The document reads like a bit of a eulogy, filled with memories of the golden years and happy thoughts of their achievements. This, I can accept – they’re going down and aren’t funded by anyone, so there are no stock holders to give solid explanations to. What I’m not so sure about is the blame they cast upon the “economic downturn”.

This was a world whose primary source of revenue was virtual goods, an industry that saw $1.38 Billion in investment last year. What happened?

As business began to slide, they started tinkering with the toy:

Throughout the last year and this quarter, we have fought the good fight by churning out new features and revisions as fast as we possibly could. [...] introduced a whole new suite of casual games, a completely new foundation for our user interface, improved internal efficiencies for the product, real estate, a whole new level of Community Involvement, etc, etc. On top of that, we’ve revised our first user experience several times [...]

This is a little disconcerting. While the move to get the “first user experience” right was a positive one, it should have been perfected back when they opened the world in 2003. The rest of these tweaks are just that – tweaks. Ask Blizzard what effect applying patches to World of Warcraft has on customer loyalty and new user generation.

What it comes down to is this: you can’t be a computer geek or Web 2.0 guru after the initial build of a .com. Instead, you have to be a business geek and entrepreneurial guru. Specialists built the enterprise, and now new specialists are needed to run it.

To put it another way: architects and engineers who build skyscrapers don’t busy themselves making sure the offices are leased out and a maintenance crew is taking care of the place. The reverse is also true: most landlords can’t manage a construction project.

Sure, every once in awhile these two specialties are combined in one person, but this is why there’s only one Steve Jobs and one Bill Gates. Its a very rare individual that can handle both roles.

There needs to be an understanding, now that we’ve seen the dot-com boom and bust and we’ve seen so many of these worlds rise and fall, that there’s a difference between building a company and running it. This needs to be a common understanding, out there in the open, not as a criticism of anyone’s skill but as a way of placing value on specialization.

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

Interview with Mark Kingdon, CEO, Second Life
Talking about Second Life as a business tool:

ProtonMedia Upgrades ProtoSphere
Includes 250 person auditoriums, single-port firewall traversal, and a healthy bundle of gadgets.

The Bottom Line on Second Life 2.0
My attempt at being both succinct and in-depth at the same time about the new viewer upgrade.

Events

UPCOMING: Monday, March 1st at 2pm Pacific – Anders Grondstedt, President of The Gronstedt Group, as he tells us how Schneider Electric and IBM have found a strategic planning solution in Second Life. Attend the live event here.

Virtual Fashion Offers Opportunities for Designers
Using virtual environments to launch fashion products.

Why We Sold Our Real Building and Went Totally Virtual
Presentation on the transition into using virtual environments as training and collaboration tools.

Real World Expos in Virtual Spaces
How sales were impacted by having a virtual component to a real world expo.

Training and Education

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference – March 12-13
The “big show” in education. Don’t miss it!

Problem-based learning in Second Life: new resource
University of Derby and Aston University releases “Best Practices in Virtual Worlds Teaching: A guide to using problem-based learning in Second Life”, download it here.

Government and Military

Second Life at Work
The Department of Agriculture seeks to use Second Life as a meetings and collaboration tool.

Gaming

Child’s Play Goes Virtual: CBSNews.com Visits Engage Expo Floor
See video below on CNN’s coverage of the Engage! toy fair:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Advertisers are disappointed with Sony’s virtual world as an ad platform
… because it sucks. Sorry Sony.

Health

Imagine Solutions: Transforming health care through a patient-focused delivery system
The Mayo Clinic looks at SL.

Virtual Poster Session = Green Travel
Pharma covers a global pharmaceutical firm conducting a virtual poster session in ProtoSphere.

Second Lives Clinic: demonstrating autologous stem cell transplant in Crohn’s disease
Take THAT Crohn’s disease!

Nerds

Scientific Research in Virtual Worlds
Detailing efforts in Sociology, Psychology, and Engineering. Lots of cool stuff here.

Newbs

Is ‘Virtual World’ replacing reality?
Everybody panic!!!

Misc.

Virtual worlds pose compliance risks
A fantastic breakdown of the issues surrounding communication, behavior and archiving risks in virtual worlds.

Why sales of virtual goods are soaring.
Forbes takes a look at virtual goods.

Linden Lab boss: sex isn’t the key to Second Life
PC Pro is embarrassed into thinking before typing. Kudos to Linden Lab for responding to this kind of thing; a good change in policy.

