Business in Virtual Worlds News Roundup - Jan 12-18 2009
Headlines about virtual worlds just from the last week. See the archive page for past weeks.
Funny week for reposts. Last week’s stories about Levono, Multiverse, taxes and prostitutes got a lot of follow-up press this week. I’ve spared you the duplicates, and that leaves us with a very reasonable amount of news to get through. Love it when it works out!
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, my blip channel, any of the other “Jack of All Strange” stuff that I do, etc etc etc… k here we go:
Top Stories
Singapore MDA Gives $7.6M to 5 Projects, Including Fresbo and BotsLife
Looks like Singapore is aiming at being the hub of the virtual world in the next decade. Lots of VC out of there.
Nurien Raises $10M in Series A-1
More money for social networking, gaming, and virtual worlds.
Meez Merges with Pulse, Raises New Round Led by Anthem
Meez has “merged” with Pulse. This means more features, a wider reachable audience, mobile support, etc. etc..
Article One Crowdsourcing Prior Art to Challenge Worlds.com
Jargon translation: Article One Partners is spearheading an initiative to invalidate Worlds.com’s patent claim on virtual worlds and is asking for everyone’s help to do so.
RRR Launches Immersve Tool for Retail Planning and Management
I may delete this… story summary: A new tool is available in that application you can’t try unless you ask permission from the software manufacturers whose track record of virtual world marketing disasters speaks for itself. Um… ya… ? Isn’t this what Qwaq is for?
OpenLife Grid to Adopt Virtual Currency
OpenLife is a grid of independently owned servers running the freely distributed code from Linden Lab based on Second Life. Let’s hear it for ad hoc currency.
Girl Ambition Launches Tween Avatar, Games, and Video Community
Good move here, this is a largely untapped demographic beyond the simplistic dress-up-doll chat programs.
JBoss Experience 2009
A one-day event focused on enterprise-class, open source middleware. Now that’s niche.
Second Life’s Recognition as an Engineering Tool is Increasing
Wow, now this is fantastic! Matthew Traum blogs a roundup of several reports about the practical engineering applications of Second Life.
Training and Education
How do you picture yourself in a virtual world?
Research from the University of Leicester in collaboration with London South Bank University discovers something about education in virtual worlds. This gets into the nitty-gritty of how avatars are perceived and how conversations are affected as a result.
Government and Military
Virtual Peter Mandelson takes up Second Life residence
UK Labour party Business Secretary Peter Mandelson takes a trip into the virtual world. A good deal of attention is paid to the look of his avatar.
Marketing
Habbo Licences American Idol Virtual Merchandise
Well somebody had to.
Gaming
Home team admit virtual world was announced too early
Sad because it’s true. And because they were a year behind schedule.
Majesco and Cartoon Network Partner for FusionFall Retail
If every toy needs a world, so too then does every kid’s television network.
Nerds Only
AMD, OTOY Working on Supercomputer for 3D in the Cloud
Techno-jargon aside, the goal is to do all the graphics processing at the server end and stream video like this to lightweight devices:
Newbs Only
First Virtual World School
“A school in North Yorkshire, England has become the first to use the virtual world to educate students.” Oh that’s just too funny!
Sociological Oddities
When Technology Gets Creepy: Giving Birth in Second Life
GOOD LORD THERE’S A VIDEO! Ok… I’ll repost but not watch. Probably. (NSFW!!!)
Oh no I watched. Oh god.
