Dissertation research on second life brands. short questionaire.

[Kenny Sleeper]

As part of obtaining my undergraduate degree at the University of Lincoln, based in the United Kingdom, I have been given an opportunity to carry out a selected piece of research for my dissertation project. My selected piece of research is regarding the possibility of successful second life brands migrating into the real world. will they succeed in the real world ?

My argument questions weather successful brands from the virtual world of second life can transfer and succeed into the real world with the differences in emotional values and equity compared to a real world brand. The questions you answer here will help back it up.

The Link is : http://dotsurvey.me/681lxx06-d8bk095

Thankyou so much!

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To participate in this study, you must agree to all of the following.

CONSENT FORM
• I have read and understood the information provided in the introduction regarding the exploration of policing in virtual worlds.
• I agree to participate in this study
• I understand my participation is voluntary and that I have the right to withdraw from the study at any time without giving reason.
• All personal information provided by myself will remain confidential and no information that identifies me will be made publically available.
• I agree that my data gathered in this questionnaire may be stored (after it has been anonymised) in a specialist data centre and may be used for future research.
• I confirm that I am 18 years old or above

 

Please contact me in work if you have any questions. Kenny Sleeper.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

Are you serious?!?!?

Have you EVER logged into SL?

It's a virtual world....

"I can't wait till my new Xcite parts get here from Amazon!!!"

"Honey, the Slexbed is borked." "Did you reset the scripts?"

"Crap, my date is almost here and i can't get this new skin to rezz."

What virtual goods would be sold in RL?
The better question would be.. What is the next RL item to be made?

[Syo Emerald]

Ah, end of the semester already, the desperate souls hunt the forum again to show us their last minute studies :catwink:

Kenny, I wonder if you participated in SL at some time, since your account still has a lastname.....
and I wonder how you came up with that question, did you ever saw a virtual good getting "into RL"?

Virtual brands and products exist because there are people familiar with 3D software and photoshop. Thats what they can, making pixels look pretty. Most of them would probably fail to even tailor oven cloth on their own (I can't do that too, it was a pain for me when we had to make our own tailorwork in school).  But what i wanted to say is, that their brands are based on a skill fitting virtual space. Also they are mostly one-man brands, based on a hobby...and some like the sexbed industry wouldn't even work for reality.

[Kelli May]

While my sympathies for the OP are limited, I believe people are confusing 'brands' with 'products'. Caterpillar make construction equipment but the Caterpillar brand sells clothing and shoes. Dunlop make tyres but are now just as well known for sports equpment. I doubt that either company had much expertise in the fields they moved into... they'd have contracted out to other suppliers for their new product.

Arguably any SL company with a strong enough identity could branch out like this, using their brand to sell real-world product. On a small scale, Sine Wave (dance & animations) sold (and maybe still sell) real-world T-shirts online.

Right now, I don't think there are any SL companies with wide enough appeal to break into a real-world market. There's a good chance there never will be. But there's no reason Xcite or a sex-bed company couldn't launch a line a actual sex toys, or someone like Redgrave or Truth sell a perfume, *if* they gained enough presence to be marketable.

[Syo Emerald]

I think thats the main problem. Experiance AND money. Its easier for a company to get into another productfield than for a single person to start a RL business out of nothing. Making perfume for example requires lots of knowledge and a factory to produce it. Many people who have brands here have other duties already. Like a RL job.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

Xcite has their own line of RL sextoys, they sell them on their website.. you can use them as a stand alone item, but they are designed to work with your SL parts as well. 

Do i think anyone that isnt in SL has bought any... probably not.

 

 

[Kelli May]

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Syo Emerald wrote:

I think thats the main problem. Experiance AND money. Its easier for a company to get into another productfield than for a single person to start a RL business out of nothing. Making perfume for example requires lots of knowledge and a factory to produce it. Many people who have brands here have other duties already. Like a RL job.

---

How many perfume factories do you Britney Spears owns? How skillful a perfumier do you think she is? If you're going into brand extension, you rarely do the work yourself. Of course, you're right that you need money, or at least some kind of solid financial backing. Clearly it's far beyond most SL brand owners, even those that work ful time.

