As a member of the I&T editorial team, I’m constantly inundated with new product announcements, story pitches and press releases -- with each e-mail or phone call assuring me that the product or concept in question is revolutionary, industry-changing or both. As a result, a big part of our job here at the magazine is to cut through the hype and find out what really works -- not in theory, but in practice.

Cutting through the hype is especially true when it comes to Web 2.0-type technologies. Can social networking initiatives, blogs, or wikis really benefit an insurance company or are they just buzz words that are fun to throw around at business meetings?

Even with that necessary skepticism in mind, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by a new feature in Grand Theft Auto IV: Liberty City , the controversial and obscenely popular video game that hit store shelves at the end of April. The game’s developer, Rockstar Games, has partnered with Amazon to market GTA IV’s in-game music tracks.

[If you need some background, the Grand Theft Auto series of video games are set in fairly well-developed, 3D, virtual cities. Gamers are free to accept missions or simply explore the game’s environment on their own. A gamer can quite literally hop in (or steal) a car, flip on the radio and cruise around aimlessly if they so desire.]

from Yahoo:

Advertised throughout Liberty City, the cheekily-named "ZiT" technology is built into the game's mobile phone interface system. As players cruise around the world listening to the in-game radio, they can at any point 'mark' a song by opening their phone and dialing the number ZIT-555-0100. Gamers will then receive a text message with the song and artist names, and if they're registered at the forthcoming Rockstar Games Social Club community site, they'll find an e-mail waiting in their inbox with a direct link to a custom playlist on Amazon.com. All songs tagged "ZiT" will be stored here, available for preview and purchase at Amazon's going rate of $.89-$.99 per track. Best of all, those MP3s are free of the Digital Rights Management (DRM) limitations imposed on files downloaded through Apple's iTunes store and thus can be imported into any computer or digital device with no constraints.

Needless to say, record execs are thrilled at the prospect of using GTA IV's radio to reach millions of ears and, in turn, wallets.

So what are the insurance industry implications of this innovative new distribution model? Right now, there are none. It’s one thing to market rock and hip-hop music to young adult gamers. It’s another to try and sell them insurance products.

Still, many studies suggest that the average gamer is older than conventional wisdom dictates and now that the latest generation of video game consoles practically require Internet connectivity, it wouldn’t be too big a jump to link an in-game billboard (maybe even one advertising, let’s say, auto insurance) to an actual Web site.

I’m not saying that insurers need to immediately dedicate valuable time and resources to marketing opportunities that may exist within popular video games. It’d be foolish to do so.

On the other hand though -- given the increasing popularity of the video game medium -- it’d be just as foolish to ignore them completely.

I guess the key is to separate what’s viable and what’s just hype.

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