Archives for February 2009

Linden Lab’s enterprise momentum

In one of the more illuminating posts on the Official Linden Blog in recent months, Linden Lab’s Director of Enterprise Marketing, Amanda van Nuys (SL: Amanda Linden), has outlined the potential uses of Second Life for business.

virtual_meeting

There’s nothing groundbreaking in the information, but it’s worth regurgitating some of her points to illustrate virtual worlds and enterprise in a wider context.

Ok, I admit it. When I first joined Linden Lab to head up Enterprise Marketing three months ago, I wasn’t 100% convinced that working in virtual worlds really works.

A refreshingly honest take and one that most people would identify with, when introduced to virtual worlds for the first time. There’s a fundamental skepticism that I come across on a daily basis – one that’s hard to combat, even with facts around virtual worlds usage and their advantages for business.

The virtual medium is extremely powerful and the ‘sense of presence’ is real—and that’s the magic ingredient that makes a meeting truly productive.

For those who inhabit virtual worlds, this is also self-evident, but it’s another aspect that’s difficult to illustrate to the business skeptic. The recent increase in awareness of virtual meetings as cost-savers may actually be the factor that overcomes the initial wariness so that the power of the solution comes through.

Ok, I’m the Marketing gal who drinks my own Kool-Aid—true. But, I’m also a believer, and if you’re not already—you will be, too. Just try it and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Of course, Linden Lab touting the power of virtual world meetings is a little like a hamburger chain espousing the health benefits of their burgers. That said, the growing evidence around the efficacy of virtual worlds for enterprise supports their case, although it continually needs to be communicated in disciplined business terms. It’s been stated repeatedly that the current economic climate may actually be beneficial for virtual worlds and the enterprise. That may be true, but only disciplined ROI arguments will fully overcome the intrinsic skepticism entrenched in the minds of most business leaders.

Victorian Bushfire support continues in Second Life

Across the Second Life grid, fundraisers continue to occur for the victims of the Victorian bushfires. Tonight I heard about a fundraiser occurring at Bringiton’s Music Hall of Fame.

bushfire_fundraiser

Australian owner Bringiton Paine is hoping to raise up to half a million Linden Dollars overnight, so if you’ve got some spare time and want to have a dance, join the party and make a donation. There were more than 40 people having a good time when I jumped in, including a significant proportion from Austria, Germany and France to name a few. Another example of grass-roots fundraising at its best.

Don’t forget there’s a growing list of Second Life vendors selling goods to raise money for the cause.

Second Life vendors: Victorian bushfire relief

lynne-bushfireAustralians and friends of Australians in Second Life have not surprisingly rallied to support the ongoing tragedy in Victoria. There’s a growing number of vendors selling goods in Second Life – a list of participating vendors is here.

The picture above is one of the many examples of goods available. If you’ve got some spare Linden Dollars, it’s another great way to show support.

Also, don’t forget our own t-shirt range on sale, with 100% of profits to the Red Cross appeal.

Thanks to Mal Burns for the heads-up.

Merged realities: events and issues for virtual worlds

1. The upcoming SBS documentary, Alter Ego, now has a (superb) theme song available for free download here.

2. An interesting Second Life event:

The annual DREAMS Community Health, Education and Art Fair will be held from February the 15th through the 28th. This will be the 5th year for the fair at Dreams.

Each year the Dreams Community Fair is provided as an outreach program to connect & educate SL residents about support groups and their services with an emphasis on health related groups.

The fair is filled with group presentations; booths of information, SL related classes, live performances, talks and more!

The ever popular “Linden Dunk Tank Day” will return and is tentatively scheduled for Friday the 20th from 2pm to 6pm SLT

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dreams/133/163/26/

3. A useful article on health education and virtual worlds was featured in a 2008 issue of Telehealth World ezine (page 8). Better late than never mentioning this.

telehealth

World of Warcraft intervention

We only feature humour intermittently, but this piece from Barely Digital is top notch:

Openlife dumps Second Life viewer support

I haven’t logged into Openlife for a few weeks, so I was unaware that support for the standard Second Life viewer has ceased. The proprietary viewer is now standard fare.

openlife_feb2008

Release 1.6.2 is the current build, and the Mac version runs like a dream for me. I’d argue its performance is zippier than the Second Life browser though it’s not without its own ability to crash. The Openlife web portal has also had some welcome further improvements.

