Gaia looking to sell?

Either Gaia Online is thinking of raising a new round, looking to sell, or they’ve just gotten tired of not getting talked about more. First CEO Craig Sherman shows up at Web 2.0 (props to Susan for getting two normally recluse companies - Club Penguin & GAIA - to show up to a panel), and then arranges for a cushy article from GigaOm.

Readers of this blog have heard about GAIA several times in passing (1, 2, more) but perhaps a bit more detail is warranted. GAIA started out as a web forum for Anime fans, and has grown into a social network/micro-economy/flash game portal juggernaut on the Internet. It’s not as immersive as Second Life, not even as “world-like” as Habbo Hotel. The best analogy is that GAIA is Neopets for anime fans. What Neopets does for virtual pet lovers as a casual semi-immersive social experience, Gaia does for anime lovers. And if anyone thinks that’s a slam on GAIA, you don’t know your Neopets (#18 most popular place for US users to spend time online).

I often use them as an example of “mega-niche” — where dominating one niche category so thoroughly can be an effective strategy of reaching the mainstream (the Lord of the Rings movies, for example). And with the number of concurrent users and activity at GAIA Online, it has effectively moved into the mainstream of what Millenials (18-24) do online.

We all know how you like the stats, so here are some that have come to light recently:

Craig: Gaia is the world’s fastest growing hangout for teens. #2 forum, a billion posts, over 1M posts yesterday, 2M monthly unique visitors. Avg simultaneous users 64k. 3x growth since May 2006. Avg minutes per session: 48, beats myspace, facebook, habbo, runescape, puzzle pirates

and

85% US users, 55% female audience, 300k users log in daily. Were doing .5m uniques a month this time last year, now doing 2.5m/mo.

Additionally - it’s practically a post-modern social network. Just look at the varied offerings and activities: virtual world (10% of users time), rate each other’s artwork and other content (7-10% total activity), play multiplayer Flash mini-games with group chat (10-15% total activity), chat on GAIA forums (30% of activity - not surprising as this was the genesis of the site).

Bing Gordon (chief creative officer at EA) where Bing said something that has stayed with me: “virtual worlds will be a rite of passage for every teenager”. The chance to interact with various types of people, to play “dress up” and experiment with different identities was (IS) just a formative part of adolescence.