Eyes inside virtual worlds

There's been some good buzz here and there recently about the iWear VR920 virtual reality goggles from Vuzix. Given the mostly positive vibes I'd been reading, I had been expecting a lot more coverage by now in my fav blogs. Haven't seen a word dropped therein. So I'm going to kick this out there. Hopefully someone with some more spare cash than I've got can give them a look-see and get back with some more feedback for the rest of us. I'm especially keen to read about their use in Second Life.

Just like you read it, these are virtual reality goggles. They simulate a projected 62 inch (157 cm) screen via two small LCDs parked in front of your eye-balls. Now, I'm not in favor of strapping another source of EMF radiation directly onto our heads, but I can't say I haven't been dying to give these a spin nevertheless. And though the current drivers are mostly for games, as you would expect, I think there is a huge potential for use in virtual worlds.

The difference is perspective. One of the strengths of virtual worlds, and why they are so attractive in their varied forms, is the projection of a formed self, aka avatar, interacting with other counterparts. But you, as a user, are still mostly removed from the setting, peering at your avatar from above, or even in mouselook, through a window that is your computer screen. In other words, there's still a bit of distance between you and the medium and between you and other users. What these goggles do is to put you into the setting, removing the boundaries. They react to your movements by changing the perspective and reaction of your view as if you were really there. It's a not so subtle distinction and I think the experience could be a great driver for interest and use of virtual worlds as it makes them a bit more natural, at least to our eyes. They are also a step, I think in the right direction, of removing some of the construct of the interface for virtual world use, and let us function more directly in the medium. In this case, it's merely a visual perspective but that's a lot and the difference I imagine (until I find a spare $400 that's all I can do) is profound and if popular, could lead to other inputs such as hand and facial gestures recognition. And though not really enabled as yet (these work, but only with older graphic cards - sometimes), there is a potential for stereoscopic 3d and the creation of depth perception as well.

Getting back to the here-and-now, the linked review and a commentary I read about a user finally getting to use these in Blizzard's World of Warcraft underscores the wow!-factor. Unlike some predecessors, the price-point for these goggles is not unapproachable for the masses, though still far too high for mainstream use. And they are said to be finicky to calibrate and set up and require learning a slower head-turning response. But, this is a point that was underscored in the reviews, they actually deliver as promised. In fact, I'm hearing there is a bit of a backlog in getting one of these so perhaps they are catching on after all.

These goggles currently work with Second Life and a select list of games. But there's no reason that drivers for more virtual worlds and games can't be created given interest and time. Like virtual worlds in general, game use can provide the adoption bridge that brings these into more common use and the non-game virtual world spill-over I think could really help bring new users into that medium. I can imagine these goggles would make Forterra's already excellent training simulations all the more engaging and, after Second Life, I would just love to strap these on and visit an ultra-high DX10 session of LOTRO or Entropia Universe's promised DX10 makeover.

Just want to make a final note that despite what the reviewer erroneously states for supported systems, my understanding is that these work as well on Apple's OS X, not just Windows. So we Mac'sters are apparently covered.

Is an island bigger than a planet?

Not so fast with your answer now. We're talking about virtual worlds here, where all things are relative.

VWN is reporting that Entropia Universe intends on potentially giving away whole planets to businesses, as long as those businesses can "add value to the universe as a whole" (in other words, bring in traffic and use I expect). So planet is something of a misnomer here. What MindArk deems a planet I believe is more like an asteroid in current Entropia practical parlance. We're not talking Mars, or even Ceres here, for real estate. However, there's nothing to say that given the mutable laws of virtual physics, that such asteroids can't grow themselves over time (or just open up heretofore inaccessible terrain) given the need and traffic.

That gulf of spacial separation will allow for different laws and function - I would expect - perhaps even different techo-themes, bringing to Entropia, customization ala Second Life's island sims. - I was wondering how Entropia was going to offer different environments given that their core design is built around a science fiction theme with an embedded gaming function, sort of. I would say this points the way.

So even if (insert company name)'s New Mars turns out to be someday as big or bigger in pixel depth as the real Mars would be in virtual terms - which will really be bigger, an Entropia planet or an island sim in Second Life, has yet to be determined. I'd say, for this moment, the island is bigger given that it has more use and with more potential to drive traffic (or at least media buzz), but that can certainly change. It's really up to you and I and everyone else to ultimately decide.

