Welcome to Gaia! ::

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Those dirty sluts! Gaia has fallen... v_v
*Crawls into a dark corner and spontaniously combusts*

I have to say its rather worrying that Gaia does now have a sponsor, As if they need the extra cash, donations? Hem hem Ad's
They must rake in a bit.

Can anyone access the mVox website? It would be ironic if by making that single post in the Announcements led to their website becoming slash-dotted. Heh. lol

frankly, as long as Gaia doesn't oversell the company, their involvement with the company will be both to its benefit and to their own. Think about it this way:

Gaia IS a machine. It has a speed: modem speed
it has an audience: membership

Essentially, its the NASCAR effect. Which is something I had hoped Gaia would be doing since about 2004. UDON entertainment is a corporate sponsor for example. When you are watching the Tom Hanks movie "BIG" and you see Coca Cola everywhere, that's corporate Advertising. Michael Jordan was of course associated with Air jordans, which eventually broke off of Nike as a sub corporation where he acquired rights and they maintained manufacturing. Its actually a pretty good shoe, i owned a pair once, and they didnt fall apart.

Personally, I do not like football. I stopped liking football when parential figures gambled our winter electricity bills on a football game and we ended up using candles and a gas oven for heat and lighting, and the attic for a refridgerator/freezer. However, I do try to catch at least some of the Superbowl, for what? The commercials.

There are some clever commercials out there. The old show "bewitched" was about a witch named Samantha who was married to an advertising agent. Telemarketters are a commercial industry. In Japan, corporate sponsorship is equal to winning the lottery. In other countries, this may or may not be true.

In the united states, there's a sufficient number of individually wealthy people that "selling out" doesn't seem entirely necessary, because of a "do it yourself" attitude. People easily become enraged over company investments and privatization.

First of all, not all companies are Evil. While it is true that many are, corporate politics are often more polite than national politics. There are two types of companies on the larger scale. Those that sell quality products, and those that sell addictive products.

Addictive product examples include:
Starbucks Coffee
Mountain Dew
Phillip Morris Cigarettes
Pornography
Budwiser
Grand Theft Auto Video Games

Quality product examples include:
7 Up or Sprite
Hershey's of Nestle
Kohler of Whirlpool
SONY
Craftsman
Apple/Macintosh

ok, the point of difference, is resale value. For exmaple, during certain decades, there were vehicles you felt safe in, and vehicles you didnt. Part of this was corporate advertising, but part of the corporate advertising was based upon the "winners" of competitions. Its like a Can of chili. not all Chilis are created equal.

Masmune was a name brand. Toledo Steel was a name brand. Damascus Steel was a name brand. Gibson is a guitar, and its a name brand. Kevlar is a name brand by Du Pont.

When you look on a package and it says "MADE IN..." America, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, China, etc. you are associating a National Brand with a product. Martial arts are the same way.

Thus, corporate sponsorship, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, until you begin to do false advertising. If I was an inventor at some college competition, and was sponsored by something like Lotus automanufacturers, do you think I would feel ashamed? Probably not.

There are also prodcuts people buy which are addictive but are addictive because of the quality. Manga and Anime are among them. Let's face it, books are free. Comics, to a degree, are free, so why do we buy them? And why do we buy manga? Why do we go to Taco Bell, or Red Lobster, or wherever, when we can stay at home?
Why do people living in China go to WALMART, buy an American Burrito, and place it in a Microwave oven for 2 minutes while turning on their Japanese manufactured version of Final Fantasy Online?

Gaia's Goal
What then should Gaia's goal be? Gaia is filled with people of ages 6 to about 60+, the vast majority of them being 13 to 25. Thats the target audience. The target subjects are:
Anime, RPGs, Manga, Comics, Art, Video Games, Computers, and Music.

