Are You Addicted To Empire Avenue Yet?

By Koka Sexton On May 16, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Empire Avenue is a stock market simulation social network game that allows users to buy and sell shares of people and websites. Im not sure exactly how I came across it but that doesn’t matter. I have a personal account (KOKA) and I created one for InsideView (SalesIntel) that have started getting some good attention. Eloqua wrote up a great post on Empire Avenue and gives some tips for increasing the value of your shares and net wealth on the site. Part game, part ratings system, Empire Avenue works by allowing users to create a ticker inked to their activity on various social media profiles like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. The system measures that activity and the level of engagement your content provokes, and then assesses your share price based on that activity. People can buy shares in you and you can buy shares in others, which leads to a virtual social currency that moves up and down just like a stock.

InsideView Empire Avenue

The Backstory on Empire Avenue

So what’s the story behind Empire Avenue anyway?
The site represents the efforts of a collective of former co-workers from the video game development company BioWare, says Ohle. The original purpose of the site was to measure influence. But, Ohle states, “we kind of made a pivot. Now at this point it’s scoring your network value.”
Your ticker on Empire Avenue is meant to show your level of activity within social networks and how people are responding to that activity. “As a PR guy it’s really handy to go in there and measure which networks you are effective on,” Ohle says.
But the gaming aspect is designed to keep users coming back and engaging with the site. With other influence-measuring sites like Klout, says Ohle, you don’t have much of reason to visit multiple times a day. Empire Avenue’s stock market structure, on the other hand, is designed to keep people playing the market.
There are some issues. Empire Avenue’s interface can seem as complex as a Bloomberg news terminal, with multiple indices, shares, notifications and reports hitting you all at once. Ohle admits that user experience can feel overwhelming at first and the startup is working on cleaning it up.
The company plans to make money by selling virtual luxury items. For instance, $100 real U.S. dollars will get you a virtual castle, which provides not only brag-worthy real estate but a fresh cache of virtual currency every week. Ohle also sees the opportunity for advertising where big name businesses could slap their brands on these luxury items, for a fee. “You see a lot of companies creating their own kind of brand of games online,” he adds. “What we’re doing is introducing it into our sort of broader platform.”
Empire Avenue is truly bootstrapped with only $300,000 in funding. Still, the startup has seen traction in the past couple of weeks, all through word-of-mouth. Says Ohle: “Every time we have a spike it’s because someone caught on and posted about it.”