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April 2008
The Archives
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04.29.08McKinsey & Company on Virtual Worlds: “Ignore them at your peril”McKinsey & Company, a management consultant firm, recently spoke to the TimesOnline about virtual worlds, saying that companies who do not experiment with VWs are putting themselves at strategic risk: McKinsey & Company, the management consulting firm whose observations about corporate behaviour are closely watched, said that virtual worlds were on the cusp of a major expansion - particularly as a way to reach younger customers - and that companies were "ignoring them at their peril." The VW market has expanded significantly from Second Life and a few major gaming titles to the point where handbooks are being put together to ...
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04.29.08Education Track at Virtual World Expo 2008 in L.A.Education continues to gain traction in virtual worlds, and right now, there are simply too many examples to cite in this brief article. But feedback and discussion from the recent Virtual World Expo held in New York in April had a strong impact on the festival's organizers. To magnify this point, Virtual World News reports that Virtual Worlds Expo 2008 will, for the first time, house an education track. This track will play alongside the consumer, enterprise, investment and strategy, virtual law, and visionary / future development streams. The conference will be held in Los Angeles Sept. 3-4.
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04.26.08Innovation and Papervision, in an Absolut WorldAnother stunning example of where Papervision is taking us, this time with the theme of a world in which "we believe everyone's a visionary"...and that are things that we all will "invent, innovate or just turn upside down". Beautiful execution.
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04.24.08The Land Rush Begins – um, well, not rush exactlyLinden Lab announced that they are initiating new land pricing immediately, in spite the fact that the new land store isn't available yet. Part of the argument and virtue of the new pricing was that it was to coincide with an automated system for bring sims online - basically, order a sim, up it pops. Hacking a couple of man hours off the time it takes to install a sim might be part of the reason to lower the prices, and Linden has made a wise move in launching the new pricing system in spite the new system not being ...
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04.24.08Papervision Round-UpTo try to keep my mind from getting to muddled, I've dropped past posts on Papervision into one page for reference. (Also available in top nav). Enjoy.
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04.24.08Second Life Rendered on a Cell PhoneVollee has launched the ability to browse Second Life on your cell phone - rendered, ability to move, and testable now for free (if your phone is compatible). The video is pretty stunning. Unlike previous cell phone applications, this one actually lets you see your avatar, the mini map, and to move around. Previous applications included one from Samsung, whose main benefit was the ability to cross-blog amongst other communication features. Avatalk on the other hand is a phone application that allowed you to make phone calls or send SMS messages from Second Life to, um, Real Life (and vice versa).
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04.24.08Community Planning Crashes Head-First Into Web 2.0Planning cities and buildings - the real ones - has, for a long-time, been a top-down exercise. Meaning that concepts and city plans were, for the most part, implemented from on high through architects, city planners, consultants and developers, allowing for very little collaboration with those in the "bottom" and those for whom these projects would impact the most - namely, the ordinary citizen. And there are lessons for other industries in how typical hierarchal disciplines can use the tools of Web 2.0 to communicate with their "users". A fascinating article published by the American Planning Association argues that the Web 2.0 ...
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04.24.08The Web Should be Free, but Will it Stay That Way? … and Google Gets BurnedGreg Verdino has thrown a thought-piece that addresses the issue of what happens when dynamic and exciting - but most importantly free - Web platforms (Facebook, Twitter, del.cio.us, etc.) start needing cold, hard, cash. Verdino offers up two options that seem fairly accurate. One is that the "users pay with their money," and the other is that "the users pay with their attention." The intention of his post is to engage a discussion through the comments section of this blog entry. So, we scanned the comments and found that, in general, the commenters: - Would not mind ads at all on most of ...
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04.24.08Papervision AlternativeDigado points us to a Papervision-like Flash 3D development project built by a team of Russians at Alternativa 3D. Digado writes that the big advantage of this 3D world is its load time and the "smoothness in animations." The prototype is also a clientless and download-free model. While Papervision is an open source application that allows 3D "environments" in Flash, it's nice to see other efforts to develop a "client-less" 3D app. Although, just because it's 3D doesn't mean it has multiple avatars, but they have an ambitious roadmap as Digado points out. Two more samples of the 3D engine in full ...
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04.22.08New CEO Appointed at Linden LabThe search for a new CEO is over as Linden Lab announced the appointment of Mark Kingdon to the position, and residents watched for smoke in the upper window and the choosing of a name, much like the anointing of a Pope, it's just too bad he's, well, M Linden, I rather like Marcus Voom (who mysteriously I believe is on my friend's list, must have been that beach party with the 8 foot avatar dressed as a, um...I digress). Mark, or M, who is expected to soon name Kate Linden Agent 005 Linden and Sidewinder will become 006 Linden, with ...
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