Virtual world numbers

An article at the Guardian looking at virtual world numbers and developments, online here.

 

Backlash? What backlash?

A very enthuasistic article from Newsweek, International Edition, July 2007.
If you count the extra bits at the side, the ‘it’s not a game’ definition-by-default appears at least 3 times in various forms. I’m still collecting these…

 

Review of Second Lives, by Tim Guest

A review of
Second Lives, by Tim Guest
Through the screen to wonderland
Reviewed by Pat Kane
Published: 06 July 2007
The Independent
(UK newspaper)

 

Corporate Second Life deflates

There’s an article in Wired looking at what goes wrong for corporations setting up in Second Life. It doubles quite nicely with Ren Reynolds’ 2006 Terranova article in which he ponders a looming SL backlash. 

 

In The Times

It’s a short article, but Martin is quoted.

 

Another one…

This time from the THES, 15 June 2007.
The funny (not funny) thing is reconciling this kind of report with the difficulties that many (most?) people are having getting access. Some of the problems involve hitting university network security, limited profile space, graphics cards, computers more then a couple of years old and an institution’s firewall – and that’s for the employees. How many of our students are going to be able to access it?
dc

 

Second Lives on the radio

On BBC Radio 4 this week. Second Lives  By Tim Guest, abridged by Jane Marshall, read by Paul Panting. Quote: A revelatory journey through the electronic looking glass of alternative life online, where 35 million people around the globe abandon reality for a virtual life.  Unquote

 

Second Life in the Guardian

Second Life founder Philip Rosedale is interviewed in the technology section of today’s Guardian. The introduction of voice techology was mentioned, and voice technology is associated – in this quote at least – with SL’s learning curve, and user retention. I’m not sure how explicitly or deliberately he intends to link these things, however.
From the interview at the Guardian
[Question] So what is the next big step for SL?
PR: I think the voice technology we are developing is very powerful and transformative. The big problem is that it takes a long time to figure out how to do things in SL. Once you get over that, I think SL is a smoother road than the web itself, so taking that average of the four hours it takes now for people to understand SL down to 40 minutes will move us from 10% retention of users to more than 50% and then the 3D web will rapidly be the dominant thing and everyone will have an avatar.

dc