[Syo Emerald]

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Kelli May wrote:

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Syo Emerald wrote:

I think thats the main problem. Experiance AND money. Its easier for a company to get into another productfield than for a single person to start a RL business out of nothing. Making perfume for example requires lots of knowledge and a factory to produce it. Many people who have brands here have other duties already. Like a RL job.

---

How many perfume factories do you Britney Spears owns? How skillful a perfumier do you think she is? If you're going into brand extension, you rarely do the work yourself. Of course, you're right that you need money, or at least some kind of solid financial backing. Clearly it's far beyond most SL brand owners, even those that work ful time.

---

What Britney Spears has are two things: Money and more money to hire people who do everything for her, like making a perfume. She has a manager telling her its a good idea to publish merchandise and a huge group of people who do the rest. As long as she got money in her hands, every company is more than willing to produce whatever her staff tells them to. Her name is already a brand itself, because she is a famous person. Its easy to convince everybody to work on making and selling her perfume.

The key is to find persons to produce for you. If you are Britney Spears, you got someone who already know where to get those people and what all is needed for making a perfume. But for a normal person starting a business with something one is not originally familar with its much harder.

But I bet talking to the bank about a credit is funny to watch. "I have this virtual store here, where I sell virtual hair...you see? And now I want to make my own perfume!" :matte-motes-little-laugh:

 

But that sex-toy thing sounds quite funny!

[Innula Zenovka]

Kenny, you are going to have to do better with your questions than this, I think:

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Which of these do you have stronger emotional attachment with Merchandise ? Could it be a virtual object more than a real life Merchandise ? Why is this

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followed by a textbox

I mean, the words are all English but I have no real idea what you're asking.

[Rhys Goode]

I've several cases over the years, where SL versions of clothing items were linked to RL versions of the same garment.  Playboy (the RL brand) had a whole shopful of such items a few years ago.  I've seen a few attempts at the same thing for tee shirts, by one man brands I can't remember.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

At one time there were a number of RL brands selling stuff in SL.  They sold copies of their RL products, some that came with a link to buy them on the web, other's were just for publicity or to market their products.  All failed.

Marketing studies showed people in SL come to escape RL and didn't want to buy RL products.  They would rather spend their money with other residents instead of big corps.  As a result, after a big splashy opening where they gave away lindens and other prizes, all the stores set up by RL companies were ghost towns.

There are still a number of RL companies, universities and other organizations in SL, but they are here to use SL for collaboration and education or as a way to model things for RL clients.  A lot of them have private sims that are not open to the public and they aren't in search.

[Czari Zenovka]

To be fair, this is the correct way to present a study.  I'll jump on the "I-want-you-to-do-my-paper" types, but in this case the presentation is professional, academically correct, and we are asked to go to a link, not post answers here.

@OP - I'll be participating.

[161488303349]

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Kelli May wrote:

How many perfume factories do you Britney Spears owns? How skillful a perfumier do you think she is? If you're going into brand extension, you rarely do the work yourself. Of course, you're right that you need money, or at least some kind of solid financial backing. Clearly it's far beyond most SL brand owners, even those that work ful time.

---

the way celebrity perfumes work is that the chemist makes a variety of what they think the celeb might like based on previous conversation

celeb then pick the one they like the most and will wear themselves

 

in this sense the celeb more important than the chemist. is many chemists and only one Britney. even tho there are many Britneys in RL

 

is kinda the same with SL. is only one Stroker. is only one Redgrave. even tho is many Strokers and Redgraves in SL

if Stroker and Redgrave cross over into RL. then when I see a product they make SL now in RL then I will think of them first when I see that name in those products areas. and not all/any of the other Strokers and Redgraves that might be

is quite interesting how we think like that

 

[Melita Magic]

Shouldn't a good study have NO preconceived notions?

Quote:

" My argument questions weather successful brands from the virtual world of second life can transfer and succeed into the real world with the differences in emotional values and equity compared to a real world brand. The questions you answer here will help back it up. "

Also, someone was just here a couple weeks or so ago, studying whether SL and RL can tie into the same brands or not.

Also, you spelled "publicly" wrong. If you can't run a spell check, how accurate will your study be?

[Czari Zenovka]

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Melita Magic wrote:

Shouldn't a good study have NO preconceived notions?

