1. nebusiness (UK) – Attend meetings without travelling with Teesside University’s DLab. “Have you seen how expensive it is to get a train down the spine of the country these days? It hardly seems worth it if you’re skulking down to a meeting with clients or other folks in your company, only to say about five or six words and slither back up again. This is why virtual worlds should in theory be an ideal solution for businesses looking to meet without travelling, or showcase their wares across the world without shipping them. Virtual worlds such as Second Life have allowed computer users to dip their toes into this strange but oddly thrilling water, while companies such as IBM are already piling into virtual meetings.”

2. IEEE Spectrum (USA) – The End of Gold Farming? “Right now, thousands of gamers are doing menial jobs in their virtual worlds. And they’re earning a living. The process of contracting out a game’s drudge work for real money is called “gold farming.” This happens in the games that involve thousands of characters at a time, interacting in an online universe that players inhabit over the course of months or even years. Some tasks, such as gathering up virtual gold pieces, swords, and magic wands, can be done by any novice player who puts in the time. In other cases, you can hire a master player to surmount a game’s challenges and raise your character to a higher skill level. By any standard, gold farming is big business. Estimates range from a global workforce of 400 000 earning US $1 billion a year to a labor pool exceeding a million gold farmers generating more than $10 billion in annual, real-money revenue. Yet the future of gold farming is uncertain. Some observers see it as a classic market inefficiency—a blip in the history of online games—that game designers can and should eliminate from their virtual worlds.”

3. The Telegraph (UK) – Planet Michael developer interview. “The news that developer SEE Virtual Worlds was planning an MMO video game based on the life and work of Michael Jackson, which emerged last week prompted more than a little confusion. How would it work? What would it look like? How would it compete in such a tough market dominated by the likes of World Of Warcraft, Lord Of The Rings and EVE Online? Most important of all, was it all a hoax? Well, it turns out that, no, Planet Michael is scheduled for release on PC next year, and according to SEE’s Vice President of Development, Josh Gordon, the developer is confident that the King Of Pop’s appeal will prove a massive draw amongst gamers.”

4. New York Times (USA) – Virtual Goods Expected to Grow by 40 Percent Next Year, Study Says. “The booming business in virtual goods — paying real money for things that don’t really exist — is expected to continue booming. That’s good news for the likes of Zynga and Playfish, and of course, Facebook. The Inside Network, a research firm that tracks social media trends, said Tuesday that the market for virtual goods in the United States was expected to grow to $2.1 billion in 2011, up from $1.6 billion in 2010. The figures are estimates based on new research conducted by the company, and put the virtual goods market on a path to double in just two years.”

5. Escapist Magazine (USA) – Second Real Life. “It’s easy to dismiss the people that you meet online as less important than those you see in real life. The contact that you have with them is fast and usually anonymous, and most encounters end as soon as the timer runs out. But that doesn’t mean that all relationships online are so meaningless. To some internet denizens, especially those who frequent virtual worlds such as Second Life, the people that they meet online are just as important to them, if not more, than those they see in meat-space. I didn’t always recognize that fact. With the help of two vampires named K and W, I discovered just what these virtual world and the relationships forged there can mean to the people who actually play them. When I originally heard about Second Life, I thought it was absolutely ridiculous. A couple of friends introduced me to the idea of living vicariously through online avatars, and, after a little research, I was amazed to see the impact these virtual lives had on real-life profit margins. I declared Second Life a giant rip-off and dismissed it as a waste of both time and money. My friend suggested that before I judge, I might experience it myself.”

6. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Microsoft Buys Vivaty For New Project, May Be Looking For More. “The rumor that Microsoft is bidding on troubled virtual world Second Life just got a bit more interesting. It turns out that Microsoft is the previously unnamed company that acquired Vivaty, a virtual world competing with Second Life that went out of business in April. The terms of the deal remain undisclosed but Microsoft definitely paid less than $75 million, according to Microsoft Managing Director of Corporate Development Marc Brown. The acquisition was confirmed by Vivaty founder Keith McCurdy, in an email to paidContent.org. When Vivaty closed earlier this year, McCurdy said that the company acquiring Vivaty intended to use it as the foundation for an unnamed new project. Given the details that have just emerged, it seems like Microsoft is working on some sort of virtual world or possibly a game-like service with a persistent 3D world.”

