Virtual Conferences not YET but the Reality is coming – itsReal

‘Avatars’ offer virtual alternative at climate summit

More than 10,000 people are in Bali thrashing out action on global warming, but those who couldn’t make it in person are here virtually — some in the form of dragons and action heroes.

Hoping to widen the debate and cut down on carbon emissions from air travel, Oneworld.net, a left-leaning website, has taken the UN conference here on climate change to the online virtual world Second Life.

The website has brought together everyone from a US congressman, who travelled virtually as a 3-D animation, to anonymous participants hailing from Japan to Turkmenistan and Romania.

Second Life, which has drawn millions of users since it was created in 2003 by San Francisco-based Linden Labs, is a fantasy land in which users mingle under assumed identities as “avatars.”

While most delegates in Bali opt for formal attire, users of the site, http://www.oneclimate.net/, pick the virtual likeness of their choice — ranging from purple hair to outfits befitting action heroes.

more at MSN

RedLightCenter.com – Virtual Sex Life gets analysed by conancat – itsReal

“And hell, what’s so fun about cybersex when you can’t hear the other person moaning and feel his/her heat for real?” says conancat.

APLINK thinks ConanCat under estimates how humans need to fantasize, it is very REAL and virtual worlds today are virtually on a path to our reality just as the TV already is !!!See the rest of his REAL thoughts at ConanCat

“But this–Redlight Center–an MMORPG about love, dating, and sex, to me, is getting tee a bit weird.” – conancat

Criminals in Virtual Worlds – itsReal

By Dean Takahashi Tracking criminals in virtual worlds

I’ve been wondering what would happen if there were drug dealers or terrorists lurking in virtual worlds such as Second Life. If the FBI or National Security Agency wanted to place wiretaps on conversations in those worlds, would they be able to do it? And if they did record conversations in virtual worlds, could the people spied upon escape prosecution by saying that they were only pretending to be terrorists or drug dealers?

 

My interest is theoretical at the moment. Interpol has said there are criminal elements operating in virtual worlds, but let’s not panic. There is enough fear-mongering out there about all the trouble we can get into online.But this topic is a persistent one at conferences such as Virtual Worlds, which drew more than a thousand people to San Jose last week.

Under current laws, the authorities can’t conduct fishing expeditions. They can’t order companies to incur huge expenses building eavesdropping systems in the virtual worlds that would make it easy to reclaim conversations from a long time ago, said Jim Dempsey, policy director of the civil liberties group Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, D.C.

In other words, the government can’t ransack an entire virtual town just to find one possible drug dealer. The Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizures hold true in cyberspace as they do in the real world.

more here

Your Guide to Virtual Worlds – itsReal

Awesome report by:

Mark Glaser, of MEDIASHIFT

Second Life avatars

From time to time, I’ll give an overview of one broad MediaShift topic, annotated with online resources and plenty of tips. The idea is to help you understand the topic, learn the jargon, and take action. I’ve already covered blogs, social networking, widgets and various other topics. This week I’ll look at the growing phenomenon of virtual worlds.

Background and History

Virtual worlds are online three-dimensional spaces where you can interact with other people, collect items and build structures, and communicate via a virtual representative of yourself called an avatar. These worlds have been influenced by various science fiction writers such as William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, along with the movie, “The Matrix.”

Virtual worlds differ from massive multiplayer online games (MMOGs) because they don’t offer battles against monsters or have an overriding mission for players. For example, a resident of the virtual world Second Life might spend time in that space accumulating virtual land, rather than striving to complete quests or conquer levels as one would in many popular MMOGs such as World of Warcraft.

The origin of virtual worlds goes back to early games such as Maze War, which was developed in the early ’70s at NASA. The game included eyeballs as avatars, there were maps showing the levels, and it was one of the first games played on networked computers, and eventually over a precursor to the Internet.

