Video: VenueGen offers Webconferencing with virtual avatars

There might not be many people left in Second Life, but at DEMO spring 2010 one company wants to take that virtual world template and bring it into the board room. VenueGen had an impressive demonstration of its service, which lets users upload their photos and create a virtual avatar representation of themselves for serious Webconferences. No giant bunnies or phallic offerings in this boardroom, thank you very much.

Here's the video:

• Keith Shaw's blog

Making plans for a Second Life with Cisco

Cisco and Second Life -- what a happy pair. Shashi Kiran writes in his Cisco blog that Second Life events have exceeded all expectations of success.

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• Jim Duffy's blog

Researchers measuring just how real virtual reality is

Researchers have developed a way to measure how real online virtual worlds are, providing organizations with a way to gauge how effective such worlds can be for training and collaboration. Some see virtual worlds as a way for businesses to enable collaboration without as much physical travel, a popular notion these days in light of travel costs.

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• Alpha Doggs's blog

Cisco wants to know if your network is heaven or hell

Cisco is getting into the holiday spirit. It's throwing a Halloween party in Second Life on Oct.

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• Jim Duffy's blog

10 questions for virtual world evangelists (Microsoft's) Zain Naboulsi, and (G-Squared's) Kyle Gomboy

Welcome to a new regular feature of this blog … "10 questions for … " where we talk to interesting people in the Microsoft world through a series of 10 questions (more or less, but who's counting?) Think of this as a cross between James Lipton (Actor's Studio) and Robert Scoble (Scobleizer). For the inaugural entry in the series, Microsoft Subnet interviewed two of the people responsible for Microsoft's presence in Second Life and other virtual worlds. (See photos.) This interview was conducted as a live chat in Windows Live Messenger. The following is a two-page edited transcript of the conversation.

Microsoft Subnet: 1) What is it that each of you do for your day jobs?

Zain: I'm a developer evangelist for Microsoft in the South Central District. That means I reach out to the community and engage them any way I see fit to help them use our technologies to great effect.

Microsoft Subnet: 2) All Microsoft technologies or do you focus on specific ones?

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• Microsoft Subnet's blog

Technology that you should know

I got to go to a concert last week (if you get a chance to see the Warped Tour…do it the bands are great) and I was fairly amazed at the level of technology that was being displayed not only by the venue, but all of the bands that I got to see. I seemed like sometime during the set someone in the band would mention that you could visit them on MySpace or some other website so that you could see the rest of their tour dates, or listen to a song off of their new album…isn’t technology great!

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• Chip Wenz's blog

Second Life celebrates five years of virtual life

A colleague is planning to attend a birthday party this weekend with 20 5-year-olds at a bowling alley – that sounds more exciting than the Second Life 5th-birthday party, scheduled to begin on Tuesday, June 23, and running through July 7.

Linden Lab, creator of the virtual world, is creating a series of roundtable discussions, parties and exhibits that show off the world and showcase creative projects built by residents. Events include discussions around the evolution of Second Life's culture, the role of virtual worlds in business, and opportunities for education, art, philanthropy and health care, a press release states. Linden Lab Founder Philip Rosedale and newly appointed CEO Mark Kingdon will give opening keynote addresses, and Mitch Kapor (founder of Lotus) will offer closing remarks.

A schedule of events is listed here.

Quite frankly, I'm surprised that this world has lasted this long, considering all of the hype that happened last year and then the backlash once all these businesses opened up shop in the world and then discovered that people were only going to the "adult" or gambling areas. Virtual worlds may eventually be useful for businesses, but probably not in the format that Second Life residents or others had hoped.

• Keith Shaw's blog

John Chambers Q&A in Second Life and yet another video game from Cisco

Cisco announced that its Cisco Live hub in Second Life is now open and ready for avatar business -- or rather avatar play. As part of this Second Life launch, Cisco is challenging all comers to try their hands at a new Cisco game. The Virtual Worlds blog says ( -- and this is not satire ...

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• Jim Duffy's blog

Microsoft MVPs gathering; Microsoft in Second Life and Microsoft NASCAR won't go

From the random stuff file ... Microsoft is hosting a shindig for 1,800 of its Most Valuable Professionals in Seattle this week. Microsoft has awarded the MVP designation to 4,000 professionals worldwide.