Good lord!

China’s perverse blanket censorship of the Internet was one thing – if the Chinese people want their thoughts to be controlled by a bureaucracy that’s their business. Public opinion influence and control by political entities is old news. But this is something startlingly new. This is them saying: “keep your filthy stinking money!”

Are they honestly that rich already?

Apparently China’s online games were worth over $900M in Q2 alone. So sure, maybe that’s enough… if there is such a thing as “enough” in modern economies. Still, can anyone really afford to slow down when things are moving so fast these days? Won’t this make foreign investors from a variety of industries flinch a little?

Morality (however you define it) is expensive, and it looks like they’re willing to pay the price. While I’m not entirely certain I agree with their particular philosophies, I have to admit: xenophobia in the digital age takes guts.

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out five years from now.

Who is conspicuously missing from virtual worlds?

(Answer in the comments!)

I *almost* linked one of those philosophical “trends in virtual worlds” articles this week telling is “what it all means”, but then my senses returned to me just in time. Close call!

• 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:

• FlowPlay Platform To Provide Virtual World For FanHub, More On The Way
• Acclaim Partners Exclusively With Peanut Labs

Exploring the Next Dimension of Customer Service: Three Questions for Steve Kinge at Nortel
An interesting demo of how customer contact might be enhanced using a virtual environment. The article is an interview, the video is the demo itself… but please forgive the gameshow host style voice-over…

WB.com Goes 3D With ExitReality
Good score by ExitReality. They’re very promising, and just need to do something to make the experience a little bit smoother to take it to the next level.

Microsoft Touting Success As Reaction Grid Server
Microsoft is saying they can take an OpenSim server and run it at 200% capacity for concurrent avatars. Hmm… maybe I should take another look…

Eco Gamers: Manage Energy in a Virtual World with Shaspa
While I believe I’ve linked to this energy-management software before, I just wanted to link another article to point out that the past two weeks have shown quite a bit more press about it. There’s good buzz!

Calling All Evangelists
In every company there’s one person willing to bring the big ideas forward. This is the visionary, the thought-leader that wants to bring the latest technology and business practices to their stakeholders. We call these people Corporate Evangelists. Ever think this could be you?

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

Brainband Builds Emergency Management Course Using Virtual Reality
Well, “virtual reality” in this case being Second Life, but six of one / half-dozen of the other…

Memorial University is Nationally Recognized in Canada for Excellence in Innovation using Second Life
Oh Canada!

SELEX Systems Integration Looks to Expand Innovative Training Solutions using Virtual World Technology from Forterra Systems and Ambient Performance
Catchy headline. Good news for military training. This should secure Forterra’s existing reputation of being at the forefront for this application.

Salford students clean up kitchens… in Second Life
Salford’s environmental health students get a little training in a virtual kitchen.

Government and Military

Real world laws intrude on virtual world behavior
A general overview of the Standford event on legal issues in virtual spaces.

Gaming

Metaplace Heads To Open Beta
Make your own game today!

Turbine May Bring LotRO To Xbox 360 With Microtransaction Support
A major MMO on a console. About time!

Nerds Only

Simulate Star Clusters with Second Life Mod
New ways to study the N-body problem. Yes I know I’m excited too.

Newbs Only

Are Media Companies Missing The Virtual World Mark?
Hey, they’re only NOW starting to embrace the WEB.

Sociological Oddities

Could Sadville break the internet with nakedness?
Alright look. All anybody can write about for the past solid month is LL’s new policy on adult content. I’ve had enough of it, all right? It’s not that important! Alright? Alright… let’s call this the end of it then.

Did I miss an important story? Got feedback? Leave a comment below, or email me at
info [at] calebbooker.com

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.

• 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:

• Planet Color Taps Animax For Virtual World
• Moblyng Brings Virtual Goods To Android

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

Why has Google stopped short of taking 3D content into true interactivity? (ie: virtual worlds)

(Answer in the comments!)

Happy chocolate bunny day everybody.

• 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:

• Universal Extends Successful Partnership With Vivaty
• MySoti To Sell User-Generated Virtual Shirts In PlayStation Home

The Virtual Newsroom of the American University in Cairo
They might succeed where Reuters failed in that they’re actually producing video media. We’ll see if that’s the pivotal difference.