7. Wall Street Journal (USA) – Congress Looking at Proposed Changes to Terrorism Finance Laws. “A group of money laundering and national security experts are pressing Congress for major reform of anti-terrorism financing laws, including a controversial measure that would allow bankers limited access to classified records and a proposal that would ease reporting requirements for some suspicious activity. Stephen I. Landman, director of national security law and policy for the Investigative Project on Terrorism, said that the risk in government agencies sharing classified information with bankers was “obvious” but that “through careful monitoring I believe such a move would increase the effectiveness of terror finance investigations.”

8. Modern Ghana (Ghana) – Are You An Eco-Friend Or An Eco-Foe? “Academics at the University of Derby, based in the East Midlands of the UK, are using the virtual reality platform Second Life to gauge people’s unconscious attitudes towards ‘green’ issues such as recycling. Derby academics Simon Bignell (Psychology) and Rosemary Horry (Environmental Management) have created an ‘Eco House’ setting in Second Life where volunteers will be asked to take part in exercises which challenge their attitudes and beliefs towards environmental issues. The pair have secured funding from the Higher Education Academy to run the Education for Sustainable Development project which will offer online tutorials and problem-based tasks for students to complete this academic year.”

9. Gamasutra (USA) – The Realities Of A LEGO MMO. “There are always tremendous complications when developing and launching an MMO. As APB recently handily demonstrated, it’s an enormously time and money-intensive endeavor to launch a game on this scale — and even when it does launch, there are numerous additional considerations arising from audience issues. Of course, from that point forward, a company has to operate the game as a service, and continue to update it with live content. And then there are business model considerations… In this in-depth interview, Ryan Seabury, creative director of LEGO Universe at developer NetDevil — itself a division of well-funded MMO firm Gazillion — discusses the development process of the expansive toy-based title, which was first announced in 2007. He takes in everything from the cloud-based graphics-crunching technology required to get the game up and running, to why it’s a subscription-based title, whether Luke Skywalker might make a cameo, and how the team has been focus-testing the title with the same group of kids for four years now.”

10. Mashable (USA) – Formspring Snags Two Key Hires from Nokia and Second Life. “Social Q&A website Formspring is looking to take its product to the next level, starting with snagging two key senior-level hires from Nokia and Linden Lab, creators of Second Life. Later today, Formspring will announce that it has hired Rob Storrs to be its head of engineering and Tom Wang to be its head of product. They started with Formspring earlier this month, CEO Ade Olonoh told me last week. Rob Storrs was the director of web development at Linden Lab, the company behind the Second Life virtual world. There, he created and oversaw different engineering teams focused on social networking, search, virtual goods and e-commerce.”

1. News.com.au (Australia) – Michael Jackson inspiration for new MMO game. “THE estate of late superstar Michael Jackson has entered a licensing deal to crate a massively-multiplayer online game (MMO) where dancing will be the main weapon.
Unlike many MMOs, which place an emphasis on combat, “Planet Michael” will stay true to Jackson’s claim that he was a lover, not a fighter. “Because Michael Jackson was very much a pacifist and into healing and creativity, our focus isn’t on violence,” said Josh Gordon of game publisher SEE Virtual Worlds. “There won’t be guns in this world or things like that. It’ll tend to use music and dance and more creative ways to navigate through the world.” In the game, dance moves will act like spells as shuffles and jigs are strung together to take the enemy down — and it most certainly won’t be wolves and orcs at the receiving end of a fleet-footed pummeling.”

