I have been talking to the owners of dollspace.com about potentially working together.

This has led to a mild breakdown on my side due to it suddenly hitting me that I am not only NOT a teenage girl, but I know NOTHING about them. We have kicked into serious market research mode and spent half of Emma’s birthday Pot luck dinner quizzing people about online doll creation, avatars, sparkles and slideshows. It’s, like MySpace, totally beyond me.

Last night, post lack-of-concentration tantrum and pre freedom (which led to me wandering a beach in bare feet at all hours of the night and now having no voice), I made an internet doll.

I think I kinda got it.

What I am beginning to understand about teenage girls (outside of this weird fascination with growing up waaay to quickly and then offsetting that with playing with dolls online), is that they are vastly different from anyone who is NOT a teenage girl.

Usability doesn’t matter so much.

I am sad to say my doll is nude because I literally didn’t know how to dress her. I didn’t understand the wizz bang widgets that kept popping out everywhere. She is lucky to have a nose because adding her face had me stumped for 10 minutes. I am wondering if teenage girls like the fact that they have to spend the first week on the site learning the site. It makes it exclusive.

Your content is NOT king. Theirs is.

Initially I was appalled at the content on some of the websites I looked at. But then I realised the people adding it were the teenage girls. This is a boy free zone, there is no one to impress, the website owners aren’t putting words in their mouths, they come up with it on their own. I believe that the freedom to ‘own’ the website and make it theirs is key to teenage girls. You just can’t control their space. Which is probably why the hideous layouts on MySpace are so popular. No corporation told those people what their site should look like.

Girls will be girls

Despite all the media messaging, social pressure and everything else that is telling girls to grow up quick, they wont. If they LIKE dolls and fashion, they will hunt down ways to get involved in them. This actually reassures me a lot. I also like how the doll websites have dolls of all sizes and colours, big noses, small noses, weird eyes, silly expressions and everything that people tell you you shouldn’t be. (Don’t use my doll as an example, I fell into the trap of wanting a petty one). Unlike work related applications, this stuff is there for fun.

It was the first time in my life I’ve signed up for a user account and faced the fact I am too old to have my date of birth recognised. It was the first time I have played with dolls for years. And despite my embarrassment at admitting this, it was actually quite a hoot. I suspect this will become the new office fad.

Filed under internet marketing, Marketing.

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