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Hype is a commonly used promotional tool in Second Life. It’s a marketing strategy in which a product or service is advertised in such a way that it appears to be the “next big thing” or a “must have” product. A good way to build up hype about a product is to release minimal information about it, pass around photos of the product at a distance or in part, or release the product early to a select few big-name bloggers who are well syndicated.
There have been some excellent hype building campaigns on Second Life that I’ve seen. Some of my favorites include store openings for businesses such as Mon Tissu or even my own Kitty Cattery. In our experience, building hype worked well and on opening day, our store was flooded with dozens of people.
But hype is also a delicate art. It’s something that must be well executed. If you don’t give it enough time, it fails miserably. If you wait too long, it backfires on you because your customers are sick of waiting and have lost interest in whatever you’re trying to sell them.
This topic came to mind yesterday evening when I decided to check out the Meeroos site. A lot of people that I know have been enjoying beta now for two months (Closed Beta began March 18th). Considering how fast things change on the grid, two months is quite a long time. On April 23rd, it was announced that Open Beta for the Meeroos would last another 2 weeks.
By this time, I was rather displeased. I pre-ordered my “real” Meeroos a couple of weeks prior to that and was already frustrated about waiting. Meeroos will be released on May 18th for those of us who pre-ordered’ May 21st for everyone else. Finally, I’ll get the chance to play with what everyone else has been enjoying for a couple of months now.
Too bad I’m no longer excited about the Meeroos at all. Everyone I know is grouped up and enjoying the product – some are even bored with them already. There’s definitely such a thing as too much hype and I fear for Meeroos as a breedable pet.
What are your thoughts? Will you be breeding Meeroos officially when the time comes? Is the excitement of them over for you or are you looking forward to your real Meeroos?
Special thanks to Surprise Serendipity for granting me the use of a picture of her Meeroo (ya know, since I don’t have any yet).
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I just found out about them this month while browsing flickr. I think as a personal pet I might get one, but when it comes to making a business from them it depends on their buying rate and popularity. If people are tired of them already then it most likely wouldn’t make a good business. I think they may turn out well though considering they are very different from the usually bunny, turtle, and cat thing.