2. The Press Association (UK) – ‘Virtual worlds’ work up for award. “University of Ulster researchers using “virtual worlds” to train the next generation of students have been nominated for a top UK teaching award, it has been revealed. The team at the university’s Magee campus in Londonderry has been shortlisted for a prestigious Times Higher Education Award for their contribution to information and communications technologies. Formed three years ago, the Serious Games and Virtual Worlds team (SGVW) is quickly gaining an international reputation for cutting-edge innovation in a new and constantly evolving field. Video game technology is maturing and becoming a serious educational tool, with Ulster and many universities using “Second Life” and other virtual world platforms as teaching and learning aids.”

3. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Crisp Thinking Signs Eight New Partner. “Crisp Thinking has signed eight new deals to bring NetModerator software into top youth-oriented MMOs and virtual worlds. Crisp Thinking’s new clients are Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, the LEGO Group, Kidzbop, Sweety High, Vizwoz, Bin Weevils, and WeeWorld. Crisp Thinking attributes the new deals to a rise in the popularity of social and online gaming. “As online social gaming and interacting have become part of our daily lives, Crisp has emerged as an essential tool for online businesses in the social space. More than 84 million young people around the world upload and download content every day. Socialising via web and mobile technology is part of our daily routine – it’s how we communicate,” said Adam Hildreth, CEO of Crisp Thinking, in a press statement.”

4. The Guardian (UK) – Coins of the online realm. “It used to be that a gold star earned in your favourite video game wouldn’t be worth much in your local supermarket. But that’s changing. There is a thriving economy in valuables like virtual swords and spaceships in online gaming. And Facebook recently released a currency system with which you can purchase services in online games and applications. The growth of these social networks is edging us closer to a structure that bridges the real and virtual worlds. The more these social networks connect with viable online financial systems, the more anyone on the planet can provide knowledge labour based on his or her ability. The resulting meritocratic economy erodes the geographical inequality between the first world and the third world – and simultaneously enables copious criminal enterprise. So far, the most nefarious use of this development has been money laundering. A criminal in one country anonymously buys a game card worth an hour of play and uses it to pick up a load of virtual goods from another character in an online game such as World of Warcraft.”

5. Forbes (USA) – 3-D Avatars Get Their Own Farmvilles In IMVU. “Talk about a game within a game. IMVU, an online community where members interact with each other through 3-D avatars, on Tuesday said that it has launched the first slew of social games in its world. Members can now play more than 75 social and casual games, like fashion game Top Modelz, provided by partnering game developers Viximo, Heyzap and Omgpop. IMVU chief executive Cary Rosenzweig sees this not as a mere feature add, but an entire re-branding and re-positioning of the company. “We no longer call ourselves a virtual world,” Rosenzweig says. “We are a social entertainment company.”

6. BusinessWeek (USA) – Sony’s Wii Avatar. “The living room workout has come a long way since the days of Jane Fonda in spandex. In 2006 the interactive Nintendo Wii system successfully bridged the gap between hardcore gamers and those looking for a cheap sweat. Four years and 30 million units sold later, other companies are looking to get in on the action. Sony’s (SNE) entry in the category, the PlayStation Move, isn’t technically a new console. The Move, released on Sept. 17, can be purchased as a set of hardware add-ons for the existing PS3 system. The $100 starter pack includes a controller, a mounted camera, and a copy of the Sports Champions Blu-ray game package, which includes six games, from bocce to beach volleyball. Those without a PS3 can pay $400 for the console plus the Move accoutrements.”

7. Armed with Science (USA) – How Air Force is Designing Classroom Instruction for the Future. “It will come as no surprise that the Air Force has a systematic approach for just about everything, including how our instruction is developed! Our formal process is called Instructional System Development, or ISD, and it applies to all personnel who plan, design, develop, implement, approve, administer, conduct, evaluate, or manage Air Force instruction. The goal of Air Force ISD is to ensure our personnel are trained to do their job in the most cost efficient and effective way possible. In many ways, our education and training have remained unchanged for quite some time. The ISD process has served us well and will continue to be a solid basis for our course development efforts. The one area in which we will need to make some updates or to at least think differently is in our design, and that design will rely heavily on good analysis.”

