Here are a few interesting examples of organizations using online entertainment and games:

  • Fabio Gratton and Jeff Rohwer of Incendia Health Studios are doing a lot of interesting work at the intersection of health, entertainment and the internet. Their Live With It animated series of webisodes on living with HIV is excellent, they are building an advocacy community around breast cancer to let women share their stories, they've created an online interactive television network around Hepatitis B and are working on several other similar projects. They have an interesting business model of building the content and then finding sponsors (usually pharma companies).
  • The CDC is not just in Second Life, but also in Whyville, a virtual world for children and teens ages 8-15. In support of National Influenza Vaccination Week, the CDC joined forces with Whyville in a campaign to immunize its citizens against the virtual "Why-Flu." This simulated version of influenza is transmitted by contact with other infected avatars and results in uncontrolled sneezing that interrupts the ability to chat as well as ugly red boils on the avatar's face. By purchasing a virtual vaccination, Whyville citizens are protected from this problem and learn about the importance of early vaccinations in the process. (via Ypulse)
  • Second Life and other online role-playing games like World of Warcraft and the Sims can be used to create mini-movies called machinima. Over at the GamePolitics blog, there is a post on using machinima for social change. While he focuses on issues like politics and historical events, machinima can also be used to create short videos on health issues or medical simulations (for example, this Alcoholics Anonymous meets the Matrix video or this heart murmur simulation).
  • Finally, the Games for Health website has just made 12 presentations from their September conference available on their website, with more to come including a video from the conference.

Source: http://www.social-marketing.com/blog/2006/12/online-entertainment-bits-and-bytes_01.html