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June 7, 2007

Opportunity Fading: Why The New Second Life Offers Less for Business
Those following virtual worlds have probably heard about recent “changes” to Linden Lab’s position in regards to how they - or supposedly their residents - will police Second Life to make it “safe, together” (Link). While I’ve been involved in the debates, there is a separate opinion I’ve formed regarding what’s occurred that I consider worth mentioning here: the less like the Internet Second Life becomes, the less reason there is for a company to stake a claim inside it.

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May 1, 2007

Mattel Launches Barbie Girls
Mattel launched Barbie Girls, a "virtual world" that "will allow children to create their own virtual characters, design their own room and try on clothes at a cyber mall." (Forbes.) In the same article, a company exec is quoted saying it's "the first global online virtual world exclusively for girls". The cool part is that "the doll-inspired handheld portable device will be available in July at an expected retail cost of $59.99. It is designed to unlock even more content and activities on BarbieGirls.com, like adopting a virtual pet and buying clothes using virtual money."

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April 18, 2007

Endemol Takes Its Shows To 3D


Apparently inspired by the successes of MTV's Virtual Laguna Beach and its own Big Brother show set in Second Life, Endemol is teaming up with EA to build Virtual Me (virtualme.com redirects to EA press room), a virtual world that will allow "avatars to compete in online versions of Deal or No Deal, Fame Academy and Big Brother." Coming soon.

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April 2, 2007

Conference Notes From Virtual Worlds 2007

by: Karl Long

An old friend and colleague just sent me these notes he had written up for the Virtual Worlds 2007 conference that just took place in NY.

main point being there is a lot of stuff happening out there and SecondLife is just one player.

DEFINING QUOTES:
“We are at the silent movie stage.”
“This is one freaky, geeky 21st century we are moving into.”
“A lot of this is going to happen and a lot of it is not going to happen.”

 

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March 30, 2007

Virtual Earth As Gaming, IM Platform
CNet reporting on ETech: "Microsoft executives are also holding regular discussions on where to take Virtual Earth in the realms of entertainment, gaming and commerce, according to Curlander. For example, Microsoft might open up the software so developers can create games for the Xbox 360 out of Virtual Earth.

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March 29, 2007

List of Brands in Second Life
nspired by KZero's map of brand presence in Second Life, I thought about compiling a more usable list with SL URLs and everything, but then I found a fairly complete one over at SL Business Communicators wiki. Instead, I flew around the world and took a few snapshots of islands I hadn't seen before.

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March 16, 2007

Terra Nova: Virtual Words History
A new-ish Terra Nova article brought me to an older one that I had missed, in the December rush. The articles are interesting both in themselves and in that that they provide a collection of links that one might want to check out, if they were interested in the subject. Go read!

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March 10, 2007

Oh, WoW...

We all know World of Warcraft, right? It's all over the internet so chances are, even if you never played a MMO in your life, you still heard about it. It's that game that gets people hooked faster than you can blink. Of course, as with any big thing, it has its detractors, still, the game has alot to offer to alot of different categories. Yes, the quests are dull and repetitive, yes, roleplaying (in the purist meaning of the word) is all but rubbish for the most part, yet somehow, the game's mix has the certain je ne sais quoi that fascinates. Mind you, I only say 'je ne sais quoi' as a figure of speech, the game has been debated and analyzed in more articles than you'd ever want to read. Eitherway, Warcraft's not the only thing I want to talk about, but I'll just use it at a start point for a few musings on MMOs and such. And if that doesn't appeal to you, there's screenshots!

 

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Me, as seen on www.uglybatriders.com 

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January 25, 2007

Rumor: Google Planning Virtual World
For the record: Blogs today are widely broadcasting a rumor "from an academic who heard through the PhD grapevine" and passed on by a VC that Google is putting together pieces to create a SL-like virtual world based on Google Earth. You've heard it all back in May. It makes more sense now that another rumor has it that Google is shopping for a ad-to-games serving company. ZDNet blog warns, "I'd be careful not to pay too much attention to a rumor put out by a partner in the VC firm that owns a substantial stake in Second Life — any news of Google creating its own virtual world is sure to drive up acquisition interest in Second Life from the search giant's competitors."

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January 23, 2007

BBC Launching A Virtual World For Kids
CBBC, the channel for 7-12 year olds, said it would allow digitally literate children the access to characters and resources they had come to expect.
Those building CBBC World said the emphasis would be on safety and responsibility, with no chatrooms or facilities for building new parts of the virtual world.

