virtual worlds

I spoke with an interesting group of people over at Intel yesterday about the future of virtual worlds. One of the things we touched on was the concept of simplicity and how it might be the key to eventual mass adoption. I've thought about it even more since speaking, and wanted to follow up with a few thoughts here, and open the conversation to a wider audience.

Virtual worlds are complicated. Prohibitively complicated. The initial learning curve is so great in Second Life for example, that most people don't stay. It's just too hard. Some other worlds are easier. Kaneva for example is pretty simple. You can be walking around and talking to people in 2 or 3 minutes. The trade off is that your avatar is pretty simple also. In fact Kaneva avatars pale in comparison to Second Life ones. This isn't important though. Not in the context of adoption and retention rates it isn't. It could be a major deciding factor in how the non-Second-Life Social Virtual Worlds will shape up next year, and even be the defining characteristic of a worthwhile contender for the virtual worlds throne that Linden Lab's creation occupies now.

A few examples

Put virtual worlds to one side just for a moment and contemplate the following list:

• Flickr tipped photo sharing when they made it simple
• Wordpress and Six Apart tipped blogging when they made it simple
• Google destroyed it's competition when they made Search simple
• The iPod is the MP3 player, other brands are insignificant
• Twitter tipped mobile life logging when it made it simple
• YouTube tipped video sharing when they made it simple

The points themselves are simplistic, but you'll see what I mean I'm sure.

So the question is...

Who will make virtual worlds simple in 2008? How will it be done? What steps do virtual worlds vendors need to take in order to make this whole concept simple?

Let me know what you think...

Following last weeks theme of discussing and then defining social virtual worlds for adults, let's take a look at kids SVW's shall we? The definition we've been using is this. Though I should point out that it's not perfect, and a certain tolerance for games within worlds should probably be applied to kids worlds.

A Social Virtual World has game-like immersion and social media functionality without narrative driven goals. At its core is a sense of presence with others at the same time and place.

The List

I would really appreciate some help in weeding out the ones that don't fit, and picking up any we've missed here. Do let me know what you think in the comments, or on your own blogs.

1. Club Penguin
2. Whyville
3. Cyworld
4. Faketown
5. Planet Cazmo
6. Why Robbie Rocks
7. Barbie Girls
8. Be-Bratz
9. Mokitown
10. Dubit
11. Gaia Online
12. Habbo Hotel
13. Playdo
14. MTV Worlds
15. Second Life Teen Grid

As you can see, there's quite a few more than on the adult list. MTV Worlds are on both lists. They're hard to categorize as they have a foot in both camps, so should probably be on both lists.

I'd hope to halve this list with your help. I'm far less familiar with kids worlds than I am adult, but suspect we have a good deal of pruning to do.

So, tell me what you think...

Earlier this week we talked about how to define virtual worlds. It's no easy task. Your idea of what a virtual world is, is correct. So is mine, and our opinions, whilst equally valid, are sometimes literally worlds apart. One thing that cropped up time and time again was the term "social virtual world", used to distinguish between game worlds like WoW, and non-game, like Second Life. I think this works, it's not perfect, but it's better.

So with all of that fantastic debate in mind, and you really should read the whole thread, I've revised the definition originally put forward by Joel and Giff to this:

A Social Virtual World has game-like immersion and social media functionality without narrative driven goals. At its core is a sense of presence with others at the same time and place.

And the revised list of Social Virtual Worlds now numbers just 8.

1. Second Life
2. ActiveWorlds
3. Kaneva
4. vSide
5. Entropia
6. Ogoglio City
7. There.com
8. MTV's Worlds

Worlds not yet available to the general public have been omitted, as have childrens worlds, it seems wrong to include them, they are a thing apart from this type of world. Also those worlds identified as development platforms on the previous list of 19 have been excluded.

This rather short list suggests three things to me:

1. The virtual worlds space is not as large as many people think.
2. There are many platforms and applications that use virtual world-like technologies, but are not themselves actual worlds
3. We're over-hyping the "metaverse"

Admittedly if we included kids worlds, like Habbo, announcing 80M created avatars this week, the list would look a lot sexier, indeed kids worlds appear to be where the big boom is, but that's for another post.

