At 12.30am Friday morning Australian time (AEDT), the SL grid will be down for more urgent maintenance. Read all the details here.
Archives for January 2009
Therapy and the metaverse
January 21, 2009 by Leave a Comment
Mark Kizelshteyn (SL: Chronos Laval) is a virtual world researcher and one of two principals at virtual worlds developer Popcha!. As part of his recent university studies he completed a paper called Therapy and The Metaverse: Second Life and The Changing Conditions of Therapy For Convalescent and Chronically Ill Users, which will be published in Washington University’s Undergraduate Research Digest – you can download the full article here.
Kizelshteyn will be discussing his work in Second Life on January 22nd between 1 and 2 pm SLT / PST (8am Friday 23rd January AEDST), with John Lester (Pathfinder Linden) launching proceedings. The venue will Popcha! headquarters. If you’d like to attend you’ll need to RSVP to Chronos Laval in Second Life. The paper itself is a useful overview of what virtual worlds like Second Life offer in regards to engagement, a sense of community and the ability to experience presence in ways that may not be feasible in real-life for people with chronic illnesses. The case study in the article (Amy the DJ) is well encapsulated and illustrates the power of the interaction in Second Life really well.
There’s no dearth of health research going on and even broad articles like this illustrate the depth of work going on. With virtual world development businesses realising the potential in the market, there’s also a growing realisation whilst that rigour in approach to development for health presences needs to mirror the discipline applied to health endeavours themselves.
Recession and virtual worlds: go real-world
January 20, 2009 by Leave a Comment
Nic Mitham at Kzero has written a interesting piece on virtual worlds and the challenges they face in the current economic climate. He pays particular attention to ‘pure-play’ worlds, which are those that aren’t linked to a real-world brand.
Pure-play worlds don’t have the relative security of a more widely known brand to leverage from and Kzero’s view is that a foray into the real-world marketing space will assist in surviving the current challenges. It’s a claim that’s hard to refute given the ever-increasing competition in the space – the paying customers (mostly parents) are more likely to feel engaged with a product they’ve eyeballed beyond the computer screen. Of course, a lot of pure-play worlds are hard pushed to maintain their cash flow for development, let alone funding real-world marketing pushes with product to back it up.
In the Australian context, Mycosm, VastPark and MyCyberTwin all fall into the category of worlds with no real-world brand awareness beyond the products they’re developing. To date, Australia has escaped the worst of the worldwide economic conditions – that’s not going to continue forever and these three platforms face some nail-biting times ahead.
Openlife currency on the way
January 16, 2009 by Leave a Comment
In another evolutionary move for Second Life alternative OpenLife, a virtual currency is on the way for the platform. February 2009 is the tentative timeline, and any Openlife resident can purchase what will be called ‘credits’ via PayPal or credit card. Only region land owners will be able to cash out credits which may concern some, but it’ll also be interesting to see what impact this has on the Openlife economy.
Arguably, region owners will be more set up to declare virtual earnings in an environment of greater scrutiny from tax officials. The availability of the currency itself should also see a boom in Openlife businesses selling virtual goods which in turn drives growth in the platform. Momentum is key for any development and Openlife at this stage have certainly maintained that.
Thanks to CyberTech News for the heads-up
Forterra release paper on enterprise virtual worlds
January 16, 2009 by 1 Comment
Virtual world developer for enterprise and government, Forterra, have released a white paper titled Recipe for Success with Enterprise Virtual Worlds.
Aside from an overview of the potential of virtual worlds in business, the cost comparisons may catch the eye of some enterprises looking at cost-cutting measures.
Additionally, an interesting case study is provided on Accenture and its initial use of Forterra’s OLIVE platform to determine the utility of the approach for its own business. The short story is that Accenture are working on a wider business case for virtual world utilisation as a money-saving proposition – in their case primarily for training and meetings.
If you’ve not heard of Accenture then you won’t be aware of what a behemoth they are in the worldwide business sphere. As a management consulting company they have more than 186 thousand employees with a revenue of over US$23 billion. If widespread adoption were to occur in a business that size, it alone would create some significant momentum in the virtual world sphere. Add to that the impact Accenture have in their consulting role – if they end up advocating enterprise virtual worlds as a legitimate business strategy, then even the more optimistic forecasts to date on adoption of the technology may start to look conservative.
