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Okay, big change in my journals - I'm no longer going to post the week(s) that an entry covers in the journal name; it's become pretty clear that I can't keep doing these weekly. I'll keep updating you guys, but with no promise of a particular timeframe xp

MTV
Lots of users followed a particular thread I was involved in after we released another phase of the MTV sponsorship a week or two ago. I suggested that I might repost some of the stuff we talked about here, so here's the basic breakdown:

1. I am the lead on the PHP side of sponsorship development, so I oversee at least part of most of the sponsorships that hit Gaia.

2. Gaia needs sponsorships because it does not make enough money from user purchases. Yes: Gaia loses more money than it brings in right now.

3. I agree that the execution of the MTV sponsorship in terms of the placement of the sponsored store isn't ideal, and we're looking at solutions - right now we're thinking we'll keep it on the same page, but at least separate from the traditional Gaia shops. No word on when this change will be made (since it requires a small redesign of the shop interface).

4. Feedback from the Gaia Community Discussion forums and Site Feedback do not represent Gaia as a whole. So if you see people upset about a particular issue there, it does not mean "everyone on Gaia hates it". This is true of the MTV sponsorship as well, for which we got a tremendous amount of positive feedback.

5. I am not authorized to say what sponsorships we have turned down.

6. Working with MTV is a major opportunity for Gaia, no matter what anyone's opinion is, and it is a tough opportunity to pass up even if some users don't think it's a perfect fit. There have been numerous times in the past where we've done things that many users didn't feel fit (though like I've mentioned before, the MTV Hills area prompts HUGE participation from our users) but they've always led to things that those same users did like -- like our Anime 101 line of free anime shows, our work with Warner Bros and Sony to bring higher-quality content to theaters, our sponsorships with game companies like Ubisoft to bring you actual licensed Naruto gear, etc. -- and there's more stuff like that on the way. Business isn't as simple as "let's do things everyone likes". In cases of working with other companies and properties, you have to earn the right to do that.

7. Except perhaps in the case of the MTV shop (which as I mentioned, we're looking into alternatives for placement) we try to make sponsorships as non-intrusive as possible. This means that with the exception of seeing the announcements, you're currently not forced to participate in any sponsored material. Some users say "I'm starting to get fed up" or "I don't know how much more of this I can take" -- but I think that stems more from a desire to participate in every item-getting opportunity we present rather than us actually shoving sponsorships down anyone's throat.

8. Some users suggested that they want Gaia users to have say in all the sponsorship decisions we make, but again, sometimes this isn't how the reality of these things work. We often get a very short deadline for making a proposal for a sponsorship, and taking the time to get user response to it would be unreasonable.

9. I try to be as forthcoming with this information as I can, but obviously we are a business working with business partners, and a business with competitors. I try to reveal only what I've gotten permission to reveal, and I try not to reveal anything that a competitor could use to harm us.

Wow-wee that's a lot of information. Hopefully it clears a few things up for some of youse.

Don't You Know That You Are A Shooting Star?
I just had to mention to everyone that we just got Rock Band in the office for the PS3, which is either the very best or very worst thing that could possibly happen to Gaia HQ rofl At lunch, you already see the crowds forming around it, each person hoping for their chance to take a crack at rock stardom!

For those of you who want to know, I do vocals in the game -- though I'm no slouch at guitar or drums, either! pirate

Love to love you, baby baby
Valentine's Day is coming again soon, and once again I'm on the coding end of it. It's likely that we'll try to do an enhanced version of last year's event, which went over pretty well except for the prizes (Gold + Labu Necklaces * 8 = fail).

At the end of 2007, we tried to take all our traditional events and make them more unique than any event that we did prior to that:

Summer Festival 2007: In August/September, we had the world's largest virtual water balloon fight, where several hundred thousand Gaians joined with one of four teams (based on the cities of Gaia: Barton, Aekea, Isle de Gambino, and Durem), splashing each other with water balloons and working together to pump a gigantic launcher to drench their opponents' towns.

Halloween 2007: Vampires led by the Von Helson family attacked Gaia! Fortunately, Ian Von Helson (whose true lineage was revealed during the event), Edmund, and Gambino were ready to fight back. The event featured RPG-style combat and abilities, a tremendous amount of new art (including a flash-based HUD in the forums), 3 animated storyline clips, a funny random attack description generator, a total of 4 storyline mangas, two teams to join, and a new Vampire skin (which is still available from the event page).

X-Mas 2007: Perhaps the most unique of 2007's events, this involved helping Dickensian orphans get adopted. You would pick up a random orphan from the orphanage, they would follow you around the site in the site header, saying funny, cute, and disturbing things - and every once in a while they would need something. If you gave them the right thing, they would become less shabby and eventually look cleaner and happier. Once they were completely cleaned up, you could take them to the Adoption Agency, and in return you would get an orphan-themed/orphan-made event item. (Orphan hair scarf, anyone?)

Needless to say, all of these events required a tremendous amount of effort on the part of developers, artists, managers, content writers, and others -- and by the end of 2007 we were just a little burnt out. So with Valentine's Day we're going to try to take a proven concept and see if we can't make it better than before, rather than making something completely different.

Egads
So that was a wordy update that I didn't expect to write when I set out! If any of you were wondering, I usually just start at the top and write until I don't want to write anymore rofl I often have a vague idea of the topics I want to cover, but I also often forget to include a thing or two.

Question Time
So to make my next journal update easier (and since I presume you guys are going to have a ton of questions / comments about some of the stuff I wrote here) we're going to do question time again.

That's when you guys respond to the journal with a comment on it, and then ask a question to be answered in the next journal update. Just a few rules:

1. Please don't comment only with a question.

2. If you have questions about the MTV thing, please read through the thread I mentioned earlier so I don't have to repeat myself if I already clarified something.

3. Read through a few of the other comments first to make sure you're not asking the same question someone else is.

I'll probably try to answer around 10 - 15 of my favorite questions, or the questions I feel are important to address.

See you all soon!