A few people asked me to put this list in context. I can do that to an extent: I'm trying to define what I consider the Metaverse to be, ie, excluding kids, what "social virtual worlds" are of interest to Metaversed, and Metaversed clients -- the corporations currently in Second Life, those looking at the MTV models, or investment in up and coming worlds like Kaneva. I hope that helps clarify.

So, tell me what you think. Can we revise this any more? Is it right, or wrong?

..is that they're hard to define. When we look at what we loosely call "virtual worlds", we all have differing opinions as to what should and should not be counted. Do we include 2D worlds? Kids worlds? Development platforms? It depends who you talk to. For a project I'm working on, I've had to list what I consider to be "real" virtual worlds, and I can tell you that it's no easy task, hence this post, and a request for comments.

Lets start of with my list. I count 19 Virtual Worlds, and I'll explain my thinking below:

1. Second Life
2. ActiveWorlds
3. Croquet
4. Kaneva
5. vSide
6. vLES
7. Entropia
8. Eve Online
9. Vastpark
10. HiPiHi
11. Novoking
12. Ogoglio
13. Qwaq
14. Sims Online
15. There.com
16. MTV's Worlds
17. Metaplace*
18. Project Wonderland
19. Twinity*

The two worlds marked with an *, Twinity and Metaplace, have not been released to the public yet, but have been included because they are both almost ready to go live. There are some obvious ommisions: notably IMVU and Cyworld, I'm not 100% sure im correct to omit them, so your comments would be most welcome.

Here's my basic thinking. I'm basing decisions on Giff Constable's version of Joel Greenbergs original definition of a virtual world, with a nod to Raph kosters definition and using Christian Renauds excellent VW07 presentation as a marker for what not to include. (Christian's point was that the subscriber data from everyone claiming to be a virtual world was unbelievable, and that pretty much everyone is claiming to be a virtual world..).

So the definition is:

A Virtual World has game-like immersion and social media functionality without game-like goals. At its heart is a sense of presence with others at the same time and place.

Admittedly if I'd adhered strictly to that definition I'd have included IMVU and Cyworld. It's not an exact science as you can see.

I've also omitted kids worlds, though have included vSide as it's aimed at older kids and young adults, and indeed I go there now and again myself. Kids worlds to me are a thing apart. A worthy genre of world, but something different to the above list. It feels wrong to me to include them.

So here's the question

What do you think of the list and the criteria for inclusion? Can you add to the list? Im certain I'm missing some, maybe many. Please let me know what you think.

After an impressive presentation at the Virtual Worlds Fall 2007 convention in San Jose, Christian Renaud, Cisco Technology Center's Chief Architect of Networked Virtual Environments, has made a daring proposal about mirror meetings.

"For the remainder of the year, don't fly. Neither will I. Instead, we will use the amazing array of tools at our disposal, from Telepresence to WebEx to avatar-mediated communications, to approximate the magic of physical proximity."

If he suddenly has to go back on his pledge, this Cisco enthusiast for Virtual Worlds vows to pay $1000 to support the work of the Nature Conservancy to help offset carbon emissions. Christian is one of a number of business leaders using virtual worlds who is confidently making the claim that they can reduce air travel and substitute real-life meetings with virtual communication, and add much other value besides.

Hamlet Au, famous blogger about Virtual Worlds who was formerly embedded in Second Life, says he is off to London for another Virtual Worlds meeting, and comments, "I never traveled the real world as much, until I started working in a virtual one." While it seems counterintuitive at one level, the furious conferencing and deal-making around virtuality and the future 3-D web need face-to-face meetings where anonymous avatars can meet each other and come to trust each other at a higher meat-world level. After they've had a chance to do so, *that* is when they may start to save on airfare.

While nearly everyone at the keynote speech at Virtual Worlds '07 raised their hand when asked if they had an avatar, many business people almost pride themselves on not getting too immersed, having characters that never change their clothes, or were customized and prepared for them by other people, and going AFK in a world and tabbing out of it to work in other applications. They might drop into a seminar, but aren't going to fly around a dance club feeling ridiculous. Or will they?

Actual measurement and analysis of the effectiveness of communication and the level of work productivity in virtual worlds have not really been attempted -- yet. One IBM analyst told me that he did not believe IBM should leave its ingrained telephone culture, where people spontaneously pick up the phone to talk to their colleagues even in the same building. Other IBM staffers swear by the sense of proximity they get from meeting their colleagues from around the world in a close, interactive space.

