it’s hard to stand out – not so at AVW – go platinum

it’s hard to stand out ? not so at AVW – go platinum on AVW – Association of Virtual Worlds and enjoy international virtual & real recognition that will drive your busines development strategies immediately.

You don’t need to be Linden Labs or redlightcentre.com or facebook or even war of warcraft to make your mark on what is still an emerging yet strong and progressive industry !

The AVW is where virtual worlds, games, social networks, and those who wish to explore the technology, come together.

AVW is everything Virtual – let us help you drive your exposure and business development strategies

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What is Platinum Membership

AVW Platinum is a new high visibility premium membership package that offers members the opportunity to showcase their companies, products and services in order to build both sales and brand awareness. This is an exciting way to stand out on the main AVW site, on the active and growing AVW business and social network and inside the AVW Global Virtual Headquarters.

AVW Platinum Membership includes:

1.     Logo on front page of the Business & Social Network (rotating basis) with link to member site. (http://www.network.associationofvirtualworlds.com).

2.    Logo on the Main site’s Home Page (rotating basis) with link to member site. (http://www.associationofvirtualworlds.com).

3.    Poster in the AVW’s Global Headquarters containing an embedded image of that member’s choosing and a click through to a website

4.    10% discount on sponsorship opportunities (such as upcoming discussion forums and conferences).

BONUS: AVW Platinum Members also have the opportunity to present their products and services in a Platinum Showcase presentation to be held inside the AVW Virtual Headquarters. In addition, the AVW will send out an email invitation to the entire membership of over 2,700 members—and counting!

AVW Platinum is offered at the introductory membership fee of USD99 per month.

Contact me: To Secure Your Premium Membership & Privileges – apglobal @ gmail.com

Check out the new AVW facebook group at

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?sid=0d96b08e8512c3ebfd697ae62826842f&gid=11468494379

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 

Rescuing search in ‘Second Life’ – A need for certain – itsReal

On every occassion that APLINK has heard Cory Onedrejka of Linden Labs speak he allows appealed for someone who could create an effective search engine…maybe his wish has come true withou the need for Lind Labs investment.

I was in a Second Life Store the other day and whilst it was cool having my avatar stroll the mega mall and see what was on offer, I was really there to get a new look for myself. Besides Second life’s need to achieve a universal search engine, site owners also need a search function (or should there be Avatar SalesPeople) within their own spaces to help avatars find what they need, as like the real world, time is money inworld. Maybe my client Recruit.net could come up with a search solution- itsReal

With at least a couple hundred thousand users, hundreds of stores, endless commerce and millions of objects, virtual world Second Life is begging for a top-notch search tool.

Yet search is one of the systems most in need of help in Second Life. The latest evidence is the recent selection of a team working on such a system as a finalist in the Second Life business plan contest.

High Impact

What’s new:

More than three years after its launch, Second Life is still suffering from a subpar search engine–and other virtual worlds have the same limited tools.

Bottom line:

Now significant attempts are being made by third parties to come up with better search systems for virtual worlds.

Rescuing search in ‘Second Life’

“There’s a lot to be desired in the current (Second Life) search, quite a lot,” said Tony Walsh, the editor of Clickable Culture, a blog about virtual worlds and other online cultures. “We need a Google for Second Life, something that works quickly and produces intelligent results.”

Some might wonder how important search needs to be in a virtual world. But as the number of Second Life stores, places and objects explodes, it is becoming crucial that users be able to find what they need without trying keyword after keyword. And while that dynamic is more true today than ever, many people believe the search system has been insufficient for years.

Read More: C|Net News.com

CEO of HIPIHI and his aspirations – itsreal

Thanks to Bernard of SGentrepreneurs here is his post of the CEO meeting of HIPIPI.com

Last Tuesday, before the State of Play V party “Flash Forward”, thanks to Andrew Peters and the Digital Movement, I was invited to meet up with Xu Hui, CEO of HiPiHi and we spent one hour together with him, hearing his thoughts and aspirations about HiPiHi, China’s virtual world platform creator with an interesting tagline, “The World Exists because of You”. We will also hear his thoughts about how HiPiHi differentiates herself from Second Life. Here is a summary of the main points during that one hour conversation.

Read More at SGentrepreneurs

1st annual architecture & design competition in Second Life – itsReal

 Hurry… sorry but i just found this, if you have created anything in Second Life, do enter it could bring you some deserved fame. … submissions close September 1st…

What?
Spatially interesting and aesthetically independent pieces of architecture are sought from the inhabitants of the digital parallel world that has almost five million participants. The competition is open for all.

Why?
The aim of the competition is to explore new trends of architecture and design on the electronic soil of the MMOG (massive multiplayer online game) of Second Life.

Who?
The Austrian artist Stephan Doesinger has begun the First Annual Architecture and Design Competition in Second Life in the virtual world of “Second Life.”
www.doesinger.com

Where?
Apart from inworld-Second-Life the competition will also “happen” in the “first world” at the International Ars Electronica Festival in Linz 2007 and at Zollverein Essen with jury discussions, partys, and a great prize ceremony.

Categories:
Projects will be chosen from five categories:
1) Private Home
2) Corporate Architecture and V-shopping
3) High Rise
4) Landscape Design
5) Freestyle and Special Projects

But there will also be two extra-prizes:
The Prize of the Jury and the Prize chosen by the Second Life online-community.

Fame!
The winners will receive a worldwide exposure!
1) The projects will be presented at the Ars Electronica festival 2007 (Sept. 5th – 11th, 2007) in Linz Austria, where the jury will be publicly held.
2) The winners will be honoured in an official prize ceremony at the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Zollverein Essen a few weeks later.
3) The results of the competition will be documented in a book which will be published by Prestel publishers in spring 2008.
4) The winning projects will be promoted worldwide and presented in a Hall of Fame on the internet – and of course in Second -Life.

Submission Deadline:
September 1st, 2007

Entries:
Submit here via online-submission-form!

Sniffing Glue or getting caught with SUPER GLUE

Singaporeans are fortunate that DRUGS are almost unavailable in the Island state, so for those inclined to get a high at any cost there are legal alternatives…

China CLONES SecondLife, appeals to FEMALES to boost numbers in Beta Mode

BridgeLink : BJourno.licio.us

Check out the youtube video in the post.