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Telstra responds to questions on Second Life withdrawal

November 18, 2009 by 10 Comments

bigpond-secondlife-nov2009-3-smlAs mentioned yesterday, Telstra have announced their withdrawal from Second Life, and there’s been no shortage of discussion on it around the blogosphere.

We’ve had some passionate comments and a couple of emails from residents quite upset at the decision.

I took the opportunity to put some questions to Telstra’s media spokesman, Craig Middleton, to get some further clarity on future plans and what will happen to the content that’s been successful for their presence:

Lowell: After more than two years of operation, what are the key lessons Telstra has learnt from the experience?

Craig: From our venture into Second Life we learnt a great deal in a variety of areas, including online community anagement and how to foster event-based traffic – experiences in relation to the in world support team and management of frequent in world events .

Lowell: It’s arguable that Telstra has been one of the more successful examples of a business building a community, through regular activities, dedicated staff support and a large presence. Was the costs of delivering that service too much for the returns it provided?

Craig: We don’t discuss the commercial aspects of our business, however we were very happy with the popularity of the islands and the interaction they allowed us in-world.

Lowell: In regards to cost – how does Telstra plan to report to shareholders on any substantive outcomes from the Second Life foray? BigPond’s involvement on the face of it has been a success, so how will those successes be captured?

Craig: BigPond’s activities and investment in Second Life have been widely reported since our launch. I do not expect any further reporting beyond that.

Lowell: Are there any particular issues with Second Life that have hastened the decision to leave?

Craig: Our focus is now moving towards other social media options that are gaining in popularity and functionality on computers, mobile phones, TVs and game consoles. Watch out for such announcements in coming months. It is important for a communications company like Telstra to continue to experiment with emerging Web 2.0 applications

Lowell: What will happen to all the BigPond content? Does Telstra have any plans to archive it or even make it available for BigPond customers to use as a basis for further content creation?

Craig: There are no plans beyond helping our customers transition their inworld residences to other locations

Lowell: Does BigPond have any plans to continue development of products in virtual environments at all?

Craig: As per above.

—

For mine, after the impact on the community of residents, the disappearance of all the BigPond content is the biggest shame of the decision by Telstra to withdraw from Second Life. It appears they’re not ruling out further forays into virtual environments, but aside from that and anything they’ve learnt from the experiment, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of joy for BigPond customers who are Second Life residents.

Filed Under: Australian News, Business, Virtual Worlds Tagged With:

Telstra retreats from Second Life

November 17, 2009 by 9 Comments

bigpond-secondlife-november2009-smlAs reported today in the mainstream press, Telstra have announced their retreat from involvement with Second Life.

As the Australian business with the largest investment in Second Life by far, Telstra’s withdrawal potentially has a large impact on the local case for involvement of business in virtual worlds. More importantly, there are many hundreds of BigPond regulars who are affected by the decision. Paying residents on the BigPond sims received the following notecard on the issue:

Dear Residents, Vendors and Guests,

Telstra BigPond would like to thank you for participating in Second Life through BigPond. Our creative experience with Second Life has been very rewarding for both BigPond and our members. We’re constantly looking for ways to take advantage of the latest social media trends, however, our focus is moving towards entertainment options that are gaining in popularity on computers, mobile phones, TVs and game consoles.

From December 16 you will still be able to continue your Second Life experience directly through Linden Lab at www.secondlife.com but no longer through the BigPond portal.

This will also mean that all Second Life use will go towards your download limits given that the BigPond islands currently unmetered for BigPond customers are closing. Please note that this may put you over your plan download limit sooner than you were expecting.

Please contact our in-world Social Operations Manager Peta Philbin if you have further questions and she will provide information and/or BigPond Support personnel to assist you.

Again, we hope that you continue to enjoy your Second Life experience and keep checking back at www.bigpond.com for other exciting BigPond services.

Regards

The BigPond Team

Is the announcement a surprise? Not really – Telstra’s been increasingly lukewarm over recent months in regards to continued development of new activities / events on the sims. That said, the community that’s been built by BigPond customers on the sims has never wavered and there’s plenty of them angry at the decision. The common theme from discussions with residents today revolved around the theme of only having entered Second Life initially because of the unmetered status for Second Life usage (on BigPond sims), and the subsequent meeting up with people that they otherwise would never have met.

Obviously Telstra don’t need a presence for that to occur, but they certainly created a financial and aesthetic environment that maximised the potential for new users’ involvement. It’s been one of the more notable examples worldwide of a successful collaboration between a business and its customers, with examples everywhere of that relationship:

bigpond-secondlife-nov2009-2

The biggest challenge for Telstra is how it portrays its withdrawal in the longer term. It’s likely been a financial decision, and if so it begs the question of how transparent Telstra will be on the outcomes they feel they’ve got from being in Second Life, and whether they’ll make further forays in the future. We touched base with Peta Philbin, who is the ‘Pond Estates Social Operations Manager’, but she wasn’t able to comment at all, referring me to BigPond’s PR contact, Craig Middleton. We’ve sent Craig a series of questions and will post his responses in full as soon as we receive them. There’s also a farewell party planned for 21st November – we’ll publish more details on that as they are announced.

