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THE MAGAZINE FOR THE NEW CREATIVE EDITION 5: 3rd AUGUST 2012 MUSIC + ART + FILM + PHOTOGRAPHY + GAMING + INNOVATION + LITERATURE
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Photograph by: Gabrielle Zoe Munoz
MODERN CREATIVE
WORLD EXCLUSIVE: CEO ANGEL MUNOZ UNVEILS THE FUTURE
COMMUNITY ETHOS
ANGEL MUNOZ TALKS PRINCIPLES BY CHRISTOPHER LAZENBY
Mass Luminosity was launched on May 2011 as a social media and technology company specializing in online community experiences. It’s currently building a global online community on Facebook with the help of companies like AMD, Cooler Master, Origin PC, PowerColor, Patriot Memory, Sapphire Technology, Corsair, Logitech and others. Mass Luminosity is also testing its own social media platform, called Just to help out those new to the online gaming community experience, can you tell us what Mass Luminosity actually does, what is an online gaming community and why do you choose this method to interact with your fan-base? Thanks for the opportunity to chat with Amaze Magazine again! This is so very exciting for us! Mass Luminosity is a community building organization, which operates almost exclusively in the social media environment. Our basic assumptions are: social media ecosystems are here to stay; humans crave real connections; and video gamers have been slow
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Gaming Tribe, which has over 17,000 active beta testers. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Mass Luminosity is managed by an experienced team of professionals inspired by the vision of one man, Angel Munoz. We interviewed Angel Munoz in our May edition of Amaze Magazine. The issue quickly became our most popular edition ever, which clearly shows the excitement that is constantly growing for the
Mass Luminosity brand, but what exactly is Mass Luminosity? What do they do, what are their goals and aspirations and what do they have up their sleeve to surprise both fans and the industry at large? Once again we have caught up with Founder and CEO, Angel Munoz to delve deeper into the identity of Mass Luminosity and to find out about their goals and exciting new projects.
“...Markets are no longer defined by political borders and imaginary regions concocted in the boardrooms of top corporations...” adopters of social media and are marginalized in this new medium. Our primary goal is to unite the gaming community at a global scale - transcending gender, age, racial, or geopolitical differences. In the process, we have raised the bar in the level of communication we have with members of our community by dissolving corporate
hierarchies and investing countless hours engaging with our followers on a one-on-one basis The term gamer used to mean someone who enjoyed board games but since video games became more popular the term has now started to change to reflect the use of modern technology such as
PCs, what do you think a gamer is?! Why are they so special when it comes to gaining interaction from your fans for the companies you work with, after all you could quite easily go to companies and interact with the general internet user, and yet you choose gamers specifically. From an evolutionary perspective our success as a species has been primarily driven by how well we’ve managed conflict, adversity, change and resources. From the early rocks and stabbing spears, we are animals that have thrived through domination of our environment by the use of technology. Video gaming, and, even more so, PC gaming, is deeply rooted in this heritage and reflects the latest evolution of our innate desire for environmental domination. There’s a unique pride and sense of power that gamers derive from dominating a game and having the latest technology for gaming. This is
part of our DNA and I believe it’s the beginning of an entire new evolution of human capacity. We choose gamers because we believe in the future of gaming, and we have successfully convinced several forward-thinking companies that they are an invaluable asset, and that their companies should endorse and support this global community because they are the very foundation of their businesses. There is a worldwide community built by Mass Luminosity that interacts with each other and with ML, why do you think it works on a global scale? When we launched Mass Luminosity last year one of the first objections we heard to our global approach was “our corporate marketing is divided in regions, therefore we prefer to reach regional markets.” We believe that kind of thinking is outdated. Markets
