1. Federal Computer Weekly (USA) – Virtual learning gets second wind from Second Life. “Virtual-world technology is giving the idea of online training a second life in the federal government. A handful of agencies are turning to virtual worlds to create programs that bring together the best aspects of Internet-based training and the traditional classroom. Like standard online training, virtual-world software makes it possible for employees to take classes without leaving their desks, which saves on the time and costs associated with travel. And the new technology more closely replicates a classroom experience by creating a 3-D world in which students can interact with one another, the instructor and even objects in the environment.”

2. GigaOM (USA) – Can Sony’s Free Realms Compete With Club Penguin? “When it comes to MMOs, freemium worlds for kids are enormously popular and lucrative; for the most part, however, the major game publishers have done little to pursue this market. That changes this month with the launch of Free Realms, a colorful virtual world from Sony Online Entertainment. Since this new franchise is targeted at kids, including girls, Sony changed its approach from the ground up. The developer of the Everquest series and other MMORPGs aimed at the 18-34 gamer dude demographic threw out long-held assumptions about what made online worlds appealing, and used market research to learn what kids actually wanted. Turns out that instead of dramatic backstories and complex gameplay, kids want free-form fun and tools for telling their own stories.”

3. San Francisco Chronicle (USA) – Avatars, attorneys in new world of virtual law. “Like so many things, virtual law started with sex. Specifically, the first known legal case originating in a virtual world was over a bed designed for rolls in the virtual hay. Eros vs. Volkov Catteneo was not unlike business dustups that happen in the real world every day. One person created something and sold it, and another person allegedly copied it and sold cheap knockoffs. The only thing novel about this case is that the item in question was a piece of furniture made entirely of computer code, and it was bought and sold by 3-D avatars in Second Life, a virtual world run by San Francisco’s Linden Lab. Second Life user Kevin Alderman of Lutz, Fla., created the very interactive bed, which enabled avatars to engage in a range of activities (cuddling, more). But when another user started selling copies, Alderman hired real-life lawyer Francis Taney, who tracked down the real person behind the bed-copying avatar and secured a consent judgment from Florida’s U.S. District Court ordering him to quit.”

4. AFP (USA) – Virtual mobility for disabled wins Second Life prize. “An organization that lets people with disabilities virtually climb mountains and hike trails shared top honors in a first-ever Second Life prize for in-world projects improving real-world lives.
Virtual Ability and Studio Wikitecture, which designs buildings in the virtual world launched by Linden Lab in 2003, were declared co-winners of what is to be an annual prize at Second Life. The honor comes with 10,000 dollars (US) each in prize money. Virtual Ability helps people with disabilities use avatars to skydive, fish, mountain climb, hike and even fly in Second Life, the organization’s vice president David Ludwig says in a message posted online at virtualability.org.”

5. Gamasutra (USA) – Habbo Creator Sulake Planning PC Version of Bobba Mobile World. “Sulake, developer of the successful younger teen-oriented virtual world Habbo Hotel, recently launched Bobba, a virtual world for smartphones. But Sulake is not stopping there – speaking to Gamasutra, Sampo Karjalainen, Sulake co-founder and CCO mentioned that “We’re working on an iPhone version that should come out hopefully this summer,” which was recently hinted at – but the company will also bring the virtual world to PC. Bobba targets an older demographic than Habbo’s 13-16 year old main demographic. The virtual world, which is similar in concept to Habbo, currently runs on certain Nokia smartphones, and aims for a demographic of age 16 and older, providing a place where users can meet, date, party, work together, and otherwise network socially. ”

6. VentureBeat (USA) – Game and virtual world fundings reach $936.8 million in 2008. “This is a second update to our game and virtual worlds funding list. Here we’re adding new data from Jussi Laakkonen’s blog. Previously, we had updated to include data from Virtual World Management’s list, so the number is much bigger than we reported earlier. In 2008, VentureBeat chronicled lots of game and virtual world fundings. Our updated list now shows 112 game companies raised more than $936.8 million worth of venture capital and angel funds. This amount doesn’t include undisclosed fundings listed at the bottom. In 2007, game and virtual world companies raised $613 million, according to Jussi Laakkonen.”

