Omnicom Group Acquires Stake in Millions of Us

Millions of Us announced today that Diversified Agency Services (DAS), a unit of Omnicom Group Inc., has acquired a stake in the virtual worlds development agency for an undisclosed amount. Millions of Us CEO Reuben Steiger explained that the funding will allow Millions of Us to move in two new directions: a broader involvement in online communities and development and acquisition of intellectual property. "One of the things the funding is really going to allow us to do is to to develop our own IP portfolio," Steiger told VirtualWorldsNews.com. "A lot of it will be content properties. We’re looking at development of original IP, some of which is going to meld existing genres. We might partner with, say, a successful graphic novel or comic book company to create new properties."

"But that’s not the primary direction we’re going," he continued. "The future direction of the company is that we’re going to broaden the focus of the agency. Instead of simply virtual world, we’re going to attempt to be the world’s leading agency to help brands engage with online communities. That’s 31% of Internet activity right now, and it’s incredibly underserved."

We reported in early September that Millions of Us was building a team to build virtual worlds of its own, and Steiger confirmed that multiple projects are still in the works, " sometimes with platform technology, more often simply from code-level up." But the primary focus for the future will be expanding to serve all online communities.

"It’s unclear how to participate in these communities," said Steiger. "When you look at the array of the online community universe, these are about connecting people. There’s no easy way for brands to participate in that connecting of people. We believe they have to figure out a way, just as they’ve begun doing so in Second Life, to participate in a way that adds value.“

Toward that end, Millions of Us is actively hiring at its booth at the Virtual Worlds Fall Conference and  Expo. Steiger says the company is looking to hire between 25 and 30 new employees by the end of the year.

"The challenge is that we don’t want to grow to fast, and we will never sacrifice quality for quantity," he explained. "We’ve had to turn down a lot of business because we didn’t have the numbers of staff to support it, and the staff we have with existing projects is stretched thin. It’s crazy how hard people work. It’s good, but it’ll be nice to work a more normal working week."

The company is looking for people who share its  views of advertising: "people who understand advertising, and also understand that it’s broken and who share with us a belief that the entire advertising industry would be TIVOd over, and that it’s a problem. People that understand two things: supporting communities where people can interact and creating content that is engaging and entertaining rather than as interruptive forms of unavoidable or product inserted nonsense. If people are passionate about those things, those are the people we’re looking for."