Infringers of Dune: Dune role-players shut down by Herbert Estate. Spice keeps flowing
Publisher enforces intellectual property rights, issuing a Cease & Desist, punishing its fans (aka “customers”) and destroying a golden opportunity to engage with them. Not bright. See yesterday’s post.

Steve Case’s PayPal Rival Raises $42 Million
The project is called Revolution Money, and who knows? It could affect everyone and everything, or flop.

Amazing List of Healthcare and Science Related Virtual World Projects
Honestly this is just astounding.

Second Life in a box, now in preliminary beta
A product long overdue, glad it’s finally out.

paidContent.org – At Least Retailers Are Upbeat About The Virtual Economy
“[...] users will conduct about $450 million dollars worth of virtual transactions in Second Life this year, up 28 percent from 2008.” Wait… that’s only a 28% increase? Wow.

Events

Second Life’s Second Act: Business Teleconferencing?
BusinessInsider takes notice. Also some commentary on Linden Lab’s VP for Business Development Gene Yoon leaving the company.

Celebrate National Library Week Using Second Life
“In celebration of National Library Week, the American Library Association (ALA) will host a series of [...] events in Second Life.”

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

Towson U. study breaks on Second Life
A nice writeup from Baltimore Sun.

Inside the Smithsonian Institution’s first “virtual museum”
An in-depth look from Networkworld, although sadly no pictures.

Government and Military

Machinima Law Conference
A somewhat random name for a two-day conference at Stanford about legal issues surrounding user-generated worlds.

Virtual World Privacy Paper
One of my all-time favorite academics, Joshua Fairfield, begins a discussion on the serious and strange issues of virtual world surveillance.

Marketing

Metaversum And Virtual Italian Parks In Red Herring 100 Europe
Just a quick 2-paragraph summary of the press release. Gratz Twinity!

VIZ Bleaches There.com
Bleach fans rejoice, samurai action coming your way!

Gaming

Virtual Goods In Chinese Gaming Worth $2 Billion
Is that a big enough market for you? Personally, I’m thinking I should be taking Mandarin lessons…

Sulake Bringing Bobba To Mobiles
The “Habbo-killer” hits mobile devices. Are parents really buying kids cellphones and subscription packages that support online play?

Nerds Only

Second Life goes mobile
The cellphone revolution continues.

Outspark Expands, Creates MMO Service Platform
Oooh, new toys!

Newbs Only

What is Second Life?
Examiner.com introduces Second Life to its readership using the metaphor of a garden. The machinima is quite nice.

Second Life finding new life
A fun overview of the very stupid press Second Life has been getting. Interesting statistic: “The number of “active users” at Second Life has grown 25 percent since September of last year, while the amount of time and money spent in the virtual world has climbed by similar percentages.” If this wasn’t proof that Valleywag jumped the shark some time ago I don’t know what is, and CNET continues the compulsive nose-picking expedition.

Sociological Oddities

Artists visit virtual Second Life for real-world cash
Neat little writeup about talented artists like Cylindrian Rutabaga working in Second Life.

Did I miss an important story? Got feedback? Leave a comment below, or email me at
info [at] calebbooker.com

Are the Worlds.com lawsuits corporate suicide?

(Answer in the comments!)

Massive amounts of news for Training, Education and Events this week, and very little elsewhere with a few notable exceptions. By an interesting coincidence this weekend was the “Virtual Worlds – Best Practices in Education” conference, which people are really enjoying.

• 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:

• Rixty Partners With Coinstar To Bring Online Payments To Teens

HeroEngine Gets Massive Concurrency Update
How many users at once are we talking about? 100,000.

Mozilla, Google, And Khronos Collaborating On Standard For No-Plugin, 3D On The Web
With this number of heavy hitters in play here we might actually see something a little more successful than VRML.

Virtual world to help disabled build self esteem
Baylor College of Medicine in Houston takes recent discoveries in the use of virtual worlds in health care and applies them to a new therapy.

Three Melons Gets $600k For Unity MMO And Social Sports Game
A bit modest for that kind of project but hey, maybe they’ve leveraged something free.

Multiverse Showing Off Two Worlds To Launch This Summer And Titanic
Ah there we go, actual commercial applications visible to the public! I’ve been wondering how long they were going to go without doing this.

Events

Just a side-note here about the vBusiness Expo: I had been hoping to make a major announcement this week, but we decided to change a few things around and we’re not quite ready yet. Ultimately this will all make the expo more accessible and easier to attend, but at the moment you’ll have to wait. Sorry!

