- is this an excuse for a mixer? Can Wagner James Au please port his Avatar over to There tomorrow and see how this plays out?
Posted by: greglas | Mar 29, 2004 at 20:16
gregolas> besides, it's a staple of Holly comedy -- Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire, Sorority Boys, Juwanna Mann...
There was also this Shakespeare guy who did it, as I recall.
gregolas> Can Wagner James Au please port his Avatar over to There tomorrow and see how this plays out?
Alas--and to continue the Shakespearean theme--W.J.Au aka "Hamlet Linden" hangs out over in SL, n'est-ce pas?
Posted by: Dan Hunter | Mar 29, 2004 at 20:34
Yes, W.J. Au is in SL not There. But I'll definitely be checking it out firsthand.
Also, I want to clarify that the island is not actually called Paradise Island. That was a reference to Wonder Woman's ancestral home. I'll find out the name of There's new island tomorrow.
Posted by: Betsy Book | Mar 29, 2004 at 21:42
Betsy Book>It's a virtual space doubly marked by gender and commercial co-branding. (Is this the first of its kind? Anyone know of any precedents?)
Greglas>Richard?
I don't know of any precedents, no. There have certainly been virtual worlds in the past that were set up to be female-only, although in academia much of the discussion in this area seemed to concern what such a world would/should in theory be like, rather than what a live one actually was like.
As for co-branding, this is a relatively new phenomenon unless you count franchising, in which case it has kinda happened before - some textual worlds based on books operate with the permission of those books' authors. If co-branding means things like putting McDonalds into TSO, I don't know of many such episodes at all.
The combination of female-only and co-branding does appear to be a first. There are virtual worlds with an unofficial licence to use an IP and with very high percentages of female players (eg. PernMUSH), but they're not close enough to make There's claim false.
I dare say that whatever "what to do with masqueraders", "what to do with transsexuals" and "what to do with men" problems that the iVillage island has will all have well-tested solutions based on what happens for the web site.
Does There provide avatars for pregnant women?
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Mar 30, 2004 at 02:46
Dan>W.J.Au aka "Hamlet Linden" hangs out over in SL, n'est-ce pas?
Vous avez raison. C'est vrai. Mais Nate dit ceci était une barrière artificielle la semaine dernière. C'est pourquoi j'ai dit le "port"
But it looks like Betsy will be doing the required field work! :-)
Richard -- thanks!!
Posted by: greglas | Mar 30, 2004 at 14:43
The iVillage island made its premiere yesterday more or less on schedule. I spent a few hours checking it out.
Click here for screen shots
Now I'm no Au, but here are a few initial observations:
This is the most nonbranded branded space I've ever seen. iVillage brand imagery was strictly limited to small signs outside each of the three clubhouses and tiny logos on the free t-shirts that were being handed out by iVillage community leaders. No third party branding at all. Yet.
I asked around and no one seemed to know its official name so I'll just stick to calling it "the iVillage island" for now.
The island's design is a departure from the tropical "tiki" aesthetic of There's other islands and has more of a Cape Cod / Nantucket feel to it instead. The exteriors and interiors of the clubhouses reflected this architectural style. The living rooms looked like they were right out of the Pottery Barn catalogue and were a big hit with visitors. Several commented that they would love to have furnishings like this for their own home. I presumed they meant RL home, but now that I think about it they could have meant virtual home. Still...very interesting reaction, eh?
The island's premiere attracted a lot of visitors, both male and female. The There community members gave a warm welcome to the iVillage women and the newbies I spoke to were already commenting on how fun and addictive this virtual world thing was. A few of them started out wearing conservative Gap-like clothes but with a little prompting from There members began trying on themed costumes and leather bustiers and such.
I'll post more thoughts when I have more time. Meanwhile, enjoy the screen shots.
Posted by: Betsy Book | Mar 31, 2004 at 08:04
BB>I'll post more thoughts when I have more time. Meanwhile, enjoy the screen shots.
Wow -- thanks so much for the photojournalism, Betsy. Great pics.
>...has more of a Cape Cod / Nantucket feel to it instead.
The designers must have thought that would appeal more to the iVillage crowd, I guess.
>I presumed they meant RL home, but now that I think about it they could have meant virtual home.
I'm always wondering about those kinds of statements. I suppose it's equally possible that they could have just said "home" but not known themselves exactly what kind of "home" they were speaking about. :-)
Posted by: greglas | Mar 31, 2004 at 09:09