In the meantime, it’s over to you: are you surprised by the announcement or has it been a long-time coming? Will this be a set-back for Second Life in Australia and for business more broadly?

Filed Under: Australian News, Business, Virtual Worlds Tagged With:

A detailed map of Exodar vendors and trainers

November 17, 2009 by 2 Comments

Exodar map now located here!

Filed Under: Gaming Worlds, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

Merged realities – events and issues for virtual worlds

November 17, 2009 by Leave a Comment

frenzy-magazine1. Frenzoo have launched a bi-weekly web magazine called Frenzy, created by its users. You can view the PDF here or the Flash version here.

2. Metaplace have expanded their in-world games, adding Doomgarden,Meep Combat! and a Perfect Match dating game. With the recent controversy over social games, it’s great to see some simple but fun games with no wider purpose than fun.

3. The Wii Fit doesn’t seem to provide as good a workout as some may think, according to a recent study (PDF document). One of the study authors sums it up: “Since using the Wii Fit alone may not produce results that meet recommended physical activity, guidelines” notes study author Alexa Carroll, M.S., “it is important that individuals partici- pate in additional exercises to effectively reach these guidelines.”

4. Malaysia is apparently punching well above its weight in spending in Second Life, its 28 million people making up 4% of expenditure. Australia is sitting on 2%.

5. Whilst on a Malaysia, here’s a great (80-page) piece of research on the use of virtual reality in medicine:

Reserach Report: Virtual Reality: Establishing Medical Hallmarks

(with thanks to ScienceRoll)

Filed Under: General News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

The Watch – virtual worlds in the news

November 15, 2009 by Leave a Comment

1. Science Daily (USA) – Avatars Can Surreptitiously And Negatively Affect User In Video Games, Virtual Worlds. “Although often seen as an inconsequential feature of digital technologies, one’s self-representation, or avatar, in a virtual environment can affect the user’s thoughts, according to research by a University of Texas at Austin communication professor. In the first study to use avatars to prime negative responses in a desktop virtual setting, Jorge Peña, assistant professor in the College of Communication, demonstrated that the subtext of an avatar’s appearance can simultaneously prime negative (or anti-social) thoughts and inhibit positive (or pro-social) thoughts inconsistent with the avatar’s appearance. All of this while study participants remained unaware they had been primed. The study, co-written with Cornell University Professor Jeffrey T. Hancock and University of Texas at Austin graduate student Nicholas A. Merola, appears in the December 2009 issue of Communication Research.”

2. Computing (UK) – From ancient to virtual worlds. “he notion that your customers are only 10 seconds away from your competitor’s web site still holds true. But while the server and network infrastructure needed to deliver a web site that stays up 99.999 per cent of the time is one aspect of delivering a good online experience, the phrase “content is king” is equally relevant, and just as important for customer retention. Would a better way to engage customers be by spicing up that dowdy site with some visually stunning graphics, tied into standard e-commerce transaction middleware? For visually stunning graphics, read virtual worlds, whose genesis can be traced back to the multi-user dungeon program MUD, which originated in 1978 at Essex University. But it was many years before what people now think of as a virtual world was realised – a 3D, immersive world, available 24/7 via a web connection.”

3. Financial Times (UK) – Habbo Hotel creators hope to welcome older users. “Creators of virtual worlds and other online communities are hoping their members will continue to pay for digital goods as they grow older. Sulake , a private Finnish company, is hoping to build on its success with Habbo Hotel, a virtual world visited by 14m teenagers every month, with a new mobile version for young adults, Bobba Bar . The application, launching today on Nokia and Apple smartphones, is only available to over-17s. It allows members to create a unique digital character and chat to other avatars in themed rooms, such as sports, technology or “romance”.”

4. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Kid Command Set For Launch. “Today, Collin Caneva will take his Kid Command virtual world live. The world, targeted to kids and tweens, hopes to instill an appreciation of the environment and world’s fragile eco-system. As the growth of virtual worlds, social networks and web-based entertainment explodes, Omaha-based Caneva hopes to carve out a special place in that digital eco-system that will taps kids’ curiosity and innate intelligence, talking up to their intellect rather than down.”