On other Entropia topics, I got an e-mail from the Entropia folks telling me to go in and spruce up my avatar, in anticipation of the Crytek-enabled graphic revamp. I haven't gotten around to it as yet and the sample pics didn't entice me much. However, I am very much looking forward to the rest of the makeover. This much hyped revamp has promised to make Entropia Universe one of the most graphically pleasing virtual worlds - simulating the experience of top-end games that use the same CryEngine2 game engine: such as Crysis. We'll have to wait and see. The entry-point for a game like Crysis might be fine when catering to a market of afficionados with top-end rigs. But when trying to pose a product for a world, much of whom insofar as game-like applications are concerned have less than stellar systems, could create an entry barrier. Not fulfilling that promise can undercut the pre-generated hype and anticipation buzz. I suspect they'll have a way to degrade gracefully, like most games do. But I'll be curious to get a sense of the experience range when they finally do launch the changes. And if the use proves practical, I don't suppose that Crytek has given exclusive license to Entropia but we'll see. I know at least one other MMO has licensed the engine and with this cash-and-carry potential, there's nothing to say that an Entropia rival with deep pockets can't just mimic and ultimately steal Entropia's graphic-enabled thunder.

I've always termed Entropia Universe a hybrid virtual world: part social world, part game. I think the folks at MindArk understand that one of the failings of Second Life is that it often lacks for activity function beyond the purely social (even more so with the closure of gambling) and would like to tap into the success of mainstream MMOs (everyone of course thinks of World of Warcraft, but even LOTRO, or City of Heroes, or EVE Online). But trying to be both things at once, I'm just not sure it works. I think it better to have distinction between the spaces but the ability to interlink and travel between them as the needs and fancy suits the particular user. And some users might exclusively prefer one over the other but can still function in the overall space. Otherwise, people can be put off, say, by the violence and conflict or trading function that governs the game activity or find the social function superfluous. I think Sony intends for their Home to be such a bridging construct and I suspect Microsoft has been considering similar uses.

This opening up of "planets" could be just the thing to help move Entropia Universe away from the science fiction gaming anchor and allow it the versatility to function in multiple activity zones. If more business or media "planets" open up, they could provide the social, possibly even educational and commercial, perspectives leaving the main original Entropia planet to explore its function shifting more exclusively to games without feeling it has left the social users abandoned or put upon by their more combative brethren.

Virtual Worlds Connect(ed)

Join more groups!

I must have woken up with that mantra in my head. It's the only reason that can excuse signing up to yet another site for virtual worlds: Virtual Worlds Connect. If so, I'll state that it was obviously divinely inspired and therefore fate.

What the heck: it's free; it's run by the folks behind one of my fav blogs: VWN (and those affiliated functions like the recently attended Virtual Worlds Conference); and ya never know, it pays to be connected (so they tell me).

Anyway, if you feel like it, come join me in the crush. I even started a group (who's subject seemed to be sadly lacking imho or I'd not have bothered).

Virtual Worlds Conf. - San Jose, 2007: Content Portability

Day 1, Session 4 - Technical Perspective: Designing for Cross-Platform Delivery and Long-Term Content Portability

Panelist: Aaron Delwiche (Metaversatility)

Given the ever-changing scope of virtual worlds, with new offers appearing every month, almost weekly at times, one is never certain which might ultimately come to the fore. And with the risk imposed by the current lack of standards to build by, if your project or product is too intertwined with a given world, and that world ultimately does not prove to be successful, how do you prevent all your hard work and your clientele from being left stranded in a marginalized virtual environment?

The best solution is to have a - suitcase mentality, - ready to pack it up and move elsewhere when required. But that's easier said than done. What are the practical considerations when envisioning such a virtual gypsy existence?

The panelist for this session is a professor on academic sabbatical, due to return soon to his work at Trinity University, Austin. Delwiche proved a good speaker and I found myself engaged and entertained throughout this session. Nonetheless, given how new virtual worlds are, and like many other panels I attended, there wasn't a lot of concrete example or proven methods attached to the topic discussion. The content was mostly supposed and common sense and despite being a very full session, can be summarized in just a few points:

Plan for portability from the onset.

Preserve copies of your asset files in multiple formats. Use generic, aka the most mutable formats, when possible (eg. OBJ, COLLADA, etc).

Preserve layers, when applicable.

When working with a 3rd-party vendor or sub-contractor, always try to secure the highest quality source files in addition to whatever use files you receive. Note: Most vendors will offer such but often at a much higher cost than just getting either "flattened" or down-sampled use files. After all, they can make more money if you have to come back to them later. Just be sure to account for any such in both your negotiations and budget if using outside talent.

