Gaming lifestyle and brand parasites

Parteco (Participatory Economy and Beyond: Developing tools and processes for open and participatory knowledge creation and content production) project ended with a Picnic session on 11 June 2008 at Gardenia (Helsinki).

The picnic idea was brilliant - props to Katri Lietsala! Even though the discussion ended up being a bit lame on our blanket the "picnic discussion" was a great format. When I grew tired of the discussion on our blanket, I could easily join other groups or just hang around and enjoy the company.

Katri Lietsala and Esa Sirkkunen published a book on the topic:
Social Media: Introduction to the tools and processes of participatory economy.

Even though I wasn't part of Parteco project I was happy albeit a bit surprised to be invited to give a short presentation on brand parasites at the picnic. The slide set below is not the one I gave at the picnic. Instead I though of collecting "stories" how associations and other actors have utilized the net and understood digital and/or gaming lifestyle of the youth. In this sense brand parasites is just one alternative to meet the crowd and operate online. At Parteco picnic I used Life Tastes Better Without Drugs (EOPH) associations' Hubu project (at Habbo) as an example of brand parasite. The others examples were Anshe Chung (Second Life) and Zipipop (Facebook). I would like to highlight that those were just three randomly chosen examples with an attempt to present different manifestations of "brand parasites".

| View | Upload your own

Carbonhero & friends at PixelAche08

I visited Pixelache University ´08 on Saturday at Kiasma (Helsinki Finland). It was nice to see a lot of buzz and people at the sessions. Just to contribute the discussion I would like to rise a few details from the "Travelling without moving" session.

Videoconference system works nicely WHEN it works. This time most of my energy went to filtrating the message from the echo and noise caused by some technical problems. Two of the introductions were held from the distance. First Matt Jones on Doppler and then Daniel Peltz on "Response Call" international video dialogue project.

The presentation on Dopplr (a service for frequent travelers) focused on social networking and linking Dopplr with AMEE platform to calculate ones personal carbon footprint. Call and Response is an international video dialogue project that has engaged media makers in Cameroon, Sweden, Korea, France, South Africa and the U.S. in collective productions aimed at exploring the potential of networked video environments.

After that John Thackara talked briefly about "From Myspace to fakespace". He also put the presentation to his blog. Andreas Zachariah talked about Carbonhero. It was pretty nice mobile app utilizing existing technologies in a novel and innovative way to reveal to its user their own unique Travel Carbon Footprint.

One of the nicest new terms was "brand parasite" coined by Niko Punin. Indeed there are already business "parasites" in virtual services (e.g. Second Life). In this world of open networks, WoM and viral marketing, brand parasites are not that far fetched alternative for the future.

That also reminded me of Virtual World 2008 which will be held in New York at the beginning of April. There is one session focusing on branded virtual goods. That is not really connected to Niko's idea but anyhow... made me to think of "real" and "virtual" brands as well as openness as a part of brand development or brand image.