The obstacles of lag and the learning curve, as well as the disruptiveness of private IMs are at one end of the spectrum of considerations about business use of virtual worlds. At the other end are the amazingly accelerated and intuitive communications even with typing; the quick, interactive prototyping; the storage of data accessible by a group asynchronously;, and serendipity -- spontaneous connections and ideas coming together constantly. It will likely take some time and study to harness the best parts of virtual worlds and walk around the annoyances -- or fly!

Christian Renaud of Cisco Systems called for a little honesty in statistics reporting on the Virtual Worlds Blog today. While nobody is necessarily falsifying numbers, there's always a certain amount of coaching of the truth to make things seem more favorable than they really are. "Since this is still an early market without a common language, each company is reporting whatever statistics make their platform look more attractive," says Renaud. At present if one were to add together the reported subscriber base of the 44 "top" virtual worlds, you would total 465,003,915 people. The population of Canada, the US and Mexico together is about 443,230,979.

Renaud sees a need for two things: a basic taxonomy for virtual worlds, and a common market index.

Taxonomy is important because when we say "virtual worlds", we could be talking about anything. We might be talking about a chat interface with avatars, or a world simulation without avatars, or any number of things in between. Are we talking about a 3D or 2D environment? How do MMORPG's fit in? These are pretty basic questions, but if there aren't clear answers then the term "virtual world" falls apart.

A common market index naturally follows. This would involve working out a common set of metrics across all virtual worlds that they would all apply the same way. From this worlds can be compared and successes can be measured more easily. Renaud points out that more traditional advertisers are entering the virtual arena and this is the kind of metric they are keenly interested in.

The end result is a common understanding of what works and what doesn't so that we can get down to the business of properly cross-breeding these worlds. We may end up with fewer platforms, but they'll contain the best possible combination of attributes from their progenitors. The added benefit is that companies new to virtual worlds will be able to make long-term investments without as much concern over the potential demise of the platform they're investing in.

Techcrunch brings news that the virtual world of Whuddleworld ran out of funds in April and is looking to be acquired. Built by a team of just five people it looks like it was a big hit among 13-17 year old female users (according to the corporate website). From Techcrunch:

Co-founder Dee Hardrath claims that at the time of shutdown WhuddleWorld had grown to 76,000 registered members and a monthly page view count of 20M. She also says the company still receives emails four months later from loyal followers pleading them to get the world back into operation.

Overall it looks like a promising acquisition. The business overview (PDF) will give you a general idea. If you're interested, do contact them directly and be sure to let us know how things go!

A peculiar blog entry about AreaNet (via WarCry) has many wondering if the publishers of Guild Wars are guilty of a little foul play. The game itself is free to play after the initial purchase, and the only way users might spend more is on expansions or if your account gets banned for something like, for instance, purchasing virtual assets through a third party broker.

According to the blog entry, however, AreaNet has been working closely with the larger gold farming services for some time. This would imply that they're profiting from the brokerage of items they say aren't supposed to be for sale, and doing so in a rather underhanded way.

While the blog may be a complete fraud, it does bring up an interesting point about security when it comes to administration of a virtual world. If you are building a world, or selling virtual goods in someone else's, knowing that the transactions in the system are secure is critical. With a little help from inside the company users could duplicate items without permission, or even print their own virtual currency, and unbalance the entire virtual economy.

Steven Davis, security expert of PlayNoEvil.com fame, pointed out some interesting avenues of exploitation that should be kept in mind:

1. Companies whose model involves profit from sign-ups could possibly benefit by mass-banning users for gold farming related offenses.
2. Employees at any level may collude with gold farming companies. (It's happened before.) Securing access privileges, auditing, and staff management are critical.
3. Larger gold farming companies could target smaller ones for banning with a little help from game company employees to eliminate competition.
4. A game company could give a "head's up" to preferred gold farming companies about upcoming mass bannings. The farmers can switch accounts and lay low for a bit and stay in business while the game company looks great in public.
5. Employees know the technical vulnerabilities of the system better than anyone, and can advise select individuals of how to best exploit the system. (The blog entry details an item duplication exploit.) Again, auditing and access control would help here.