As stated previously, this is a grid with momentum.

Avatar Dog T-Shirts: Victorian Bushfire fundraiser

avatardog_fundraiser Although there’s no shortage of fundraisers going on for the ongoing bushfire tragedy in Victoria, we want to do our own little bit to help.

For February and March, 100% of profits from the sales of the t-shirt range will go to the Red Cross Bushfire appeal. We’ve kick-started things with a donation and it’d be great to add more to the total. More than a third of our readers are from Victoria and any gesture that can assist is worth a try.

Check out the t-shirt range here – if anyone’s looking for customised wording we can set that up for orders of three t-shirts or more. We’ll report back on proceeds raised and donated at the end of March.

A very honourable mention to Crikey’s fundraiser as well, featuring the work of our t-shirt’s artist, First Dog on the Moon – there’s three great signed cartoons available for purchase there.

Best PMS Question Ever

Q: How many women with PMS does it take to change a light
bulb?




Woman’s Answer:

One!
ONLY  ONE!!!! And do you know WHY? because  no one else in this  fuck’n house knows HOW to change a fuck’n light  bulb! They don’t even know that the fuck’n bulb is BURNED OUT!!  They would sit in the dark for THREE fuck’n DAYS before they figured it  out.
And,  once they figured it out, they wouldn’t be able to find the god damned  light bulbs despite the fact that they’ve been in the SAME CABINET for the  past 17 YEARS!
But  if they did, by some miracle of God,
actually find them, 2 DAYS LATER, the  fuck’n chair they dragged to stand on to change the STUPID light bulb  would
STILL BE  IN THE SAME fuck’n SPOT!!!!! AND UNDERNEATH IT WOULD BE THE  WRAPPER THE FREAKING LIGHT BULBS CAME IN!!! BECAUSE NO FUCKER  EVER
PICKS  UP OR CARRIES
OUT  THE GARBAGE!!!! IT’S A WONDER WE HAVEN’T ALL  SUFFOCATED
FROM  THE FUCK’N PILES OF GARBAGE THAT
ARE A FOOT DEEP THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE  FUCK’N HOUSE!!

IT  WOULD TAKE AN ARMY TO CLEAN THIS PLACE!
AND DON’T  EVEN GET ME STARTED ON WHO CHANGES
THE  FUCK’N TOILET PAPER ROLL !!


I’m  sorry.
What was the  question?

The Watch – virtual worlds in the news

1. SiliconValley.com (USA) – Some startups adding muscle in tough economy. “MVU Chief Executive Cary Rosenzweig used to make his living pushing practical products such as Tide, Clorox and QuickBooks Payroll. Now he leads an Internet “virtual world” company where visitors spend actual money for something as seemingly frivolous as a new wardrobe for their digital alter egos and gifts for avatar pals. Yet IMVU recorded four consecutive quarters of record revenue in 2008, accelerating even as the economy crashed, Rosenzweig says. With the holiday season over, business was expected to slow a bit — but January delivered another uptick, he said. Why? One theory suggests that people with maxed-out credit cards were substituting low-cost shopping sprees in the virtual realm for trips to the mall.”

2. AsiaOne (SIngapore) – Romance isn’t dead, it’s online. “According to a poll of 128,000 teens, romance isn’t dead, it just went online. The poll, conducted by Habbo, the world’s largest virtual world for teenagers, revealed that 76% of respondents believed that romance is still alive and well in today’s digital age. They believe too, that taking romance online actually makes thing easier – about two-thirds, or 64% of teens polled believe that virtual winks and MSN hearts actually make it easier for young people to flirt with each other. But that doesn’t’ mean that Singapoean teens have totally dismissed seeming ‘old-fashioned’ forms of communication. More than a quarter (27%) still prefer to flirting face-to-face than going virtual.”