Travel Industry Seeks Socially Responsible Second Life
Press Release. “The UK corporate travel industry is this week to be told that physical meetings and conferences may not always be best…”

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.

Fundraising Conference Takes on a ‘Second Life’
Grizzard Communications Group holds a session in Second Life that gets transmitted to the real-world event Winning Strategies in Challenging Times.

‘Libraries of the Future’ debate at the Bodleian Library
Libraries have really come into their own in virtual spaces. This is worth a look.

Why Virtual Worlds Video Should Never Exceed 5mins
Preach it brother!

Training and Education

MMU to deliver film and media degree through Second Life
“Manchester Metropolitan University is set to deliver an entire module of its BA (Hons) Film and Media course through Second Life.”

Bangor medics set to sharpen skills in virtual world
More from the health care industry.

MBA Students Learn Power Systems in Second Life
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Iowa State University, and Wright State University collaborate to expose business managers and executives to Power Systems.

Hanjamaru Combines Language Education With MMORPG
Other than LanguageLab I don’t see to many doing this, despite it being an obvious match. Expect a rush of these soon, I think.

Writing center adds Second Life for online tutoring for students
More non-University based education efforts in virtual spaces.

Virtual Worlds worst practices in education: A practical example
It’s funny because it isn’t me.

Virtual learning: More than a Second Life
Training Zone covers virtual world training.

Government and Military

Linden Lab’s collective copyright conundrum
The bizarre legal issues that could only ever come up in virtual spaces.

Panopticon
I just had to link them for this quote: “The essential irony of virtual worlds is that populations seeking to build new lives away from the public eye are moving into an environment that is subject to constant surveillance.”

Marketing

Virtual Currency System In Development At Facebook
Well of course it is!

Gaming

Tough task: Designing a game about your ‘first time’
Well, it’s an interesting concept for a contest isn’t it!

Over One Million Gold Farmers In China, 70% In World of Warcraft
Neat stat. What do we do about it?

Nerds Only

Gaikai Bringing 3D MMOs To The Browser
The concept: all of the software runs on someone else’s computer, the video is streamed to your desktop, and your keystrokes are captured and sent back as if you’re on the other machine itself. I’d love to see how much something like that costs, let alone how they manage latency!

Avatar Reality Releases SDK For Blue Mars
Ah here we are, actual developments from Blue Mars! We’ve been hearing rumors about this world for awhile that made it sound like something between Entropia and SL, but there hasn’t been anything anyone can actually do with it until now. See the articles for the fancy features that lie in wait inside the SDK.

Genkii Sparkle Virtual World
iPhone owners rejoice! SL is on your phone!

Newbs Only

Creating a “Second Life”
Second Life is introduced to the Ozarks. Complete with really cheezy tv newscast.

Sociological Oddities

Draxtor Despres reports on the Gaza protests in Second Life:

Did I miss an important story? Got feedback? Leave a comment below, or email me at
info [at] calebbooker.com

This was the week of non-news news. There were more stories about nothing of significance than I have ever seen. I’ve done my best not to post any of them. I may have failed here and there. Apologies.

Oh, and for those of you who had been celebrating it on Saturday, I hope you had a happy Pi Day!

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:

• Virtual Heroes And Nortel Combine Thin, Web Client With Training And Tools Expertise
• Offerpal Media Adds Aeria Games To Managed Offer Platform
• Vindicia And Merchant E-Solutions Partner In New Payment Solution
• Stardoll Acquiring Piczo, Rebranding For Tweens

SuperSecret closes first funding round of $10 million for its virtual world
Another kids world with some unique features gains big development capital.

Worlds.com CEO: We’re ‘Absolutely’ Going To Sue Second Life And World Of Warcraft
Yes, Worlds.com is actually filing lawsuits over ownership of the concept of virtual worlds. No, Worlds.com is not making any friends anywhere on planet Earth. Yes, there are more opinions about this whole thing than you can shake a stick at… no point in augmenting the pile with mine.

Second Life: Celebrate Library Careers in Children’s Literature
The American Library Association’s (ALA) continues its investigations into virtual worlds.

Branded Virtual Goods Boost Purchase Intent By 20% Or More On Social Networks
Kind of a vague, niched statistic but the implication is Virtual Goods = Sales.