are no longer defined by political borders and imaginary regions concocted in the boardrooms of top corporations. There’s a new global consciousness and gamers have a unique language, mental disposition and environmental perception that are not limited to a pinned location on a map. Mass Luminosity speaks to a global audience, not because it’s fashionable, but because we believe it’s necessary. Companies, regardless of size, should be thinking globally. How do you come up with your campaigns? Is it a joint effort between the team? Or do you direct them and they follow your delegation? Essentially what does a typical day look like in the ML office? We don’t really have campaigns, we have messages. Kimberly Vizurraga, our Vice President, and I spend a lot of
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COMMUNITY ETHOS
Consequently, our fan base has been expanding quickly. For example, during the past 30 days we’ve added 100,000 new fans to Facebook and 25,000 new followers to Twitter. Keeping up with this amazing growth has created quite the frantic pace at Mass Luminosity. We are the ultimate multitaskers, one moment answering messages from our fans across the globe, to jumping on conference calls with corporations that may want to partner with us, then next to speaking to some charity that we may want to endorse, following a session
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with programmers about Gaming Tribe, to then designing the messaging and visuals for a new promotion. It requires a certain type of person to manage the chaos, but we think we are up to the task and seem to pull it off. Your partners are pretty impressive; companies such as AMD, ORIGIN PC and Cooler Master for example have chosen you to work with, why do you think this is considering you are actually a relatively new company?! Anything I say will most likely come across as self-serving, so I’ve asked representatives of the three companies that you mentioned to answer this question for you. Here are their responses: “We at AMD really appreciate the partnership we have with Mass Luminosity, and the incredible growing community we have fostered together. Their fans have been incredibly supportive and positive to our brand, the products we sell, and to our PC game partners. We think there’s a unique convergence of values - those we hold within the AMD Gaming Evolved program, and within both Mass Luminosity and Gaming Tribe.” - Peter
Ross, Manager, AMD Gaming Evolved Marketing “There’s a big difference between working company to company and working individual to individual. When I am working with Mass Luminosity I know I am working on an individual, personal relationship with Angel. After working with Angel for something like a decade I know that he is all about the power of the individual. When Angel says something is going to happen, it does. Working with Mass Luminosity has been amazing!” -Kevin Wasielewski, Co-Founder and CEO, ORIGIN PC “We have been working closely with Angel Munoz and Mass Luminosity for some time now. They have been nothing, but attentive and professional. Each campaign that we embark on typically meets or exceeds the goals that we set. Through consistently impressive results, Mass Luminosity painstakingly carved out its position as our top choice for social media campaigns and communication.” – Lulu Lin, Marketing Manager, Cooler Master Americas
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HUMAN TECHNOLOGY
time trying to understand our audience, first at a basic kinesthetic level and then to the more elevated mental predispositions. We realize that most of our followers are skeptical of corporate claims and that to earn their trust our message has to be consistent, truthful and fun. Most of our followers have realized that our use of social media imagery is very different from the norm, and that our messages can resonate at different levels. Our followers are not a burden to us, they are the very reason we exist. I think our audience knows how we feel and appreciates it because over 90% of them have recommended us to a family member or friend.
“...Most hardcore gamers are already drooling at these core specs, so explaining to them what their gaming experience will be like is superfluous...”
