Archives for August 2008

Saddle Club virtual world on the way

A Canadian digital entertainment company, GS New Media, have announced development of a virtual world based on The Saddle Club ™ TV show, a Canadian (Protocol Entertainment) and Australian (Crawford Productions) co-production. It’s a show targeted squarely at pre-teen kids with a heavy female slant.

Crawford Productions Pty Ltd. (Australia) and Protocol Entertainment, Inc. (Canada)
The platform for the world will be Sun Microsystems’ Project Darkstar, which can be seen here:

For a glimpse of the tween fan base for the show:

The purpose for the development is not surprising and transparently stated:

“The online tween and teen market is a hot spot for investors and advertiser alike, a result of critical user mass meeting proven subscription-based business models. More than $1 billion was invested in 2007 in virtual world companies with an additional $185 million committed in the first quarter of 2008 alone.”

GS New Media have some fairly subsantial people on board although this it’s the company’s first development of this scale.

This is the type of virtual world development (like Hello Kitty) that’s leveraging off a huge fan base. The perpetual challenge is to convert that group into devoted virtual world users. There’s plenty of failures in these developments but at this early stage you’d have to put money on some degree of success with the popularity of the franchise.

2009 is the broad launch date. I can already hear the squeals of a few hundred thousand or more tweens…

Second Life on your iPhone

…well sort of. Dynamo teen developer Katharine Berry has created an iPhone (or iPod Touch) version of her AjaxLife application.

Using it is as simple as pointing your iPhone’s web browser to http://ajaxlife.net/?iphone. Once logged in you can send and receive IM’s as well as see which of your friends are in-world.

Amazing work from a solo operator.

The seven-minute tour: fifty virtual worlds

Gary Hayes has completed a fascinating walk-through of fifty virtual worlds. It’s well worth spending the time having a look:

Montages like this emphasise the growth and potential of the virtual worlds sphere. It also emphasises the challenges around interoperability, determining appropriate levels of governance and the role of business in the mix. The only sure thing is that a significant number of the fifty featured won’t gain the critical mass or niche for longer term survival.

Over to you: how many of the fifty worlds have you participated in? I can count a dozen I’ve spent more than 10-12 hours in, and another dozen I attempted to sign up for but didn’t progress because of restrictive computer requirements. More on that later this week.

Getting help in virtual worlds.

Caledon NCI.

Dear askers of questions,

We’d love to help you out! For the most part, we enjoy answering your questions, and we don’t ask for much for ourselves, just the typical rewards you get from helping out and teaching other people: fun, learning, and a sense of responsibility and satisfaction. However, we do also require that you show a certain amount of consideration towards us, both as teachers/helpers and as fellow human beings: respect and patience are at the top of the list here.

That’s right: amazing as this may seem to you, and whether or not you view this virtual world as a game or not, the people answering your questions are just that – real people. That means that they have feelings that can be hurt, or even boosted in a pleasant way. That means that they are fallible, and not only sometimes don’t have the answers, but *gasp* may even get answers wrong on occasion. Though this is obviously somewhat disappointing, if you want this person, or any of the people they know, to help you out on another occasion, do not bag them in public, or heinously reprimand them in private. This is a great time to show that you are understanding of other people’s inabilities. Feed back the answer once you have it, in recognition of the fact that the person did take the time to talk to you and make the attempt.

Time is precious. Once time is spent, you can’t get it back, and time spent doing one thing cannot be spent on something else. Thus, the time we spend answering your question is time that we can’t spend elsewhere. This is not to say that we begrudge you the time, rather that it is important to us that you show in some way that you appreciate what we have given to you – “thank you” is a great start, but not monopolising our time in the future and giving tips should also be considered.

One more thing: patience. We need you to have patience for several things: the time it takes us to answer questions, the time it takes you to understand the answer, and the time it takes to find someone with the answer. None of these things has a fixed time-limit, and sometimes make take a considerable amount of time to complete, depending primarily on the complexity of the question.

