Archive notice: This article was originally published on March 24, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The WhatsYourPlace platform, which went online at the end of 2007, looks back on a successful first quarter. There is strong demand for its core product, virtual ownership of personal favourite places. Management is now concentrating on increasing awareness of the platform together with investors from the circle of Dr. Stefan Morschheuser (founder of hotel.de AG, anwalt.de AG, viversum GmbH).
Buy Favourite Places, Display Them Online, Sell Them and Give Them Away
On the Google Maps-based community portal http://www.whatsyourplace.de every registered member can purchase their personal favourite places from €9.95. Through a “land registry entry”, landowners can then link their plots to their own content. The focus is on users’ personal relationship with the places, creating the basis for social communication with other members. A powerful community environment is available for this purpose and has been considerably expanded since the platform’s launch.
The motivation to acquire a real place virtually ranges from more nostalgic and emotional reasons to the speculative calculation of making a real profit through later resale. Plots on WhatsYourPlace are also suitable as a personal gift idea. Companies, meanwhile, find an innovative opportunity for geographically specific guerrilla marketing on the platform.
Very Good Market Acceptance Already in the Early Phase
More than 1,000 hectares of virtual land have already been sold on WhatsYourPlace – the market is accepting the “virtual plots” product. Members cover a very broad age range, with an average age of just over 30 years.
Virtual Property Becomes the Core Element of a Community Platform for the First Time
WhatsYourPlace is the first community ever to place virtual property at its centre. This adds the crucial element of exclusivity to the opportunities for self-presentation that are central to every community: each landowner possesses something unique, since no plot is like another and each is connected with different associations from the real world.
Driven by the diversity of real plots of land, a virtual economy develops over the medium term through the resale function. Unlike platforms such as Second Life, this does not take place in a closed 3D landscape takes place, but on a simple Google Maps interface accessible to everyone. With these barriers to entry absent, WhatsYourPlace has the potential to develop into the first virtual economy for the mass market.
