3pointD.com

If you can navigate MTV’s Web site, sign up for its new Virtual Pimp My Ride and start pimpin’. The network is giving away a pimped-out 2007 Ford Mustang as part of a show-off challenge in the new gearhead corner of its virtual world. All you have to do is log on (a feat in itself; see below), do your best to pimp out a virtual ride, and send a screenshot to vMTV (at Glinka [at] vlb.there.com) by the morning of April 20th. Members will be able to vote on the best pimped-out cars throughout the week, and the top ten will be shown off on April 26th. The single finalist from this phase of the competition will “get to compete” for a 2007 Mustang, though there’s no indication of what exactly that means. Good luck.

[NOTE: I was all set to quietly blog this competition, but I’ve found the Virtual MTV Web sites so frustrating that I need to mention it here. When I went to log into Virtual Laguna Beach, MTV’s first virtual world, I’d forgotten my password and the email address I’d used to sign up for the site. That meant there was no way to retrieve my information, but it was my bad. However, I found it nearly impossible to sign up for a new avatar in Virtual Pimp My Ride. Many of the links on the Web page are broken. Anyway, there’s no “sign up” link, only a “download” link. I dutifully downloaded the Virtual MTV application, but was disappointed to find that it left my old Virtual Laguna Beach app on my hard drive. And when I clicked the “Don’t have an account yet? Click here to register” link in the app’s sign-in window, guess what happened: Nothing. (To create a new account, you have to go to the original VLB page, www.vlb.mtv.com, for some reason. Don’t look for a link to it on the PMR Central page, though. Not even the MTV Central page has an indication of how to sign up.)

MTV should know better than to make me download a 67MB application before letting me sign up for the service — and then not letting me sign up for it. I was also frustrated to find that teleport links on the Web site don’t do anything at all, and others lead only to a blank screen. Plus, you can’t use VLB with Firefox. I’m a huge fan of what MTV is doing, but I find this state of affairs pretty disappointing. In fact, I’m baffled by the fact that MTV can’t create a clear and helpful site. And I’m not the only one. Check out the comments on my original blog post about VLB. It shouldn’t take me or anyone else more than one or two clicks to sign up for a new account from anywhere in the site. And those URLs are ridiculous. http://content.vlb.mtv.com? I can’t even remember them, let alone tell my friends where to go. It’s amazing that VLB has seen as many sign-ups as it has. I hate writing a call it like I see it post like this, and I’m still a huge fan of vMTV in general, but it had to be said.]