Business in Virtual Worlds News – May 4-10 2009
This week’s Big Question:
Just how far will virtual goods go? How much influence on the real world economy are they really going to have?
(Answer in the comments!)
What’s really struck me this week is how good the Linden Lab company blogs are. Honestly these are real quality things, philosophy-free and entirely focused on practical examples that really show what can be done. Companies from all industries could learn a thing or two here.
Oh, in other news: I killed the Marketing category for now. It was too prone to idle philosophy and advertorials.
Important links:
- Archive page of past weeks of Business in Virtual Worlds News
- Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Blip.fm, or in Second Life as Onder Skall
- Suggest stories at info [at] calebbooker.com
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
New partnerships and collaborations:
Amazing Worlds, Ascendas Showcasing Real Properties In Mirror World
“Amazing Worlds announced today that it had signed a deal with Ascendas, a business space provider in Asia, to bring the latter’s properties into its mirror world.”
Sony Pictures loots Home virtual world
Despite Sony’s best efforts, a skunkworks project inside the company has conspired to put something in Home that’s actually worth doing.
App And Avatar Creator FUHU Gets $6.5M And Distribution
Millions in funding for an avatar creator… kind of like a virtual baseball card about you.
Musician creates stunning, information-rich virtual world
Very much worth reading; a great example of how virtual spaces help organize large amounts of data. (Shockingly this is from itbusiness.ca… thought they had a strict “virtual worlds are prolly ungood” policy!)
Events
Want to Hold a Virtual Event of Your Own?
Clever Zebra offers event support and white-label services for anyone interested in a branded gathering in a virtual space. Everything from venue setup and hosting to VIP orientation to speaker coordination.
Training and Education
A Big First: Case Western Reserve is first Edu on Standalone Version of Second Life
The main benefit: language studies can be enjoyed with both teens and adults.
Announcing our newest education case study – The Open University
A unique take on distance learning.
Social Work Heads into Cyberspace
The University at Buffalo School of Social Work goes virtual.
UA classes go virtual
The University of Arizona joins the virtual fray.
Government and Military
FTC Reporting To Congress On Virtual Worlds, Kids, And Explicit Content
Fasten your seatbelts kids, its going to be a bumpy ride.
Milwaukee Launches Mirror Environment For Planning, Tourism
This is becoming almost common now!
Taser International vs Linden Lab: Lawsuit dropped!
Aw that’s too bad, I was looking forward to months and months of justified griping about Taser.
EFF Agrees That Copyright In Second Life Is A Mess
Ya think?
Gaming
iOpener Enabled Real-Time gaming with Moritz Racing
‘Virtual world’ to teach life skills to young people
This comes via the London Borough of Sutton.
No Earnout For Club Penguin Founders In ’08; Still Have Shot At $175 Million
Ouch, that hurts! Disney promised the founders of Club Penguin an additional $350 Million if they hit an earnings target, and it looks like it was missed.
Nerds Only
OpenSim reaches 95% compatibility with Second Life
OpenSim is getting there, but the real news will be when we start seeing the creative community putting down roots here. That’s when you’ll know it’s going to stick.
Newbs Only
Rumors Of Second Life’s Failure Are Just Lousy Journalism
Thanks Mitch.
Sociological Oddities
Nielsen Quick Stat: Second Life 2nd Top PC Game Title In March
The full top ten of PC game titles for March, ordered by the percentage of total minutes played, is as follows:
1) World of Warcraft (46.7%)
2) Second Life (3.2%)
3) Dark Messiah of Might & Magic (3.0%)
4) Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword (2.7%)
5) Bookworm (2.3%)
6) Half-Life 2 (2.2%)
7) Civilization IV (2.1%)
8 ) Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (1.7%)
9) Chessmaster Challenge (1.7%)
10) Starcraft (1.7%)
Well you know statistics, they don’t always mean anything. Still, perhaps between this and Mitch’s article above we’ve identified something here: that all of these people we’ve been finding every week that say “Second Life is dead” have been suffering from some kind of sociological disorder. What’s been going on here?
Did I miss an important story? Got feedback? Leave a comment below, or email me at
info [at] calebbooker.com