1. CNET (USA) – Second Life’s economy is the envy of the real world. “Virtual world Second Life is out with its Q1 2009 Economic Report and things are looking up. In fact, Second Life economics look much better than the real world. Users are spending much more time on the site despite a drop in land ownership. In an interview with CNET News, Linden Labs CEO Mark Kingdon estimated “user-to-user monetary transactions in Second Life may hit $450 million in 2009, up from $350 million.”

2. Animation World Network (USA) – Children’s Virtual World Company Tribal Nova Gets $3 Million. “Tribal Nova, a Montreal based developer and operator of parent-friendly virtual worlds and online educational gaming services for 3-12 year olds, announced today the closing of a $3 million growth financing round from iNovia Capital and ID Capital. “Tribal Nova is well positioned to succeed in a market that has great potential for growth,” said Chris Arsenault, Managing Partner at iNovia Capital. “Children are consuming media and entertainment in new ways these days, with a significant amount of time and attention spent on the internet. Media companies recognize that fact and are searching for different ways to engage their existing audiences.”

3. USA Today – Eco-games help kids to do good. “In Elf Island, kids enter a lush virtual world as an elf. While they can design their own elf avatar, buy it a house and decorate it, play fun minigames, and safely chat with others within this world, what makes this online game stand out from the more than 200 others is its overarching theme that being an elf means doing good in the world. The game ties the story of unlocking the secret of Elf Island to doing a series of “Good Quests” in this virtual world, which are then mirrored in real life. The current “Tree Good Quest” has kids playing games to earn seeds to plant fruit trees in the desert of Niger. Working with nonprofit Plant-It 2020 and the Eden Foundation, when the in-game goal of planting 20,000 trees is reached, 2,000 actual fruit trees will be planted in Niger.”

4. Ocala.com (USA) – Software That Guards Virtual Playgrounds. “Virtual worlds for children and teenagers — Web sites like Neopets, Club Penguin and Habbo — are a big business. On these sites, children create an avatar and, with it, explore an imaginary universe. They can play games, chat and decorate virtual rooms or other spaces. By the end of this year, there will be 70 million unique accounts — twice as many as last year — in virtual worlds aimed at children under 16, according to K Zero, a consulting firm. Virtual Worlds Management, a media and trade events company, estimates that there are now more than 200 youth-oriented virtual worlds “live, planned or in active development.”

5. VentureBeat (USA) – How I became a virtual world believer. “The media narrative about Second Life and virtual worlds is starting to get past the hype stage, past the bashing stage, and is beginning to resemble reality. VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi has covered this shift in a thorough Q&A with parent company Linden Lab’s CEO Mark Kingdon. Public misperception of Second Life and the virtual world landscape is beginning to change as we see what it means for the evolution a new global culture and economy. I can well understand the skepticism of those who are unfamiliar with Second Life, because I remember how I felt the first time I heard about it. At the time I was an investigative journalist, and I didn’t see at first how involvement in virtual worlds could be justified. I imagined it as the ultimate form of escapism from a physical world too far gone.”

6. University of Delaware (USA) – Fashion professor finds past research takes on new life. “University of Delaware professor Sharron Lennon is one of the world’s foremost experts on human behavior and dress. She has studied consumer behavior and the relationship between appearance and social perception for nearly 30 years. Her dissertation research at Purdue University focused on how physical appearance cues affect people’s impressions about each other. Recently, however, she has found that colleagues interested in consumer behavior are beginning to study consumer behavior by looking at avatars — animated characters that people create to represent themselves in computer-generated virtual worlds such as Second Life.”

7. Tampa Bay Online (USA) – Being dead is no reason to give up your online social life. “In today’s world of always-connected social media, there’s no reason to stop interacting online simply because you’re dead. A wave of new companies are starting to offer services such as virtual cemeteries where guests can visit and e-mail alerts set up by funeral homes to remind relatives near and wide about the anniversary of your death.”

