Mission

Here are my thoughts on our Mission.

Firstly, I agree that it should be something like:"We help people express themselves to each other." If somebody has objections - please tell me.

Let's speculate a little bit, how it is true.

1. People want to discover opportunities to manifest themselves in 'virtual environments'. And what exactly they can 'do' there.
We provide them with:
a.) news about games and VW;
b.) information about in-world life and events exposed to the web;
c.) easy way to find info about particular subject of interest (searches);
d.) opportunities to customise their presence in-world with items that are offered in the marketplace.

2. People want to discover other people's presence and ongoing activities. Basically, in that noob-speak: "Where's everybody?" and "What are you, peps, doing here?"
a.) easy to use events listing with presence indicators (searcheable, but NO 'calendar', 'calendar' form is boring and stupid);
b.) community journalism syndication;
c.) maybe some info/twitt about friends in a form of automatically updated microblogs.
Note: btw, friends lists have a serious drawback - no cathegories, no history of contacts, not searcheable. One can't remember 'who's this guy', 'how do/did I know him/her?' when the friends list reaches 100 or so people (btw, that's why people get attached to small groups and form 'relationships').

3. People want to be sure that they are 'safe'. They want their real-life identity be protected. They want to be able to get rid of 'stalkers' instantly. They want to be able to 'retreat' from any undesirable situation, person or group by making a new account.
We provide them with:
a.) alternative payments and ID/verification solution. Their bank details can not be used to blackmail them in any form. Neither by other characters nor by game/VW provider (to some extent);
b.) a way to withdraw from any communications and notifications and stay in privacy (bracelet and the like);
Note: just a thought for implementation - think about changing the regime of updates if the person doesn't wear our item, doesn't log into the site, doesn't appear at our events and in our places etc. etc. The most boring feature of all social networks is, they keep messaging you no matter what... That's how they keep those high 'return customer' numbers BUT that's how people withdraw from them completely too. We don't want to make this mistake. Let's call it an 'intelligent update' feature, and implement it.
c.) a way to transfer their account and partially recover the money spent on it (where it is possible).

4. People want to 'participate'. This means: they want to communicate to other people in real-time in desirable environment when they have time for it and do it in the most effective manner possible.
We provide them with:
a.) capabilities to announce their intentions to specified group and update other friends in real time when they are 'there' 'doing that';
Note: please implement the way to collect feedback to events announcements by just one click 'I will be there' or 'I probably will be there' or 'Is someone going?' etc. etc. It can be a very smart feature.

5. People want to manifest their creativity. It's not our core business. The only thing we can do here is - give them an access to the sources of 'know how' specifics. However, another part - the presentation itself - is something we can do. Namely, web is a good form of 'reporting' past activities and experiences. We just syndicate whatever content presenting the 'history' and 'personal experiences' and make creativity more visible.

Business activities is yet another form of expression, but I will write about it separately later.