Doppelganger: Gets real with $11 million

"Partying online with artists, brands, users and celeberities. This is Doppelganger --a seeming next generation mashup of Facebook and SecondLife which is trying to combine TV, video game and music entertainment with social networking. Its goal is to immersively interact with users focused on animation and visual scenery making it possible for brands and media partners to connect with its influential teen demographic through a rich online virtual social entertainment environment. The company's new $11 million round of financing continues to prove that virtual worlds are becoming even bigger business on the Internet.

"Doppelganger is particularly intriguing because it is one of the first companies to build programmed virtual worlds for the teen demographic that are not only designed to provide intensive user engagement and emotional connections, but also are built from the ground up to support the promotion and sale of both virtual and real world goods. In contrast to SecondLife, Doppelganger controls everything that exists in the world -- allowing Doppelganger to protect brands, thus making the site more inviting to sponsors. Couple the average session length on the site at 77 minutes per user session with its three distinct marketing solutions -- Open-Up Shop, Programming Sponsorships and Game-Play Sponsorships opportunities -- and it will be hard for brands targeting the niche teen demographic to pass up having a presence on this growing online environment."

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Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.