Will Virtual Worlds Have to Go Viral to Get Noticed?

Professionally-created destinations are going to quickly turn "free range" worlds like Second Life and Entropia into the YouTubes of virtual worlds. Tons of content, most of it crap, takes too much time to find the gems.

Disney Goes Virtual Kids' 'Studios'

Disney has announced the formation of Disney Online Studios, a new division within the Walt Disney Internet Group focused on virtual worlds, gaming and social networking initiatives aimed at kids. The announcement comes as the company’s latest virtual world, the young girl-aimed Disney Fairies Pixie Hollow, was previewed during Toy Fair in New York on Feb. 19.

Virtual worlds, games and social networking have increasingly become a major priority for Disney, which relaunched its flagship site roughly a year ago around Disney.com XD, a Web platform which melded elements of community, multimedia consumption and gaming. And last August, the company both acquired the kids virtual world Club Penguin and unveiled the more tween centric world Pirates of the Caribbean Online.