Events

“Virtual Worlds – Best Practices in Education” Conference: March 27-29, 2009
I wouldn’t normally link to an individual event, preferring to talk about the industry itself, but this should be a good one. Good luck and best wishes to the organizers!

Virtual business meetings etiquette
Not really directly about virtual worlds, but the principals hold true.

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

Second Life a tool for teaching in 3-D
University of Western Ontario does some Psych classes in SL. Nice overview at Canada.com, but I’m mostly linking it for the picture of these photogenic fellas. Smile!

Second Life brings virtual world to students
University of Nebraska-Lincoln enters SL.

Government and Military

US Rep. Kucinich blasts touring virtual reality game used for Army recruiting
Worried it glorifies killing. You know what… I gotta admit, it looks like fun.

Marketing

Hip-Hop Artist DMC Welcomes All To His Virtual World
Props go to the marketing team that wrangled this story out of NY1.

Webcam Brings 3-D to Topps Sports Cards
Ok, that’s a pretty cool gimmick. I might even buy some baseball cards this year. Haven’t done that since I was a kid!

Gaming

SOE Introducing LiveGamer RMT Service To Vanguard
So basically, you can now buy yourself the super-powerful character and equipment you always wanted with a little USD. Anybody have word on community backlash here?

Nerds Only

5 Open Source Virtual Worlds Set to Duke it Out in 2009
It’s a nerd’s paradise out there.

Hands Free 3D
A 3D camera is used as an interface for Second Life. Neat.

Newbs Only

Second Life dating- reality or fantasy?
This subject has been rehashed so often it is officially “Newbs Only” now.

Virtual dealings in Second Life pose real-life privacy risks: study
Whoops, it’s the year 2000 again and we’re all talking about this fancy dancy new “e-Commerce” stuff.

Second Life Still Gets Great Press, Even When It’s Dying
Whoops, Fast Company just confused itself with a third-rate tech blog.

Sociological Oddities

No, There Were No “Terrorists”
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) drops the whole notion of terrorists in virtual spaces. See the official report (PDF). I remember being completely baffled by all of these people warning of terrorists in virtual spaces back when it was in vogue to scream “everybody panic”! Glad its over.

paidContent.org – The New Virtual Red-Light District: Second Life Tackles Its Sex Problem
The official announcement went out this week and it’s all anyone can talk about it seems. Reasons this is a cue to sigh and roll one’s eyes:

1. Sorry, there’s a problem?
2. Isn’t this already dealt with by private islands?
3. The press won’t care that this is a “fix”. They’ll go wherever the smut is. Thanks for calling more attention to it and making it easier to find.

Did I miss an important story? Got feedback? Leave a comment below, or email me at
info [at] calebbooker.com

Even as mega-banks topple, Juan Enriquez says the big reboot is yet to come. But don’t look for it on your ballot — or in the stock exchange. It’ll come from science labs, and it promises keener bodies and minds. Our kids are going to be … different.

Seems like it’s numbers week this week. Everybody is tossing around figures relating to usage, investment, and whatever else they can think of. I’ve only linked a small number of them as it starts to all feel a bit like marketing hype rather than real information. Just remember what Mark Twain said: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

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

Moggle Raising $10M for Development Platform
Moggle is working on a platform to develop at the convergence of MMOGs, virtual worlds, and social networks. Need more? They’ll be “thee first truly end-to-end browser based online game development and delivery platform”. I still don’t get it… will need to hunt down more info here. Somebody thinks the platform is worth $10M anyhow.

IMVU Picks Up $10M in Series D Led by Best Buy Capital
Whoop, I think that’s it. Looking back over the last couple of months we’ve seen constant VC investment in virtual worlds, and with IMVU getting Series D from Best Buy Capital you can pretty much call this a “virtual worlds gold rush”. “Tough economic times” be damned, investors are seeing something in virtual worlds.

mEgo Raises $2.5M for Avatar Identity
Ok, NOW the “virtual worlds gold rush” is on.

Updated: Game and virtual world fundings top $885 million in 2008
Well, CNet says almost $600M for virtual worlds specifically, but let’s not quibble. As far as MediaPost is concerned, this means they tanked because last year had Disney buying things for almost a billion. Statistics.

Second Life Creators Purchase Startups To Push Virtual Goods Online
Mentioned this earlier in the week but thought it was worth linking this. Fun stats on virtual goods trade.

TTSL announces entry into the Virtual World
The “first Indian telecom operator to enter the popular Second Life community.”