3. The Jakarta Post (Indonesia) – Online gaming, good for some, disastrous for many. “High school student Ade spends his days in class like any other kid, but after school he morphs into a sword-carrying warrior, fighting ogres, monsters and dragons in the fantasy world of online gaming. Ade and other online gamers have become part of the furniture at Internet cafes throughout Jakarta, which are now sprouting up around university campuses and schools.”

4. The Guardian (UK) – The Man is in your virtual world. “Maybe it’s because it’s tax time, or coming up to the end of the financial year, but several high-level government bodies are weighing in on virtual worlds. Specifically, the bodies are interested in the financial and security implications of these multi-user, networked spaces. The first report comes in from the European Network and Information and Security Agency. According to Metaverse Law, they’ve released a position paper called Virtual Worlds, Real Money: Security and Privacy in Massively-Multiplayer Online Games and Social and Corporate Virtual Worlds”.

5. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – No classification: online games legal minefield. “Video game publishers and retailers are risking hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines by illegally selling online role playing games such as World of Warcraft without age classifications. The games industry believes there is a legal loophole exempting online games that don’t have a single player component from classification requirements but this view is contradicted by the federal and state attorneys-general.”

6. MyCustomer.com (UK) – Twinity offers new forms of customer interaction. “Virtual worlds offer customers and businesses new ways of interracting online, creating innovative brand extensions and sales channels for companies, and giving customers new forms of brand experience – that’s the view of Dr Mirko Caspar, co-founder and CMO of Metaversum, the Berlin-based company behind the development of virtual online environment Twinity. Unlike the superficially similar Second Life, which many brands and organisations already have a presence in, Twinity aims to model real-world cities as virtual locations that customers can ‘walk around’ in avatar form. Its first virtual city, Berlin, is online. More cities, including London, are planned.”

7. VentureBeat (USA) – Social network hi5 aims its 60 million users at casual games. “Social network hi5 is introducing a casual games section to its site today, complete with its recently-launched virtual currency (called “Coins”) and a range of more than 40 arcade, casino, card, sports and strategy games. It’s the latest move in the company’s effort to focus on “social entertainment” — later this year, it plans to introduce instant messaging (wrapped into games, as well), avatars and eventually a full-blown virtual world.”

8. This Is London (UK) – Welcome to cyber-London. “A virtual recreation of London is attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors every day. An online version of the capital, complete with Big Ben and Marble Arch, is featured on the 3D virtual world website Second Life. The online city boasts five areas of London –— Mayfair, Kensington, Chelsea, Westminster and Hyde Park. Users who sign up free of charge can create an avatar of themselves, and can walk or fly around while interacting with other users via text or speech.”

9. VentureBeat (USA) – PlaySpan makes virtual goods transactions more convenient. “In-game commerce network PlaySpan is taking one of the hassles out of trading virtual goods. In the past, gamers had to engineer a risky drop-off inside a game world in order to trade valuable virtual goods between game characters. The gray-market system (often not sanctioned by game operators) required that player arrange to meet inside a virtual world and was also rife with fraud, as many people didn’t show up as promised.”

10. Silicon.com (UK) – Virtual meetings to ground two million airline seat. “irlines could be hit hard as workers ditch face-to-face meetings in favour of cheaper virtual link-ups.
The worldwide economic downturn will boost videoconferencing tech, according to analyst house Gartner that predicts virtual meetings will replace more than two million airline seats per year by 2012. Telepresence systems – such as Cisco’s TelePresence and HP’s Halo – use high definition video, stereo audio and purpose built videoconference suites to help make participants feel as if they are meeting in the same room as each other.”

AMAZINGLY SIMPLE HOME REMEDIES!

Avoid cutting yourself when slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop. 

Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat by using the sink. 

For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer. 

A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button. 

If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives; then you’ll be afraid to cough. 

You only need two tools in life – WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn’t move and should, use the WD -40. If it shouldn’t move and does, use the duct tape. 

If you can’t fix it with a hammer, you’ve got an electrical problem.

Previous Posts