Gaia Online

Gaia Online is an English-language, anime-themed social networking and forums-based website. Gaiaonline was founded in 2003. but the name was changed to GaiaOnline.com in 2003 from go-gaia by its owner, Gaia Interactive. Gaia originally began as an anime linklist and eventually developed a small community, but, following a statement by founder Derek Liu (username "Lanzer"), the website moved towards social gaming, and eventually became a forum-based website. Today, over a million posts are made daily and it is visited by 7 million unique users each month (with over 23 million total registered users). Gaia also won the 2007 Webware 100 award in the Community category. In November 2010, Gaia laid off 15-20 of their 110 staff members. As suggested by VentureBeat, this could be due in part to the decline in ad sales since the recession. 40% of Gaia's revenue stems from advertising geared toward Gaia's target audience; 13-25 year olds. In January 2011, the company won the Mashable Best User experience Award for 2010.

Site-wide Events

Gaia holds various special events throughout the year - some are yearly, regular holiday events, while some are and Gaia-specific events which may or may not be run yearly. In the past, these have included: April Fools, Halloween, Easter, Christmas, Valentine's Day, GaiaOnline's Site Anniversary, yearly Summer festivities, and the Gaian Prom. During the majority of events, users take part in site-wide mini-games and tasks, such as carol-singing during Christmas events by visiting NPC-owned stores to eventually collect commemorative Christmas items. The 2009 Halloween event saw the introduction of the Aquarium Overseer in his human form along with his nemesis, Sentinel. During the event, users were to ally themselves with either The Overseer or Sentinel, and perform certain tasks in order combat the opposing side. Events such as these can determine storyline outcomes.

Guilds

Users can form guilds, which are clubs specially devoted to certain topics. These include hangout guilds, role playing guilds and guilds for various discussion topics. In previous years, guilds were simply run using a thread in the Guilds forum, however Gaia later expanded on this, allowing users to create private forums for guilds. Joining a guild can depend on the guidelines set by a guild captain and their crew - some may require a payment to join, others are completely free, while some may be invitation-only. Some guilds are public (viewable by everyone and anyone can post in it), private (viewable by everyone, but only members can post), and some are hidden (only viewable by members). The guild captain, vice captain(s), and crew are responsible for moderating threads within their guilds. Guilds cost 20,000 gold to create, and additional sub-forums may be purchased for 2,500 gold.

Gaia Houses

Users are able to own their own Gaia House situated in Gaia Towns. Houses are available in 3 different styles: Round, Square, or Long. To purchase a house is free, however future changes to the style of the house costs 500 gold. Users are also able to relocate their home to a different Town postcode at a cost of 1000 gold. A range of decorative furniture items can be bought from the NPC-run store, "The Faktori", such as include floor and wall tiles, tables, chairs, lamps, among others. Rare housing items can be found in Enchanted Wooden Trunks and Enchanted Golden Trunks randomly found floating across site pages.

Gaia Cars

On June 18, 2007, Gaia Online and Scion announced a partnership that allowed users to create a virtual Scion with customizable wheels, decals, fog lights, tail lights, and spoilers. Other car choices available were the fictional Possum and Musculero. The Scion tC, Scion xD, UFO and Kiki Car (which is available only with Cash) were later released, bringing the total to seven possible cars to choose from. Users can own up to 3 cars, which are stored in their Garage. Parts and decals for cars (such as paint color and antenna ornaments), as well as car bases, can be purchased from the NPC-run store, "Sam's Body and Parts". Cars are used as part of the Rally game available on the website.

Avatars

Members of Gaia Online, known as Gaians, receive a customizable avatar when they sign up. Users have the ability to customize their avatar in many ways, including skin tone, eye style and color, hair style and color, gender and attire. Numerous clothing items and accessories for avatars can be purchased from a range of NPC-run stores using the site currencies, Gaia Gold and Gaia Cash. Avatars appear next to posts in the forums and profile comments (the post itself encapsulated in a "speech bubble"), and in Gaia Towns and other environments the avatar appears as a movable character that can travel from place to place, interacting with the environment (catching bugs, shaking trees and rocks for gold, digging for buried treasure, collecting trash and flowers etc.) and other users.