Habitat scene

In 1986, LucasFilm Games developed Habitat, a more two-dimensional environment that included humanoid avatars, and people could access the game through online service Quantum Link on their Commodore 64 computers. Developers Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer, who maintain a blog about their experience with Habitat, say they let Habitat residents generally set their own rules governing the world — as long as they couldn’t hack into the system. In a research paper about their lessons from Habitat, the developers wrote:

READ MORE AT MEDIASHIFT 

IT Recruiting in Web 2.0 & Virtual Worlds – brought to you by: Recruit.net

Companies such as HP that venture deeper into the world of Web 2.0 technologies to find new hires may find themselves disappointed, at least initially. Despite the low turnout the company’s Second Life recruitment trial balloon yielded, however, HP’s Betty Smith is not deterred. She says she sees a lot of potential for using Second Life for recruiting.

In mid-May, Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) participated in a virtual job fair using Second Life tools from Linden Lab in San Francisco. HP had been invited by one of its external recruiters, TMP Worldwide Advertising & Communications in New York. During the virtual event, recruiters and job applicants alike created avatars, or personas to represent themselves in the virtual world.

Standing Out

HP’s willingness to step into the Web 2.0 world for recruiting differentiates the company. In Computerworld‘s latest Vital Signs survey, none of the 233 IT professionals responding reported using Second Life for recruiting.

A scant 4 percent said they used blogs or social networking sites like Facebook to engage potential IT job candidates. Only 15 percent reported using professional networking sites such as LinkedIn. Moreover, 52 percent of the respondents said they don’t use any Web 2.0 tools for recruiting.

It seems that most IT organizations are missing out on a huge opportunity to connect — particularly with the talented twentysomethings who inhabit the virtual world. These Gen Yers are “tribal” and accustomed to the “very collaborative relationships” that Web 2.0 tools enable, says Tom Casey, senior vice president and workforce transformation leader at Kingwood, Texas-based consultancy BSG Concours.

By Thomas Hoffman

Computerworld

Read More at TechNewsWorld

end of work as we know it – itsReal

Increasing connectivity will change how and where we labor—even the very notion of an employer.

You have no idea how you’d get any work done on business trips if you didn’t have a laptop. You can’t remember quite how you lived without your BlackBerry. Your cell phone might as well be surgically attached to your ear, it’s so crucial to your job. Then there’s the Internet. It’s hard to conceive of getting through the day without Google (GOOG )—or, if you’re under 40, text messaging or even joining Facebook to stay in touch with your extended network of colleagues. In just a decade or less, technology sure has done a number on the way you work, hasn’t it?

Well, brace yourself. Over the next decade, the relentless march of computer power and Net connection speeds will bring more profound changes to work than anything we’ve seen so far. Consider just a few of the breakthroughs technology visionaries think we’re likely to see in coming years. Picture Apple’s (AAPL ) slick iPhone shrunk down to the size of a credit card. Then imagine it can connect not only to your contacts on the latest social network but also to billions of pea-sized wireless sensors attached to buildings, streets, retail products, and your co-workers’ and business partners’ clothes—all sending data over the Net to you.

THE RESULT:

Read more at BusinesWeek

NEWS Wrap: Second Life – Live Earth on SL – itsReal

Live Earth is Heating Up in Second Life
By CMA on behalf of Dave Haber
Two Second Life organizations have joined forces with a real world website RealPlanet.org to spread the Live Earth campaign to the meta-verse. Here’s what the organizers are saying the Live earth in Second Life will feature: …

Second Life – The 3D virtual world – Should it go mobile

Handheld Learning – London,UK
Second Life is an exciting new venue for collaboration, training, distance learning, new media studies and marketing. Hold a virtual meeting with your sales …

Blackboard Video Mocks Second Life
Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription) – USA
… has posted to YouTube a video that parodies the awkward ways in which avatars — digital characters — move around and communicate in Second Life. …

A Second Life first: avatar sues avatar
San Jose Mercury News – CA, USA
Alderman, who has made money before in Second Life by selling a virtual island for $50000 (real money), says his avatar, Stroker Serpentine, was doing quite …

Compiled by: APLINK

Second Life emerging competitors – itsReal

Source

Virtual worlds at UTR: social networks, or experiments?