8. Adweek (USA) – Virtual Shopping, Real Results. “Despite the flash-in-the-pan success of online worlds like Second Life, marketers are flocking to virtual reality — for research purposes. Computerized store simulations — in which consumers “shop” in on-screen environments that look very close to the real thing — are now standard for the larger packaged-goods firms like Procter & Gamble, Frito-Lay, ConAgra and Intel, which have been using them for years. But now there are several factors speeding the adoption of VR shopping research among other, smaller players, including better technology, lower prices, the expanded use of brainwave and EKG measurements on consumers to hone results, more emphasis on shopper marketing and the ubiquity of broadband. While firms like P&G tend to do such simulations in-house, IRI, the Chicago-based market research firm, began offering the program to clients about a year or so ago. Earlier this month, Staci Covkin, vp, consumer and shopper insights at IRI, gave a presentation on the subject at the Advertising Research Foundation’s Re:think conference in New York.”

9. ITworld – Massive server purchase likely in Chinese Warcraft deal. “Chinese online game firm NetEase.com will buy all-new servers to start operating World of Warcraft in China this year, potentially leaving masses of unused computing clusters in the hands of the current Chinese operator. NetEase will distribute and run the game in China for three years after current operator The9’s license expires in June. NetEase announced the deal with Blizzard Entertainment, the game’s U.S. owner, on Thursday. NetEase will need massive servers for the extremely popular game. Chinese Internet cafes are often packed with teenagers who chain-smoke as they play the game for full days or nights.”

10. The Guardian (UK) – Bobba: Habbo Hotel creators land on mobiles. “Alice has just reminded me that Habbo Hotel creators Sulake have released a new “pocketsize” virtual world, for mobile phones. The hugely successful Finnish company, whose Habbo has over 129m accounts registered, are currently beta testing Bobba, available for the Nokia N-series and the iPhone. At the moment, information is thin, but the screenshots suggest an avatar-led social space, in which players can create their own spaces and chat with other users.”

1. CNET (USA) – Second Life strives for a second wind. “After it made headlines last week for yet another executive leaving the company, you’d really think things couldn’t get much worse for virtual world Second Life and its parent company Linden Lab. The marketing hype–it’s the next Internet!–bottomed out long ago. There was a wave of unflattering press, from virtual terrorism to technical problems to banking scandals. Even the NBC sitcom “The Office” jumped on board, lambasting Second Life with an episode in which Dwight Schrute, the show’s archetypal “creepy nerd,” professed his addiction.
“I signed up for Second Life about a year ago,” Schrute, played by actor Rainn Wilson, explained with his usual dweeby pomposity. “Back then, my life was so great that I literally wanted a second one.”

2. Network World (USA) – Inside the Smithsonian Institution’s first “virtual museum”. “Many education organizations would love to have their own museums. Of course, the big reason that a lot of them don’t is because it costs a lot of money to own a building large enough to display their exhibits. The Smithsonian Latino Center, a branch of the Smithsonian educational and research institution, has solved this problem by taking its museum online with the help of Ohio University’s Virtual Immersive Technologies and Arts for Learning (VITAL)Lab. The new Latino Virtual Museum which can be accessed through virtual reality platform Second Life, consists of hundreds of different exhibits that have been scanned in as three-dimensional digital replicas for users to explore. Types of exhibits include galleries of Latino paintings, video clips detailing Latino history, a room filled with virtual Caribbean instruments and even a disco club where users’ avatars can learn to dance to meringue music.”

3. Crispy Gamer (USA) – Freaky Creatures Goes Live. “Abandon Interactive Entertainment’s Freaky Creatures is ready for prime time. The massively multiplayer online game that purports to combine the best of online multiplayer gaming, collectible action figures, virtual worlds and social networking is available on PC, MAC and mobile.”

4. Mobile Phones (UK) – How Playstation games will end up on mobiles. “An entirely new way of running gaming services has emerged from one of the inventors of the Apple Mac, and it could mean that super powerful games could soon be played on your mobile handset. The idea is obvious but fraught with technical difficulties – don’t run the game on your remote PC, laptop or handset – run it on a central server and just show a streaming video representation on your portable device and use the broadband nework for your controls. So far the company, OnLive, which has just put its gaming system onto Beta test among US users, is only targeting low powered PCs, laptops and Macs, but will almost certainly begin targeting Wi-Fi attached handsets later such as the iPhone. Imagine playing Halo 2 or Doom on something as small as a touch screen phone or these new tiny Netbooks, which cellular operators are increasingly looking to offer.”