5. The Economic Times (India) – Endgame for reality. “Technology, like much else in life, seems to come with a built-in ‘dual use’ possibility. Take computers, and all else associated with them: the internet, gaming et al. There is, of course, the information revolution, the educational benefits, or just plain downright entertainment that comes with this. And then there’s the dark side. The world of pervasive online porn, of cyber terrorists, of even computers or the net so taking over people’s lives as to over-rule the real. A recent report has it that among the plethora of existing execrable violent games , which seem to have legions of addicts across the globe, a new one is based on the ‘raping skills’ of players. ”

6. Techdirt (USA) – Virtual Goods, Scams, Investigative Reporting And The Media. “For many years, we’ve been quite skeptical of any business model in virtual worlds/social networks that rely on “buying virtual goods.” That’s because these are all based on artificial scarcities, and as we all know (hopefully, by now), relying on artificial scarcities for a business model is incredibly risky, especially once people realize the scarcities are artificial. And yet, over the past few years, a number of businesses have been built on this very premise. In fact, Silicon Valley is crawling these days with businesses built on selling virtual goods, and if you talk to many VCs about it, you’ll quickly note that they’re positively giddy over the fact that people are paying for this stuff. What they don’t seem to realize is that it’s unlikely to last. ”

7. Business Standard (India) – Virtual classrooms go commercial. “Ramesh Thorat (not his real name) is at home. But sitting on his computer, he is intently watching and listening to a lecture on the internet. He has a broadband connection, a webcam and even a microphone to interact with the lecturer if he has any question. In fact, Thorat is one of the many engineering graduates from the Pune Institute of Computer Technology (PICT) who studies in a “virtual classroom” called “kPoint”. Developed by Pune-based Great Software Laboratory Pvt Ltd (GS Lab), this virtual classroom tool “kPoint” is a concept which is fast catching up in the city. It has been successfully deployed at outsourced product development (OPD) firm Persistent Systems, too, to train newly-recruited engineering graduates at its Nagpur campus from its parent facility in Pune.”

8. CBS News (USA) – Scams Target Gamers on Social Sites. “Farmville, Mafia Wars and Restaurant City are Internet-based games that can be played on sites like Facebook, where millions of people have signed up. But click on the wrong places in these virtual worlds, and you could lose real money without ever knowing it. CBS News Science and Technology Correspondent Daniel Sieberg reported where there’s a popular online trend like these games, advertisers are sure to follow. But the legitimate ads aren’t the problem — it’s the ones that promise a free trinket or virtual cash to be used in your game. And if you’re tricked into clicking, they start draining your money.”

9. Information Week (USA) – Second Life Steps Into The Enterprise. “Second Life is attracting a cult following among businesses, who say the virtual world gives them richer collaboration than teleconference calls or video conferences. But Second Life still has limitations that pose barriers to enterprise adoption. Ericsson has become the first vendor to prove end to end interoperability in TD-LTE, another standard of 4G radio technologies designed to increase the capacity and speed of mobile telephone networks. One of the major limitations is that Linden Lab, which developed and operates Second Life, runs the service on its own server farms. This software-as-a-service model creates problems for user control and confidentiality of sensitive conversations.”

10. The Korea Herald (South Korea) – Second Life withdraws from Korean market. “The virtual world community game Second Life has effectively withdrawn from the local market.
According to industry sources, the U.S.-based developer of Second Life, Linden Lab, failed to extend the contract with the local game company Barunson Games Corp. Barunson was first contracted to operate Second Life services in Korea in October 2007. However, the Korean Second Life community Sera Korea will continue to be serviced. Linden Lab’s official position is said to be temporarily closing local operations. However, the company is reported to have no plans to revive the operations as yet.”

Filed Under: General News, Virtual Worlds, Virtual worlds in the media Tagged With:

Weekend Whimsy

November 14, 2009 by Leave a Comment

1. My Teen Second Life Photo Album

2. Burning Life 2009: Second Life

3. Kittymel’s Second Life Part 1

Filed Under: User-generated, Virtual Worlds Tagged With:

Interview – Simon Newstead, CEO of Frenzoo

November 11, 2009 by 3 Comments

Simon Newstead of FrenzooBack in May, we covered Frenzoo, a fashion-centric world with a lot of promise. Since that time, Frenzoo has continue to grow and has received further funding to continue its development.

CEO Simon Newstead is an expatriate Australian based in Hong Kong, and I took the opportunity to get some insight into Frenzoo‘s progress and future plans. He also discusses the role of Robin Harper and Anshe Chung, integration with services like Facebook and quite a bit more.

The take-home message for me is Frenzoo‘s focus on content creation, placing it amongst a handful of other players dedicated to that space. Fashion’s about creativity, so it’ll be interesting to see what growth trajectory Frenzoo takes. Read on for the interview:

Lowell: Can you give a brief biography of your career pre-Frenzoo?

Simon: Sure, before jumping into the online world with Frenzoo, I worked in Internet networking with Juniper Networks, the upstart competitor to Cisco.

