I’m very happy to announce the confirmation of John Bates of Entropia Universe as our speaker for the Aug. 25 Virtual World SIG.
Definitely put this on your calendar to join us in Palo Alto or online (in as many VW as we can meet in) for this one.

“Virtual Economies with Real Results: Entropia Universe”

Perhaps no other virtual world has pushed the concept and execution of virtual economies as far as Entropia Universe. Launched in 2003, the free-to-play Entropia has a user base of over 800,000 users today, generating over $400 Million USD in-game turnover in the economy.

Blurring the lines between games, virtual worlds, and real economies, Entropia was chosen in 2007 by the Beijing Municipal People’s Government as the platform of development for the Chinese “Cyber Recreation Development Corp” (CRD). The project will create a cash-based virtual economy for China that encompasses business-to-business transactions and other sophisticated economic models.

Not only innovative in economic terms, the Entropia world is being deployed this year using the CryEngine 2, which will deliver stunning graphical experiences not yet seen on a wide scale on the web. On nearly every level Entropia Universe is leading in virtual world innovation, while extending the reach of the experiences from the game directly to real-world ATM’s.

The change brought about by virtual collaboration is only beginning to be understood. Join us for a unique look inside the merging of real and virtual economies via one of the most fascinating virtual worlds today - Entropia Universe

John Bates Bio:

John Bates represents Entropia Universe and is responsible for business development, strategic marketing & PR initiatives throughout North America.

An Internet pioneer since 1987, Bates is an owner of Goldstar.com the world’s leading direct marketer of live entertainment. John co-founded BIGWORDS.com, a leading youth marketer and textbook seller. John consults companies on sales, marketing, brand advocacy, as well as Internet strategy & public relations. Bates has guided the explosive growth of companies from zero to millions in revenues and has experience in virtual worlds dating back to 1994.

John is a highly sought after speaker and has garnered excellent ratings at diverse venues like South by Southwest, Harvard’s Cyberposium, WebAttack, Jupiter Online Developers Conferences, Vanderbilt School of Business Distinguished Speakers Series, St. Gallen School of Business World Leaders Symposium, VeerStichting Symposium, Virtual Worlds, Virtual Goods Summit and more. John brings passion, enthusiasm and long experience in virtual worlds.

Location:

6:30 PM - 9:00 PM August 25, 2008
Pillsbury Winthrop
2475 Hanover St.
Palo Alto, CA
*LIVE* online media linked from http://www.virtualworldsig.com
About the SDForum Virtual World SIG: http://www.sdforum.org/vwsig

New browser based VW application just launched today from Google.

Virtual Worlds News has a feature linked here.

Virtual World SIG location is up and running so let’s meet up there.
I chose the “island” room in keeping with the Second Life ™ tradition. We don’t need walls anyway. Check it out!

The URL is:

http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-4023305174264225962

And you should see it below:

I found this list of OpenSim grids built for the Second Life ™ client.
The last time  I looked there were only 2 and now there are over 20 - more  “grids” and “standalone sims” than Second Life ™ started with in 2003.  Simultaneous with the rise of these Linden Lab has slashed private island prices and made low-prim sims even more affordable. It seems like only a matter of time before one or more of them support a micropayment function.

Check out the list at:

http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Grid_List

Enjoy!

HP sees more “Second Life ” like collaboration 

 Soaring oil prices lead to thousands of virtual friends 

Spore review by Businessweek

Spore review by MTV 

Here are 3 articles for today:

Gaia Online tees up its massively multiplayer online game

The missing ‘links’: Looking towards an augmented reality

Three steps to encourage corporate investment in virtual worlds

 I found this interesting article about how Microsoft has internal “Quests” that are worked on collaboratively.

You can safely say that the reality that “Work is an MMOG” has arrived.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080626/D91HVAS80.html 

I also like the sound of the “visionary manifestos”.  We need more of these.

Eilif Trondsen of SRI Consulting Business Intelligence will be hosting a panel this Friday in Second life:
“Year in Review, Year Ahead”

Eilif writes:
As part of our meeting of the Virtual Worlds @ Work consortium at SRI on Friday, June 27 we will have an panel session in Second Life at 9AM PST with four panelists who are very actively involved in the virtual
worlds industry:

* Christian Renaud, Chief Architect, Networked Virtual
Environments, Cisco Systems

* David Wortley, Director, The Serious Games Institute, Coventry
University in the UK

* Justin Bovington, CEO of Rivers Run Red (A virtual worlds
professional services firm with offices in Europe and North America)

* Nick Wilson, Managing Director, Clever Zebra and vBus Expo

The inworld session will be take place in the auditorium at the
Serious Game Institute:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/SGI%20Nexus/96/107/27

The panel session will explore virtual worlds developments during last
year and what they see ahead for the coming year. The inworld session
will be open and free free for anyone interested in attending. Feel
free to share this notifcation with anyone who might be interested in
attending.