Know of any he missed?

Many people, particularly those that are interested in, but not intimately involved in, virtual worlds, tend to think of Second Life, Kaneva, Entropia and other 3D environments as being at the advancing edge of web2.0. They're often referred to as web3.0, the 3D web, or web 3.D. Many other people view them as a waste of time, or an interesting diversion at best. These people most often have not been into Second Life, or have not managed to get over that initial learning curve. Through no fault of their own, they have a flawed view of what's happening in this space.

The reality is that the 3D web is in its infancy, and as such, is nowhere even close to the leading edge of web2.0 in terms of communication, Search, identity, sheesh, not even collaboration. It's certainly not a waste of time though, or something that's going to just go away if you ignore it, or pretend it doesn't matter. It does matter, and those people trying to make the best of the kludgy communications systems, poor system stability and all the other oddities that arise from using a system that's in constant development are at the forefront of something that will eventually change the way we all live and work on the internet.

That doesn't stop it feeling like some kind of insane time warp though. With that in mind, here's a fun, but true list of reasons why what we're doing in virtual worlds today is like what we did 10yrs ago.

1. Return of the Walled Garden
As the big players fight to maintain their precarious dominance, the concept of the walled garden rears its inevitable and ugly head once more. We're so many years from being able to travel freely between ALL worlds, and when we do, we'll have to fight the browser wars all over again as well...

2. Clueless Corporations
In any new medium, eventually the suits turn up, and get it utterly, and totally wrong. To the hilarity of the rest of us. Like the WWW before them, Virtual Worlds are no exception, and corporations, as well as politicians regularly fall afoul of new media rule #1: Look before you leap! For wont of a little observation, understanding and immersion within the culture of virtual worlds we see all kinds of mischief befall the unwary. Personally I'd not have it any other way, but maybe that's just me..

3. Spinning Logos
...and other horrors, like the 3D equivalent of the blink tag. We're still trying to work out what works best for attracting visitors to commercial sites in Virtual Worlds, but despite being able to look back on 10yrs of experimentation and evolution of technique, it's heartening to see that good old fashioned human stupidity and laziness can overcome such foolish notions as providing regularly updated content, building communities and providing genuine value, and move straight on to the 10m x 10m spinning neon atrocity....

4. First Fever
Hand in hand with clueless corporations, though deserving of it's own listing as it extends far beyond the big real life companies, is the desire to be first. It doesn't appear to matter what at, but dammit, you just gotta be first! "Clueless Twonk Inc Are First Walrus Tickling Company to Enter Second Life" and similar headlines get deleted from my inbox almost by muscle memory now. What truly amazes me here is peoples inability to see that this type of idiotic posturing jumped the shark quite some time ago.

5. Rock Star Designers
As when the web was young, there is a tendency among corporations to leave everything, including public relations, promotion and community management to the people hired to build out a presence for them. Some of these firms have people that specialize in different areas for just such purpose, but as I've remarked before, more often than not, the corporation in question would be better advised to hire a different, specialist company for such tasks. We see the designers of builds trotted out like prize pony's in corporate press releases and being charged with promoting events on corporate sims, which often just means announcing on the designers own email list or group. Personally I find it annoying, but let's lay blame in proportion shall we? 70/30 weighing worse for the corporation for not doing its inworld homework to the extent of being able to work this stuff out inhouse, and lightly(ish) on the designers for not having the balls to tell the client their plan sucks, or that they themselves cannot possibly be experts in every conceivable field.

6. If You Spam It, They Will Come
Search in virtual worlds, particularly Second Life, sucks beyond all possible belief. If we wanted to find the newest listing each time, rather than the best listing, and people were not naturally inclined toward the tragedy of the commons style of community responsibility when it comes to free traffic sources, we'd all be ecstatically happy with our results. As it is though, Search is truly like warping back 10yrs to pure keyword algorithms that only needed a title tweak and a bit of keyword stuffing to send you rocketing to the top of the pile. As a result, its very easy to find stuff, but not very easy to find good stuff.

