Interview: Involve Partners with Strategy Analytics for Virtual World Project Analysis

Virtual world developer Involve announced today that it has partnered with research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics  "help companies, schools, health care organizations and non-profits maximize their investment in virtual space." Strategy Analytics only recently entered the virtual worlds space with a public white paper,  but it has over 30 years' experience working in technology and new media. Perhaps more importantly, it's already spent months working with Involve on the partnerships debut product, the Emerging Media Impact Assessment, a joint project looking at virtual worlds and other new media in line with demands for ROI and the need to integrate with existing marketing initiatives. "We went looking for this partnership in response to the need for more information expressed by a number of potential clients," Involve CEO Drew Stein told VirtualWorldsNews.com

"Folks would come to us with a sense that they could or might or needed to be using the virtual space for marketing or business collaboration or non-profits or academic programming, but in many cases they either were unsure of how it would fit in with their traditional models or they lacked empowerment within their own organizational structure and needed ammo to convince higher-ups," Stein continued. "So we thought: somebody needs to do the sort of solid market research on this emerging media technology that they have done for years with more traditional media."

So far, he say, several potential clients have responded positively to the partnership, though he couldn't name any names. Each Emerging Media Impact Assessment will be tailored for individual clients. Clients with fully developed plans, though, can opt out of the service.

"Our sense is that our job is to help each client figure out BEFOREHAND what ROI will mean to them with regard to their core business and business strategy and then help them craft and actualize a plan to achieve it," Stein explained.

On its own, Strategy Analytics will continue to work on separate white papers more generally looking at virtual worlds and emerging media.

“As the number of people visiting virtual worlds rapidly approaches 50 million worldwide, the potential for businesses to effectively leverage this emerging medium for communicating, entertaining and informing consumers continues to expand,”  Harvey Cohen, President of Strategy Analytics, said in a statement. “Understanding and managing the consumer experience is crucial for any company looking to succeed in the virtual space.” 

Involve, which has helped create projects in Second Life for Dell, NBC Universal, The Tech Museum of Innovation, and more, will continue to provide development work as well as consulting. It currently has projects in the works for Croquet and OpenSim as well as several cross-platform campaigns.

"We just saw a need to offer a more robust research component and were delighted to find that Strategy Analytics had a similar notion," said Stein. "It's a really great working relationship. They 'get' the space and have the research chops to really explore some of the questions that have lingered now for years."