Forums

Forums are the public message boards. There is a large variety of forums in which a user can post, such as forums discussing topics regarding the Gaia community and NPC story lines, forums for casual conversation and lifestyle discussions, various types of role play, general entertainment, featured games on Gaia, and artist discussions. There are also forums for users to buy and sell items, as well as a forum for user-run businesses, e.g. art commissions, and thread-bumping services. Users may make threads in almost every forum, as long as they follow each forum's guidelines.

Economy

The currency used in Gaia is known as "Gaia Gold", commonly referred to as gold. Gold is regularly distributed to users as they browse around the website, post in the forums, play games, and participate in other various events and contests; the site also rewards users every day with random gold or items from the Daily Chance. In July 2007, Gaia released another virtual currency called Gaia Cash, which can be purchased with real money; $1 USD is equivalent to 100 Gaia cash. Gaia Cash cards can be bought at Rite Aid, Wal-Mart, Target stores, 7-11, Speedway SuperAmerica, Blockbuster, and GameStop. Gaia Cash cards are offered in $10 and $25 amounts. On June 21, 2010 7-11 stopped stocking the $10 Gaia Cash cards.Gaia Cash Cards include a PIN that can be used at the website to redeem the card's Gaia Cash value. Gaia Cash can also be bought through cell phone payments, or directly from Gaia itself.

Paying Gaia users generally spend about $30 USD per month to purchase Gaia Cash which is then used to buy virtual things such as evolving, chance, collectible, and limited edition items.

AutoCash

On September 13, 2010, Gaia announced the introduction of AutoCash. AutoCash is an optional feature where GaiaOnline members can sign up to buy Gaia Cash on a reoccurring monthly schedule. The current cost per month for the feature is $10, users are given a generous amount of content for the monthly fee. AutoCash can be charged to a credit or debit card and members may also pay for the feature using a PayPal account. The service can be canceled at anytime, staying past 3 months offers users the bonues of receiving items specifically designed and made for those that continue to use the AutoCash feature. The benefits of using AutoCash include:

1000 Gaia Cash every month

200 Bonus Gaia Cash every month

An exclusive item for every 3 months of concurrent participation in the feature

10% off all Cash Shop purchases until October 31

Users can still purchase Gaia Cash via GaiaOnline and do not have to purchase Gaia Cash via the AutoCash feature. Users that sign up for the AutoCash feature will notice that any items they purchase using Gaia Cash will be frozen for 7 days. The item(s) purchased are usable but cannot be sold or gifted to other members. Currently the system that is in place is not able to determine the source of the Gaia Cash so if a user signed up for the monthly feature and also purchased Gaia Cash via another source (i.e. cash card, PayPal, on site purchase) any items bought with Gaia Cash will be frozen for 7 days.

Market

Sales within the Gaian market can be divided into four areas - Gold Shops, Cash Shops, Trade, and Marketplace.

Gold Shops: Items from these stores can be bought with Gold or Gaia Cash (most users purchase with Gold), and can range from regular store items to upmarket items. These are various NPC-run stores which sell a variety of items, such as avatar clothing and accessories, furniture for Gaia Houses, and parts for Gaia Cars. Items found in the shops can also be sold back to the shop for 50% of the shop price.

Cash Shops: Items from these stores can be purchased with Gaia Cash only. The majority of Gaia Cash sales are from La Victoire, an NPC-run store that only accepts Gaia Cash. It specializes in high-end items such as "Evolving Items", "Random Item Generators", and "Monthly Collectibles". Most items from La Victoire are continuously rotated in and out of the store. Other Cash-Only stores include "Phin Phang" (Gaia Aquarium items), and "Back Alley Bargains" (power-up items for Gaia's MMORPG, "zOMG!").

Trade: Users can trade items and gold with other users. A majority of these trades are settled in the "Gaia Exchange" forum (and its sub-forums).

Marketplace: The Marketplace is a separate area of the site for users to buy and sell items. Rather than self-auctioning an item through a thread in the Exchange forum, users can either put their item up for immediate sale with a "Buy Now" price, or leave their item for auction with a starting "Bid" price. Users can have up to 10 items for sale at once, and each item can be listed for a maximum of 14 days. The cost of this convenience is a 2% tax on all gold earned from sales.