7. Selling Picks and Shovels
Though the press has recently turned on virtual worlds, as my friend Joel notes here (the inspiration for this post no less..), the gold rush in Virtual Worlds is still in full effect. We're just doing it a little quieter at the moment. In any gold rush, the ones that are really guaranteed to profit are not the gold miners, panning through grit to find nuggets, but the ones selling the picks and shovels. In terms of entire worlds, we've seen a few different kits come out recently, including Icarus and Multiverse, who are frighteningly keen to stress that they're not just for games! but virtual worlds too! What we havn't seen yet, but must surely come, is the 3D equivalent of the CMS. Oh I know you can get prefab houses in Second Life, even ones that you can build yourself with different floors jig-sawing together and the like, but we've not seen anything approaching the kind of functionality and flexibility required to cause a real shift in the way we work in virtual spaces yet. I hope we see it soon, when content becomes easier, so will adoption rate and retention levels.

Despite firmly believing that in many ways we've taken great leaps backward, in our coming forward, on the 3D web, i remain optimistic. There are talented, creative minds working 24/7 on this stuff, and barely a week goes by without the landscape shifting just a little bit. I remain a believer, a fan, and I hope, one of the 'doers', in this space.

Have more points to add? Think I'm talking crap? Say so in the box beneath...

Rand Leeb-du Toit, CEO of Yoick, recently blogged that China is getting ready for a "virtual world onslaught".

The most public argument for this would be Cyworld China. Since launching in June 2005 they've reached 3 million subscribers and are growing by 15,000 a day. Add to this Tencent's QQ with its half a billion registered users, and you have an audience that is accustomed to purchasing virtual items and "forming deeper connections via immersive environments."

As far as virtual worlds, they have HiPiHi (often referred to as a "Second Life clone"), and the upcoming worlds from Shanda, UOneNet and Entropia. Once these worlds have established themselves, expect many more companies to join the virtual world industry.

In case you missed it on the 14th (see previous article), the entire show is available through the website here (in the box labelled Virtual Worlds). The above clip is of Sang-Min Whang, Nick Yee, Philip Rosedale.

I highly recommend checking it out. It gives a much broader perspective of what we're talking about in the first place when we're discussing building a Metaverse, and what's happening to the people behind the keyboard.

If you want to see it on TV, here are the upcoming air dates:

(All times GMT)
Saturday June 16 6:00, 14:00, 19:00;
Sunday June 17 6:00, 19:00;
Wednesday June 20 14:00

The Economic Times recently reported that Kreeda Games out of India has received just under $10 million in VC funding from IDG Ventures and SoftBank China & India Holdings. The focus of the company is producing content for India itself, which is a good indicator of how mature the technology sector is getting over there.

Of course, developers in the West have long known that India's technology sector is quite robust. The economic differences, combined with the high number of skilled programmers, makes it an attractive place to outsource work of all kinds. While I've personally run outsourcing projects with a number of programmers and middle-managers over the past few years, it never occurred to me before today that people might want to outsource work for virtual worlds.

If you're thinking about sending some of your work over there, however, take heed: it's not as easy as sending off some quick instructions and getting your work back at a huge discount. Here are some things to keep in mind:

1. It's A Different World
A web developer we had been using reliably and consistently disappeared on us for a few days at a critical juncture, and we couldn't figure out why. She had mentioned that she was going to be traveling from one city to another but hadn't mentioned any delays, and we feared the worst. As it turns out, what she meant by that was that she would be on a train for a day, then have to spend another day taking care of family upon her arrival, and then she could think about figuring out how she was going to get back online and catch up on email. She assumed we understood this, and it was purely the cultural divide that caused the confusion.

Watch a few subtitled Indian movies, hit a few restaurants, and maybe even catch a little of their local news. If the person you're dealing with mentions anything about their personal life, you need to know what they're implying. Ask questions - you never know what might end up having business implications.

2. Same Phrase, Different Meaning
Picture this scenario:
- "So we want it all to be blue. Is that clear?"
- "Yes."
- "Any questions?"
- "Did you want it all erased or just the blue?"
- "Erased? What? No! We just want you to change the color!"
- "Oh ok I understand."
- "... do you?"

This happens a lot. One of you will say something that you'll think is crystal clear, and the other will interpret it wildly differently than what was intended. There are two different ways to address this: A) Ask them to repeat your instructions back to you their own way. (This alone resolves 75% of the issues.) B) Vary your communication medium. Email, live chat, and voice all force people to think differently about how to get a message across. Find what works for them, not for you. After all, they're the ones trying to work in a foreign language.

