What the Heck is Empire Avenue?
It's the Social Media Stock Market
Empire Avenue is a new online social media game where players (members) trade - buy and sell stocks - shares of other members and grow their fictional stock portfolio. If you are familiar with other online community games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars on Facebook, Empire Avenue is sort of like those; however! one nice exception - you do not need to belong to Facebook to play.
After playing with the Empire Avenue site for a few days, I would liken it to a cross between the boardgame "Life" and a free version of E-trade, with some elements of the Twitter/Facebook social media ranking site Klout thrown in; except you will be trading shares of your own and other peoples' social media profiles. You will start the game by listing yourself on Empire Avenue, and people will (hopefull) buy your shares, and you will buy and sell shares of other players in hopes that their social media profiles increase in value.
Here's a screen shot of my "portfolio", or profile, on Empire Avenue. 
You will notice a lot of the typical social media components in the profile page - name (real or stage), location, a pic etc; plus the unique items for the EA game site, like - my stock ticker at the top with the people whose shares I bought, the status of my shares, net worth, dividends I'm paying out; in upper right-other social media sites I belong to and have linked to EA (to increase my "wealth") like twitter, FB, YouTube, Linked-In; lower-left - the blogs I have submitted to EA and were approved. All the "social media" site you belong to and add to your EmpireAvenue portfolio help determine your "social media stock value" along with your play on the EA site.
Like other online games of this genre you will earn awards or "badges" for accomplishing certain feats, or as EA calls them - Achievements. Some of them are quite honorable, some ... more dubious. Here's a few of the badges I was awarded yesterday:
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| Twitter Followers #10 | Amass Wealth! #4 | Expand ShareholderBase |
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| Sell Out | Blogger Extraordinaire | Influence Mogul! #1 |
I was awarded for connecting my twitter - about 30 badges in total - Facebook accounts, even though I am not much of a FB'er. More badges were bestowed for submitting and getting some of my blogs approved for display on EA. I earned the "SoldOut" badge for having people buy up all 10,000 shares of my IPO and in just a few hours! (-;
Other things happening on the EA site include paying and receiving dividends to/from shareholders, chatting and interacting with other players, buying luxury items - houses, cars, airplanes - and other doodads. I am simple kind of guy so I bought a bike to ride and a shack to live in, oh! and an Outhouse to ... well, you have a place to do that! ... anyway, just for starters!
If you think this sounds like fun or want to check out EA more closely, just click this link to join Empire Avenue - it's free to join and play! Also with that link you will get a bonus of 2,000e (that's the EA currency) free from me to help get you started on your way to becoming an Empire Avenue Social Stock Market Tycoon! Be sure to let me know when your IPO is released and I buy some shares in you!
Empire Avenue the Social Stock Market where you Grow your Social Capital online.
Join Empire Avenue today and get a FREE bonus - 2,000e
from me to help get you started - Cheers! MrBill (-;
