More virtual-world Stories

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MoshiMonsters1

Moshi Monsters creator Mind Candy has announced the purchase of UK games studio Origami Blue to help lead its experimental labs project – but the company’s first acquisition is unlikely to be its last, with a new head of M&A joining. Read more »

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Virtual world avatar

As virtual worlds become prevalent in business, we need to learn how to present ourselves effectively. Since first impressions count just as they do in face-to-face teams, we need to take our virtual appearance seriously. In these environments, appearance is based on our avatars. Read more »

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I’ve been a huge fan of Second Life since I first “rezzed” (logged into the virtual 3-D environment) in March 2007, and have previously blogged about my own Second Life. Despite all the limitations and downsides of Second Life (and there are many), it has been […] Read more »

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They say numbers don’t lie, and in recent months the number of people populating virtual world Second Life has started to rise again. Mark Kingdon, CEO of parent company Linden Lab, has been touting the return to steady user growth; to back up his claims, he […] Read more »

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While everyone in the game industry was following the latest news from GDC last week, I happened to notice an MMO milestone happening on Facebook: a casual virtual world called YoVille passed 5 million monthly active users. Launched in May of last year, YoVille’s user growth […] Read more »

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Today, the casual social MMO RocketOn is launching a beta partnership with six prominent youth-oriented consumer sites: Comedy.com, Hypster, Online Flash Games, Hotspot, Boosh Magazine and faceDub. Now, visitors will find RocketOn’s Flash-based virtual world overlaid on those sites, making it easy for users to create […] Read more »

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Depending on who you ask, Second Life is either an early pioneer in what promises to be a brave new virtual world of peer-to-peer interaction, rife with business opportunities, or a non-starter that got way too much hype way too early and won’t live up to […] Read more »

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I’ve talked about live blogging events as a way to enhance and promote a real world event, literally as it is happening. But lately, I’ve been asked to host virtual world events simultaneous to real world events. Mike Gunderloy and I also included planning and hosting […] Read more »

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Metaplace, the user-created, web-based virtual world from visionary game developer Raph Koster, is announcing $6.7 million in Series B funding from new investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. Read more »

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Second Life, the user-created world backed by Linden Lab, has found itself in an increasingly competitive market lately; Google’s Lively is just the latest entrant into the virtual world space. So I sat down with Linden’s recently appointed CEO, Mark Kingdon, to find out how he plans to turn things around. Read more »

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The other virtual shoe finally dropped today– after a year and a half of rumors, Google (GOOG) now brings us Lively, a web-driven mini-virtual world. Not a contiguous, immersive, fully user-created metaverse like Second Life, as it turns out– so it’s not really a direct competitor– […] Read more »

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Flying under the proverbial radar for the last four years, the web-based virtual world chatroom IMVU has released new jaw-breaking data: Since April 2004, it has amassed 20 million registered accounts, with 600,000 of those active monthly users. By comparison, Second Life took five years to […] Read more »

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As an active resident in Second Life as part of my Web work, I am fascinated by the exploration of virtual world environments as platforms for “wikitecture” which essentially is collaborative planning and design. The process is being tested by architects and urban planners, but for […] Read more »

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Starting now, Mattel (MAT) is offering a premium subscription option to its phenomenally popular Barbie Girls web-based virtual world. Since beta launch April 2007, it’s amassed a record-breaking 13 million registered users, with over 2.3 million of those monthly active users. At $5.99 a month, the […] Read more »

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Call it Habbo Hotel meets Web 2.0. A free, web-based, casual virtual world with 2.5D graphics aimed at teens 13 and up, SmallWorlds, whose public beta launches today, at first looks like a more graphically rich version of the phenomenally successful (if aging) Finnish MMO. Like […] Read more »

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Apple Store To Go Virtual? That’s the theory of MacNN, at least, citing an Apple patent application published on the US government site last Thursday, somewhat obscurely entitled “Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere”. The patent application’s stated goal is to create an online shopping experience that doesn’t […] Read more »

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Call me skeptical. Call me cynical. Call me shortsighted. But I just can’t see what the new company Qwaq offers that is different or better than what is already out there. Here’s how the company describes its offering: Qwaq, Inc. creates virtual spaces for real work. […] Read more »

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No doubt you’ve already read a few reviews of the Lenovo X300 notebook, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to point out one more because it’s from Sal Cangeloso over at Geek.com. James and I both have the pleasure of knowing Sal; he’s a fantastic […] Read more »

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NBC Universal is saying it won’t renew an agreement to sell its television shows on Apple’s iTunes, according to the New York Times. NBC is iTunes’ No. 1 supplier of digital video to Apple’s online store, with 40 percent of total downloads. The situation has a […] Read more »

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Finally the noose is beginning to tighten around Global (Double) Crossing promoter, Gary Winnick. The New York Times has a brilliant article in today’s edition about how Gary is now fighting with the same dudes who financed his scam. I love this quote by Judge Gerald […] Read more »