There I was leading the Emerging Technologies team for Asia. That was a great job, dealing with customers in Korea and Japan through to emerging countries like India and Vietnam. Learning how and how not-to introduce new solutions to market, winning over early adopters, feeding requirements back to development teams – a lot of fun.

Before that I was in Melbourne with Juniper where I worked with Telstra to help design their 2nd generation broadband infrastructure (their DSL network). That was a great job for a young engineer, although I recall a lot of late nights living in their labs 🙂

Lowell: How would you describe Frenzoo’s progress over the past 12 months?

Simon: Great! After a slow start we’re starting to find our groove – a fledgling online world and 3d chat & creation community is up and running. Still early days but revenue starting to come in and growth picking up.

When we started our beta a year ago we had nothing – no users and a website with virtually no functionality: I remember an early tester making a comment “I love my avatar so much… but ummm what can I do with it?” It was a rude awakening, but all the early feedback helped us learn and adapt quickly – I really do subscribe to the “Fail Fast” startup school of thinking.

Since then we have learned a lot on what makes people them invest time and money and what they want out of Frenzoo. We’ve added and iterated our product countless times based on all the customer feedback: a big part of our culture – we gather a lot of user feedback, run regular usability tests, analyze usage data etc.

A turning point was introducing User generated content via our own web creation tool as well as 3ds modeling and collada import function. This has been great – the creative folks just love to design new things. When the world around you changes so much there is always inspiration for something new. People who love to mod sims love our environment – in fact some of our top content creators today are huge The Sims modders and creators.

Six months ago, the only things in the shop were made by Frenzoo, with limited choice. Now all the content on the marketplace is coming from the community and there are many thousands of diverse creator items to shop from and growing each day.

Lowell: What’s the company’s funding situation at present?

Simon: Earlier in the year we secured a solid round of funding from ASI – the Skype co-founders and other important angel investors. That takes us a long way to realizing our vision – by the time we consider the next phase of funding we should have completed the core development and started to ramp up audience and monetization.

Lowell: Virtual goods commerce is currently the core of your revenue model – can you explain a little how both you and designers can make money?

Simon: Sure. We run a dual currency system – we have silver and gold coins. Silver coins are the earned currency (being active on the site), gold coins are bought currency. When an item is purchased by a user using Gold coins, the creator of that item gains the Gold Coins (Frenzoo takes a small commission). Gold Coins can be sold for real money on 3rd party sites like First Meta Exchange and Anshe X. Those sites also allow transfer to and from other virtual currencies such as Linden dollars and IMVU credits.

Lowell: How many staff does Frenzoo have and are they still all based in Hong Kong?

Simon: We have a team of 10 folks – 7 engineers and 3 designers. Apart from that it’s myself, and Ceci, our marketing lead. We’re based in Hong Kong and we also have a couple of fantastic remote interns in the US who do a fantastic job helping with the community management.

We’re also lucky to have three very helpful strategic advisors – Robin Harper (ex Linden Labs) and Anshe Chung – Ailin Graef and Guntram Graef have really helped with giving us guidance and the insights from their considerable experience.

Lowell: What’s the geographic breakdown of your userbase at present?

Simon: Most members are coming from the US, however we have a healthy international mix from Europe and Asia. Australia is in the mix, a few percent of our base. We have localization to over 10 languages, including Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, German, Russian, Dutch etc It’s one of the many advantages of being purely browser based – it’s easy to add this. Right from the start we wanted to make this a global offering, not just English only.

Lowell: What percentage of the designers are making significant money?

Simon: We’re just getting going, no millionaires I’m aware of yet 🙂

The majority of our creators are doing it for enjoyment – it’s a lot of fun dreaming up new designs, meeting people, entering contests, being creative.

For those folks when they earn a few bucks in the process that’s just a bonus. However we’re now starting to see the first few professional operations coming onto the site with the aim to make money. Anshe Chung Studios is one example, it’s also easy for them to publish their created items to both Frenzoo and other platforms like IMVU. We’re also looking forward to introducing 3D scenes so, for example, creators of Second Life environments and props can explore our platform.

Lowell: What mistakes that competitors have made are you hoping to avoid?

Simon: I have a lot of respect for the other avatar communities out there, I’m a big fan of Second Life in particular for their creative and open content environment. One thing we are striving to do is make our user interface really simple to use, and also make creation fun and accessible to everyone – in fact most of our active active members have created their own items.

As we are web online world compared with most others who are client based, we have our own unique set of challenges and opportunities. For example cross browser differences and testing is a hassle (don’t get me started on IE6!), but on other hand web based means we support Mac and PC as well as being able to quickly mash up and integrate – e.g. post pics to Facebook etc.

Lowell: Speaking of Facebook, do you have any plans for integration with other web applications like that?

