Worlds in Motion recently talked to Dr. Jim Bower of Numedeon, which developed and now operates the Whyville educational and social virtual world for kids, about a broad range of issues, and Dr. Bower shared meaty stats for Whyville users, his thoughts on why broadcast is dead, on Whyville's branding relationships, and discussed Numedeon's upcoming plans to build worlds not only for kids, but for an entirely different demographic of adults. We even asked him -- nicely -- why Whyville's graphics are so... well, let's call them 'simplistic'!!

Could you give a capsule history of how Whyville came to be what it is today?

Whyville was launched in 1999 as the first virtual world property developed by Numedeon Inc. The site itself reflects many years of research and development by the founders working within the Caltech Pre-College Science Initiative (CAPSI) at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA. I was for 17 years a professor of computational neuroscience at Caltech, and was also the founder and co-director of CAPSI. CAPSI's primary mission was to support the introduction of high quality 'inquiry-based' science curriculum in public schools, but a secondary mission was to explore the use of computers and computer networks to enhance and extend inquiry-based learning in broad terms.

Numedeon Inc today is the only virtual world company explicitly focused on engaging users through collaborative learning. Whyville.net recently surpassed 3 million registered users, 80% of whom are in the age range of 8-14, average age 12, 2/3rds female. Whyville.net is regarded as one of the leading educational sites for 'tweens, and is international in scope. Whyville has also attracted a wide range of sponsors, from the John Paul Getty Trust, to Toyota's Scion Division, to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to Disney Interactive, and is increasingly recognized as a leading innovator in the development of new methods for Marketing and engagement on the Internet. Numedeon will soon be launching several additional virtual worlds aimed at new demographics.

How are your membership and stickiness statistics looking in late 2007, and could you say approximately how many members log into Whyville regularly?

On Dec. 1, 2007, Whyville surpassed 3 million registered users and is currently adding between 3,000 and 4,000 new users each day. At 3.5 hours per average user per month, Whyville is one of the most engaging sites on the Internet. Whyville also has remarkable statistics for longevity. Users who log in more than 10 times, on average maintain the same active account for more than a year. 10% of users who registered in 2001 returned to the site at least once in 2007. It is important to realize that to date, Numedeon has spent almost nothing on traditional marketing.

Over time, Whyville has hosted interactive promotions for consumer corporations such as Disney and Toyota, as well as intellectual institutions such as Getty and JPL- could you tell us about your more recent partnerships, and how Whyville is providing a unique service to them?

Almost all sponsors of Whyville.net maintain long-term relations with the site. Thus Disney and Toyota continue to add to and extend their involvement with Whyville. Our most recent major sponsor is the 5th largest bank in Spain, Bankinter, which in November opened a virtual branch office in Whyville. Within 20 hours, and without notification, our users had deposited 25% of the virtual currency currently in circulation in either savings or CD accounts within the virtual bank. In early December of 2007, Numedeon signed a memo of understanding with Bankinter, the regional government of Galicia, and a major Spanish IT company to bring Spanish to Whyville and Whyville to Spain and Spanish speaking children around the world. This new sponsorship has major implications for the reach of Whyville as well as new technological extensions of Numedeon's Virtual World platform, NICE.

Numedeon's business in general and Whyville in particular are both fundamentally based on the premise that measures of 'engagement' and not simple eyeballs will eventually be the metric for marketing on the Internet. We don't specialize in eyeballs; we specialize in "brains connected to eyeballs". In most other virtual worlds, first entry by a sponsor involves a simple replication of real world activities that take little advantage of the new capabilities unique to these worlds. Thus, this form of sponsorship or marketing turns into not much more than wrapping the same 'brand-based' approach around a new medium. Virtual worlds can support much more, however.

Numedeon specializes in the design of sponsored activities that are fully engaging and built around learning about products much more than simple branding. Our approach involves leveraging our advanced simulation-based technology, our expertise and capabilities in managing social interactions on the site, and our considerable experience designing games and activities that motivate our users. In addition, new activities are launched into an existing, vibrant, and well populated community. This means that the impact is almost immediate. Our technology also provides detailed and continuous feedback using metrics that measure real engagement. For all these reasons, our sponsorships tend to be long term with a continually evolving and expanding presence for the sponsor on the site. There are now numerous instances as well, in which a sponsor developed their approach to virtual worlds working with us and then exported the design to other virtual worlds.

As Whyville's graphic design and user interface are showing their age, does Numedeon have, or even feel that it needs, a strategy to compete with other more modernized personalization-focused social worlds?

Numedeon specializes in the construction of learning-based worlds, and therefore is more focused on 'process' than look and feel. We believe that the focus of most of the gaming industry on the latest graphics and style is a reflection of the fact that, underneath, the fundamental interaction with the user has remained essentially the same. Without substance, one must rely on Flash. Numedeon also does not regard the growing number of social-worlds as direct competition.