You can download the full paper here – by pitching their product mid-field between teleconferencing and videoconferencing, Forterra has started to make inroads with companies of the scale of Accenture and assisted in the eventual development of a cohesive ROI case. That can only assist the wider virtual world industry in demonstrating its potential. It’s ironic that the ecomonic downturn may be the thing that helps overcome the intrinsic cynicism of business toward virtual worlds as it becomes apparent they may actually assist in business costs.
What’s your view? Is Accenture’s momentum in the area a sign of further significant growth on the horizon or just a behemoth of a company testing the waters to keep abreast of developments?
Seven top idiots of 2008
January 14, 2009 by Leave a Comment
Number One Idiot of 2008
I am a medical student currently doing a rotation in toxicology at the poison control center. Today, this woman called in very upset because she caught her little daughter eating ants. I quickly reassured her that the ants are not harmful and there would be no need to bring her daughter into the hospital. She calmed down and at the end of the conversation happened to mention that she gave her daughter some ant poison to eat in order to kill the ants.
I told her that she better bring her daughter in to the emergency room right away.
Here’s your sign, lady. Wear it with pride.
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Number Two Idiot of 2008
Early this year, some Boeing employees on the airfield decided to steal a life raft from one of the 747s. They were successful in getting it out of the plane and home. Shortly after they took it for a float on the river, they noticed a Coast Guard helicopter coming toward them. It turned out that the chopper was homing in on the emergency locater beacon that activated when the raft was inflated. They are no longer employed at Boeing.
Here’s your sign, guys. Don’t get it wet; the paint might run.
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Number Three Idiot of 2008
A man, wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America, walked into the Branch and wrote this, ‘Put all your muny in this bag.’ While standing in line, waiting to give his note to the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him write the note and might call the police before he reached the teller’s window. So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street to the Wells Fargo Bank. After waiting a few minutes in line, he handed his note to the Wells Fargo teller. She read it and, surmising from his spelling errors that he wasn’t the brightest light in the harbor, told him that she could not accept his stickup note because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip and that he would either have to fill out a Wells Far go deposit slip or go back to Bank of America.
Looking somewhat defeated, the man said, ‘OK’ and left. He was arrested a few minutes later, as he was waiting in line back at Bank of America.
Don’t bother with this guy’s sign. He probably couldn’t read it anyway.
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Number Four Idiot of 2008
A guy walked into a little corner store with a shotgun and demanded all of the cash from the cash drawer. After the cashier put the cash in a bag, the robber saw a bottle of Scotch that he wanted behind the counter on the shelf. He told the cashier to put it in the bag as well, but the cashier refused and said, ‘Because I don’t believe you are over 21.’ The robber said he was, but the clerk still refused to give it to him because she didn’t believe him. At this point, the robber took his driver’s license out of his wallet and gave it to the clerk.
The clerk looked it over and agreed that the man was in fact over 21 and she put the Scotch in the bag. The robber then ran from the store with his loot. The cashier promptly called the police and gave the name and address of the robber that she got off the license. They arrested the robber two hours later.
This guy definitely needs a sign.
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Idiot Number Five of 2008
A pair of Michigan robbers entered a record shop nervously waving revolvers.
The first one shouted, ‘Nobody move!’ When his partner moved, the startled first bandit shot him.
This guy doesn’t even deserve a sign
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Idiot Number Six of 2008
Arkansas : Seems this guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he’d just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run.
So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back knocking him unconscious. It seems the liquor store window was made of Plexi-Glass. The whole event was caught on videotape.
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Idiot Number Seven of 2008
I live in a semi-rural area (Weyauwega, Wisconsin). We recently had a new neighbor call the local township administrative office to request the removal of the Deer Crossing sign on our road.
The reason: ‘Too many deer are being hit by cars out here! – I don’t think this is a good place for them to be crossing anymore.’
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STAY ALERT! They walk among us… and they REPRODUCE…!!!
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