Caleb Booker

These are some headlines just from the past week about business activity in virtual worlds. This will appear here weekly.

All of the promotional work being done in kid/teen worlds is cut out, so apologies to everyone looking for justification for spending eight hours a day playing with digital paper dolls. I have, however, included notes from higher education facilities because most of what they do can apply directly to business use. My summary and commentary follows each link.

Disclaimer: As with everything on my blog, the opinions expressed here are mine and do not reflect on Clever Zebra, the vBusiness Expo, my friends, my local book club, the guy I bought my car from, the people who make that shampoo I like, etc etc etc… k here we go:

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Virtual Applications Reach Out To Real World
Automotive designers and architects rejoice: hot new tools make your life easier!

Virtual fund-raising
Fund-raising from within a virtual world is nothing new, but this is a good rundown of a recent example.

Presidential hopefuls struggle to ply real politics in virtual world of ‘Second Life’
Summary: politicians don’t understand technology. Shocking, I know. For some reason about 10 papers carried this story this week. (Here’s another one.) Somebody’s spin doctor is cooking up something here…

Jacksonville.com – first online newspaper site to add virtual world
… well, as long as you don’t count CNN, Reuters, CNet, PRNewswire, etc etc etc…

Second Life Bluesman Gets First-Life Recording Contract
Also this week,
Sellaband, Running Strong, Takes on Major Label A&R
Considering how huge the live entertainment business is in Second Life, it’s about time these guys caught on!

Virtual Worlds Training for Corporate Leaders
Warning: it’s a press release. But hey, it’s nice to see another one out there joining the ranks of corporate trainers in virtual worlds. Welcome AHG!

Virtual reality goggles for simpler, more accurate eye tests
Those who have had an eye test recently can identify with this. The whole laborious “better… or worse?” procedure at the optometrist could be vastly improved.

Tampax and McDonald’s build advertising worlds, among about a dozen others I didn’t keep track of…

Accenture Recruiting in Second Life Paid for Itself
Talent scouting in virtual worlds has been batting 1.000 so far… I haven’t heard one negative story on this topic yet.

IBM Launches Eco Data Center in Second Life
In addition to the dozens of other things they’re doing in virtual worlds, they’re now also promoting their green initiatives. Worth a gander for the eco-minded.

LivePlace Is a Virtual World Rendered Server-Side, Streamed To Any Device
Geeky hotness: extreme graphics that run on your old rusty computer or cellphone. Check out the video:
Universities running in Second Life
I’m not sure what happened, but this week everyone seems to have suddenly noticed that Universities are heavy, heavy virtual world users.
See also: Virtual world may render college road trips useless

Q&A: Sears CMO Richard Gerstein on Marketing Across the Metaverse
Sears is pushing big cash into virtual world marketing. Worth a peek if you’re interested in finding out why.

Tribal Media Integrates OpenSim with Facebook
Second Life + Facebook = Nerd Heaven.

SLim to Bring Thing Client to Second Life; Avatars Also to Get Phone Numbers
In other geek news, Second Life is getting a lighter IM client that works around firewalls and integrating telephony.

Xenki Brings OpenSim and Second Life to the Browser
Geek trifecta: some guys figure out how to run Second Life in your web browser.

NACOL Announces Special Webinar Series: ‘This is Second Life!’
An education-focused lecture on using virtual spaces. Odd use of a made-up acronym “M.U.V.E.” for Multi-User Virtual Environment. Mileage may vary.

TORC at University of Houston turns to virtual world of Second Life for new study
Texas Obesity Research Centre is seeing if they can effectively treat obesity through educational and role-playing sessions in virtual worlds.

Gartner Locates Virtual Worlds in Trough of Disillusionment; Mainstream within 5 Years
Summary: we’re on the edge of real growth and solid application of virtual spaces. Look: a fancy chart!

3-D Virtual ER Simulator Challenges Tacoma Community College Nursing Students
Better to practice this stuff on a virtual patient, I think. This type of rehearsal really works, by the way: people walk into the real-world emergency situation much better prepared than if they had just memorized a procedure.

NPL`s second life
National Physical Laboratory builds a 3D satellite for people to wander around and critique.

Stuff I Missed

Every week there will be a few things that I missed that were really worth mentioning. Here are a few that really stood out:

How Real Are Virtual Meetings?
Verdict: Real? Perhaps. Productive, useful and cost-effective? Definitely.

15-20% of Second Life Activity is for Work or Education
That number is low, but at least it’s there in black-and-white. Captain Obvious is quoted here as saying: “Inworld collaboration is going to be a killer application.”

Posted on August 17th, 2008 under news. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.