Business in Virtual Worlds News Roundup - Sept 8-14 2008
Headlines about virtual worlds just from the past week.
I have to admit that there’s a lot of non-news news here. If you’ve been following things from one week to the next many of these stories simply read as “more of the same”.
So I’m going to violate the #1 rule of web 2.0 and advise you to just pull what you need out of this and don’t worry about spending ages on this post. Yes, I know, I should be flogged for not trying to force my readers to spend ages on my website. (You can swing by the Lab if you want.)
Anyhow, give it a quick skim, see what your eye gets drawn to, and spend a little extra time under Nerds Only - big stuff there this week.
Past weeks:
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 family, Dracula, Bubba Ho-Tep, etc etc etc… k here we go:
Business
“MySpace Meets Second Life:” Hangout.net Launches at TechCrunch Conference
A winning business concept, or just a mashup of two buzzwords? You decide:
Virtual look at real problems
A quick look at the innovative prototyping being done at the Children’s Memorial build in Second Life.
Virtual Worlds: Big Business for Kids’ Games
Whoop, look out, the mainstream is starting to notice! (Well, as mainstream as Tech News World is…)
DMCA notices in Second Life: A practical example
Tateru Nino of Massively tells the tale of this intellectual property battle in great detail.
Precious Moments Launching Precious Girls Club Virtual World, Book Series
Precious Moments, a 30-year-old figurine and collectible brand, is shifting radically toward a book series and virtual world (preciousgirlsclub.com).
Grady College Exits Second Life; Leaves Assets Behind
Note: they’re not leaving, they just realized they didn’t need to pay $200/month for an island. It’s a typical story. Building big in virtual worlds doesn’t mean you’re doing something right… in fact, often it’s the opposite.
RobotGalaxy Gets $5M+ to Build Kids Virtual World
Neat USB-linked build-your-own-robot toys that will, I guess, have a world now.
The Relevance of Relevance. Winners and losers in the kids VW space
Nic Mitham crunches some numbers. Commence arguing about his conclusions… wait for it… wait… NOW!
Mytopia Goes Mobile
Mobile is the new black.
Using the virtual world of Second Life to snag young IT talent
Adequate article as an overview, although a bit disappointing that he didn’t interview the employment agencies that use the technology.
Quick Stats: Weblin Hits 1 Million Users, 10k Downloads/Day
This week there were a few statistics like this. We really, really need a way to verify this stuff…
Ford Uses Leading-Edge Virtual Lab To Deliver Increased Comfort, Visibility And Quality
Practical use cases for CAVE technology (mentioned last week) and ROI for virtual spaces via competitive advantages.
Training and Education
Kelley School of Business, its executive education program to unveil virtual campus in Second Life
Notice the focus on executive education. We’ve done exec bootcamps in the past too, and have received some interest along those lines lately. Growth area.
Freshers get virtual look at campus life
The Dublin Institute of Technology offers a virtual campus tour. We’re very close to the point where these things are just assumed.
FableVision Developing in Poptropica
An kid’s educational world is expanding. Included here because you really should check out Poptropica as an example of incredibly well-implemented interface design.
‘Second Life’ transforms classroom
A kind of limp “I’ve already made up my mind but if we MUST discuss it..” look at how virtual worlds affect education. There’s better material out there, included just for completion’s sake.
Ethics program enters virtual world through Second Life
Specifically focused on Health Care Ethics from University’s Nevada Center for Ethics & Health Policy. Article foolishly uses the term “first”, but otherwise is a good read.
Students warp to class in Web’s ‘Second Life’
Matrix and Trek references. I… yeah.
Government and Military
Former US Secretary Of State Albright Speaks In Second Life
Topic: “the emerging global and transnational challenges of the 21st century and how the next generation of young leaders can contribute to developing innovative strategies to meet these challenges”.
Log on to virtual St. Louis
Your municipal tax dollars at work. It will be interesting to see how this gets used, going forward.
MindArk Working on Wills for Virtual Property; Swedish Government Implementing Virtual Taxes
Just what we need - more separation of “virtual” and “real”. Just tax people on revenue they see in your country’s currency in the same way you would tax any other income. Don’t over-complicate things here.
Marketing
Pratchett heads to Second Life
Themed quiz nights, special events, fancy dress competitions and a treasure hunt. These guys did their research on what works in Second Life.
Virtual Greats’ Snoop Dogg and Incredible Hulk Goods Launch in Gaia
Yet another reminder that marketers take virtual spaces seriously. The “Snoop Dogg” team are world-class, so when they move you pay attention.
Building “Virtual Worlds” for the Preschool Set with Tribal Nova
A world aimed at 3-6 year olds. Interesting thoughts here on interface design.
ESPN takes play by play to virtual world
Lots of press on this, but no screenshots or demos. Let’s reserve judgment until we see the implementation.
Gaming
Playce: A Mirror World for Games
“Mirror World” = replica of the real world. Sounds like a winning business concept. Niche markets rule! (Click the image for an artificially blown-up screenshot… nothing really released from them yet except for thumbnails.)
Motörhead Frontman Lemmy to Launch Own Private Army Inside Virtual World Entropia Universe
Every time I think Motörhead is dead they do something awesome out of the blue. You’ll remember these guys from their 1980 hit single Ace of Spades (video link).
Nerds Only
Openlife Grid Partners with RealXtend
Openlife Grid + RealXtend = extremely promising! Makes me wonder who will come out with a well-packaged “run your own connected world” system first: them, or the Linden Lab / IBM team. The race is on!
Fatfoogoo Brings Micropayments to Sun’s Project Darkstar
This is actually kind of huge. Sun’s Project Darkstar is already extremely promising, but now having commerce integrated like this… we already knew they were going to be big, but clearly we should be using words like “gigantic”.
Video: Samsung’s Mobile Immersive Virtual Outreach Navigator
Just a concept video, but a pretty cool one showing tech close to production.
[TC]2 Releases Avatar Creation Engine
They’ve scanned over 10,800 individuals from ages 18-65+ in all heights, weights, and ethnicities for use in virtual spaces. Handy!
Newbs Only
Virtual World Elevates Social Networking
ClickOn Detroit discovers There.com for the first time. Calls it a “web site”.
Corporate America sets up shop in Second Life
Mostly about CIGNA Healthcare in Colorado.
Getting up close and very personal online
A peek at the sex industry of virtual spaces.
Sociological Oddities
Nagy Gyula Galeria Launches in Second Life
This story will appeal to you if you travel in artistic circles. This is a big display of Nicolas Schöffer (1912-1992) work, who did a lot of the early “Cybernetic Art”. Check it out in SL. (SLurl)
Telstra plasters Uluru in Second Life
They built a little virtual bar and adspace next to the Uluru build - if you’re not an Aussie you might not understand the controversy, but if they tried to do that next to the real Uluru, Telstra would be in some serious legal trouble. Another story here and here.
Online Behavior Study: Racial bias in the virtual world. Who would’ve thought?
Interesting study in both There.com and Second Life.
Virtual September 11 memorials bring back memories, emotions
October 7th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Hi! Great to come across a reference to our Ethics Bytes discussion on your website “Ethics program enters virtual world through Second Life
Specifically focused on Health Care Ethics from University’s Nevada Center for Ethics & Health Policy. Article foolishly uses the term “first”, but otherwise is a good read.” I think the “first” referenced first on our campus to hold a real-virtual discussion forum. It was misleading, and I apologize for the confusion.
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