By Josh Lowensohn – June 28, 2007, 4:12 PM PDT

Wrapping up the group presentations at Under the Radar’s Entertainment & Media conference is the virtual worlds group. Only two of these companies (Doppleganger and Kaneva) offer what most would consider “virtual worlds” or a replacement for real life interaction with others. The other two consist of user avatars, and a video gaming platform.

Doppleganger is a 3-D world similar to Second Life. It survives through a mix of micropayments, and partnerships with various companies who want branded areas and appearances for celebrities, movies, and music. We checked it out a few weeks ago and came away impressed, albeit a little bewildered.

The service currently has 150,000 users, and CEO Tim Stevens says it’s growing by 10% weekly.

Kaneva is part social network and part 3-D virtual world. I looked at the service in early February, shortly before the site went public beta in April. Despite the fact it’s incredibly similar to social networks like MySpace, Kaneva’s creators view its competition as movies and television programs. Like Doppelganger, Kaneva makes its money on the sale of virtual goods and sponsorship from content creators.

Meez is one of the more interesting virtual worlds services due to its specialization. Instead of trying to re-create real life, Meez focuses on user avatars. They recently partnered with Photobucket, and provides user avatars for several other services. The site has 2 million registered users, and is now getting 425,000 new users a month.

The site makes its money off partnerships and micropayments, where users use their virtual currently on clothing items. One of their competitors Gizmoz recently launched a face mapping tool that will take a digital photo and stick it on a 3-D avatar.

Multiverse is a development platform for anyone who wants to make their own massive multiplayer online game (MMOG). They’ve built the system to work with a “world browser” which co-founder Corey Bridges compares to a Web browser since users can visit a network of different games built on the platform.

SLOz starts OZ Second Life Traffic Index – itsReal

 Source: SLOz

SLOz launches Their first SLOZ Traffic Index (STI) for June. Being their first one it’s a fairly modest list. To be included in the index the SL presence needs to be owned / operated by Australians. Yippee when my SL programs get underway I will be seeking their kind inclusion…. cause as you know I am a Proud Australian cum KIWI…

A few important notes on their methodology as well as a couple of disclaimers:

1. The number linked to each presence is a standard average based on dwell statistics provided to all SL users via the Search Places option.
2. For large presences we’ve chosen the most popular area rather than add up total dwell – this means larger presences may have overall larger numbers but that’s not what we’re measuring (see also point 5).
3. Each presence, unless an addition since the start of the reporting period, has had their traffic stats measured at least ten times with each instance at least 24 hours apart.
4. The individual times and statistics can be found here
5. The STI is indicative only – yes we know there are much more detailed methodologies and that ours is a rough guide only for the SL community – we think of it as a ‘what’s hot’ measure. Discussion / criticism on the STI here.

Onto the STI:

Telstra’s Billabong Bar and the ABC Island Sandbox are no surprises as popular haunts. Armory Island by its very nature has a wide international popularity hence its number one position. The Australia Sim is garnering a lot of traffic for a new build and Lord Coalcliff’s Skyhome Resort is a stayer. Another relatively new presence is Sofia’s furniture and its popularity isn’t to be sneezed at either.

APLINK starts Group in Second Life – itsReal

To join the group: once in Second Life hit the search button then the Groups button, enter APLINK and then JOIN.

Joining the group is free and I intend to build a community where we can share SL experiences, ideas & opportunities. I have just established some unique relationships with some primary developers and content providers within SL. APLINK will be privy to a vast amount of in-world and real world activities that will continue to drive the growth of Second Life.

For myself I have several projects being launched in Second Life, as these can be made public I will report on the opportunities that these open up to primarily SL residents in Singapore and Asia Pacific in general.

If you would like to know more than the ordinary person about Second Life…Join APLINK in-world.