Focus on accessibility. If you do so, portability is likely to follow.

I have to say this is great advice and the most ethical tactic. Too often, disabled users are considered only as an afterthought as to how to service their needs. And accessible solutions too often address the minimum adherence to laws governing requirements rather than effective use and enablement. I've personally found that if you plan and try to future-proof for the effective use of both accessibility and internationalization using a modular solution that can adapt, such will realize long term benefits. Modularity means that you can adapt specific components, realizing faster solutions and not being stuck reinventing everything from scratch, or being caught in a legal bind. And in this case, modularity means a greater likelihood you will be able to pack up at least parts of your kit and take it with you, ala the previous mentioned suitcase analogy.

Regrettably, virtual worlds seem to have taken the somewhat typical approach of not addressing accessibility from the onset. But Devlin, from IBM Ireland's contingent at the IBM booth, was able to offer a great example of virtual world accessibility. He and his team have worked on scripting proximity detection via sound within Activeworlds, in order to help enable virtual world navigation for the visually impaired. It is encouraging to note that some companies are working on accessibility even at this early stage, rather than as an afterthought.

Design your presence around core principals of virtual community. Since technology changes, standards shift, it is sometimes impossible to preserve the functional technology of a space.

So if nothing else, understand that community is the most important thing to preserve when migrating.

That last sentence is particularly key. It was suggested that in order to preserve community in a new space, worlds vendors and managers really need to be already involved, in tune, and understand the core concerns of users/consumers/clients engaged in the original space. "Be kind, be interested, pay attention."

Some panelists in other sessions I attended discounted any value in the interaction of virtual space with the Social Web experience of blogs, forums, wikis, etc. Here though, it was suggested that such spaces are very useful when preserving "community memory" since they are independent of the technology used for the virtual space itself. Certainly it provides a compelling argument to at least consider interlinking functions of the Social Web within or adjunct to virtual offerings.

It was suggested for further study on the topic to understand that value of preservation of The Virtual Community, to read the works of Howard Rheingold, the man who is credited with having invented that phrase through his seminal works.

During the Q&A session, there was some discussion about how to preserve files from Second Life by possibly taking them out of that setting. There was mention of applications, some that would allow for the export and theoretical preservation of native Second Life constructs into XML (LIB SL was mentioned & OpenSim was possibly inferred), or re-importation into other forms via other applications, but which violate Linden Lab's terms of service.

CopyBot, for example, probably built with the best of intentions to help develop Second Life, has been used for outright theft of intellectual property within that simulation. So for the time being, there is no way to legally store for safeguarding or migration anything built or purchased in Second Life outside of that setting. But, with the opening up of the source code, it is possible on a limited basis to import some sculpted prims created in other applications, preserving some aspect of those constructs outside of Second Life. And hopefully more opening up of that simulation will occur, as has been promised.

Virtual Worlds Conf. - San Jose, 2007: Stickier Virtual World Builds

Day 1, Session 3 - Technical Perspective: Designing Stickier Virtual World Builds

Panelist: Christian Lassonde (Millions of Us).

Lassonde introduced himself, mentioning his impressive list of gaming and virtual world credentials, including working on Millions' Second Life build for Pontiac, the massive Motorati group of sims, stated by Lassonde to be the second most visited area in Second Life. I will ignore the lobster pot analogy as I seemed to have lost its thread early on, but he seemed a nice very pleasant fellow.

In addition to Motorati, Lassonde went into a history of some Millions' past efforts that dealt with interactive participation. One very successful effort was Microsoft's "What's in the Blimp" campaign. This campaign detailed a challenge to solve the puzzle involved, in some cases, offering hurdles such as answering questions nearly identical to Microsoft's interview questions. Mention of this campaign seems to again, highlight those themes of events, brands, and community found in other conference sessions.

The example brought up for stickiness was the forthcoming initiative to reinvigorate the Second Life space for Toyota's Scion. Lassonde went on to detail some issues they had had for a build for Toyota Scion. After launch, the build lost much of its initial attraction so they started inviting people to take up residences and businesses in the build, hoping to get stickiness by creating a community. What they found was that the community soon took on a life of its own and this suggested that the next incarnation would be a launch where the Scion community could help shape the story itself and not just be recipients to the next phase. And this apparently has been well received and like the CSI effort by Electric Sheep, a good proof in what many at the convention were saying about brands driving community and events. Then we watched some Machinima that was to kick off the event (and which was reshown in the Day 2 keynote intro). This animation sequence, titled "Sand" if I recall, follows three explorers in a sandy desert finding a buried vehicle which inadvertently leads to their receiving a broadcast from the future.

