Virtual Worlds

SAN JOSE, Calif.--I was walking around the Virtual Worlds conference here this afternoon when I ran into Jerry Paffendorf, the co-author of the Metaverse Roadmap report and the current co-founder of a stealth start-up called Wello Horld.

Paffendorf knows all, and so I eagerly asked him what was the best thing he'd seen at the show.

Without hesitating, he pointed me over to a small corner of the expo floor and to the little booth of a skunkworks project called inDuality developed by a company called Pelican Crossing and another known as IBM.

Well, when I finally found … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif.--The Virtual World conference got off to a quick start this morning when The Electric Sheep Company, a leading developer of corporate projects in Second Life, announced that it has released a new viewer for the popular digital 3D social environment.

The idea behind the new technology, which is called OnRez, is that it would allow Second Life residents to use the virtual world through a Web browser-like system. It would also make it easy to buy all kinds of in-world products through the OnRez shopping system, which has been around for some time.

One thing that … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif.--I'm down at the Virtual Worlds conference here, and one of the most interesting things I've noticed is that everyone is trying to differentiate themselves from Second Life.

It actually makes sense. The attendees of this conference are largely people who are only recently coming to the concept of virtual worlds, and if there's one everyone's heard of, it's Second Life.

So, this differentiation is happening in two ways.

First, in panels, like the one I'm sitting in right now, titled "Blurring the lines between virtual and real worlds," … Read more

Starting Wednesday, most of the movers and shakers in the virtual-worlds business will be descending on San Jose for the Virtual Worlds conference.

I'm very interested to see how this show turns out. I covered and spoke at the spring edition of this show, which was held in New York, and I really wasn't overly impressed. At the time, I felt that the hundreds of people who attended weren't entirely sure why they were there, though they knew they should be.

On the other hand, as a veteran of such shows, maybe my standards were too high. … Read more

If you've ever sat in an Aeron chair, you know what real office comfort can be like. Plus, they're just great-looking pieces of furniture.

That's true whether you're talking about a real-life Aeron or an Aeron in the virtual world Second Life, where there are plenty of copycat chairs available for sale at reasonable prices.

But now, according to Wagner James Au over at the blog New World Notes, Aeron manufacturer Herman Miller has launched a store in Second Life and is attempting to address the issue of illegitimate knockoffs through an interesting two-pronged approach.

For … Read more

When Google first announced in 2006 that it had purchased @Last Software, and its Sketchup 3D modeling tool, there were few people more excited than Jerry Paffendorf.

Paffendorf was at that time the futurist-in-residence at The Electric Sheep Co., as well as one of the people behind the Accelerating Studies Foundation's Metaverse Roadmap project.

And he saw, even early last year, that folding Sketchup into Google could mean magic for virtual world developers, since it meant there was a high probability of a 3D, social virtual environment built around Google Earth.

As a futurist, Paffendorf was spot on: Virtual … Read more

For the last couple of weeks, I've been researching the fact that a lot of venture capital has been flowing into companies building virtual worlds or the technologies behind them.

On just a quick survey of things I'd seen recently, I found several examples of significant investments by either VCs or angels: CBS and Gladwyne Partners putting $7 million into The Electric Sheep Company; Charles River Ventures putting $2 million into Areae and $5.5 million in Conduit; Gladwyne's investment into Anshe Chung Studios; Sterling Stamos Capital Management's $4 million into Multiverse; and others.

Well, just … Read more

When I was in high school, all those years ago, being a nerd, or a geek, was a painful thing. We were the outcasts, the forgotten ones who couldn't get a date to save our lives, and for whom the future seemed certain to be a blur of solitary days and nights spent coding.

Over the years, as my lot in life improved, it occurred to me from time to time that I should go back to that school, take a few of these unfortunate souls aside, and give them the good news: Sure, today you're alone and … Read more