Simon: We’d like to do more web integration next year for sure. Once we have built out most of our core platform we plan to swing back and look at off site integration and add what makes sense, be it Facebook app or other platforms and techniques. Whether that app might be avatar chat or creation or a mix is still something we have to think about.

Mobile is something also we considered when we settled on our 3D rendering engine – in fact Unity3d which we use is one of the leading engines for iPhone 3D games today. It’s an interesting future possibility for us and technically feasible.

Lowell: Who do you see as Frenzoo’s main competitors?

Simon: In terms of web 3D community with UGC marketplace and creation tools we are first to market, to my knowledge. Actually even in client solutions, I haven’t seen similar to our accessible fashion design tool.

Actually most of our energy is built on listening to our users and improving our service. Whilst we monitor and learn lessons from other virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life and IMVU who have built up successful economies), we’re mainly focussed on our users and improving for them.

Online World Frenzoo - 3D Avatar of Simon_is_yetiLowell: Do you have an estimated date for Frenzoo coming out of beta?

Simon: Not for some time yet…

Beta really is a mark that we are in constant iteration and improvement, it’s a label that encourages us to always be listening and improving. Of course, we’re running a virtual economy today and security and robustness are important but we like the idea of being in beta mode and responsive – it’s a cultural attribute.

Lowell: What’s the roadmap for Frenzoo over the coming year?

Simon: Now UGC is kicked off, our next big move is “social”. The first step is 3D chat, which we just launched 2 months ago. It’s pretty sparse now but we will be building it out. As part of the social drive we’ll be introducing 3D scenes, which will be the biggest upgrade to the site since launch. This will let people be creative and social a lot more than today where the avatar is in 3D but the scene is just in static 2D. A 3D online world in Frenzoo has been one of the top requests from our community.

Our goal within the next few months is to have a fun user created environments – dance parties people can hang out and virtual chat in, maybe beaches for moonlight walks, glamorous catwalk shows, and hopefully lots of ridiculously pimped out apartments 🙂

We’ll also continue to build out the creative tools and then start to do more mashups and integrations on the web to help people share their experiences easier.

Lowell: Can you shed light on the core Frenzoo user?

Simon: Sure. Our age ranges from 13 all the way to 30 and beyond. Several of our most active members are in their 30s, 40s and older. Our average age today is hovering around 18-20 years old, and we skew very heavily towards female. One of our goals over coming months is to also make Frenzoo interesting and engaging for us guys.

Lowell: As an expat Aussie, what’s your take on the virtual worlds industry here?

Simon: Well, I’m a big fan of some of the virtual world personalities who live in Australia – folks such as metaverse bloggers Tateru, Anstia and yourself, Steve Cropper who runs the Life On-Line show etc Also it’s nice to see some virtual world developers in Australia such as VSide/Exit Reality…and in general some great tech projects such as Google Wave out of Sydney. I’m always rooting for more Aussies to make it on the global stage 🙂

Filed Under: Australian News, Business, Profile, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , , ,

Amputee support, games health research and avatar perceptions

November 11, 2009 by 1 Comment

(This story originally appeared over at sister-site Metaverse Health earlier this week).

Over the past few weeks, there’s been a spike in mainstream media interest around virtual environments and health. I thought it’d be worth showcasing three notable stories / issues that you may not be aware of.

Amputee Support

A press release from ADL Company Inc. and Virtual Ability, Inc. touts the launch of a project to provide peer-support to those who have undergone amputation of a limb. The project’s impetus has come about due to some sobering US-based facts:

Recent US military casualty figures for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom indicate that between September 2001 and mid-January 2009 over a thousand amputation injuries occurred. Of the 935 amputations considered major, one in five wounded warriors lost more than one limb. While the rehabilitation goal is for the soldier to return to active duty, many reintegrate into their civilian communities. In either case, military amputations are often accompanied by additional wounds, depression, fear, phantom limb pain, and post traumatic stress disorder.

Spouses and family members often become the caregivers of military amputees after they are released from military hospitals and rehabilitation programs. Family support members have their own grieving process to go through related to the amputation and to the change to family life.

The platform for the project is the recently released Second Life Enterprise product, meaning that users have a greater deal of privacy to explore issues in a group context. You can also read about the project from the perspective of ADL Inc’s President, and regular virtual worlds writer, Doug Thompson (SL: Dusan Writer).

Avatars: Perceptions of Self

New Scientist has a good article on a study looking at brain activity (as measured by MRI) when discussing perceptions of real self versus a heavily played World of Warcraft character. The methodology:

To probe what brain activity might underlie people’s virtual behaviour, Caudle’s team convinced 15 World of Warcraft players in their twenties – 14 men and 1 woman – who play the game an average of 23 hours a week, to drag themselves away from their computers and spend some time having their brains scanned using functional MRI.