3. Budget For Disaster
In a recent project we had a developer put together a small Web 2.0 style application for a client, but they failed to realize that the client wasn't interested in programming in PHP/MySQL every time they created a new entry. We ended up with a product that was only 60% completed, but fortunately we had anticipated problems and budgeted accordingly. We're paying someone else twice as much for the last 40% as we did for the first 60%, but it will be worth it.

Sometimes you discover that the expectations are different on one end than on another, and your contract can be interpreted either way. That's often nobody's fault, but have a backup plan in place before you even begin negotiations.

4. Never Take "Yes" For An Answer
When we first started outsourcing we were the victim of false promises; a programmer had claimed he could do many things he couldn't, and even provided examples that were similar. Months after the promised due date we ended up with a product that just barely did what we needed it to do, having been strung along by a never-ending series of requests for "just a few more days".

Outsourcing is very competitive, which drives down the price. The problem is that when there are only a few jobs up for grabs, people will be tempted into "fake it 'till you make it" mode. They may say that they can do things or meet deadlines that are just beyond them. Ask them to rationalize their promises, show evidence of past similar achievements, and make sure that you have the commitment in writing.

5. Be Polite!
Luckily for us, we happened to have followed tip #1 enough to pick up on this little subtlety before we behaved like buffoons: Indian people are very polite.

Westerners want to get to the point immediately. That can be very dehumanizing of us, and ignoring the pleasantries can be downright insulting even if we don't mean it that way. Conversations open with discussions about health and family. If time is a factor, plan for it. An insulted tech rarely gives the job their best effort. Kindness could save your business!

6. Risk Mitigation
There are a number of things you can do to limit risk, especially if this is your first time outsourcing work.

When starting with a new company, unless they can show a long track record of work much bigger than your project, start small with them first and work your way up. Many will be willing to handle some of the preliminary work first for a minimal fee to make sure you're comfortable.

Also, if the nature of your project allows it, divide it up into small jobs and distribute them between a variety of independent developers. It's more work on your end, but if this is your first time outsourcing to another country, it's best to make your mistakes on a small scale!

If you've ever been present at an event in the virtual world of Second Life with more than forty or so people present, you'll be keenly aware of the issue of scaling. Once the population on a particular server tops fifty, things start to get a little shaky, and eventually there's a crash, or the whole thing becomes utterly unusable due to lag. Project Outback, a virtual world startup that's been under heavy wraps for some months, together with NICTA, an Australian research institute, are reportedly working on peer to peer technolgy that would solve those issues of scale.

In an an interview with Mark Wallace of the 3pointD blog, Dr. Santosh Kulkarni of NICTA says that the organization is working on an underlying structure to virtual worlds that uses modular peer to peer technology to address communications and information flow.

First, they tackled the challenge of indexing users in space, designing a spatial index that allows the various clients to discover users in the 3D space around them, without having to have all that presence information contained on a single server. Secondly, they tackled the problem of interacting, using multithreading techniques (among other things that got lost in a poor connection) to optimize communication between clients. Third came a security solution that obfuscates users’ IP addresses while still allowing clients to transmit the necessary information across the network.

Certainly peer to peer tech poses interesting possibilities for virtual worlds and it will be facinating to see how (if..) it's deployed on Project Outback when we're finally able to get a look.

In an as yet unconfirmed rumor buzzing around Chinese tech blogs, the Second Life like Chinese virtual world Hipihi appears to have just received it's first big round of funding. According to insiders at the firm, the amount, provided by three venture firms is said to be between $7 and $10M.

Founded in 2005, Hipihi is a virtual world that resembles Linden Lab's Second Life closely. Not a great deal is known about it, other than it's in closed beta, and nearing general release. If you've not seen Hipihi, you might like to check out this video released back in March this year.

Anshe Chung, Second Life's famous first millionaire, is to take yet another step toward what appears to be her ultimate goal: Placing herself at the center of  multiverse. After recent news of her partnership with Entropia Universe Mogul NeverDie to form the Virtual World Awards, it seems Anshe is now out to create an inter-world financial trading market which will allow residents in multiple worlds to invest their hard earned currency across virtual borders.