8. The Daily Mail (UK) – Can online games be as addictive as heroin? “Despite the restricted view through the letter box, it was clear that something was terribly wrong on the other side of the front door. The hallway of the three-bedroom semi was filled with what looked like a year’s worth of dirty clutter. Deeply worried by the scene in her neighbour’s house, the concerned resident immediately alerted the authorities. Entering the £250,000 property in the Kent commuter belt, police officers, who have seen some squalid scenes in their time, were stunned by what greeted them. Every surface was strewn with rubbish and rotting food. The homeowner, a 33-year-old woman, admitted that things were ‘in a bit of a mess’. But it also quickly became evident that her children had been as neglected as the house. Aged nine, ten and 13, the children told officers that they had been left to fend for themselves, at times being reduced to eating cold baked beans straight from the tin.”

9. Hypergrid Business (Hong Kong) – There’s something about InWorldz. “Last week, InWorldz became the second-largest grid running on the OpenSim platform, after shooting up the charts over the course of just the past three months. Between April and September 15, the grid grew from 130 regions to 531 regions. In addition, the grid now has over 15,000 registered users — up from just over 10,000 a month ago. Their secret? A strong focus on community-building. In this area, InWorldz seems to be picking up where Second Life left off. For example, the latter shut down its mentor program at the end of last year, but the InWorldz mentor program is up and running.”

10. The First Post (UK) – Gamers save shekels as The Bible Online launches. “Even the most esoteric backwaters of Second Life – the online universe in which users interact through avatars – can’t compete with this. A new MMO (Massively-Multiplayer Online game) to be released next week lets gamers live out the Old Testament. They can’t actually play God – but they can play Abraham, Jacob or Isaac. Chapter one of The Bible Online, produced by games publisher FIAA, moves from testing to the real thing next week. The game is set in the time of the Patriarchs – about 50 years after the Flood – and is based on the book of Genesis. Like a cross between the strategy game Civilisation and the role-playing ‘virtual world’ World of Warcraft, the game lets users construct villages, manage resources and protect a tribe. They can even horde a virtual currency – shekels. Users can play either as a Patriarch, or alongside Abraham and his sons and are given quests to complete based on bible stories.”

1. VentureBeat (USA) – Watch out, Disney, Fantage doubles its growth for kids virtual world. “Virtual worlds for kids have been volatile during the recession. Some have come and gone. Some have declined. So it’s worth noting that Fantage, a virtual world for kids who like playing games and staging fashion shows, has doubled its audience in the past year. The Fort Lee, N.J.-based company now has 3.3 million unique visitors a month, compared to 1.5 million nearly a year ago. To date, it has had 7.7 million registered users, compared to 3 million a year ago. That’s pretty good growth at a time when the competition for the attention of kids is growing.”

2. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – Will games take over our lives? “In the film Mary Poppins, a scene in the nursery has the children distraught at the drudgery of tidying up. Naturally their nanny uses the moment to impart a life lesson. “In every job that must be done there is an element of fun,” she tells them. “You find the fun, and snap-the job’s a game.” It’s a trick most every parent has used: pureed vegetables arrive at an infant’s mouth via a spoon airplane, long car trips include “the quiet game,” and yard work Olympics determine who can gather the most weeds. In coming years, the idea of using games to increase good behaviour and happiness is going to explode into adult life, as insights and technology associated with videogames make their way into the larger culture.”

3. Wall Street Journal (USA) – On the Web, Children Face Intensive Tracking. “A Wall Street Journal investigation into online privacy has found that popular children’s websites install more tracking technologies on personal computers than do the top websites aimed at adults. The Journal examined 50 sites popular with U.S. teens and children to see what tracking tools they installed on a test computer. As a group, the sites placed 4,123 “cookies,” “beacons” and other pieces of tracking technology. That is 30% more than were found in an analysis of the 50 most popular U.S. sites overall, which are generally aimed at adults. The most prolific site: Snazzyspace.com, which helps teens customize their social-networking pages, installed 248 tracking tools. Its operator described the site as a “hobby” and said the tracking tools come from advertisers.”

4. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Smith & Tinker Reinvent Nanovor. “Developer Smith & Tinker is launching a revamped version of its Nanovor offering from last year. The new version, called Nanovor Evolution, will be a full-featured browser-based virtual world. The toy arm of the franchise will be discontinued in favor of a Nanovor app for iOS that leverages the collection of Nanovor virtual insect robots that a player accumulates while dueling other players in the virtual world. Players’ Nanovor collections will be stored in the cloud. Where the original version of Nanovor emphasized the collecting and battling aspects of the franchise, Nanovor Evolution introduces customizable avatars, hub lobbies where users can interact in a virtual environment, and action mini-games that users can play to earn a new time-based virtual currency called Jolt Points. In Nanovor Evolution, users will be able to purchase new Nanovors and avatar customization pieces using both cash-based Nanocash and Jolt Points.”

5. Inside Facebook (USA) – Announcing Inside Virtual Goods: Tracking the US Virtual Goods Market 2010 – 2011. “With an up-to-$750 million acquisition of Playdom by Disney, an up-to-$400 million acquisition of Playfish by Electronic Arts, the acquisition of Tapulous by Disney, and hundreds of millions of dollars in venture investments, virtual goods are impacting businesses across the media landscape. Virtual goods, and the companies that create them, may be bringing the largest disruption entertainment, communication, and e-commerce infrastructure businesses have seen in years.”

6. CBC News (Canada) – Battle to preserve online anonymity rages in video game community. “Micah Whipple may not be a familiar name to the online masses, but in the World of Warcraft sphere, there’s no greater symbol of the need for privacy. The young man became a scapegoat for gamer outrage earlier this year when the owner of the massive multiplayer game announced it would require users to post their real names in official forums. The stated reason for the dramatic change: to oust “trolls” who were disrupting the chatrooms. A community manager who interacts with players, Whipple decided to show support for the new company policy and wrote a short post under his forum moniker, Bashiok, that revealed his true name. “Micah Whipple, at your service,” it said.”

7. The Guardian (UK) – PlayStation Move. “When Sony’s Move motion-sensing input system was unveiled, it attracted a certain amount of derision – it was accused of being a pale rip-off of the Wii remote, and of being clunky in comparison with Microsoft’s high-tech Kinect. Which just goes to show how first impressions can be misleading. It’s true that technologically speaking, Move is about as sexy as Norah Batty’s wrinkly stockings, but astoundingly, it makes much more sense as a purchase than Kinect. The main reason is that it actually works, whereas Microsoft’s attempts to keep Kinect’s price down means that it suffers terribly from terminal lag between your gestures and its response.”

8. Wall Street Journal (USA) – Microsoft Bullish on Kinect. “Microsoft Corp. is targeting global sales of more than three million units of its new Kinect motion-sensor gaming accessory for its Xbox 360 console in the first two months after the Nov. 4 launch in the U.S., providing a much needed holiday sales boost to the slumping overall market for videogames. In an interview ahead of this week’s Tokyo Game Show, Microsoft’s top videogame executive, Don Mattrick, said he expects Kinect will propel the company to have its “biggest holidays ever.” Mr. Mattrick said he expects Kinect, a camera and sensor technology which allows users to play videogames on the Xbox 360 through gestures and verbal commands, to eclipse the industry’s three million unit threshold by the end of the year.”

9. The Age (Australia) – Such a Tragic Waste of Life. “I have always been a little suspicious of social networking. When Facebook was introduced, I at first enjoyed the novelty of keeping up with friends and looking at happy snaps. Then Facebook got nicknames like Stalkbook and Creepbook. For lazy communicators, it’s a sinister kind of genius. Then Twitter came along. Letting others know your thoughts in 140 characters or fewer is perfect for short attention spans. I embraced it. Now I sometimes think I should write even less. With these two sites well and truly entrenched, I’d like to remind you of another world that had everyone talking back in 2005 called Second Life. In this virtual world, users could create a new persona for themselves and interact with others doing the same. For Brian in accounts who, on his night off, loved the idea of being half-Twilight-wolf, half-Arnold-Schwarzenegger in chaps, Second Life was a revelation. To me, it all felt (and I don’t want to offend anyone who still regularly plonks their ugg boots in there), well, a little unnecessary.”

