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June 2008
The Archives
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06.30.08Call for Papers on VW CultureThe Journal of Virtual Worlds Research is asking for contributions to its forthcoming issue dedicated to culture in virtual worlds. The editors of this issue, Mark Bell and Mia Consalvo, are looking for articles from 'academic researchers and practitioners' that explore the culture and experience of VWs. Here is a list of topics, culled from their site, that the editors are looking to explore in this issue: • Definitions of Virtual Cultures • Ethnographies of Virtual Worlds • Social mechanics and networking in Virtual worlds • Historical development of Virtual Worlds • Identity • Differing goals of play versus non-play centric spaces • Emergent practices, player-generated content, activities • ...
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06.30.08WOW! WoW drops a notch in MMO standingsAs reported on Gigaom, Habbo Hotel is soon to surpass World of Warcraft in unique monthly visitors. A Habbo executive VP explains that Habbo will soon surpass the 10-million figure, compared with the most recent count at WoW of 9.5 million unique users per month. But this story must be taken with a least a few grains of salt, for the following reasons: 1 - Habbo is free, while WoW charges a subscription fee 2 - Measured in avatars, the numbers compare. But WoW users more often that not have more than one character under a single subscription. 3 - The only source in ...
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06.30.08Summary: Genetics Event in SLScience Roll recently hosted the 23andMe personalized genetics event in SL and wrote up a summary of what transpired. (For more on personalized genetics - in short, creating a medical diagnosis using one's 'gene expression' - read the summary on Science Roll, where you can also link to some of the key players in the community.) Two members of 23andMe's editorial staff - Erin Cline Davis and Joyce Tung, both PhDs - ran the presentation. The content went into depth about genetics, something called an SNP chip (a chip that analyzes genetic data) and about how 23andMe is preparing to "show ...
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06.30.08Event: Urban Planning SL Panel July 1On July 1 at noon ET, SL will host a panel called "Urbanism, Architecture, Planning: How Second Life Can Help Build the Urban Landscape of the First Life - and Vice Versa." This comes to us from Keystone Bouchard whose Wikitecture project has been one of the highlights of SL in recent years. The panel will be part of the celebration of SL's 5th anniversary and will take place in SL here. The moderator will be Rissa Maidstone and participants will include Tab Scott, Diva Canto and Boston Borst.
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06.30.08Second Life on the XBox, PS3 and iPhoneSpeculation about the announcement due from Linden Lab at the end of the SL5B celebrations has run the gamut from a lowering of tiers, to a Mozilla-like open sourcing of the code, to "who cares, it's unstable anyways". Now, a blank page on the Second Life site may hold a clue, or may be a hoax by some coder with lots of time on his hands or big dreams. The following is embedded in the source code of a blank page: "placeholer page for XBOX, PS3, and iPhone versions of client when they launch next real soon now" Fun to dream anyways.
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06.29.08Setting Strategic Directions: Philip and M Blog WatchAn update of my countdown from the last words of wisdom from Philip and M. Sorry, but those speeches at the birthday celebrations do NOT count - we're no longer burning down discos to make way for houses (or better discos), we're burning them down because there seems increasingly little point in keeping them up. PHILIP ROSEDALE: LAST POSTED to the SL Blog: November 21st, 2007 NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST POST:239 DAYS Notable Quote: "we need to create new and different ways to communicate more often and more clearly with the community. "For my part, I will start writing monthly blog posts like this ...
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06.28.08Education Grid LaunchedVirtual Education spreads the word that the Education Grid was launched Friday June 20 at the Sun Microsystems Island in Second Life. The Education Grid is a project of the Immersive Education Initiative, a group comprised of research centers, education groups, Sun Microsystems, and others. The main purpose of the launch was to connect initiative members, mostly educators, with an early preview of Sun Microsystems Laboratory's Project Wonderland virtual world servers and to give users a chance to see what a virtual education space might look like in the near future. VirtuEd provides a good overview of the launch itself, going into ...
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06.28.08Film made in SL to raise money for cancer researchA partnership of two people well-versed in the world of digital media has come together to make a short film for the American Cancer Society. Falco Tomsen, who regularly makes SL videos for clients, and Ridha, a Tunisian-based musician familiar to users of SL, combined their talents to make the film. It will be screened on June 29 and will help to raise money and awareness of the Cancer Society's research center in Atlanta, GA. The film follows a young woman's fight with cancer. A 3D set was built in SL to represent an oncology center, and the collaboration turned out to ...
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06.28.08Avatars Seize CorporationUp in Reykjavik, Iceland, nine players of Eve Online, created by the Icelandic company CCP, met under rather unusual circumstances, as reported in the NY Times. The company wanted to solicit opinion from its customers/players, the real people behind the role-playing avatars. So, it put a call out for people to vote nine representatives to the Council of Stellar Management - essentially, a well-conceived focus group - and flew them out on the company dime to Iceland. The Council prepared for this precedent-setting meeting by soliciting opinion from their in-game counterparts as to what improvements needed to be made to Eve ...
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06.27.08It’s Not Easy Being Green: Rezzable’s Read on Stalled SL GrowthAccording to in-world notices Rezzable is pulling back, for now at least, until its concerns over the stalled user growth are addressed. RightAsRain points out that content development costs are increasingly expensive and the numbers just aren't adding up. Rezzable is reducing some of the sims it's carrying to focus on Darklands and Greenies, two sure-fire winners. I noticed that the Greenies are getting a backyard but thankfully didn't spot a barbeque yet - you like your Greenies grilled right? Over at the Rezzable blog, RightAsRain sums up a hard look at the SL stats: Well, (I) hate to be a party ...
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