5. Virtual Worlds News – Sulake Bringing Bobba To Mobiles. “Earlier today Sulake soft launched what could potentially be the Habbo-killer for teen virtual worlds. Bobba is a new, 3D virtual world, now in beta, for mobile users. Currently Bobba is only available on the Nokia S60, but the website lists iPhone and iPod touch versions as “coming soon.” If they come soon enough, Sulake could beat out Genkii’s upcoming Sparkle for the title of first 3D virtual world on the iPhone.”

6. CNN – Artists visit virtual Second Life for real-world cash. “It’s 9 a.m. when Cylindrian Rutabaga takes the microphone at a familiar bar. The funny-named musician with crinkled red hair, a white blouse and flowing skirt picks up her custom-made guitar and looks across the audience with a blank stare. Her fans already are rocking out: Some breakdance on the bar’s tile floor. Others flail about with the vigor of ’70s disco dancers. One man with a towering afro and 3-D glasses looks like he’s swimming the backstroke to some nonexistent beat. The randomness of the scene doesn’t seem to faze Cylindrian. She isn’t shocked even when hordes of other fans — including one man who wears a kilt and is followed by a small herd of sheep — start teleporting into the room.”

7. Macau Daily Times (China) – Second Life finding new life. “Linden Lab chief executive Mark Kingdon shakes his head when he sees news stories heralding the demise of former Internet darling Second Life. Reporters that rushed into Second Life to cover cyber-events and portrayed the online fantasy realm a science fiction future come true have been pulling up stakes and tearing down the community they had embraced. Well-known Silicon Valley gossip website Vallywag even started a death watch for Second Life. “You read those stories; as CEO I have to shake my head,” said Mark Kingdon, who last year ago took over for founder Philip Rosedale as chief executive of San Francisco-based Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life. “The reality is that Second Life continues to grow; every second someone joins. Second Life is hopping.” The number of “active users” at Second Life has grown 25 percent since September of last year, while the amount of time and money spent in the virtual world has climbed by similar percentages, according to Kingdon.”

8. The Business Insider (USA) – Second Life’s Second Act: Business Teleconferencing? “Another high-profile exit from Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life: VP for Biz Dev Gene Yoon (a/k/a the avatar “Ginsu Linden”) is leaving the company. Gene’s departure follows the exit of John Zdanowski, Second Life’s CFO, less than two weeks ago. There’s been a lot of turnover at Linden. The core executive team that gave birth to Second Life, witnessed its meteoric rise, and endured some of the backlash are now mostly gone.”

9. Massively (USA) – Infringers of Dune: Dune role-players shut down by Herbert Estate. Spice keeps flowing. “Among the various business, educational and social uses to which Second Life is put, Role-Playing gamers have quite a number of thriving communities. If you want to role-play in the world of Joss Whedon’s Firefly, or Straczynski’s Babylon 5, Lucas’ Star Wars universe(s), Tolkien’s Middle Earth, John Norman’s Gor, Frank Herbert’s Dune, Roddenberry’s Star Trek, or the settings of Doctor Who, Torchwood, Battlestar Galactica, Harry Potter, Final Fantasy VII or CCP/White Wolf’s World of Darkness, Second Life is home to all of these and more.”

10. Washington Post (USA) – At Least Retailers Are Upbeat About The Virtual Economy. “More proof that the virtual goods business continues to do well: Linden Lab is forecasting that users will conduct about $450 million dollars worth of virtual transactions in Second Life this year, up 28 percent from 2008. The company also surveyed more than 2,600 of its virtual business owners, including landlords, event promoters and retailers, and found that they’re quite optimistic about the state of the virtual economy: 64 percent reported that they generate positive net income from the products/services they sell. 52 percent said they generated up to 20 percent of their total income from Second Life. 61 percent were optimistic that their revenues will grow this year, with 19 percent saying they were “very optimistic”. 31 percent planned to invest slightly or significantly more in their virtual business over the next six months.”