Regards, hoping to answer many more questions in the future,

Answerers of questions in your local virtual world.

Dear answerers of questions,

Help! Help! We’re panicking here! We need help and we need it yesterday!

By the time we get to asking you folks how to do something, we’re already at our wit’s end, and are not sure where to turn next. We’ve already run out of patience and determination, we’re frustrated and want an answer now.

Often we don’t know what the question ought to be, and we’re a bit confused about how to phrase our questions – did I mention that we were frustrated and panicking? Face it, you’re not seeing us at our best right now. On top of that, we don’t have enough background information to understand quite what is going on, or we’d be able to understand both question and answer more readily, and probably be able to answer the question ourselves.

Honestly, we don’t even like to ask questions. It’s embarrassing, tantamount to admitting that we have no idea what we’re talking about, opening ourselves up to possible ridicule. One of the reasons we want that answer so fast is that we want to duck our heads back down and stop feeling vulnerable as fast as possible.

Cheers, though we hope not to have to ask anything again,

Question-askers of the virtual worlds.

Sex and Google’s Lively – the darker side

I wince sometimes at some of the stuff the Second Life Herald publishes – it’s an individual taste thing – but their expose on the darker side of Google’s Lively is well worth the read. The Herald’s Pixeleen Mistral posed as a 13-year old avatar and was subjected to some unwanted attention.

Any 3D chat experience is going to attract deviants – the challenge for Google is how they manage this.

The Watch – virtual worlds in the news

1. News.com.au – Virtual spend making real money. “Spending $26,500 on an imaginary island might sound outlandish, but it’s paid off for computer gamer David Storey who now makes $300 a day from online game Entropia. The 26-year-old Sydney student is promoting the “virtual world” game at the GO3 Electronic and Entertainment Expo at the Perth Convention Centre. His family and friends were initially sceptical when Mr Storey told them he had bought a virtual island with houses, hunting lands and a shopping centre which all existed only in cyberspace.”

2. Abilene Reporter-News (USA) – Texas State Technical College to offer certificate via Second Life. “Texas State Technical College has announced that it will become the first institute of higher education to develop a complete online certificate or degree in the virtual world, as in the fall of 2008. TSTC will offer a digital media certificate utilizing virtual world technology, using Second Life as the primary delivery method, according to a news release. Students earning the digital media certificate will have the opportunity to earn an associate degree in digital media in spring 2009.”

3. HD-Report (USA) – Sony finally starts testing ‘Home’. ““Home,” the much talked about and long delayed virtual world from Sony, began accepting applications for beta testing in Japan. 10,000 Playstation 3 users will be allowed on the beta run, but only gamers with Japanese online accounts are allowed so far.”

4. VentureBeat (USA) – Google testing “AdSense for Games” in bid to shake up in-game advertising. “Google is the sleeping giant when it comes to advertising in video games. While the company dominates search advertising, it has yet to make a big splash in video games. That could change soon, as the company has been quietly testing its “AdSense for Games” product for months.”

5. What PC? (UK) – Virtual answers to real-life ills. “Online virtual worlds are just for teenagers and twenty-somethings, right? To some extent, yes, but not entirely. Organisations are starting to explore the benefits of using virtual worlds not just to share information, hold meetings and allow employees to learn new skills, but to provide an interactive multimedia online environment to reach out to customers.”

6. Washington Post via TechCrunch (USA) – Philip Rosedale Doesn’t See Browser-Based Virtual Worlds As A Threat to Second Life. Is He In Denial? “ecently, there’s been a growing wave of startups and products appearing that are bringing 3-D virtual worlds to the browser. These include Vivaty, Google’s Lively project, and the Electric Sheep Co.’s WebFlock. And I’ve seen a few stealth companies working the same vein. None of these are as fully featured or immersive as Second Life, which requires a separate desktop client download. But it may not matter because a good-enough experience available via standard browsers may eventually qwn Second Life. Linden Lab, which operates Second Life, is working with IBM and others to make virtual worlds interoperable with each other. Still, for the most part, they don’t play nicely with the Web.”

