The virtual goods economy is booming | C-net News

If someone gave me a virtual cupcake instead of a real one they should expect a real-world smackdown. Read this blog post by Dave Rosenberg on Viximo, virtual gifting and Facebook flare.

read more | digg story

Send your BFF an iPhone Cupcake for their Birthday?

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/08/05/viximo-virtual-goods-tech-ebiz-cx_ew_0806viximo.html

Viximo (www.viximo.com) is confident that consumers who have iPhones will pay up, citing the multi-million dollar market for ringtones, another kind of digital good.

Viximo’s gifts are interactive. With the iPhone’s touch and motion controls, the virtual goods can be played with or, if they come with movie clips, just watched. Taking that concept further, Viximo is developing virtual pets for the iPhone targeting young teens who, in according to Forbes’ interpretation, “are too old to play with virtual pets Web sites like Neopets and Webkinz.”

That may not be a virtual worlds play for the iPhone, but Viximo is still interested in the virtual worlds industry. The goal is to develop the system elsewhere and then engage with virtual worlds.

"Digital goods allow people to reach out in a new way on their phones," CEO Rob Frasca says. "Right now, they're limited to text messages and e-mail."
Check out MoiPal (www.moipal.com) too. They have been on Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones since last year and have over 200,000 installs.

MoiPal has all the usual aspects of a social gaming application, profiles, personal rooms and characters, a facebook like profile page (to link to), virtual currency and lots more. Really surprise me how smooth the character moved on the mobile. MoiPal could be described as a mixture of Facebook and Tamagotchi (or even I’d add The Sims). The software runs on Java and they have three different versions for different phones.

You take care of your character by feeding her, washing her, exercising, etc to keep all the personal attributes in top notch condition. They’ve also put a lot of effort into making the whole system scalable. For example, you can do lots of things with the character in her own room without being connected online hence not accumulating a lot of data costs. Also, all the characters have different types of clothes available for purchase in the online shop. At the moment they have a deals with Warner music for different band attire.

They see their focus as the Middle East, Russia and Far East Asia, which in my opinion is a very good call. There is a lot more competition in Asia, but their mobile usage is on a totally different level.