1. Wall Street Journal (USA) – Q&A: A Real Study of Virtual Worlds. “Students of Ulrike Schultze might know her better by her Second Life avatar, Uskla. That’s because the Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business professor utilizes the online game to connect to her students in an unusual way. Ms. Schultze, who teaches management and information technology, leads both an online and physical classroom — students have the option of attending either or both. But for her, Second Life goes beyond being a teaching tool. Ms. Schultze explored the avatar-self relationship with a paper she presented at the 30th International Conference on Information Systems in Phoenix back in December. With her research, funded by the National Science Foundation, she will write a series of papers that look into the different aspects of these avatar-self relationships.”
2. Nextgov (USA) – Virtual Worlds on the Rise. “In her blog on Thursday, Paulette Robinson, the assistant dean for teaching, learning and technology at the National Defense University, posted an item on Thursday about her effort to create a group in the federal government to talk about the use of virtual worlds in the federal government. It started out slow she said, but now the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds has 1,600 members – and a conference starting May 13.”
3. BizReport (USA) – InXpo’s new suite integrates social, gaming, virtual worlds. “We are witnessing an important shift in how organizations connect with their customers and their own people,” said Chris Meyer, Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing, InXpo. “By incorporating these three transformative technologies – virtual, games and social media -in our powerful virtual platform, organizations have entirely new ways to connect people, foster education and improve productivity, all within a single virtual environment.” With the suite of tools, marketers could engage the attendees of a virtual conference by placing an interactive social or gaming widget in one of the virtual rooms. Visitors then click to use the tool and can share information on the products or services through their own social networks. ”
4. CNET (USA) – Measuring the sales of virtual goods. “New data from PlaySpan, a provider of payment and monetization solutions for online games and virtual worlds, shows that digital and virtual goods purchases are going global, and that revenues can be tracked to better ascertain the size of the market. It’s estimated that virtual goods will generate $1.6 billion in the U.S. in 2010. Some predict that sales of digital goods will account for 20 percent of gaming revenue by 2011. As part of analyzing which players and geographies drive the most revenue, PlaySpan has settled on a metric of average revenue per paying user (ARPPU), similar to how mobile phone companies measure customer value.”
5. Gamasutra (USA) – Offerpal Launches Cross-Game, Cross-Platform Currency. “Social media and gaming ad company Offerpal Media announced the beta launch of GamePoints.com, a site where users earn points for taking part in offers redeemable for virtual currency in hundreds of games and different social networks. The site works similar to current systems, in which players earn free virtual currency in a specific social game by completing surveys, signing up for trial subscriptions, and taking part in other ad offers. GamePoints.com, however, adds an extra step that allows users to redeem Game Points in more than 1,500 games and apps across various social networking platforms, virtual worlds, MMOs, and other gaming sites.”
6. Brisbane Times (Australia) – Split Screen: The game of love. “On my first trip to the land of the rising sun, I couldn’t resist buying a Japanese dating game. At the time Konami was revered for Metal Gear Solid, but made more yen from dating simulations. After playing the game Forever With You, it was difficult to understand why. Your bedroom was (fittingly) your base for the game, and from here you would select icons to perform actions like schooling, working out, preening yourself in front of the mirror, and sleeping – activities presumably undertaken to make yourself more attractive to the opposite sex. Yet strangely, I could never find icons for popping pimples, getting insider tips from Cosmo or Dolly magazines, or showing off on the monkey bar in the playground. And unfortunately, when I finally summoned up the courage to use the telephone icon, my potential date sounded suspiciously like a bloke. ”
7. CNET (USA) – Class action lawsuit targets Second Life. “A number of paying users (or “residents”) of virtual world Second Life have filed a class-action lawsuit against the company and its founder, Philip Rosedale. Their complaint: The terms of virtual property ownership have changed, and residents were forced to agree to a new terms of service that eroded their ownership rights to virtual property and goods. In fact, the suit filed on April 15 claims, the promises of “ownership” were empty in the first place. Through extensive marketing, Second Life parent company Linden Lab, with Rosedale as its spokesman, “lured consumers across the United States to invest real money into (Second Life) by promising those users that they would own the virtual land and property they purchased as well as the content they created,” the terms of the suit allege.”
8. VentureBeat (USA) – Blizzard predicts biggest year ever with Starcraft II and World of Warcraft Cataclysm. “Mike Morhaime, the president of Activision Blizzard’s Blizzard Entertainment division, said the coming release of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty was the company’s “most ambitious” in history. Add to that the release of World of Warcraft Cataclysm, and the two games are going to give Blizzard a license to print money. ”We are poised to have our biggest year ever,” Morhaime said. Starcraft II launches on July 27 in 11 languages across five continents, while Cataclysm, which is an add-on pack for the World of Warcraft online game, is coming later in the year. The company made the comments on its quarterly financial call today.”
9. New York Times (USA) – Avatars Go to School, Letting Students Get a Feel for the Work World. “Even as work crews and scientists mobilized over a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, high school students in this city were hard at work cleaning up another spill — in the virtual world. Students like Christian Lopez jumped into an elaborate video game, called Spill, in which they assumed on-screen identities known as avatars to run cleanup efforts for the mayor of New City. The game, devised to help students sharpen their business acumen and skills, was rolled out in more than 750 schools across the country as part of a business contest in March and April.”
10. Telepresence Options (USA) – Beaming Into the Big Meeting. “Fallout from a recession and ash from a volcano drove more companies than ever to try videoconferencing. Once the skies clear on both fronts, will it be time to plan more business trips or will virtual meetings continue to get the job done? As a technology consultant for the IBB Consulting Group, Justin Forer of Miami takes 100 to 150 flights a year and also participates in one to four audio or video conferences a day. His answer? “I do believe you can get quite a bit done via teleconferencing” — especially things like project updates and clarifications. But when it comes to creating strategies, general brainstorming or generating new business, a trip is better, he said. He sees videoconferences as just another tool in his arsenal of business interactions.”
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