I have to admit, I have been fascinated by the Virtual Good / Social Gaming market lately.  It is something I am going to be thinking / writing about more often in the coming weeks for sure.  In the meantime, here is a great presentation that was recently given at the Virtual Worlds Conference.   Great primer for those new to this space.  [presentation embedded below].

Lots happening in the world of digital and I have been negligent in sharing the news / posts that really caught my eye lately.  So with that, here’s my latest weekly (better called monthly) update:

Breathing New Life Into Virtual Worlds – PR 2.0:  Virtual World membership grew by 39% in the second quarter of 2009 to an estimated 579 million with Youth driving most of that growth.

Four Questions for Successful CPG Social Media Marketing:  Great post from the Google CPG Blog, which is a must read if you don’t subscribe to it.

Why Teens Don’t Tweet:  Only 16 percent of Twitter users are under 25.  More specifically, 45-54 year olds are 36 percent more likely than average to visit Twitter, making them the highest indexing age group, followed by 25-34 year olds, who are 30 percent more likely.

Why We Need Marketing General Contractors – The Toad Stool:  Another great post by Alan Wolk.  I frequently use his term “NASCAR Blindness” and now I think I might be using “Marketing General Contractors” as well.

Best Buy’s CrowdSourced Job Posting is Live:  I’ve said it before, but this is one reason Barry Judge is a CMO that just plain gets where marketing is headed.

6 Lessons from the Best Marketing Campaign Ever – Rohit Bhargava:  At the Cannes Ad Festival this year, a single marketing campaign took home a Grand Prix award in three categories simultaneously–direct, cyber and PR– something that had never happened before in the 50+ year history of the show.  And the campaign was from a Tourism Board…not a Fortune 100 company or brand.

If Twitter had 100 People…:  5% of the people create 75% of the Tweets

Latest and greatest that caught my eye this week:

• The Economics of Social Media – Very interesting conference taking place in LA at the end of April.  Wish I could make it out there…
• Ian Schafer: Integrated (Big) Agency Model -The CEO of Deep Focus asks if all the reshuffling at major holding company agencies is really going to work.  Ian nails the answer when he writes “Brands need smaller, more nimble, more innovative agencies built as integrated problem solvers from the ground-up — with creativity as its religion and the ability to deliver experiences (with the results to back it up) as its practice.”
• Merging Real World and the Internet – Very interesting facts…”Gartner Group predicts that by 2011, 80% of internet users will participate in at least 1 virtual world. While Second Life has received about 99% of the media’s attention, it only accounts for about 1% of all the users globally. Globally, sales of items in virtual worlds account for $1.5 billion.”
• What I Want a Social Media Expert to Know – I would love to see a count of how many people claim to be “Social Media Experts.”
• Facebook Ads Don’t Rock -Bob Gilbreath put Facebook to test to see if advertising on the social network could drive traffic.  Unfortunately for MSFT and the $15 billion valuation they put on the site, Facebook ads didn’t deliver at all.
• A Billion Dollars in Internet Advertising is Wasted -Interesting study on where Internet advertising is going and what parts arent working at all.