He went on to show another example where virtual storytelling, started and monitored by the vendors and Millions of Us, but largely driven by the community which took off in ways unexpected and unplanned for. This event was the WWE Summerslam for Gaia Online and I think the experience was so positive that it seemed to suggest something grander perhaps for Scion, or that is what I was sort of sensing.

The thing is that the notion of virtual storytelling, which I've no doubt it is very attractive, exciting, buzz generating and worthwhile - and frankly one I'd not considered before so I was glad to hear of it - it is only one aspect of a sticky solution - and a possible sticky solution at that since it remains little tested at this point.

I had been hoping to hear about some existing web and other industry techniques that could be adapted to virtual worlds or discoveries that have come up to date. I pointed out, in one of my questions, that real estate agencies from the U.S. and Australia had gotten good space traction and continued brand exposure by offering subsidized houses conjoined to views of simulations of real houses. That community aspect was perhaps more natural for them but it still was a good sticky point. Could he offer anything else like that?

Well, no. He just kind of shrugged, seeming a bit lost for what I was asking. So, I pointed something that I'd noted before about the Pontiac build, which, though like all of Millions' products - top notch in terms of looks and design - still seemed to be a lost opportunity in terms of branding and "stickiness" when I was there. Since he'd helped build that, it would hopefully put this into a better context for him.

I stated that there is a weekly race in Second Life by residents on My Control Speedway where people come with their latest builds along with friends, have some fun and compete for a small prize purse put up by a German company. The company gets some recognition and thanks but the event is run by Second Life volunteers and overall costs the sponsor very little. I asked Mr. Lassonde, why isn't Pontiac, who spent a fortune building this huge beautiful facility, doing that? (Maybe I was just unlucky but in the several times I'd been there to take screen caps for a report, Pontiac sims were nearly empty). So not my exact words, but something like they could be offering weekly Sunday formula 1 races, stock car races on Thursday nights. They could have monthly car shows where Second Life builders can come show off their goods just like in a real car show - maybe with a charity race afterwards. They could rent out small vendor spaces to set up booths just for the event, not to generate any real money, but to make it more like a village faire - giving people a sense of anticipation and something to look forward to on Motorati each week, month, year - etc. That kind of thing is natural to the space and there would be volunteers to help run it and the cost to Pontiac would be quite small but the branding potential and success story would be golden.* Anyway, he just shrugged and said that was all up to Pontiac.

*My picking on Pontiac is absolutely undeserved and better stated to be a generic example of some possible community activities for any automotive dealer. I now understand that Pontiac has been doing a huge amount of community activity around car culture, including offering space to devotees, and doesn't need my advice to find more sticky points than I can ever think of. The point was just to suggest some sticky options that took a different track than interactive storytelling.

So the next question tracked back to interactive stories and I was just trying to bust my brain to come up with something that could show that stickiness was a nuanced theme, one that could benefit from more than one example. Since no one else was asking any more questions, I asked another about the interlinking of the Social Web. If the Social Web was as sticky as everyone seemed to be saying, as in the panel before and the keynote intro, were there any ways to tap into that to bridge the two environments and keep people engaged in both spaces?

Well, he turned to one of his co-workers in the crowd, the fellow giving the next day's keynote intro I believe (you know him well I suspect), and they just sort of nodded that they'd discussed this and I'm not sure of the exact words of the answer but it seemed that they didn't see any interconnectedness between Web 2.0 and virtual worlds and had pretty much dismissed such, each being different animals I suppose, though that's not exactly what he said.

I gave up. I have to say that I did not find this a particularly useful session. It would have really been better served by people from product marketing, even better, people who had applied existing marketing strategies to discover what worked, what didn't work, and what was unique to virtual space. Instead I felt what we had was more of an enthusiastic sharing, though very valuable in the concept of virtual storytelling, of just one aspect that has really yet to be proven on the scale intended. (And one that will require a lot more over sight and it seems must be somewhat limited in duration unless the ROI justifies keeping it going).

Had I not parked myself dead center in front of the panelist, I'd have gotten up and hightailed it over to another session (I always wish I could be at two or three places at a conference). However, not wishing to be rude, I decided to just stick it out and hope it ended early (which it did thankfully as questions dried up). I had a full fifteen minutes left and a booked it over to catch the end of the Multiverse session, which as it went into overtime, gave me a good peek into that session as well.


