Social Network In The Cards For WOW.com
Virtual world social networking is the hot buzz at the moment and rightly so. Those able to properly orient themselves at the head of the social gaming phenomenon stand to reap the rewards or forward-thinking and early adoption practices. Others are a little slower to get with the program, but due to ancient history and empire building, could become a third party force to be reckoned with in the VWSN scene. Yeah AOL, we’re unfortunately talking about you.
AOL’s timely acquisition of Compuserve and all of its associated assets in the late 1990’s included a tiiiiiiiny domain name that at the time seemed little more than a footnote on an enormous business deal. That domain? WOW.com, which is currently laying dormant and unused, as it has throughout the massive surge in popularity for World of Warcraft. AOL has been missing out on some serious coin! Apparently they’ve finally thought of the connection between their domain name and the most popular video game in the history of the industry (oh geniuses, I salute you!), and have transferred it to the AOL Games division, where plots may be hatching to turn it into a mammoth social networking site based on the game so that yes, even if you aren’t in the game, you can still talk to your game buddies about your flying mount, make plans to meet up at Blizzcon 2020, and do whatever else that a WoWBook-style site would allow.
Been there? Many times. Done that? Oh indeed. So what makes AOL think they can improve on previous designs and build a community that people actually use?
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POSTED IN: Culture, World of Warcraft
1 opinion for Social Network In The Cards For WOW.com
Barrens Chat Meets AOL Chatroom
Nov 12, 2007 at 11:28 pm
[…] AOL’s timely acquisition of Compuserve and all of its associated assets in the late 1990’s included a tiiiiiiiny domain name that at the time seemed little more than a footnote on an enormous business deal. That domain? WOW.com, which is currently laying dormant and unused, as it has throughout the massive surge in popularity for World of Warcraft. AOL has been missing out on some serious coin! Apparently they’ve finally thought of the connection between their domain name and the most popular video game in the history of the industry (oh geniuses, I salute you!), and have transferred it to the AOL Games division from PlayGirlz […]
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