MVPs are individuals that do not work for Microsoft but who answer questions and otherwise support Microsoft technology. MVPs also tend to get first looks at Microsoft products and to influence feature sets of upcoming products.

Several Microsoft Subnet bloggers have earned their MVP designations in 2008 including MOM MVP Kerrie Meyler. (Her new book is also our April book giveaway.)

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• Microsoft Subnet's blog

Cisco opens virtual hospital in Second Life

If you've always fancied yourself as a doctor but chose networking as a career instead, don't worry, you can wonder around the virtual wards of the Palomar Pomerado Health hospital to your heart's content, courtesy of Cisco and Second Life. The hospital is a virtual representation of the bricks-and-mortar facility - the $811 million Palomar West Medical Campus due to open in San Diego in 2011.

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• Jim Duffy's blog

Cisco: Let them eat virtual cake (and other Cisco goodies at CES 2008)

The consumer electronics buyer is the new CIO and Cisco is hoping to place its brand in the consumer psyche by making a big splash at next week's Consumer Electronics Show. As well as launching a raft of Scientific-Atlanta- and Linksys-developed gear to highlight what Cisco dubbs "visual networking", Cisco will also be celebrating the first birthday of its Cisco Campus on Second Life.

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• Jim Duffy's blog

Cisco seeks a Gartner of the virtual worlds

Cisco's chief virtual avatar is expected to launch a virtual worlds tracking organization that will help businesses measure how successful their virtual worlds are.

In his blog earlier this week, Christian Renaud, chief architect of Network Virtual Environments for the Cisco Technology Center, called for a market index that captures and analyzes the key metrics of the virtual worlds - a Gartner for the virtual world.

Later, TechCrunch reported that Renaud is expected to launch the Metaverse Market Index (MMI) at Virtual Worlds Fall next week.

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• Jim Duffy's blog

Cisco to demonstrate the 'serious' side of the virtual phenomena

Further demonstrating its interest in the virtual world, Cisco is collaborating with Giunti Labs, a European vendor of e-learning, and the newly formed Serious Games Institute of the U.K.'s Coventry University to show off the "serious" applications that could be conducted in virtual realms such as SecondLife.

At the TechnoCentre at Conventry University Park, taking place on Sept. 13 - 14, the organizations will demonstrate how technology could be used for communication and collaboration, education and training, scenario planning, and for research, according to Giunti Labs.

Read more here.

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• Jim Duffy's blog

Second Life to get HBO treatment

It's not just TV, it's Second Life TV on HBO. The cable movie giant announced today it picked up the documentary "My Second Life: The Video Diaries of Molotov Alva."

According to Variety, the film was shot entirely in the popular virtual universe Second Life. Reuters reports that HBO paid six-figures for the rights to Alva.

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• Layer 8's blog

Get a First Life (Part III)

I have stated earlier that I don't "get it" -- why are real companies rushing into 2L with real dollars? It's just a game, right?

I think they missed the first Web 2.0 wave -- they arrived late to the MySpace and YouTube party -- and they don't want to miss out on "The Next Big Thing". But look at the numbers, quoting Wired Magazine:

According to Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, the number of avatars created by distinct individuals was closer to 4 million. Of those, only about 1 million had logged on in the previous 30 days (the standard measure of Internet traffic), and barely a third of that total had bothered to drop by in the previous week. Most of those who did were from Europe or Asia, leaving a little more than 100,000 Americans per week to be targeted by US marketers.

And why do those 100,000 Americans bother to come back to 2L? Again, from the article:

On a random day in June, the most popular location was Money Island (where Linden dollars, the official currency, are given away gratis), with a score of 136,000. Sexy Beach, one of several regions that offer virtual sex shops, dancing, and no-strings hookups, came in at 133,000. The Sears store on IBM's Innovation Island had a traffic score of 281; Coke's Virtual Thirst pavilion, a mere 27.

It wasn't Micro$oft's Encarta that put a CD-ROM in your computer -- it was Virtual Valerie and Penthouse's Photo Shoot, so perhaps 2L will overcome technical issues (it's not scaling well) and become TNBT. It's lonely when you're the first one to the party, and many corporate players are investing heavily to come early. IBM, the NBA, Coca-Cola -- they all want to be there if it happens. But I'm getting one of those Dick Cheney "gut feelings" about this one...

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• Miles Baska's blog