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

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.

  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.

Got word of an IBM “Meet the Experts” session being held in Second Life(tm) June 2, 3, and 4. It is part of their Rational Software Development Conference going on in Orlando, FL and sounds really interesting.

It looks like they are using teleconferencing for voice, as phone-in numbers are provided. Here’s the announcement as I received it. I’ll definitely drop in, so look for Orange Montagne if you’re there.
Join us on Codestation in Second Life for the IBM Rational Software Development Conference Meet the Expert Sessions this week June 2, 3 and 4th.

The SL URL for CODESTATION is http://slurl.com/secondlife/IBM%20CODESTATION/130/95/40

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, there will be a Meet the Expert sessions at 10:00 am and 2:00 pm Eastern (New York) with each of the Heroes. As a reward for attending each of the sessions, a superpower will be handed out to attendees at each of the sessions.

Schedule for 10 am ET :
Monday 10am ET - Fee-Chur: The Developer; who can turn anything into code. “It’s not a bug, it’s a “feature!”
Tuesday 10am ET The Gatekeeper: The Release Manager; who can shift shapes to deal with everything internal and external; from bugs to leaks to patches to infinity and beyond!
Wednesdat 10am ET The Time-Inator: The Project Manager; who can bend the time-space continuum… sometimes
http://slurl.com/secondlife/IBM%20CODESTATION/130/95/40

Call in information for 10am ET Expert Sessions
10am ET Mon, Tues & Wed - June 2, 3 & 4
Title: Rational Software Devplr Meet the Expert
Conference telephone numbers:
Participants, Toll free: 888-427-9376
Participants, Toll: 719-457-1509
Confirmation Code: 6768646
Title: Rational Software Devplr Meet the Expert

Schedule for 2pm ET
Monday 2pm ET R-Tek: The Architect with the power to grok future applications just by drawing a picture on a napkin.
Tuesday 2pm ET Hawkeye: The Analyst; whose super A-ray Vision lets her see opportunities hidden in complex problems
Wednesdat 2pm ET Gotcha: The Tester; with the power to clone herself to meet impossible deadlines…
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/rational/events/rsdc2008/rheroes.html
Call in information for 2pm ET Expert Sessions
2pm ET Mon, Tues & Wed - June 2, 3 & 4
Title: Rational Software Devplr Meet the Expert Conference telephone numbers:
Participants, Toll free: 888-378-0344
Participants, Toll: 719-325-2100

In addition, the Conference Keynotes will be posted on Codestation the day after they are delivered at the Conference.

http://www.ibm.com/rational

So the headlines have been blazing about 19 year old John Tyler Hammons (Wikipedia entry) is the “gamer elected mayor”.

Coverage: GamePolitics.com,  Yahoo games, Yahoo news, AP, G4TV

I did a bit of searching but couldn’t find a particular gaming reference but it immediately brought to mind the IBM study with Seriosity on “Virtual Worlds Real Leaders“. This is great reading - (get the full report .pdf here) and I believe there will be a lot more of these gaming parallels given the impact and reach of games on young and old alike.

Some of the folks who participated in the IBM report were presenters and attendees at the Virtual World SIG and these kinds of topics were things I spoke about at both Virtual Worlds 2007, and at NASA Virtual Worlds in Jan. 2008. The notions (or theories/findings) that the gaming environment can generate leadership is encouraging. At least, gaming trains users in online collaboration by default, and we’ve realized that “work is an MMOG” along the way from the SIG presentations.

The fact that so many headlines are running the “gaming” angle on the story just might bring the concept to the mainstream discussion. Can’t wait to see what develops around it.

- Bob K.

Philip Rosedale spoke at the US House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet yesterday, April 1. I thought it was an April fools joke at first, but this is real.

Audio and video is here: http://energycommerce.house.gov/

Philip starts speaking at around 29:00 after an introduction. Almost the entire 90 minute meeting is focused on Second Life. A major score for Second Life in getting established as “the” virtual world. Dr. Larry Johnson of New Media Consortium likens Second Life to the opportunities that were brought about from settling the wild west, the rollout of electricity, television, and the internet itself.

Stanford Research Institute - Consulting Business Intelligence (aka. SRIC-BI http://www.sric-bi.com) today released results from a survey taken amongst the members of their own  Virtual Worlds Consortium, SDForum’s Virtual World SIG, Boulder, Colorado’s  Serious Second Life, and Stanford’s  MetaverseU.

The  download is available at: http://www.sric-bi.com and directly linked here (link opens .pdf document): http://www.sric-bi.com/news/VWCcollabwksurvey2008-03.pdf

The groups questioned largely focus on collaborative work (serious games) more than entertainment uses, and the survey was geared towards that.  Members of these groups are definitely motivated to use virtual worlds (70% see significant potential) and cite security and eases of use as key to adoption by enterprise and government customers.

The respondents were split 50/50 on whether Second Life would remain the leading VW platform in the next 2-3 years.

At least one quarter of the respondents use virtual worlds over 20 hours per week.  Another quarter only use them 1-5 hours per week.
Another 36% use virtual worlds in a 5-20 hour range, and the remaining 12.5% barely log on and use less than 1 hour per week.
<1 hour           12.5%
1-5 hours        26.3%
5-10 hours     15.0%
10-20 hours   21.3%
20+ hours       25%

That’s as far as I’ve had time to dig into this but there are a lot of forward-looking questions and interesting conclusions  in there - so take a look.

Thanks to  Dr. Eilif Trondsen of SRIC-BI  for conducting and sharing the survey.

-Bob Ketner