Archives for January 2008

We’re starting a new weekly feature on TMJ – The Watch. It’s a roundup of 5-10 stories on virtual worlds appearing in the news over the past week. This will occur each Monday and any feedback welcome. Here’s the first week’s roundup:

1. New York Times – Web Playgrounds of the Very Young. “Forget Second Life. The real virtual world gold rush centers on the grammar-school set.”

2. FindLaw – Are Virtual-World Bank Robbery, Pickpocketing, and Runs on Banks Covered by Real-World Laws? “In answering the question whether virtual bank robbery is a real-world crime, the first important point is that it should be.”

3. The Times of India – Sex in a virtual world. “Let’s talk about sex. Oh, that’s taboo? Then, let’s talk about cybersex”.

4. Seeking Alpha – Giant Interactive: A Primer in Virtual Currency. “While Economics can be a very complex discipline, the fundamentals often boil down to one very basic truth: “Price is the natural equilibrium between supply and demand.” Price is usually denominated in a particular currency – such as the US Dollar, Japanese Yen, or even precious metals such as gold. But what happens when the currency is virtual, such as in a role playing game with “virtual” goods and services and no physical “real world” transactions taking place. Do the laws of supply and demand still apply?”

5. The Age – Networking in the virtual world. “Online social networking websites saw their ranks swell and values soar this year as everyone from moody teenagers and mellow music lovers to mate-seeking seniors joined online communities.”

6. ClickZ – Virtual World Marketing Gets Reality Check in 2007. “It was a year of ups and downs for virtual worlds, as well as the companies that jumped on the bandwagon of creating virtual advertising and branded worlds. As 2007 began, the virtual world environment Second Life was riding high on a wave of interest from users and advertisers, but as time went on, many marketers and agencies began to question the return on investment of their virtual projects.”

7. ZD Net – IBM cooks up internal virtual world for confidentiality, security. “IBM has created its own internal virtual world called Metaverse for corporate meetings and collaboration. Why not use Second Life? “If you really want to make most of these (virtual world) meetings it has to be confidential,” said IBM CIO Mark Hennessey.”