Mark Wallace of the excellent 3pointD blog says "It remains to be seen whether there’s much of a market for such inter-world investment" and goes on to note that it could just be a little to early for such a venture. Anshe herself is somewhat more bullish, as you'd imagine: "“At ACS we are convinced that once capital is flowing freely, people, goods and services will follow and eventually we will see incentive and pressure for the emergence of open tools and standards. It is our vision that one day even traveling across virtual worlds and taking your belongings with you should become as easy as a mouseclick.”

That's all well and good, but lets not lose site of the fact that Anshe is a very serious player in virtual worlds, and that her ultimate goal is money. Not necessarily a bad thing, but worth bearing in mind. One question that immediately springs to mind, is one of regulation. Who exactly would regulate such transactions? Theoretically, there could be an enormous flow of funds going through such a system, and a UK watchdog has already called for regulation of virtual world finance.

Certainly there are many questions left unanswered, but then like the Virtual World Awards, it's all so much virtual hot air at the moment. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. The project is due to release early next month.

Cyworld, though on the radar, in an entirely new world for me. Fortunately, Morpheus Media's Adam Broitman is on the case for us laggards with a report about two new features being added to South Korea's hottest virtual property:

Like Second Life, many may shudder when referring to Cyworld as a game. "Cy" means relationship in Korean and that is the core value proposition of this world. In fact, it is my contention, based on the look, feel and functionality of Cyworld that that was the premise upon which Cyworld was built, whereas Second Life was built with the original premise of creating a new world, with the social manifestations coming later (or so Philip Rosedale said at Virtual Worlds 2007).

Cyworld, according to Adam, has added video sharing capabilities to its platform which include tools to upload, edit, mix and share videos or photos. According to Adam, Cyworld's sharing tech, Plaza is ingenius: "Cyworld has played on the idea that their users have shared experiences and has verticalized video based on these experiences."

Any Cyworlders in reading Metaversed?

Sometimes when you have such a clearly defined focus, such as virtual worlds business and technology, it's annoying not being able to link to other things you might find interesting in virtual worlds and other areas of more general interest. With that in mind, I spent half an hour last night setting up The Metaversed Tumblelog! If you don't know what a Tumblelog is, think of it as a super-easy scrapbook: A middle ground between blogging, and something like Jaiku [my page]. It's a very very fast way to throw quotes, links, pictures and other types of post to a central spot where anyone can follow via web feed or simply hit the regular page from time to time.

If you're interested in getting a Tumblelog yourself, it takes about 30secs to sign up, and you don't have to have a domain name. It's very addicitve and fun, and you can get it all set up at Tumblr.com

If you have one already, tell us about it in the comments...

Daniel Terdiman points us to an interesting announcement about a virtual worlds fair set to take place in Second Life in June. Mario Gerosa of LifeLogStudio.com will host representitives from , World of Warcraft and other virtual spaces and offer a kind of virtual tourism showcase. It sounds very neat indeed, deal me in...

IBM's Innovate Quick team are using a third party game engine (Garage Games Torque) as an internal version of Second Life to educate employees and "explore the potential technology and social implications.".

Ian Hughes, from the IBM IQ team says:

We in the IQ team are certainly not trying to be Second Life. We are however using some of the elements of virtual presence, and examining the potential balance of content creation versus deployable content in a business context.

Untill the SL server software is made open source, it seems like a good, secure way of exploring virtual spaces in a corporate intranet, though I'm certain some folks will be donning tin foil hats and reading all kinds of conspiracy in the post...

I'm starting to work my way through the extensive list of recorded sessions from this years Virtual Worlds Conference posted at the excellent RezNation blog. If you're umming and ahhing about where to start, let me suggest this particular session: Virtual Worlds "Trends and Numbers" with panelists:

• Daniel Terdiman, Senior Writer, CNET News.com
• Chris Collins, Business Analyst, Linden Lab
• Sibley Verbeck, CEO, The Electric Sheep Company
• Joe Laszlo, Analyst, Jupiterkagan
• Steve Prentice, Distinguished Analyst & Chief of Research, Gartner
• Justin Bovington, CEO, Rivers Run Red

This discussion just blew me away while i listened on my ipod whilst walking the dogs in the rain today.. Absolutely awesome, and well worth the investment of an hour of your time if you're trying to grok the whole VW thing.