There are two types of products for 13-25 year olds. Cool stuff and not cool stuff. There are numberous products which this age group finds cool. High end technology is cool (like cybernetics, computers, tech toys, and many other Pop science doodads). Pocky is cool. Gothic Lolita is cool. Rave/Dance clubs are cool. Pop/J POP, Rock, J ROCK, Alternative, and Darkwave are cool. Attractive people and costumes are cool.

Hearing Aid companies are not cool. 30-40 something porno Dating advertisements are not cool. Real Estate, in general, is not cool to people who work for a fast food place, its cool for people who own the place.Vaginal infection creams are NOT cool. Addictive substances (drugs, stimulants, depressants, alcohal, cigarettes, etc.) are not cool, and should never be advertised to people in this age category. Pharmaceuticals are not cool.


When advertising to people in this age category, certain parameters must be followed. First of all, half of the products these people buy are actually purchased for them by their parents. Thus, transformers are more likely to "fly" than transvestites. Paint ball guns can be purchased by parents for their kids. Meanwhile, gun shows and sniper rilfes from Soldier of Fortune magazine are less likely to sell. Also, there is the concern of budget. If the product is re usuable, you you should look for things in the $50-$500 USD/5200-55000 yen range. If the products are disposable, you should shoot for under $30 USD, and avoid addictive products.

Any product which resembles gambling should be avoided entirely. Be careful. Advertising MMORPGs and Monopoly 3000 is not the same as advertising Poker or Magic the Gathering-Variants. A Recent study in Discover Magazine (this month's issue) found children who played video games (such as the Tom Clancy stuff) were actually developing their brains, contrary to the original 1980s-1990s assumption "video games will rot your brain". Meanwhile, when a single game reproduces itself as the person's entire life because of addictive qualities, it forms neurosis. In the 1980s and early 1990s, we palyed video games, and were addicted to "video games". We had our favorites, however, we were not usually addicted to specific video games. We wanted to beat them all, or as many as it was possible. today, this rule doesn't always apply.

Final Conclusions on Finances
one of these devices they are giving away is roughly 15 donation letters in price. Therefore, it is cost ineffective for everyone to get one. Gaia's not nearly as rich as you think they are, but I hope they some day become so. i've seen the math behind their bills, and its pretty scary. This topic comes up once in a while in Battle System Suggestion, so its not as if some gaians dont already know this stuff, but Corporate sponsorship is the ONLY way Gaia will be able to survive in the next 12 months.

They had beautiful shirts and posters at the Cons, as high quality as just about anything else there, but at a fraction of the Cost. Why did they do that? Its the right way to advertise. I remember when i was in New York and they were giving out a new type of candy bar: Kudos. I liked Kudos. To this day, one of my biggest regrets in life, is not grabbing more kudos. The supply that day was almost unlimited. I think i grabbed one.

When you have 40,000 people online at the same time, clicking 1.5 megs of badnwidth every minute, on average, what does that cost you? That's where the donation letter money is going.
Many if you want the Admins to show up in your neighborhood. Some of you have neighborhoods in places like New York, France, Norway, Australia, and Japan. There are alot of Admins. It seems like a small number, but think of the cost of an airplane multiplied by 10 people, multiplied by the number of major "hot zones" for Gaia. When I flew down to meet the Admins, my round trip total flight was about 2200 miles. It wasn't free. I wish i had a corporate sponsor.


The Future of Gaia Administration
If Gaia attains a sufficient amount of corporate sponsorship without over advertising to the point that people despise those companies, Gaia/Ani HQ, could become a job market. Certain MMORPGs are said to pay fairly nice salaries to their Moderators. Gaia has a lot of moderators, but they aren't paid. While it may seem offensive, try to remember your age group.

In ten years, would you like to say you work for a giant online video game anime company, or Burger King? One of my close friends used to be a play tester for Nintendo. He had a secretary, and was paid very well. He regrets leaving that company, probably every day of his life.

What Gaia is doing may not seem very American, but it is very Japanese.

- Noire.