WeeWorld

WeeMee. WeeWorld is a teen-orientated social network, best known for their customized avatars, “WeeMees”. WeeWorld has evolved into an eclectic mix of community, casual games, and virtual goods. Steve Young, creative director, spoke to a small group in Edinburgh. Steve discussed the motivations and behaviour of WeeWorld’s users, and explored the challenges of working with 2D WeeMees, particularly as they move into WeeWorld’s new virtual (synchronous) world.

Users

WeeWorld’s core market are teenagers, mostly in North America. Average age 16 (minimum 13, although younger users may simply lie about their age). 60% are female. The dominant market segment was characterised as “spoilt rich kids” - typically those with their own computers. Of the 23 million registered users, about a million visit the WeeWorld site each month, and 80,000 login each day.

Usage differs from other teen social networks, such as Gaia Online: Only 6% of logged-in users visit the site’s forums, while 80% alter their WeeMee. Teen worlds are evidently not generic.

WeeMees (from the Glaswegian, “little me”) can be placed within personalised 2D rooms (in the style of “cardboard theatre”), used as characters within casual games, or rendered as avatars in a new virtual world called, simply enough, “World”. WeeMees are also used on third party websites and services, including messenger services, such as AIM or Live. Initial ideas for WeeMees had resulted in a lot of avatars simply being copied. APIs now provide some control over how WeeMees are reused.

Users’ main aim is “to gather as many friends as possible”. And to chat in a variant of the English language that even JeffK would find almost unintelligible: $iNG-UL?

Virtual Goods

WeeMees can be customized for free: Body, clothes and accessories. However users can also buy “Points”, which can be spent on specific items.

Points can be purchased via PayPal transactions or pre-paid cards, which are sold in US stores. Kids tend to regard these mechanisms like free credit cards: They are not seen as real money.

People pay for “uniqueness”. However, items need not be complex: The most popular item sold is a simple Alice band.

The most fascinating revelation was that the introduction of the new synchronous (virtual) world doubled the sales of virtual goods. This “World” is not even out of beta testing yet. “World” places WeeMees in the same interactive space as one another. This contrasts to the other areas of the site, where WeeMees are not competing for space. I think that implies the more an avatar needs to stand out from the crowd, the more virtual “Bling” is worth to that avatar’s owner.

WeeWorld is keen to avoid its Points being traded as a virtual currency. Money can only be converted into Points, not back again.

Design

The key to WeeWorld’s success is “immersion”. The key to its revenue is “engagement”. These concepts guide development.

Although WeeMees are cartoon-like (in the style associated with South Park), customizations still need to reflect what people would wear in “real life”. For example, T-shirts branding needs to be subtle - a small logo on part of the garment.

The goal for user-generated content (customizations of WeeMees and rooms) is to make it hard for the user to create something that looks bad. For example, MySpace customisations can (and in my opinion, sadly often do) look terrible.

WeeWorld has adjusted to match conservative US culture. The cannabis plants created in early experiments are long gone. There are no alcoholic drinks. Negotiations with Walmart even forced WeeWorld to disable the customization of boob (brest) size.

The development of “World” posed an interest problem: How should WeeMees move? All the artwork and customizations had been designed for static display, without movement animations. The World uses embedded Flash objects to display information to users, so the amount of data transferred about other users’ movements needs to be minimal.

The solution was to make WeeMees hop. Users can also select a trajectory and fire their WeeMees in a particular direction. Navigating World’s 2D platform-ed environment is quite cereal, but strangely fun!

Development

Social networks are becoming more like virtual worlds, while virtual worlds are becoming more like social networks. WeeWorld is trying to steer a path down the middle. Like all the businesses involved, they are still “feeling their way”, finding out what works.

Development time-scales for WeeWorld (and similar products) are very short. Steve was somewhat frustrated that development of the “World” had taken a whole quarter (3 months). The contrast to video-game style virtual worlds is stark: Those typically take 3 years to construct.

WeeWorld use a Scrum/agile development process (which suits the constantly evolving product). Casual games (a commonly requested feature) are often out-sourced to other developers.

The ability to develop content quickly makes it very easy for good ideas to be copied by competitors. For example, Zwinky might seem remarkably similar…

Tim Howgego, 11th July 2008. Related topics: Community, Edinburgh, Identity, Metaverse, Social Networking, Virtual Goods, Virtual Worlds, WeeWorld.

12 comments on "WeeWorld"

  1. On July 11th, 2008 at 5:31 pm Gerald Williams wrote:

    The ability to quickly copy ideas - especially in the internet space means that a company has to compete not only in terms of its products, but also in the processes it uses to quickly generate products. If SCRUM is practiced across the software delivery chain, then the organisation will quickly see what is constraining effective delivery - end to end. Making the end to end processes more efficient is a competitive advantage that is far more difficult to copy - and that is one reason why SCRUM, if practiced end to end, throughout the organisation is such a powerful framework.

  2. On August 7th, 2008 at 2:20 am angel wrote:

    dear tim why do we have to pay can we just enter our email adresses!?!

    p.s i have weemee

  3. On August 7th, 2008 at 2:20 am angel wrote:

    i love weeworld i go to it every week!

  4. On August 15th, 2008 at 7:25 pm SHANACIE wrote:

    DEAR TIM WHY DO WE HAVE TO PAY FOR POINTS SOME OF OUR PARENTS WONT GIVE US MONEY!
    ITS UNFAIR!
    OH AND THE STUFF THAT YOU HAVE TO GO ON AIM TO SOME OF OUR PARENTS WONT LET US HAVE AN AIM EITHER!
    PLEASE TIM MAKE SOME CHANGES!

  5. On August 15th, 2008 at 9:40 pm lexi0456 wrote:

    When r the pre-paid card comming to pittsburgh pennsylvania cause i really need points and i keep doing the surveys and nothing happens!?

  6. On August 17th, 2008 at 2:58 pm Tim Howgego wrote:

    Sorry. I am not responsible for WeeWorld. I cannot make them change anything!

    (No need to SHOUT, Shanacie.)

  7. On August 20th, 2008 at 5:00 pm Baliey wrote:

    Weeworld is a pretty fun website
    I go on it and i bought points and it so worth it.you can trutst them with your credit card # and i think the pre-paid cards would be good!

  8. On September 13th, 2008 at 1:03 pm Brooklyn wrote:

    I reallllllllllly want points and i just joined weeworld and im only 7 and my mommy and daddy wont let me get points will you get some 4 me cause yous said that they wer so grat so i want ot expirence that 2 can you plz give me pointzz

  9. On October 3rd, 2008 at 9:00 pm alessandra wrote:

    if our parents wont give us $$ 4 weeworld….(sobs)my parents wont give me no points or an aim just plz,plz make changes!its not fair adults 2 b like this so plz!,plz! just make changes!put everything 4 free!plz plz plz plz……plz!

  10. On October 3rd, 2008 at 9:02 pm alessandra wrote:

    oh and mail me i need ur answer its ur web. u created it so u should get on it each day send me mail back and tell me the CHANGES that u did i will b expecting u.ok?MAKE SOME CHANGES!!!

  11. On October 19th, 2008 at 9:34 pm DezLopez13 wrote:

    how do ya get points 4 wee world on AIM?!

  12. On November 12th, 2008 at 4:11 pm Shez wrote:

    dear tim i dont like the way we have to wait to get our points if we do a offer and it still take your money away from you

Comments welcome