While in the scanner, Caudle asked them to rate how well various adjectives such as innocent, competent, jealous and intelligent described themselves, their avatars, their best friend in the real world and their World of Warcraft guild leader.

For the early results, read the article, but essentially things aren’t black and white about how we perceive ourselves versus our avatars. No big surprise there. One particularly interesting signpost for future research is the idea that those who perceive themselves and their avatars in a similar way may be the individuals at higher risk for addictive behaviours in regards to their use of virtual environments.

Health Games Research

Health Games Research is a website well worth perusing. It’s a US-based organisation devoted to “research to advance the innovation and effectiveness of digital games and game technologies intended to improve health”. There are yearly grants for research into games and health, with the 2009 funding round announced last week.

Filed Under: General News, Health, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

UWA 3D Art and Design Challenge – October round winners

November 9, 2009 by 1 Comment

uwa-art-oct09-1st A fortnight or so ago we covered the great work being done by the University of Western Australia in Second Life. One of the centrepieces of their activity is the 3D Art and Design Challenge, with the October winners now announced.

You can see all the finalists here, but here’s the summary:

IMAGINE CHALLENGE – 3D Art

1st Prize:Willow by Bryn Oh ($L5,00
2nd Prize: Holophrasis by Snubnome Genopeak ($L1,250)
Best Non-Scripted Entry: Concentric Shells by Ichiko Miles ($L1,250)

Honourable Mention (Emotion): In Uterus/Pregnant First Record by Silene Christen ($L500)
Honourable Mention (Harmony): Living in Syn by Maya Paris ($L500)
Honourable Mention (Immersion & Application): Come Go With Me by Alizarin Goldflake ($L500)
Honourable Mention (Hidden Wonder): Beauty/Beast by Feathers Boa ($L500)

FLAGSHIP CHALLENGE

1st Prize : Sci-Fi Gallery by Nyx Breen ($L5,000)
2nd Prize: Art Gallery by Dusty Canning ($L1,250)

For those interested in the real detail of what UWA is doing, Jayjay Zifanwe’s speech announcing the winners is worth perusing. I’m really thrilled to be on the final judging panel for the competition and the UWA team have done a brilliant job in building some real interest in its activities through encouraging one of Second Life’s real strengths: creative expression.

Jayjay’s speech:

Greetings everyone, and welcome to the University of Western Australia, or UWA as she is known and also welcome to the October Round announcement of winners for the UWA 3D Art & Design Challenge. As is tradition at UWA, I would like to acknowledge that the University is situated on Nyoongar land and that the Nyoongar people remain the spiritual and cultural custodians of their land and continue to uphold their values, languages, beliefs and knowledge.

I am so happy to see all of you here today. You honour us with your presence, and we have also been honoured by the incredible, varied and wondrous artworks submitted by the artists of Second Life for this round, with a total of 40 artworks and 11 building designs.

Artists & Builders taking part so far have come from Canada, the USA, the UK, Scotland, England, Spain, France, Brazil, Denmark, Holland and Australia.

Before going on, I would like for everyone to give a big round of applause to a tireless champion of the arts, the person most responsible for everything we see all around us now, and co-host of the UWA 3D Art & Design challenge, quadrapop Lane !!!

I also want to acknowledge the Cultural Precinct at the University of Western Australia and ShedworX.com and www.etshirts.com who have all contributed such that the total prize pool for the UWA 3D Art & Design Competition is sitting at well over $L357,000.

Something new for November only at the moment, is that an Artist Book Prize is being awarded. Juanita Deharo who owns Second Edition group is offering a L$2000 prize for an ‘artist book’ . “An artists’ book is an artwork in a book format, or an artwork which has its origin in the form or concept of the book.” You can interpret this in any way you want. This prize may be ongoing. All entries to the IMAGINE CHALLENGE that have conceptual roots in a book will be considered for the Artist Book Prize.

The special Artists Participation Pool that had been established, raised $L6,000 for the artists participating in the October round. I want to acknowledge the generosity of Sasun Steinbeck, Tranguloid Trefoil & Phillip Vought whose contributions form the bedrock of this pool.

I would however like to quickly acknowledge evryone who did contribute. Please forgive me for this long list, but it is important to me to acknowledge them!

Thank you MidnightRain Glas, Jesse Keyes, Lady Caitlyn Inglewood, Dusty Canning, Juliete3D Quinzet, Kayo Houston, Ichiko Miles, Lubnatsi Papp, Rae Larkham, Mab MacMoragh, Tweetie Birdbrain, Mrs Brandi, Genivieve Caproni, Briarmelle Quintessa and Bacon Hellershanks

As described previously all artists who submit a genuine entry (not a block of plywood) and who do not receive one of the main prizes, will receive a share of what has been contributed to the donation jar for that month. Nothing is being kept for the land tier, 100% will go back to artists.