Alcoa Using ExitReality for Collaboration
Tying its 90,000 employees spread out across 34 countries together to review prototypes. Hooray for fast prototyping!

Meetsee Simplifies Collaboration for Small Businesses
I don’t know much about it yet, but it seems to be a very basic meeting space that enables webcams and file trading. No idea how practical it is in the face of things like Qwaq, and jury’s still out on the effectiveness of 2D/2.5D interaction. Perhaps worth a closer look though. Screenshot:

Industry Leaders Predict Growth for Virtual Goods in VWM Industry Forecast
60+ executives and analysts from the virtual worlds industry are surveyed here and they predict growth. Of course, if you survey any professional from any industry they generally predict growth. Still, interesting reading FWIW.

Predicting 2009: Channel consolidation, more virtualization, less Second Life
Always good to hear differing opinions. IT pros have a bit of a history of detesting Second Life, preventing employees from logging in and telling executives there couldn’t possibly be any good reason for them to want to do something that’s so hard on the machines. Again, FWIW.

Enhance Live Events With Virtual Ones
A nicely written once-over from Web Worker Daily on enhancing your events with virtual spaces.

Training and Education

Santa Clara Law School joins Second Life to find new students
Virtual recruiting and education in virtual worlds – a match made in heaven I suppose!

Teaching gets a Second Life
The University of Western Ontario’s Psychology department starts having some fun in Second Life.

EcoBuddies Partners with PrimaryGames for Distribution
Edutainment is a hot market!

Lenovo to Train 15-20% of Sales Staff on Web.alive’s eLounge
This is a very respectable percentage to test the platform with. I’ll be interested in seeing the results.

Acklam Grange launches 3D virtual school
A private school launches a 3D space, but really I’m just into this story because of this pic of how cool these guys look in modern polarized 3D glasses. Here they are mid-rap:

Government and Military

Obama’s Is First Web 2.0 Inauguration
If you owned anything running electricity, chances are you heard all about the details of inauguration day. Bit of a contrast from when Bush had to be rushed to the White House away from an angry mob on the day of his inauguration…

U.S. Army Announces America’s Army 3
I guess it must be proving itself to be an effective recruiting tool.

Marketing

Moderne Interactive to Launch Adobe eLearning Experience in Second Life
Press release. Adobe launches a presence to promote Captivate 4 and the eLearning Suite products. Live events for the first few days, no idea if the plan is for their island to become a ghost town afterward. This is as much an ad for the marketing company, Moderne Interactive, as it is for Adobe.

Weblin Launching Virtual Goods and Layered Banners in February
Weblin, that avatars-on-every-page-you-surf-to app, is working out its monetization model. Webmasters are going to have mixed feelings about this!

Sony Electronics holds a virtual trade show
Notably not held in the Home platform, but rather in the InXpo space. Guys, if you can’t fake confidence in Home then how are the rest of us supposed to? Anyhow, interesting quote here:

Normally, Shapiro said that the company would do a road show across 15 cities, talking to 200 to 400 people at each single-day event. Shapiro guessed that the virtual trade cost less than 50 percent of a real world event, not to mention that most of the virtual trade show material can be reused.

Gaming

TechCrunch: Beta Invites For Ridemakerz Virtual World
Know any kids between 6 and 12 who like cars? This might be a fun little treat for them.

Microsoft Makes Big Cuts At Flight Sim Studio
All is not well in the land of Microsoft.

RedBedlam Boss Says Gold Farming “Inevitable”
FINALLY someone faces up to the inevitable!

Nerds Only

Meta-Mole Launching Searchable Index for Virtual Worlds
“a searchable directory of developer-submitted information on virtual worlds,” along the same lines as MMOGCHART I suppose but with user-submitted content. We’ve seen projects like these come and go over the years, but this one may have a shot. We’ll see!

IBM Demoing Sametime3D for Brainstorming in OpenSim
IBM translates Lotus Sametime into 3-space. Interesting that they’re throwing support behind OpenSim rather than that firewalled Second Life experiment they had run awhile back. Demo video:

Newbs Only

With a click of the mouse, you can have a second life
“Second Life is a website that is built on the same concept as World of Warcraft…” Yeeeeesh!

Sociological Oddities

How do Founding Fathers’ protections apply in a virtual world?
Either this is very clever, or it’s a no-brainer masquerading as a brain teaser.