7. Business Standard (India) – Real life Indians yet to get a Second Life. “A year ago, S Sundararaj, founder-member of the Chennai-based IT start-up Anantara Solutions, had just completed his online MBA course from U21 Global. He was under the impression that he would have to attend the convocation ceremony in Singapore where U21 Global is headquartered. However, even as he waited anxiously for the schedule, he was officially informed that he had to collect the certificate of the online university at a virtual convocation on Second Life.”

8. MarketWatch / Wall Street Journal – Manpower Inc. Celebrates First Anniversary in Second Life. “Manpower Inc. announces the worldwide celebration of the company’s one-year anniversary in Second Life. The celebration kicked-off with a multi-media convening of virtual world gurus on Manpower Island to reflect on the ways leading brands can attract a creative and diverse pool of talent and leverage virtual worlds to further real-world social responsibility programs.”

Weekend Whimsy

1. Lia & Shaun on Cinemax

2. Erin68 Frog – Boogie Beach

3. Spore Gallery created in Google Lively

Jamm for Genes

I received a press release today for an event occurring around 12 hours from now so I’ll just reproduce it in full:

Jamm for Genes – SL Benefit Concert Supporting An Australian Charity with Global Benefits

This weekend Australians will raise money for Children’s medical rsearch by holding musical events all across the country – and now in Second Life too!

The Children’s Medical Research Institute works to understand the causes and cures of childhood genetic illness to make a brighter future for children the world over. Jamm for Genes is part of the Institute’s annual Jeans for Genes fundraising drive.

For 24 hours from 5 PM Friday 1st August SL time more than 20 of SL’s best live musicians will perform at Sailors Cove Theatre with all proceeds to be donated to Jamm for Genes.

http://www.jammforgenes.org.au/
http://www.cmri.org.au/
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sailors%20Cove/237/154/22

Jamm for Genes Beginning at 5PM SLT Aug 1 and ending at 5PM SLT August 2 is a charity Live Music Event To be held at Sailors Cove Theater by Ohmy Kidd , volunteers, and his team from Friday Night at The Pocket a weekly concert showcase for over a year in SL. All are invited to and if you like you can wear your jeans in support. If you don’t have any jeans for your avatar we will have some great freebie jeans for you along with some other Australian gifts..Vegemite anyone? Join us for at least part of this wonderful 24 hour live concert in SL .

Aug 1
5PM Tpenta Vanalten
6PM Wread Writer
7PM Dexter Ihnen
8PM Artel Brando
9PM Ande Foggerty
10PM Pato Milo
11PM Army of Ignorance

Aug 2
12AM Jaggpro Mcann
1AM OhmyKidd
2AM Lacey Lohner
3AM Jackdog Snook
4AM Paisley Beebe/Freddy Halderman
5AM Phoe Nix
6AM Midnight in Canberra
7AM TBA
8AM Winston Akland
9AM Robie Bloch
10AM Luigi DiPrima
11AM Mason Thorne
12PM Raspbury Rearwin
1PM Noma Falta
2PM Freetar Tammas
3PM Cylindrian Rutabaga
4PM Ohmy Kidd

Google Lively’s creator scores keynote at VW London

As mentioned previously, we’re a media partner for the Virtual Worlds London conference. They’ve just announced that the creator of Google’s Lively, Niniane Wang, will be a keynote speaker.

A new session called FastPitch has been introduced, which allows companies to showcase their virtual worlds-related service or product. You will need to provide a submission beforehand and the best will get the stage for their pitch.

Weekly newsletter now available

Over the past few months we’ve had a number of people ask if we could supply a regular virtual worlds newsletter – we’ve now created just that. If you subscribe to it, you’ll receive all the stories published that week in a newsletter format.

To subscribe look for the section as shown above – it’s on the right hand side of our front page.

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