Multiverse

Well, I really wish I'd been in this session instead. I caught the tail-end of the Q&A and I was really impressed with the answers and the product. It seemed they were really trying to cover all contingencies and I think the product is probably better poised than I'd indicated from my notes in my platform session.

But since I missed it, next best thing is to find a cover post with all the details and more than I would have noted, courtesy of VWN.

Virtual Worlds Conf. - San Jose, 2007: So Many Platforms

Day 1, Session 2 - So Many Platforms, So Little Time

Panelists: Valerie Williamson, John Swords, Chris Carella, Jonathan Collins (all from Electric Sheep).

This panel discussed a number of the existing virtual worlds. The information was very engaging, though somewhat tethered, since Williamson was there to make sure that no NDAs were violated in the course of discussion. I got a lot of specific info for my concluding report on Virtual Web notions so I'll probably just save that for later rather than rehash from here. Most of that information is fairly obvious and known from other sources. It was just nice to have it restated so nicely all in one place. Some things I did not know though so I found this a very valuable panel overall.

A couple of standouts though, to my mind, were Icarus' Studios and Multiverse. Icarus' Studios I already glossed over in my first break report and more can be found from the company site linked above. I'll add here that Electric Sheep is considering them for some projects.

Multiverse is a product I'd looked at initially after launch back in early August. In concept, it sounded great, but I was very underwhelmed by the product itself. I felt at the time that they'd been a bit premature to market and there were noticeable glitches; the dearth of showcase material with depth didn't leave me with any warm fuzzies either. But it did have potential and I have to say that I have been keeping my eye on this product - but apparently not close enough. It's shown a lot of growth since I first looked at it, and as an out-of-the-box solution for MMO game developers, it is one to be definitely considered when reviewing tool choices. I haven't seen the graphic richness and support structure of Icarus' Studios product. But that can change in future. What Multiverse offers is an easy entry point into the marketplace through a scheme of revenue sharing as just one of many price options. This encourages someone with a good idea but not a lot or any capital backing to get to programming and get their idea up for the world to subscribe to.

Though games can be customized, the basic U.I. seems the same in every game I've seen, just dressed up differently. Rafhael Cedeno, the CTO of Multiverse, happened to be in the audience and some of the questions were addressed to him since he was there - including when there would be a Mac client available. Cedeno said one was forthcoming and polled the room to see how many mac users there were (I'd guess about 40% or more raised hands - which seemed to surprise him; he stated that the Mac and Linux clients would release at the same time and both be forthcoming next year.

(Side note: Given this and some info from the DAZ 3d folks, I stopped by the Multiverse table a second time on day 2 just to get some more details about the Mac client and other things I'd heard from DAZ (wonders of wonders, I was the only attendee at the booth and had both Multiverse employees at hand) and, though I'll discuss it later there, was told very different things. Check Day 2's report for more info).

If I were to compare to two on the surface, I would say that Icarus' Studios has the gloss, production capability, support and power. As long as I could afford the price point, if I were building a new stand-alone MMO or virtual world, that would be my product of choice, no question. If you're just starting out, or you have talent but don't have a lot or any money to spend (remember that the client is free), Multiverse can let you make your dream come true and it could look fantastic.

But I really think Multiverse could have a sleeper hit on their hands. They've thought a lot about contingencies when building it, trying to really future-proof it and set it up for the demands of today and tomorrow. If I were them, I would strongly consider: creating a shallow client for people to build their own social virtual world or MMOs hosted on their own system; small virtual stores out-of-the-box set for same; and perhaps selling back-end systems to ISPs to sell virtual world storage the same way they sell web-page hosting - all tied back to Multiverse's common grid (yes, that's what I'm saying: Multiverse would essentially become it's own mini-Virtual Web/walled garden. They are already for their MMO games but this would be a much bigger garden. Imagine thousands of personal and professional games and social worlds all tied together that could be visited with a common avatar - not years from now but much sooner (or as soon as they could pull it off).

They really do need a custom avatar tool though - that or a heck of a lot more AV models than from when I last looked at them. Also, there is a significant problem in that, back when I looked at them - hopefully they have or are soon correcting this - avatars did not persist beyond a world. Your account did but you would have essentially multiple avatars, each stranded in situ.

