Caleb Booker

Headlines about virtual worlds just from the past week.

Lots of video this week, some interesting statistics, and hype like you wouldn’t believe. I didn’t bother pointing it out most of the time, I’ll just let you play “spot the hype” on your own.

UPDATE: I’ve added direct download links for the videos.

Past weeks:

• Sept 15-21 2008
• Sept 8-14 2008
• Sept 1-7 2008
• Aug 25-31 2008
• Aug 18-24 2008
• Aug 11-17 2008

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, turtles, dogs, cats, etc etc etc… k here we go:

Business

Video: Disney Online’s Steve Parkis’ Keynote at VW Expo
Steve Parkis is Disney Online’s Senior Vice President. If you’ve been following the weekly headlines I don’t have to tell you that Disney does this stuff right. Download here (128Mb). Sadly it’s on Veoh which requires a software download to watch the entire thing streamed live, but you can still see a preview:
[UPDATE] - I had to remove these videos as they automatically play and the Veoh player doesn’t give you the option NOT to have that happen. Sorry.

Business, and Startups, in Second Life
A well-written overview of entrepreneurship in Second Life.

Real Life will Trump Second Life, Microsoft Says
Microsoft made a good flight sim in the 90’s and make a neat photo-stitching tool now, but past that their expertise in this arena is largely unproven. Grain of salt.

Forrester: Consumer Virtual Worlds on the Mend
Long story short: virtual worlds are making money.

Digital prototypes help university team get $550k+ in technology funding
3D digital mockups pave the way to >$550,000 in funding for motion capture studios

An Unreal Financial Crisis
An examination of economic forces in the real world influencing virtual economics. Quick stats:

1. The average spent per square meter to acquire virtual land in Second Life has declined from 1.9809 in August to 1.8378 month-to-date in September. (As expressed in the virtual Linden Dollar, Second Life’s virtual currency.)
2. User-to-user transactions fell year-over-year in both the first and second quarters of 2008.
3. The average exchange rate for the Linden dollar fell from 267.4 in July to 266.8 in August. Not exactly the sort of freefall we’ve witnessed with the U.S. dollar, but not great, either.

A Whole New Dimension In Shopping
More of a speculative piece about the future of shopping, but it does give quick overviews of v-world efforts from Nissan, Sony BMG, Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Amazon.com and IBM. They packed a lot into this little one-page article!

Trion Gets $70M in Series C
More money for Trion to make a game and a virtual world tv-show tie in.

Training and Education

College touts site’s educational opportunities
Ridgewater College jumps in. Welcome!

HHIH student do business in a virtual world
Hilton Head Island High School offers a class called Virtual Enterprise, teaching students to open and run businesses. Very practical.

Huntington Junior College Raises Distance Ed Retention with Second Life Mash-up
Press release on Huntington Junior College’s latest v-world efforts.

Government and Military

Second Life at Labour conference
Labour Party meets in Second Life. The event was hosted by Microsoft and the Social Market Foundation.

Armed Services Train in Virtual World
A really good look at some of the efforts at using simulators for military training in a variety of applications.

Missouri Hires First Employee from Second Life
More development of recruiting and human resources from virtual spaces.

Marketing

Kraftwerk, Second Life and Oskar Schindler’s factory
Band promotion using video feeds broadcast into v-world replicas of the venue. (Download here.)

Marketing’s Evolution in Gaia
More about new marketing efforts in the teen-focused world of Gaia. (See last week’s story about Snoop Dogg).

NPD: Girls Move from Toys to Games and Virtual Worlds as They Grow
Implying trends here seems a little too ambitious. V-worlds for young girls are a relatively new thing, so there’s little to no historical data to work with. Regardless, some interesting stats on the way things are at the moment.

Gaming

Over 50% of PayByCash Payments from Ultimate Game Card
Well now, there’s a statistic. Over half of PayByCash’s business (a Paypal competitor) is the result of a gaming card. Think maybe it’s time to take a serious look at games now?

Virtual ads move to greener fields in online gaming
Conclusions about Second Life are way off here, but some good points are made about game-based ads.

Nerds Only

Changing The Way Second Life Works
A new device is launched that makes it possible to sell files (delivered via email) from a vendor inside Second Life.

Video: Sibley Verbeck’s VW Expo Opening State of the Industry Address
Sibley Verbeck is CEO of one of my favorite virtual world companies: The Electric Sheep Company. “State of the Industry” addresses, however, are nerds only. Download here (39Mb). Sadly it’s on Veoh which requires a software download to watch the entire thing streamed live, but you can still see a preview:
[UPDATE] - I had to remove these videos as they automatically play and the Veoh player doesn’t give you the option NOT to have that happen. Sorry.

An Avatar’s Bill of Rights
Legal and techno geeks will love this one. Intellectual property rights, interoperability as a fundamental need, privacy, and authentication - a virtual smorgasborg of nerdy debatable topics.

Vuzix VR920 Software Update Brings Second Life to Life, Supports 8 New Titles
Virtual reality headset gets a big update making it compatible with a bunch of existing software titles.

Philip Rosedale: Interview and Expert Reactions
Interviews with Philip Rosedale are for fanboys and nerds only. It’s typically v-world design philosophy that could be so endlessly debated and only really applies to the instance it refers to: Second Life. Metanomics’ infomercial format doesn’t really lend itself to hard answers for tough questions, but if you’re looking for micro-celebs to gawk at or want a very general idea of what’s going on at Linden Lab, tomorrow’s interview might be for you.

Newbs Only

Second Life’s Popularity Rests On Breadth Of Activities
So, wait, what do people actually DO in Second Life? Here are a few examples.

Launching Ideas on the Cheap (Virtually)
Someone at MSNBC discovers virtual goods entrepreneurship.

Sociological Oddities

An ‘Unmarried’ guy, circa 1988
Sitcom about a guy who can only talk to girls via Second Life, but whose plotlines are stolen from the 80s. Like every other sitcom.

IOL Islamic Fashion Show in Second Life
Great photo gallery here of robes and face coverings.

Posted on September 28th, 2008 under new media, press. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.