Thanks.
Eilif

Eilif Trondsen, Ph.D.
Director, Virtual Worlds @ Work
SRI Consulting Business Intelligence

I try to log into all the new virtual worlds I can. Just tried the open beta of SocioTown after reading about it at Massively. I think this might take the cake for the toughest virtual world experience ever. You log in to find that - you’re in jail.

During the first few minutes I was threatened by another inmate named Terrance and then “Police Chief McNair” called me a “MURDEROUS MARAUDER”. He also asked me to “plead guilty” which seemed like a dodgy proposition considering I still had not heard the charges. Later he said there was a mistake and then disappeared, leaving me with the talkative inmate Terrance.

It also seems that work closely resembles real life as well. For example, we find that if you are lucky enough to find a job and agree to it, then “your screen will darken and there will be a time ticking away.” Just like real life, huh! But wait, there’s more…

While on the job, you cannot do anything on Sociotown but stay as is for the remaining time. This has to be the most unusual example of “grinding” I’ve ever heard of.

But wait, there’s more…. Just like in real life, you aren’t forced to keep the browser open while you’re on the job. This brings a whole new dimension to the idea of working remotely.

There’s a video below showing how a male named “Simpson” ejects people from his house. “Simpson” and the other players in the video have a heated exchange and Simpson attacks the apparently clueless visitors. He attacks 2 males with what appears to be a baseball bat and then hurls the women out by their legs. Wow, again, just like real life! Maybe not quite as bloody. It makes you wonder why there’s not a lock on the door in the first place.

I’m not sure if I’ll log back on to see what happens if Chief McNair ever comes back…I’m still traumatized after being chatted up by Terrance and I know he’ll be waiting for me. Then again, at least he’s in the cell next door.  Just knowing Simpson is on the loose out in this virtual world I might be safer in the slammer, even though I don’t yet know my charges.

Maybe it should be called Sociopath Town.
ROFL… and we thought Second Life ™ had a bad orientation. I’ll take the parrot and the beach ball any day over being in jail!

Dear SocioTown, you need design help, please contact me.

Did you know that there is now a world where you can experience being in a world where you play inside and actual virtual world!

Wow this is too cool not to post it.

via. TheOnion 

via. Wonderland

via. Boing Boing

  There’s a great post and conversation at:

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2008/06/possibility-of.html#more

by Bruce Damer asking whether we are approaching a “New Virtual World Winter”.   I’d encourage you to read the questions and join the conversation, as we’ll use these as the basis for some upcoming meetings including the annual “Future of Virtual Worlds” panel on Oct. 27.

My personal response is below:

What a great set of questions you have posted - that’s what it’s all about.

I’d like to chime in that my un-researched opinions in response, they really got me thinking.

Basically, there has been more and continued Balkanization and silos - due to the fact that these VW’s are competing businesses built on programming and intended purposes that may be simply incompatible on the most basic levels. These “proprietary islands” remain disconnected for the same reason Office Depot and Office Max are proprietary islands. So, it sounds blasphemous amongst fundamentalist open sourcers, but there’s no savior “browser” or ubiquitous interface coming.

As businesses, new open-ended worlds will generally have to answer the basic question of “what’s this for?” or face extinction. Everyone knows (but for some reason no one wants to admit) that SL is the flagship (non-game) platform. SL is the center of almost every VW discussion and despite all the silly criticism - all the wild outrage amongst users comes at times when they can’t be logged in 24×7. Old media entertainment brands would pay any price for such umbilical loyalty.

If you consider them VW’s inside of games (Wow, Halo, etc.) then by virtue of this I’d say the avatar based interactive online medium is definitely mainstream now. Amongst probable “serious” business users though, or in the areas of adopted collaborative tools, I feel more of a “Trough of Disillusionment” hangover, following a “Peak of Inflated Expectations” party as a result of a solid 2.5 years of aggressive PR and hype.