Anyway, I heard conflicting data on this point, but the world I got from the Multiverse mouths was that they were not considering any areas outside of MMO games for the moment. We'll just have to wait and see. It could be that if there is any issue about not wanting to expand or admit to wanting to expand beyond the MMO frame, it might have to do with the heretofore announced pairing with Google to expand use of SketchUp models brought into Multiverse for instant virtual worlds. But will those virtual worlds just tie into Multiverse's grid or will they be extensions off of some Google presence, like Google Earth?

My posed question to the panel was essentially what forecasted products announced but not yet available were they each looking forward to try and why (eg. what strengths of these call to you)?

One of the panelists dismissed the question since he never bothered to think about products until he could actually get his hands on them - how very disciplined and electro-zen of him I thought*. But I, like the rest of the panel, couldn't help imagining what new products and their features might enable so they, like me, had a few notions: Qwaq, Metaplace, Wonderland**, Ogoglio, Croquet, 3B, and HiPiHi.

And someone from the audience volunteered VastPark.

*In fairness to Mr. Electro-zen, it seemed he did have a some notions that he was comfortable sharing once everyone else chimed in and some of the above are his.

**One of the fellows I lunched with was from Sun and also mentioned the Wonderland launch.


Second break

I went by the Forterra Booth to look at their Olive product. It was very crowded (again). Taking advantage of height, just stared over the shoulders and listened to questions being answered. I really wanted to evaluate some of their educational spaces but the only thing I got to see was a retail training program, which I have to tell you, I thought was very realistic and very nuanced, hence very impressive. Whoever designed this course knew what they were doing and my stress level rose just watching those poor harried sims trying to navigate a busy day with all sorts of customer demands put upon them.

I thought this was one of the best uses of virtual simulation I'd ever seen and I can understand why hospitals, corporations, law enforcement, and the military turn to Forterra for solutions. I really wish I had had the chance to see the educational product though. But for someone who wants to build his own, I'm not sure why I would choose Forterra. But if I were looking for a solution to be built, nothing can beat real life, but what I saw was an excellent preparation mimicking real life events.

SceneCaster also was a very interesting product. In fact, to say that it has a lot of potential falls pretty short of the mark. As a product, it comes along the lines of growing the Virtual Web out of the Social Web, directly tapping into the popularity of products like Facebook and Flickr as a natural user base with more to come I'd expect. It's a sort of hybrid product for now in that it's not really a virtual world but it's a nice bridge in that it allows people to build and share virtual scenes. In many ways, products like SceneCaster can help transition a full virtual world with those who like the Social Web, who like to share media files - in this case based on virtual scene creations - but who are not comfortable with or fully understand the notion of something like Second Life. It's approachable, already has thousands of objects, growing each day from Google's 3d Warehouse, and with SketchUp, it has a creation tool at hand along with an initial list of market pairings and more likely to come forward.

Given the association with Oddcast, I suspect any forthcoming avatar usage will be 2d and there isn't any plan to actually "walk" the space for now other than with eyeballs. And for "stickiness" and ease of use, in addition to Facebook, Scenecaster will let you plug into eBay, and Amazon.com. It has a model for advertisement revenue and has paired with some other vendors for items. But if you think about it, if you're a manufacturer, a product like this will enable you to show someone your product in their scene - and then eventually link to buy it... wow. Second Life and similar products can't really touch that ease of use and access for now. Speaking of access, SceneCaster is regrettably Windows-only, but it will run on Vista as well as XP.

And yes - according to the attendant, they are considering ways to bring in real avatars - and - working on the ability to import 3d models from other applications (but how far away that is, who knows and they say anything sometimes at shows.) I think this is just a nice-to-have-someday thought but there is no way to bring it about as yet. New technologies come about, and this can change overnight to become a reality. Obviously the folks at SceneCaster sense the fast-changing environment. Linkups with Multiverse I suspect are designed to help them achieve dramatic changes sooner than later. Once that happens, avatars, the potential of having social spaces that can be visited, easy drag and drop for the novices plus import capabilities for the more savvy - interlinked in with social sites like Facebook, Flickr, vendors like Amazon.com, and eBay - who doesn't think this isn't going to be big?

Products like SceneCaster really highlight the need for standards. Imagine a huge repository of SceneCaster scenes someday and more accessible virtual worlds - even a Virtual Web. People are either going to want to take those time-consuming hard-worked-on scenes and either export them out or bring people in.

Speaking of avatars, I walked over to the Poser desk next - or rather the e-Frontier booth. They also own Shade, btw, another app that I've been meaning to buy. It's really great to see all those old Metacreations products, like Poser, still living on (see my Daz 3d post later somewhere in day 2) - alas for Canoma though. They've just passed through so many hands it seems, I wonder if I can ever get the current owners to honour my past copies for upgrade pricing?