Quote:

" My argument questions weather successful brands from the virtual world of second life can transfer and succeed into the real world with the differences in emotional values and equity compared to a real world brand. The questions you answer here will help back it up. "

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Actually this is the proper way to set up what is referred to as a "thesis."   It is more straight-forward in the hard sciences of well...science and math, but the same procedure applies to the social sciences.

One chooses a subject that can have two (or more) possible outcomes.  The researcher presents her idea of what she believes will happen as her "thesis" then sets out to prove this point.  Sometimes the research will determine that the thesis is wrong or has been disproved.

I'm a bit fuzzy on some of the particulars as I wrote my Masters thesis in 1998 but, iirc, there are several methods utilized, one being this case:  proposing the outcome of an event/situation and setting about to prove it.  Another is stating that either outcome is possible and conducting the research to discover which it is.  A third, which is the approach I took for my thesis, is called a review of the literature - one chooses a topic to research (In my case it was in the form of a question ie. "Why would a person with (x) background choose to participate in (y).") then researches what has already been written on the topic to reach a conclusion.  I chose to take an additional step in my thesis which was to enter an online venue (IRC) that had channels devoted to the subject of my study.  I used the anthropology approach - became one of them - and added my personal observations.

 

[VRprofessor]

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Melita Magic wrote:

Shouldn't a good study have NO preconceived notions?

Quote:

" My argument questions weather successful brands from the virtual world of second life can transfer and succeed into the real world with the differences in emotional values and equity compared to a real world brand. The questions you answer here will help back it up. "

---

Having expectations is one of the driving forces behind research so that isn't a problem unless the researcher (usually unintentionally) biases their findings in the direction they expect.  This is why whenever possible folks participating in research and those dealing directly with them are kept ignorant about specific details of the study while data collection is in progress.  Makes it hard to bias the results if you don't know what is expected.

What is problematic is that the researcher appears to be telling those they hope to recruit as participants what the expected outcomes of the study are.   This could result in people who disagree with the researcher's expectation to refuse to participate.  It could also result in those who do participate choosing answers slightly in favor of the researcher's expecations. 

[161488303349]

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VRprofessor wrote:

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Melita Magic wrote:

Shouldn't a good study have NO preconceived notions?

Quote:

" My argument questions weather successful brands from the virtual world of second life can transfer and succeed into the real world with the differences in emotional values and equity compared to a real world brand. The questions you answer here will help back it up. "

---

Having expectations is one of the driving forces behind research so that isn't a problem unless the researcher (usually unintentionally) biases their findings in the direction they expect.  This is why whenever possible folks participating in research and those dealing directly with them are kept ignorant about specific details of the study while data collection is in progress.  Makes it hard to bias the results if you don't know what is expected.

What is problematic is that the researcher appears to be telling those they hope to recruit as participants what the expected outcomes of the study are.   This could result in people who disagree with the researcher's expectation to refuse to participate.  It could also result in those who do participate choosing answers slightly in favor of the researcher's expecations. 

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i think that you seeing this only from your pov as a professor. student dont see it the way you describe hardly at all ever

+

what students sees is an assignment. if dont do/complete the assignment then dont get any mark. am only at college to graduate and get my degree. so can put on my CV and hope to get a better paying job. i dont actual want to be a researcher when i leave school/college

so to complete the assignment just have to give the assignment teacher/marker what they want

+

so i pick a topic/argument out of the 3 or however many on the assignment paper

then i ask anyone i can think of if they got/know any facts that i can write up to support the topic/argument. bc i get more/better marks when i credit other people/sources than i get for anything original i might write

bc school/college assignments like these are not about original thoughts. like you dont get any marks for this hardly at all. quite often lose marks bc original ideas cant be substantiated by reference to any other works

so student soon learns to not do this way. can get a way better mark for interpretation of what other people wrote/said. 

so from student pov is only about whether you can write a paper in the approved manner that is being taught to you

so like i say. just find/get some facts to fit the topic/argument and write it up that way. and get the mark

 

[Drake1 Nightfire]

i tried to do the survey, but the questions made no sense..