Once one digs below the surface, one finds that the real use of those worlds is much less than that claimed, and importantly, the longevity of use is very low. Most of the current and proposed new worlds are straight marketing plays, with little or no direct emphasis on learning and therefore with less potential for deep engagement. Numedeon remains the only explicitly learning-based virtual world company. Really engaging users for a long time requires constant enhancements to the substance and richness of users experience, which is closely linked to their ability to learn, and benefit from what they learn on the site and in the real world. This is our speciality.

With respect to graphics in particular, we believe that over-investment in sophisticated graphics can actually, in effect, limit engagement. The more complex the site graphically, the more dependent use is on having the latest graphics cards, upgraded computers and high-speed access. This approach also makes stand-alone software platforms much more vulnerable to changes in browsers, operating systems. etc, that these companies don't control. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, the more sophisticated the interface, the less able the average user is to contribute actively to its content and therefore contribute personally of the site. In our experience, the greatest predictor of long-term engagement is the ease with which an average user can make a significant personal contribution.

For these reasons, Numedeon made the decision in 1999 to construct its engine around the current capabilities of standard browsers. That is not to say that we aren't continually evaluating available technology and ways to further reduce barriers to use and at the same time enhance user experiences in our virtual worlds. As browsers change (and they will) we will add more capabilities. Q1 of 2008 will see a number of changes in the look and feel of Whyville.

What are your thoughts on the prospect of competing for the mindshare of the 16-through-28 high-cost, media-saturated demographic?

Whyville's demographic is primarily ages 8-14, although participation is open to all. However, Numedeon will shortly be launching a new virtual world specifically aimed at this older demographic. In our view what we offer is so substantially different from other 'media' that we believe we will be as successful in differentiating ourselves within this demographic as we have with our younger demographic.

The key difference is an explicit understanding that 'Broadcast' is dying and soon to be dead. The Internet is slowly driving a fundamental shift from broadcast to a passive audience to interacting with an engaged audience. Since the invention of the printing press and Universities, media and education have all been about broadcast to more or less passive receivers. The fact that the Internet includes a wire going and a wire coming will eventually reduce or perhaps even eliminate broadcast as a mean of influencing or educating people. Essentially none of the traditional media companies have really learned how to use the wire coming back - and they don't seem to really yet understand that the information on the wire coming back is likely to be more interesting than the wire going out. Even in most Internet properties, "media-saturation" means broadcast media saturation.

Numedeon builds non-broadcast user engaging media. It is this change that underlies Whyville's remarkable stickiness statistics. It is also this change that our sponsorship partners have engaged with us to understand. The value and appreciation for real engagement is not limited to one demographic group and we are looking forward to making that point with a new demographic.

What do you think Whyville can tell us about the future of education?

Same message, broadcast is out (doesn't work anyway), engagement is in. Numedeon's virtual world technology provides a completely new and more dynamic, user-centered means for learning and therefore education that also scales. Perhaps the most important point is that Numedeon believes that, in simulation-based virtual worlds, when engagement is maximal, the difference between education and marketing, between learning and influencing, disappear. If we are correct, the implications are just as profound for the educational establishment as they are for the business establishment. In both cases, what you want them to know is not as important as what they can and will learn themselves with your supervision. "The product" then, whether it is physics or a new car, will need to be able to withstand the scrutiny of the public. If it does, the effect on the user will be long lasting.

From your perspective as a neuroscientist who has spent a number of years working on practical methods of combining play, instruction, and advertisement, how would you define the concept of "entertainment"?

As already stated, in the modern world, most media entertainment has been passive and not very effective. Even the educational system is constantly striving to be more 'entertaining". However, what gets the 'brain juices' of any human really cranking are circumstances when that human is personally engaged and involved and that involvement has a direct consequence for their social status. Traditional TV and radio marketing can only attract your attention - attention mechanisms, however, are intended to direct your brain to something you can now "do". There is no 'do' in traditional broadcast media.

The 'social do' that drives the willingness of humans to watch evening television, are water cooler conversations the next day at work. Social networking sites on the Internet are a "water cooler" phenomenon, but they aren't a very effective venue for the 'doing' part. Numedeon's virtual worlds are completely focused and designed around 'social doing". We design activities where both happen at the same time. The gaming industry has only slowly realized that the reason gamers play games is the social stuff they build around the games by themselves. However, the 'doing' in most video games is also limited.

In summary, the highest form of human engagement is reserved for conditions under which learning leads directly to an increase in social status. Learning is what our brains do, social status is what we care about. Eyeballs attend, brains engage. Numedeon is in the business of engaging brains, not eyeballs.

[Patrick Murphy contributed to this report.]