I know the amount is not a whole lot, but following this months total contributions, all participating artists who are not one of the main prize winners will receive $L220 for the October round. I know for a few it will be the first time they received Lindens based on an art creation by them, and for the vetrans, I am sure this can be out to you in furthering the cause art or helping others in need!

This was reset today, and the pool restarted with $L4,000

Also, something else new that was initiated a week ago is A People’s Choice Award, along with the judges categories. We hope to give this award every month. Voting panel will go up each month for the days between the closing of the month’s entries and the announcement of the winners. The panel will be just along the pathway between the main entry landmark and this platform holding the IMAGINE entries. You register your vote by touching the image of the work you like best – one vote per person. This award is a fun award with a $L500 prize.

I would like also to acknowledge the members of the judging panel. On the panel were:
1. Professor Ted Snell (RL) – Director, Cultural Precinct, The University of Western Australia
2. Frank Roberts (RL) – The University Architect, The University of Western Australi
3. John Barret-Lennard (RL) – Curatorial Director, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery
4. Raphaella Nightfire (SL) – CEO of the Evane Model Agency, CEO of the SW&MB Fashion Productions, Seniorr Writer for Best of SL Magazine, Owner Sanctorum Gallery
5. Tranguloid Trefoil (SL) – Owner of WASP at the University of Western Australia
and yours truly

The panel for the Grand Prize will be an expanded one and will include:
1. Frolic Mills – Best of Second Life & CO CEO
2. Sasun Steinbeck – artist, scripter, and maintainer of the Art Galleries of SL list at http://sasun.info/ArtGalleriesofSL.aspx
3. Wil Dreadlow, ICON Lifestyle Magazine CEO & Publisher
4. Lowell Cremorne, Owner of The Metaverse Journal

On the panel for the Artist Book Prize, are:
1. Juko Tempel – Australian living in Paris. Librarian, photographer, linguist, educator and collector of new media art.
2. Victor Vezina – Journalist, artist, writes weekly column on digital toys and virtual worlds for Guardian newspaper, London. Gallery owner, experimental artist, art collector in SL.
3. Juanita Deharo – Gallery owner, Art educator, professional artist specialising in artist books, small sculptures, printmaking.
and yours truly

I apologize for the long speech. Now to announce the winers. The winers will be announced in 1 minute intervals. We do invite everyone to comment and congratulate the winners and for the winners to respond before the next announcement. Winners also please do ensure you get a photo of you and your artwork taken by quadrapop before you go. This will go into the UWA in Second Life Blog and a number of other journals and blogs. http://uwainsl.blogspot.com/

A lot of images of the artworks and buildings are also up on KOINUP (with thanks again to the expert camerawork of quadrapop) http://www.koinup.com/UWAinSL/works/

4 Honourable mention prizes have been awarded by the Judging panel for October for the IMAGINE challenge.

The Honourable Mention prize of $L500 for EMOTION is awarded to:
‘In Uterus/Pregnant First Record’ by SILENE CHRISTEN

The Honourable mention prize of $L500 for HARMONY is awarded to:
‘Living in Syn’ by MAYA PARIS

The Honourable Mention prize of $L500 for IMMERSION & APPLICATION, is awarded to:
‘Come Go With Me’ by ALIZARIN GOLDFLAKE

The Honourable Mention Prize of $L500 for HIDDEN WONDER, is awarded to:
Beauty/Beast by FEATHERS BOA

Next we move to the newly established People’s Choice Award which carries a prize of $L500. It was very very very hard for people selecting to only choose one single work. It was extremely close, and almost impossible to seperate, but in the end, by a nose…. the award goes to:
Drill by GINGER GRUT

Next we move to the 2nd overall prive for the IMAGINE Challenge. There were an incredible array of remarkable entries, and it was very difficult for the judges to seperate. After long consultation, the 2nd prize ($L1,250) was awarded to:
Holophrasis by SNUBNOSE GENOPEAK

Failing by a whisker to defend his win from the September round!

Next is the prize for Best Non-Scripted Entry ($L1,250). There were a number of very interesting pieces, but the one that caught the judges eye the most and to whom this prize is awarded is:
Concentric Shells by ICHIKO MILES

Now, we go to the 2nd Prize for the FLAGSHIP CHALLENGE (L$1,250). There were 11 submissions for this challenge for October, and a number of fascinating ideas. Again a close battle among the top 4 entries…… after much deliberation, 2nd Prize was awarded to:
Art Gallery by DUSTY CANNING

Can everyone please set land to midnight, and CAM to look at the front area and balloons from a distance.