Which of these do you have stronger emotional attachment with Merchandise ? Could it be a virtual

object more than a real life Merchandise ? Why is this

Has there been a moment when shopping in second-life that you wished that item(s) existed in real life ? Give me an example 

What are your feelings on the idea of Second Life brands moving into the real world ? 

What are your emotional feelings towards trusting a brand in second life does it have a similar feeling towards a real brand ? 

What are your thoughts on recognising a second life brand that is successful ?

Do you know any successful or not so successful stories on second life brands migrating in real life ?

no

 

these questions are going to give you an A from a college professor?!?

[VRprofessor]

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16 wrote:

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VRprofessor wrote:

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i think that you seeing this only from your pov as a professor. student dont see it the way you describe hardly at all ever

+

<snip for bandwidth>

so like i say. just find/get some facts to fit the topic/argument and write it up that way. and get the mark

 

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Sadly far too many students do exactly as you describe.  But it is normal human behavior to seek evidence of our pre-selected answer (and a good deal of academic training uses this fact to teach students stuff that is already known).  That makes the behavior completely expected.

I was just pointing out the difference between having a prior expectation for research findings and introducing those expectations into the research because someone asked about the appropriateness of prior expectations.

[Trinity Yazimoto]

well, i made your survey. At least i tried.

Since english is not my native language, i not sure i understood well your questions.

But well, i tried lol. :smileywink:

When you will have some analysis of the results of your studies, it would be nice if you can come back and let us know about them.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

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Trinity Yazimoto wrote:

well, i made your survey. At least i tried.

Since english is not my native language, i not sure i understood well your questions.

But well, i tried lol. :smileywink:

When you will have some analysis of the results of your studies, it would be nice if you can come back and let us know about them.

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English is my native language and  i didn't understand them well.. they were very confusing.

[Ceka Cianci]

[Czari Zenovka]

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Drake1 Nightfire wrote:

i tried to do the survey, but the questions made no sense..

Which of these do you have stronger emotional attachment with Merchandise ? Could it be a virtual

object more than a real life Merchandise ? Why is this

Has there been a moment when shopping in second-life that you wished that item(s) existed in real life ? Give me an example 

What are your feelings on the idea of Second Life brands moving into the real world ? 

What are your emotional feelings towards trusting a brand in second life does it have a similar feeling towards a real brand ? 

What are your thoughts on recognising a second life brand that is successful ?

Do you know any successful or not so successful stories on second life brands migrating in real life ?

no

 

these questions are going to give you an A from a college professor?!?

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I haven't looked at the survey questions yet (been busy with a certain application ) but I agree the way these questions are worded is very odd to unintelligible.  This is especially confusing given the professionalism of the OP.   Hmmmm....

Edit: Clarification

 

[Melita Magic]

Thanks Czari & VR for your info/feedback, but the OP said research, not thesis. Maybe I'm coming at this another way since I wasn't part of academia. Yes, a thesis paper/essay has a contention that has to be supported. But research shouldn't that leave some room for the unexpected? Rather than trying to bend fact to support a preconceived opinion?

Especially if this is marketing research which is what it sounds ilke to me.

It still has a whiff of off tuna about it.

[Czari Zenovka]

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Melita Magic wrote:

Thanks Czari & VR for your info/feedback, but the OP said research, not thesis. Maybe I'm coming at this another way since I wasn't part of academia. Yes, a thesis paper/essay has a contention that has to be supported. But research shouldn't that leave some room for the unexpected? Rather than trying to bend fact to support a preconceived opinion?

Especially if this is marketing research which is what it sounds ilke to me.

It still has a whiff of off tuna about it.

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The OP said he was working on his dissertation which is part of a thesis.

A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings. In some countries/universities, the word "thesis" or a cognate is used as part of a bachelor's or master's course, while "dissertation" is normally applied to a doctorate, while in others, the reverse is true.

(Emphasis mine)

Ref:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis

I don't know how better to explain the various types of research models than I already have in my former post.  I do think not being involved in academia is key; I wouldn't have known the difference had I not pursued a graduate degree.  Some of the first classes I took were not on the specific degree content, but on statistics (which are used for the qualitative type of theses), and becoming familiar with research/thesis/dissertation models because we were to begin formulating ideas re: what our final thesis paper would be while we were studying.

Edit: Italicizing quoted material