TURN OVER FOR THE WORLD EXCLUSIVE
HUMAN TECHNOLOGY BY MASS LUMINOSITY & ORIGIN PC WRITTEN BY CHRISTOPHER LAZENBY
In the second part of this interview we switch our attention to a pending announcement by Mass Luminosity. There were sneaky mentions of the announcement back in May when it was briefly mentioned in our original interview with Angel, but since then he has also dropped various hints on Facebook and we want to see if he’s ready to reveal more to Amaze Magazine. Can you tell us what you have been building up to for the past months? Mass Luminosity somewhat reversed the traditional business model by first creating a fan base, without a product for the public. Our motto and guiding principle was (and still is) “Bring the fun back to gaming!” And for a little over a year we have done just that, via constant promotions and giveaways for our global community. Our immediate goal was to make sure gamers actually enjoyed their gaming experiences. On the other hand we also realized we had a unique opportunity to introduce quality products
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that could resonate with the hardcore gamers that follow us. With this is in mind we launched a project to design our first product for our global audience. We started by asking companies to partner with us, and one-by-one the following companies joined us on this new endeavor: AMD, ORIGIN PC, Cooler Master, PowerColor, SAPPHIRE Technology and Patriot Memory. We then established a goal that this new product would be built to the highest standards, tested for months and priced at a fantastic price. So after seven months of design, testing and manufacturing… we are excited to announce that Mass Luminosity is launching a limited edition high-end Gaming PC, expertly crafted by ORIGIN PC and powered by AMD! What are the specs? how will this change/improve the current gaming pc experience? The intent was to give gamers and technology enthusiasts
a phenomenal out-of-the-box experience, but also allowing room for their own customizations and component additions. At the core of the system is a water-cooled expertly overclocked AMD FX-8150 Eight Core 3.6 GHz Processor Black Edition paired with a brand new PowerColor PCS+ Radeon HD 7970 3GB VORTEX II Overclocked Video Card and 16GBs of AMD Memory PC3 -12,800 1,600MHz Performance Edition. Most hardcore gamers are already drooling at these core specs, so explaining what their gaming experience will be like is superfluous. The pricing will be key on this product, what can you tell us about your pricing strategy? There are two prices that technology enthusiasts follow: first is List Price and the other is what we refer to as RLP (Real Life Price). RLP is the price gamers can purchase the components online and build the system themselves. We knew from the start we had to beat List Price by a significant margin, but know of no other
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“...We started by asking companies to partner with us, and one-by-one the following companies joined us on this new endeavor: AMD, ORIGIN PC, Cooler Master, PowerColor, SAPPHIRE Technology and Patriot Memory...” Specifications for the Mass Luminosity Edition ORIGIN PC CPU: AMD FX-8150 Eight Core 3.6Ghz Processor Black Edition w/Liquid CPU Cooling System Memory: AMD Memory PC3 - 12,800 1,600MHz 16GB Performance Edition GPU: PowerColor PCS+ Radeon HD 7970 3GB Vortex II Overclocked Video Card Motherboard: SAPPHIRE PURE Black 990FX SSD: Patriot Wildfire Solid State Drive 120GB Storage HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB Optical Drive: LG 24X CD/DVD Burner (Reads and Writes to DVD/CD) PSU: Cooler Master Silent Pro Hybrid 1050 Watts Case: CM Storm Trooper Case (Black) OS: MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Edition Mouse: CM Storm Sentinel Advance II w/ 8,200DPI Keyboard: CM Storm Trigger Mechanical Keyboard Headset: CM Storm Sirus True 5.1 Surround Sound Mousepad: CM Storm Speed-RX L Expertly overclocked processor Limited Edition Laser-etched Mass Luminosity “Human Power” logo FREE ORIGIN Maximum Protection Worldwide Shipping (Woodern Crate) One Year Part Replacement and Free Shipping Warranty with DVD image ORIGIN PC Lifetime Labor/24/7 Support
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HUMAN TECHNOLOGY
company that endeavored to build a top Gaming PC system and beat RLP.
With the support of our corporate partners we are able to sell (on a limited basis) a cutting-edge system with the latest and best technology at a price that should eliminate the question: Should I build this system myself? Of course people can still build it, but we doubt they can do so at a significantly lower price than ours. How will you manage the marketing of this new gaming pc? We’ve decided that the promotion, marketing and recommendation of this product will be left entirely to our fans and members of our community. So you won’t see any ads in fancy magazines, banners on PC hardware sites or low-budget infomercials on TV. Our fans will decide if this product is worth recommending and determine how and where to promote it. We have absolute confidence in both our product and our community. This is the first time an external company has built a gaming pc through a major brand such as Origin PC, why has this happened now, what made Mass Luminosity so special that they were the first company to do this? I think our uniqueness is the
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closeness we have with our fans. Almost 5,000 of the Mass Luminosity fans have friended me on Facebook, so I have the unique opportunity to hear about their aspirations, activities, hobbies and their preference in technology and video games.