7. Atlanta Journal Constitution (USA) – Kids are focus of video game company Elf Island. “iz Kronenberger and her husband Craig came up with the term “gaming for good” to describe the mission of their new company. The entrepreneurial Atlanta couple set out to create a video game company where kids could make a difference in the real world. They wanted to combine competitive game playing, social interaction and storytelling with social responsibility. They formed the company, called Elf Island, about two years ago. The site, ElfIsland.com, launched in April. Through one non-profit partnership, when kids help save a polar bear in the online world, they also help real polar bears.”

8. CIO (USA) – Red Hat to host Second Life-like virtual JBoss trade show. “Red Hat is stealing a page from the Second Life playbook and will host an online conference for users and partners of its JBoss Java-based middleware products in which people will have their own avatars and can virtually attend a conference as if it was a live trade show. The JBoss Virtual Experience is a Web-based conference through which JBoss executives and engineers will give the usual keynote speeches and host sessions just as they would at a regular trade show, according to Red Hat. The virtual conference, for which people can register now, also will have booth exhibits from JBoss, Red Hat and other event sponsors.”

9. CIO (USA) – Ignoring Web 2.0 Will Cost You. “Not wild about wikis? Not big on blogs? Not sold on Second Life? IT execs who ignore Web 2.0 collaboration technologies could be hurting their company’s bottom line. That’s the message from enterprise IT leaders and industry analysts who are convinced that Web 2.0 technologies are the real deal. “Not embracing social networking is like saying I’d rather hide my money under the mattress than put it in a bank. Companies make a big mistake when they prohibit these tools out of the sheer fear of what employees will say when they communicate with one another,” says Rene Bonvanie, senior vice president at Serena Software, a maker of application life-cycle management tools.”

10. New York Times (USA) – In Room 100, It’s Sid and Nancy All Over Again. “By consensus, the Hotel Chelsea is not the hub of bohemian life it used to be. Two summers ago, Stanley Bard, the beloved longtime manager, was replaced by a corporate management team. Rents rose, artists left. Those who managed to stay were confronted by a battery of disturbing changes: The pigeonhole mailboxes behind the front desk were removed, and Bob Dylan’s old room underwent renovations. But now, thanks to Second Life, a 3-D virtual world on the Internet, the hotel’s spirit lives on.”

1. BBC (UK) – Virtual worlds and web ‘merging’. “Second Life boss, Mark Kingdon, said identity is key in virtual worlds. “You take one avatar and you cross multiple virtual worlds… that is going to be a really powerful and important part of the virtual world future,” predicted Mark Kingdon, the boss of Second Life. This online fantasy space had 1.4m users over the past two months, out of its 17m registered users, who can access to products and places replicated from real life. The residents can spend their time visiting exact replicas of actual tourist hotspots, shops, or even bizarre fantasy lands. Videos on the site’s homepage aim to help users find content that interests them within the vast 3D environment. Second Life may have been one of the first virtual worlds of its kind, but six years on, the competition is fierce.”

2. USA Today (USA) – In virtual worlds, kids just want to grow up. “While Peter Pan never wanted to grow up, it seems that today tweens (kids ages 8 to 12) are anxious to do so, at least in virtual worlds. Banking on kids’ desire to play at “growing up” is a new online game called SuperSecret.
The site was created to give kids a place to go after they outgrow the mega-popular virtual worlds of Club Penguin and Webkinz but before they are ready for the more adult online games of World of Warcraft or the social networking sites Facebook and MySpace. SuperSecret entices kids with the wish fulfillment of living a virtual life that ages them a lot quicker than in real life. After playing the game for about 30 days, kids will age from the entry age of 10 years to age 15. With each birthday comes new privileges and things to do, as well as access to new parts of the virtual world.”