Poser of course was always a fun (and at times frustrating) tool. It's been the mainstay of animation creation for those rico-suave dance moves in Second Life. It's coming to the point, with this talk about portable avatars, that avatar creation tools are going to be very popular for people wanting that handsome unique look that isn't off-the-shelf. It's not really practical at this point, but theoretically, you could take your mega-polygon Poser output and bring it into something like Activeworlds. But then you'd be crashing the server and everyone would hate you - which is why Activeworlds protects everyone by having, albeit a very expensive, custom avatar review process. But someday... I just wish the basic version offered the COLLADA output format. COLLADA is going to be very important transfer mechanism between so many of these products and for that, you need to pony up for the pro version from what I could tell.

Now, about that upgrade...

Virtual Worlds Conf. - San Jose, 2007: Demographics and Numbers

Day 1, Session 1 - Demographics and Numbers: Where Things Are and Where They're Headed

Panelists: Michael Cai (Parks Associates), Nic Mitham (K Zero), and Mary Ellen Gordon (Market Truths Limited)

Alright, I'll have to confess at this time that I hadn't drunk enough coffee and, having missed my shot at some CSI-chocolate, was still in the process of waking up and that's my (weak) excuse of why I didn't note who said what in my notes. I think Mary was the woman panelist, but without coffee, I really couldn't be sure.

Market penetration and branding once again were the kickoff in this first session (I think this was K Zero, but remember: no coffee). Market penetration for virtual worlds was fairly weak in Eastern Europe, South America, and Asia - but this also showed that a huge potential for more growth in the virtual world space that was ready to be tapped into (side note: South Korea has entered Second Life). Older users ("silver surfers") are also under represented (very much so as shown be data below) and represent a potential market growth point.

The fact that adult virtual worlds collectively paled in numbers when compared to the existing user-base of children/teen virtual worlds was hammered home. Success of branding, not only in MTV Virtual Worlds - but in Second Life, was shown by the dramatic influx of German users to Second Life following the advertised entry of BMW and Mercedes Benz into that space. In fact, every brand entry has resulted in a population increase in virtual worlds underscoring that brand activity is key to bringing in users and helping create successful use of that space.

A good brand or theme function can by itself be the basis for a successful virtual world, ala MTV Virtual Worlds, or virtual worlds/games, like Football Superstars, restating again the strength of brand spillover to virtual world usage. (I'll make a side note that most game-based virtual worlds, like Football Superstars, also exploit forums to help foster that sense of community, even while outside the virtual space - another example of that Social Web tie-in already used in successful spaces).

One of the reasons for the aforementioned age disparity is that the virtual medium is already internalized by younger users. They don't question its validity as it's already part of their world understanding.

For adult virtual worlds to grow, what's needed is easier interfaces, web-based virtual world clients (note the theme of interconnectedness again) and clients for mobile devices.

| View | Upload your own

Some projected population growths by the end of 2008:

Second Life: growing from 10 million to 20 million users
There.com: one million bumping to seven million
Kaneva: increasing from 0.6 million to three million
HiPiHi: 0 users to 10 million (and this is just based on the initial offering to the huge potential of the Chinese market. HiPiHi has stated intentions of creating European and North American installs)
Whyville: three million to 10 million
Club Penguin: 15 million to 30 million
Football Superstars: 0 - 3 million

(And why was Activeworlds omitted from these figures?)

Stickiness was another point. Subscription based services can obviously justify their numbers with cold hard cash. Children/teen virtual worlds had great retention while adult virtual worlds do not, and even where active numbers exist, a significant number must be deducted for assumed alt(ernative) accounts.

And if adult virtual worlds pale to children and teen virtual world usage, they fare even worse to Social Web users when compared in a table listing percentage of users likely to adopt a particular medium after having tried it, based on age. Gender played a role here with many female users opting for the Social Web while the majority of virtual world users seemed to be male (And obviously 0% must be considered to not be an absolute but an indicator of a very low potential).

Adoptive rates
Age range	Social Web	Virtual Worlds
55+	2%	0%
35-54	14%	5%
25-34	40%	12%
18-24	71%	10%
13-17	35%	5%

Though these numbers might seem bleak, other numbers suggest the very strong potential for how engaging social virtual worlds are, as in these next numbers showing how children like to interact in virtual world games. K Zero's speaker noted early on that virtual worlds seemed to spread by word of mouth, a statement reinforced in the community management panel on Day 2 where it was noted that something like 60% of users of one of the older pre-teen virtual worlds (hence a lot of data to mine) used that world to interact with friends from school. This paints a picture that virtual worlds are often used to preserve and engage already existing social networks and a significant part of their strength lies in that application (something alluded to as well in Day 2's keynote) versus just using them to essentially socialize with people unknown outside of the virtual context.