We are not a company full of theoretical formulas about this audience; instead we live with them and relate to them on a personal basis. This is one of the reasons companies partner with us. These companies invest in us so that we can continue to communicate one-on-one with this global audience and understand their needs and product preferences. We then share the highlights of our communication with them without violating our audience’s privacy. Therefore, I think it’s natural for Mass Luminosity to have serious traction with a company like ORIGIN PC, which is motivated by the principles of quality and community. Their CEO is a huge advocate of Mass Luminosity and we appreciate their trust in launching an entire new line of co-branded PC’s, timed precisely for the back to school season. There are various companies who have helped with this project; can you explain a little more about this, how did Mass luminosity get the blessing of the companies involved to do such an ambitious project? It wasn’t so much of a blessing
but more of an integral partnership. Each of these companies: AMD, ORIGIN PC, Cooler Master, PowerColor, SAPPHIRE Technology and Patriot Memory made huge contributions to the initial launch of the system and helped us with expert advice on component selection based on their own market research and experience. Without their contribution this project would have not been able to get off the ground. All of the companies were very excited to be part of a cutting-edge system that served primarily as a response to a year of interactions with a large global community of gamers and that will be exclusively promoted on social networks by our fans. It’s the ultimate social experiment! Some of these companies may be competitors, so why would they get involved? I have to say that while I appreciate that not every PC gamer is a fan of Apple, I have admired how they have been able to get diverse companies to contribute their best components to them, and subjugate their own brands for one that has almost a cult-like following. There’s a lot of wisdom in this approach, and I believe the PC market could use some of this cult approach without the stratospheric prices that Apple demands. So we are using a similar approach, and interestingly most companies understand it and are willing to support it. We have a close
BY MASS LUMINOSITY & ORIGIN PC relationship with both our audience and our partner companies so we may be in the unique situation to launch products that may have a real impact in the marketplace. What was the motivation for Mass Luminosity to move into the market in this way? It is a big leap from handling the creation of online communities to actually developing a new limited edition gaming pc... When you are fearless and ambitious, when you believe in yourself and know your strengths, when you face the future with confidence and your soul tells you that you are different from the rest, that is when something comes through that surpasses everything else. That’s exactly where we are right now, and that’s why we’ve launched the new Mass Luminosity Edition ORIGIN PC, powered by AMD. The Human Power logo will be on every machine, can you explain more about what this means? I first conceived the “human power” icon as a visual representation of what our community was all about: a power “on” symbol with a human icon in the center. In an era where most institutions have failed us and so much seems out of our control, our symbol professes our confidence in the power of the individual to effect
positive change in their lives and in the lives of others. At first I was uncertain if our community would relate to the symbol but then we partnered with G8 Brand to introduce it in the form of a t-shirt. It was completely unexpected that months of supplies would sell out in just days; we were amazed how well our community intuitively understood its significance. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that we should laser-etch each of our PC systems with this unique symbol, and continue to build upon its relevance to our global community. There has been the hint of more to come, what else can we expect in the future? I’m going to let our Vice President, Kimberly Vizurraga, answer this question as she has a unique view of where we are going and how to get us there. Kimberly’s response: The future of Mass Luminosity is only limited by our imagination, and, fortunately for us, it is also informed by our experience. We understand that our audience has a lot of options when it comes to learning about game-related products or services, or connecting with like-minded people, so we gladly acknowledge that we have to be different in our approach. We do this by constantly challenging ourselves to operate from a position of questioning the status quo. We strive to be bold
and innovative in our interactions and attentive to every detail, from the packaging of our content and relevance of our sites, to the benefits we provide to our partners. We are always working from the premise of how can we improve the experience for our members, and what can we learn by listening to our audience. This creative process of continually re-imagining the social media experience is the foundation for all of our inspirations. As Angel mentioned, Gaming Tribe will be a new social media platform. Many of our members are registered beta testers already, but what might not be apparent is that Gaming Tribe is the actualization of our interactions with our audience. We are confident that when Gaming Tribe is fully functional it will be unlike anything else online right now; it will represent a new evolution for gamers by creatively combining product information, site and audience interactions, and exclusive membership options. It’s an exciting time for us at Mass Luminosity and we are energized by the power of our community and what we expect to accomplish together!
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