3. CNET (USA) – Hacking online games a widespread problem. “It will likely come as no surprise to anyone familiar with virtual worlds and online games that they can be hacked. But what might come as a shock is the sheer breadth of types of exploits that are possible. That was the broad message of a Thursday panel called, appropriately, “Exploiting Online Games” at the RSA 2009 security conference here. Moderated by Gary McGraw, CTO of software security consulting firm Cigital and an author of several books, the panel took the audience on a deep dive into the diverse ways that hackers and others have figured out to either skim real money or to gain game play advantages not available to normal players.”

4. Touch Arcade (USA) – ‘World of Warcraft’ on an iPhone… For Real? “Most of you have probably seen World of Warcraft-on-iPhone claims/videos/mock-ups before, but this time it looks like it might actually be true. Someone posted this YouTube video of World of Warcraft running on an iPhone.”

5. Federal News Radio (USA) – Virtual Worlds: the next-generation of web 2.0. “Imagine being a soldier in Saudi Arabia who steps into a holographic tent for the training he needs to pass the sergeant’s exam. Or an emergency manager in a rural Oregon county who goes to a telepresence room where her avatar meets with the avatar of the state emergency management director to negotiate for badly needed relief supplies after a flood. That’s the promise of “virtual worlds”, a term which describes such popular web destinations as Second Life and sites where users can meet and interact in graphical environments that exist only in a computer. Today, some of the best minds in government, private industry, and science are wrapping up the 2-day, 2nd annual Federal Consortium of Virtual Worlds conference. The meeting is being held in the analog space of the National Defense University, at historic Fort McNair in southwest D.C., but there are also virtual participants online watching through webcasts, and in a number of virtual communities, as well as on Facebook and Twitter.”

6. The Guardian (UK) – A whole new world of studying. “There’s not a red pen in sight when Russell Stannard marks his master’s students’ essays – but it’s not because the students never make mistakes. Stannard doesn’t use a pen, or even paper, to give his students feedback. Instead – and in keeping with his role as principal lecturer in multimedia and ICT – he turns on his computer, records himself marking the work on-screen, then emails his students the video. When students open the video, they can hear Stannard’s voice commentary as well as watch him going through the process of marking. The resulting feedback is more comprehensive than the more conventional notes scrawled in the margin, and Stannard, who works at the University of Westminster, now believes it has the potential to revolutionise distance learning.”

7. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – Second Life to banish racy content. “Second Life plans to clean up the streets of its virtual mainland by providing stricter control of adult content and sending racy material to a separate faux continent. The announcement comes as Second Life creator Linden Labs moves to enhance the virtual world’s viability as a venue for education, conferences, and business.”

8. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Wiggles Release Pseudo-World For Preschoolers. “I started my day off with some WiggleTime, the new pseudo-virtual world from the very energetic child’s group The Wiggles. I call it a pseudo-virtual world becuase it’s described as a virtual world and hews to that metaphor, but it’s a single-user experience for now. ”

9. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – Second Life’s second wind. “Doomsayers rashly declared it “dead and buried” and the media lost interest, but virtual world Second Life continues to prosper as the real economy falters, a virtual world commentator says. After a few years of immense hype, reports late last year chronicled Second Life’s apparent malaise, as companies faced having to ditch their virtual presence as users lost interest.”

10. The Age (Australia) – Your Turn: eKidna World. “You have to admire 40-year-old Brisbane mum Karen Orford. The response from most parents fearful of the impact of games and online worlds on their kids is to ban them from the household, but instead, Karen put her house and $300,000 on the line to build a kid-friendly virtual world. The result is eKidna World, a safe and fun online site designed for 8-12 year olds that is uniquely Australian, and includes games like surfing, fishing, kangaroo racing, snowball throwing and sheep herding. “