Virtual Doll Maker

Wizard of Oz Fan Puts Heart, Brains and Courage into Cupcake Shop

La Mesa cupcake merchant Mindy Roberts has always been “Auntie M.” And her favorite menu offering? Ruby Red Slippers.  That’s a moist red velvet cake with a creamy dollop of cherry-chip cheesecake buttercream and topped, of course, with a bright red cherry.

“All my cupcakes are named after The Wizard of Oz ,” said Roberts, who opened Auntie M’s Cupn’Cake Bakery and Gifts in July at 7406 University Ave.

“This is the true grit of the industry,” Roberts proudly says of her baked confections. “It’s shortening and sugar and butter …. It’s the real deal.”

Not surprising since Roberts has been baking since childhood. She won her first cake contest at 12, when she baked the shape of a choo-choo train.

“Of course, we didn’t have any fancy pans back in those days,” she said. “My mother had to save all the tin pans.”

Now she has all the equipment she could ever need, including her “babies”—two convection ovens that can hold about 400 cupcakes at once. To top it off, this cooker and baker also is a doll maker, a craft she’s been into for a long time as well.

“I’ve been sewing since I was 5,” she said. “I made all my own high school clothes and my prom dress ... which was a very long time ago.”

VIRTUAL REALITY: “Every time I travel, I go to the hotel website and take a virtual tour,” said Mary England , president of the La Mesa Chamber of Commerce . “That’s how I travel. That’s how I roll.”

And now that the chamber has formed a partnership with Panomatics , a virtual tour provider, that’s how many La Mesa businesses could soon be rocking online. Panomatics rep Miles Brannan says the lifelike online imagery of a particular establishment is achieved by taking two to three dozen pictures with a high-resolution camera, which are then seamlessly stitched together on the computer.

“It’s as close as you can get to a complete sphere,” said Brannan.

The virtual tour provides what the company’s co-owner Taya Pocock refers to as “informative layers,” like a menu you can flip through or a display case you can peruse. Tours also can be linked to social media and online reservation sites.

“I don’t think it’s for every business,” England said. “Taking a tour of my office probably wouldn’t be the high point of anyone’s day .... But I do think  it’s the way of the future.

Children's virtual world to reality – virtual toys, baby network ...

EMarketer latest report shows that Walt Disney, Viacom, and Warner Bros. total billions of dollars invested heavily in preparation for the virtual game world linked with the youth audience, this is a new market focus signal, means that enterprises are the network as a target audience of children and young people.

Recently, Disney spent 350 million U.S. dollars acquisition of ClubPenguin (Club Penguin), which is a virtual game for children, the company has advertised in the game is free, and this provides a promotional products company to the media and services, new ways. Disney also has two other young children in the virtual space ToontownOnline and Virtual Magic Kingdom.

In addition, Disney also plans based on the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean” and the fairy world (Disney’sFairies) related to the virtual space created. In DisneyFaireis.com where girls can design their own fairies, and their home decoration.

Warner Bros. plans to launch in early 2008, T-Works, which is an advertising program with a virtual world, users can create their own based on the cartoon image of the incarnation.

Virtual Playground

“By 2011, there will be 53% of American children and youth Internet users visit a virtual world, this figure than in 2007 increased by 24%. By 2011, there will be at least 87.1% of young people every month The last network, which in 2007 the figure was 76.4%. Overall, this year, children and adolescents accounted for 18.2% of U.S. Internet users, and in 2006 was flat. “eMarketer forecasts.

As more and more children find fun in the virtual world, companies are launching these virtual environment, marketing, advertising expenditures in these areas would improve. This virtual world is undoubtedly good news for operators, who can provide game players and brand interaction data, such as how many people visited a certain area, and how many people pass through, or used a virtual brand. The next needs to be addressed is how to interpret these data came out, the next step for enterprise marketing objectives.

Many companies are trying to figure out, which children usually appear on the virtual game is BarbieGirls.com, Webkinz, or Stardoll? According comScoreMediaMetrix data, providing a virtual world avatar flows have increased sharply since last year. The performance of which the most prominent of the two sites are BarbieGirls and Nickelodeon’sNicktropolis. To July 2007, BarbieGirls already has 1.1 million unique visitors, Nicktropolis are already 2.2 million, which launched just two games away from 4 months and 6 months.

The Dollmaker

Understanding and addressing adult sexual attraction to children, a study of paedophiles in contemporary society

Created in our image, the miniature body of the doll as subject and object

Science fiction and organization

Chasing Youth Culture and Getting it Right, How Your Business Can Profit by Tapping Today's Most Powerful Trendsetters and Tastemakers