For teens active in games, the following figures were offered:

76% like to game with others
42% like to game with Mom
40% like to game with Dad
only 19% prefer to game alone.

Again, indicating the strong social underpinning and foundation for virtual world engagement. When asked if they thought Second Life would be a good platform for conducting business:

55% said yes
30% maybe
only 5% said no

Brand perception in virtual worlds tended to follow the same level of brand perception in real life. Positive brands have an advantage that carries over to virtual worlds while neutral brands have to work harder on their images. Researchers have found that brands who are not even in virtual worlds can sometimes receive a positive perception due to unofficial "knock-offs". Brands who choose to effectively engage virtual spaces benefit more from organized events. The problem with such events, more so for Second Life I would imagine, is that technical limitations tend to put a cap on how many can actually be at the event without crashing the sim. My own observation from past reading, poorly anticipated, such events can have a reverse effect on the intended brand perception if the event fails to come off as planned.

The significant strength of virtual worlds for marketing relies in the nature of how people buy products based on recommendation or exposure, again, like the process of "viral growth", offering an example of purchase by the same social mechanisms.

57% consider purchasing a real product based on a friend's recommendation
55% recommend a product to someone else
25% look at a real product after seeing it in Second Life
9% buy a product in real life buy a product after seeing it in Second Life
8% have bought a product in Second Life

(Opinion: either I had a caffeine withdrawal twinge and jittered my notes (very possible) or I'd like to see the data for these figures which must be survey-based and how many samples were taken. If there was a 9% return rate, I would think that is amazing and Madison Avenue would be gushing over virtual worlds, which is hardly the case at the moment. Oh well...I will try to get an update and verification for this set)

Anyway, to conclude, there was a prediction that brand-focused events would increase both the use and popularity for virtual worlds and to expect more of same forthcoming (very nice prediction, btw. Note: the I am Legend tie in to SL)


HiPiHi

The Virtual Worlds in China session was running late and I jumped into that, listening to the question and answer and getting my first good look at HiPiHi through something a lot nicer than a YouTube video.

I have to say, HiPiHi looks very handsome. It does have a somewhat stylistic look the reminds me of some Korean MMOs, but doesn't suffer for it and I heard it runs pretty well - so Linden has some competition - or does it? HiPiHi was one of the first virtual world vendors that had called for working under open standards and in the limited time in the session, I saw them take some frank questions and give what seemed realistic answers regarding things like censorship and open sourcing. Sometime after this session, VWN announced that HiPiHi had signed a deal with Millions of Us to help bring in some of those brand-driven events made so much about in the convention.

I'm glad to hear about the IBM-Linden Lab joint ventures. I don't know how comfortable Linden Lab feels about cozying up to what they might deem a knock-off, but I would have been more glad to hear about an IBM - Linden Lab - HiPiHi joint venture. I think these folks have something to bring to the table; a vendor who is willing to really open up and work with the community and industry towards commonality is not always easy to find; they bring with them the strongest virtual world foothold in the Chinese market so why I'm not hearing about more HiPiHi hook-ups is beyond me.


Lunch

I had picked a nice distant table, hoping to unclutter my notes (reminder to self: order new laptop battery). But I was soon invaded, which was just as well, as I had a very lively and productive conversation about virtual world standards. We discussed things about the uses and implications of AI avatars. Considerations such as if businesses would or would not like to reveal in an OpenID sort of way that the "person" you are talking to is just a bot and how that might impact brand perception were discussed. We chatted about how hard it is to get people to adopt standards (one gentleman had been at the Day 0 event) once products are in place. He cited examples from broadcast standards and how people never want to give up their own standards even towards a common good. I brought up my notions for not reinventing the wheel, so to speak, by borrowing from the games industry, using libraries as downloads, and having the libraries themselves being part of the standardized offerings, noting that at least two of the vendors, albeit walled gardens, were already using this idea of local downloaded assets to the client to both improve performance and enrich the experience. I was very pleased and a bit surprised that the reaction from the table seemed very positive. Some people even grabbed the concept and were explaining it to others. (See, I thought it was an easy notion)