Now for one of the overall winner prizes. Again,as mentioned, very little seperated them the art… as all of you can see…. so many deserving of honour, but in the end, the judges decided that winner for the October Round of the UWA 3D IMAGINE Challenge (L$5,000) is :
Willow by BRYN OH

Willow has a secret, that I hope all of you managed to find 🙂

The final prize for the day, is the winner of the FLAGSHIP CHALLENGE (L$5,000) for October. Now we had the fireworks for the winner of IMAGINE, but we are going to go party at the location of the winner after the announcement, as quadrapop Lane will reveal a special TP panel to take us there where there will be music and dance with our wonderful DJ, Briana Spires (and I ask all of you to please look after her for me). And so, the winner of the FLAGSHIP CHALENGE for October is:
Artstractions Gallery by NYX BREEN

With that the official parts of today have come to a conclusion. We already ahve 15 artworks submitted for November, please do start submitting your works for the November round, and letting your friends know about the competition.

quad can you please reveal the TP panel, winners please find quad, and have your photo taken with your artworks & buildings. Everyone please join us for the party 🙂

Filed Under: Art, Australian News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

Swine Flu (H1N1) and business continuity: Forterra’s solution

November 9, 2009 by Leave a Comment

h1n1-forterra1It’s fairly well recognised now that virtual environments provide a powerful collaboration solution for business -it’s just widespread adoption that’s yet to occur as real-world ROI cases are still fairly sparse. Forterra Systems are a virtual worlds provider we’ve covered a few times before, and their focus is very much business and government.

With the recent concern over the 2009 H1N1 Flu Virus (colloquially known as ‘Swine Flu’, there’s been quite a bit of focus on the impact of a true pandemic on the population as a whole. Businesses are obviously concerned about their ability to maintain operations in an environment where a significant proportion of their staff may be out of action and the rest are concerned about going the same way. Within that context, Forterrra have repackaged their OLIVE platform as RemoteOperations. Being the cynic I am, I initially assumed this was smart marketing and not a lot else, so I touched base with Forterra’s VP of Marketing, Chris Badger:

Lowell: Is this version of your software different in any way i.e. is this an evolution of your offering or a pitch of your current offering’s usefulness for continuity of operations?

Chris: RemoteOperations is a new use case or application for our software. There are no new features we are introducing with this announcement. However one of the details in the announcement is that Forterra is now offering both hosted and SaaS options for organizations. We are providing these options to help both small and medium sized businesses who don’t have any or much IT staff to manage this technology themselves. In addition our SaaS offering is packaged as a monthly user subscription so its a very affordable way for any organization to start using a business oriented virtual world in a pilot or test. The SaaS offering is going through a beta program now so we can refine the offering based on the customer feedback. However we can accept other interested parties into the beta program if they want to participate. We will do a formal announcement about the SaaS offering early next year.

Lowell: Do you have any entities on board as pilot sites for that purpose at this stage?

Chris: We discovered that several of our leading customers were in fact using OLIVE as a business continuity application as one of many use cases for OLIVE. For example one of these customers is a large Italian bank who is using OLIVE for meetings, events, employee skills training, business continuity, and emergency preparedness simulations/training, ie explosion in their data center. Within our own company we have had about 10% to 20% of our own employees come down with severe colds or the flu in the last 6 weeks. No one has swine flu yet! Of course we send them home but they can still participate in project planning and status meetings using OLIVE. The point we discovered is that the business continuity application is a very real, timely solution using OLIVE that has not received much visibility within the industry.

Lowell: For the option hosted by Forterra, what sort of continuity of operations / redundancy do you have in case of a severe outbreak? How will you ensure you can keep things running yourself if it were a true pandemic.

Chris: Both our hosted and SaaS offerings are fully redundant and have fail over capabilities. When we do our formal announcement of the SaaS offering we will mention that service level agreements are provided that assure high availability and uptime.

As you likely know the experts indicate a pandemic can force a company to operate with only 60% or 50% of their staff. Our operations group is large enough and every one is cross trained so we can support our customers even if 50% of our operations staff can’t work. There is rarely much hardware support work required, which our hosting provider does and they are very large. Our own operations team can do their craft at work or at home. As we have personally experienced we can have employees staying at home with the flu but they still get a few hours of work done using OLIVE. Ultimately the service level agreement with our customers assures them of uptime and availability independent of any issues we have to deal with.

—-

It’s far from certain that the H1N1 virus will evolve to a pandemic, but what’s more certain is the need for effective remote operations solutions given the increasingly dispersed workforce for larger businesses in particular. Business continuity plans that factor in newer solutions may be considered a riskier approach, but it could also help to ensure real continuity rather than holding things together for a few days. One of the specific challenges of a pandemic is the potential length of time a business may need to run on reduced staff: this is the test for products like the one Forterra are offering. If they provide a true collaboration solution for extended situations, then expect to see even conservative businesses taking a closer look.

Filed Under: General News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

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