BBC article

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January 22, 2007

Study: Brands in Virtual Laguna Beach
"MTV's 4-month-old virtual world has been testing advertiser integrations with Cingular, Pepsi and Procter & Gamble's Secret. So far, according to MTV, 350,000 registered users are spending an average of 36 minutes on each visit."

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December 27, 2006

In The News..
Well, we're back, after a somewhat tumultuous Christmas. Starting tomorrow, we'll be going back to regular articles as I trim my feeds, something I wasn't able to do in the last few days' uproar. Until then though, here are a few things for you to read over a cup of mulled wine (if you're so inclined).

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December 22, 2006

Virtual Pain Management Here
While this subject may appear to stray from or merely lurk at the border of this blog's area of coverage, it is in fact rather well connected with everything, as per the Great Plan. Or perhaps, in the bothersome throes of this treacherous flu, I find this story to be soothing. It seems NVidia is putting a shoulder into developing a virtual reality system to help reduce pain for burn victims.

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December 17, 2006

3pointD: IBM in Second Life
This month, Mark Wallace has two new articles on IBM moving into Second Life, on the 13th, respectively the 14th. Following an October article, 3pointD announces that IBM is setting up a business group to focus on virtual worlds and will make some of its SL private islands available to the grand public.

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September 14, 2006

Fashion Show Scheduled in MTV’s Virtual Laguna Beach

MTV’s Virtual Laguna Beach - “the whole Laguna experience in a parallel online universe” - is hosting an “exclusive” fashion show tonight (Sept.14).

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March 14, 2006

Scratchpad: Gorillaz in Habbo Hotel

Aleks Krotoski, “Gorillaz Checking In to Habbo Hotel“, Guardian Blog, Aug.24, 2005

“Give it up for Damon Albarn and his cartoon Gorillaz gang; they’re embracing the cyberspace vibe by appearing in the US version of the teeny-friendly, mega virtual world hit Habbo Hotel today to give residents both a personal appearance and a live performance.”

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March 4, 2006

Scratchpad: Alternative Reality Branding

Joyce Schwarz, “Alternate Reality Gaming 101“, iMedia Connection, March 03, 2006.

Highlights (verbatim):

- Major brands such as Microsoft, Hasbro, Jet Blue, American Express, Sharp, Audi, Song Airlines and Stella Artois beer are staking out space in the ARG arena.

- You don’t want to tell the story; you want the players to tell it to each other.

Many examples of different types of ARG’s.

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March 3, 2006

Video Demo of Wells Fargo’s Stagecoach Island on Active Worlds


image: screenshot of the Swivel Media’s video shows a Wells Fargo ATM

Swivel Media released a video preview (file hosted at Swivel Media, .wmv, ~9Mb) of the new version of Wells Fargo’s Stagecoach Island that has recently been moved to ActiveWorlds.

Read more:
- “Revisiting Stagecoach Island” at Second Life Herald
- Original post on Second Life forums

Earlier:
Wells Fargo Opens Advertising Floodgates Into Virtual Life

x-posted on Adverlab

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March 2, 2006

Scratchpad: Social Networking Applications for Virtual Worlds

Two blog posts in one day about virtual worlds being ripe for the social networking applications: Csven’s on Linked-In avatars and Wonderland’s on MySpace-like MyMMOG. The wish list so far:

  • A LinkedIn group for avatars or have “Second Life” as a choice of country.
  • SMS (text messaging) to avatar inboxes
  • In-world browser (EVE seems to have one, SL is working on theirs)
  • Inter-world instant messaging
  • Virtual world to real world instant messaging (Pearbook is working on it)
  • One from me: a Craigslist section for virtual worlds.

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February 25, 2006

Scratchpad: Habbo Hotel

Press release, July 11, 2005:

“Globally Habbo Hotel audience has reached 4 million unique browsers per month.

From an advertising perspective, Habbo concept offers one of the most innovative and cost-effective ways to communicate and interact with the teen demographic, build brand loyalty and modify consumer behaviour. Habbo Hotel turns traditional online marketing campaigns into live virtual marketing experiences. The viral marketing effect of these campaigns is multiplied by the fact that these take on a life of their own, outside the Habbo environment, as they flow into myriad fan sites and discussion forums. The companies that have already benefited of this immersive advertising capability of Habbo Hotel are i.e. Coca-Cola, Nike, L´Oreal, Gillette, Procter & Gamble, Playstation to name a few.”

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