(Note: click here for a great rebuttal of Warhurst’s article)

10. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – Eviction game hits a nerve in China. “It may lack the sophistication and addictive power of Farmville or World of Warcraft. But an online game in which a family fights off a demolition crew with slippers and bullets has hooked Chinese internet users. The Big Battle: Nail House Versus Demolition Team has triumphed not through playability, but by tapping into anger about forced relocations. ”Nail houses” are the last homes left standing in areas slated for clearance, so called because they stick out when all around them have been demolished. Owners resist because they do not want to move or think that compensation is unfairly low, but wrecking crews often retaliate with tactics from cutting off power and water to violence.”

1. Department of Defense (USA) – Government Invites Public to Solve Challenges. “The federal government has a lot of problems to solve, and a new website it launched this week will give average citizens a forum to discuss and potentially solve those problems while vying for rewards for the best solutions. Bev Godwin, director of the U.S. General Services Administration’s Center for New Media and Citizen Engagement; Brandon Kessler, founder and CEO of ChallengePost; and Tami Griffith, science and technology manager for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s Simulation and Training Technology Center, discussed the new site — Challenge.gov — during a “DoD Live” bloggers roundtable yesterday. Godwin oversees the site for the government. Kessler’s company designs and builds “challenge” sites for different clients. Challenge.gov is an extension of President Barack Obama’s Strategy for American Innovation, which opens government solutions to the general public.”

2. The Independent (UK) – Comment: The Virtual World Conference is the shape of things to come. “On 15 September, the Open University, in collaboration with the Serious Games Institute, will host a 24-hour conference. Opening in Hong Kong, the focus will shift to Europe as the eastern evening meets the UK morning, handing over at our sundown for a final eight hours on the US western coast. Despite crossing many time zones during the day, conference chairs and delegates will meet at a single location, and never have to leave the comfort of their own armchairs.”

3. Christian Science Monitor (USA) – A virtual world that breaks real barriers. “Thus far in the relatively short existence of online worlds and virtual communities, less than flattering stories typically float to the surface. The Internet is rife with tales of bad behavior: antisocial “trolls” posting inflammatory messages; players addicted to fantasy role-playing games; and marriages ruined by spouses staying up half the night to flirt in virtual spaces, even proposing marriage to people they’ve never met in the flesh. Given the power of negative thinking, it’s worth repeating: Not all that happens within the digital realms of monsters, quests, and virtual dollars is evil. Much of the zombie-shooting amounts to people having fun or finding an escape. But some online communities embrace a more lofty mission. They’re forging new relationships across the chasms of nationality, religion, and language – long the unrealized dream of some who hoped the Internet could bring us closer.”

4. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – Go with the flow. “I am a sucker for physics simulations, especially in games. The last half a decade or so has brought us advances such as Havok, PhysX, and Euphoria, all of them technologies that help to make our virtual worlds a little more believable. The only thing I love more than physics in general is liquid simulation, and right now is a good time to be a fan of virtual fluid dynamics. Three games are on the horizon that play with realistic liquid simulation in very different ways. Probably the first we will get the chance to play will be Hydrophobia, a 3D survival adventure that takes place aboard a slowly sinking ocean liner. The game’s developer, Dark Energy, has spent three years just programming an engine that can model realistic water movement.”

5. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Sulake Reports Best Half-Year Results To Date. “Virtual worlds publisher Sulake announced its best half-year performance in the company’s history, earning approximately $37.9 million in revenue. This is a 20% increase year-over-year. Sulake credits the jump in revenue to reducing costs, improving operations, and a continued focus on development of its Habbo Hotel virtual world. Sulake expects its revenue growth to continue in the future.”

6. NewScientist (USA) – Avatars learn gestures to match your tone of voice. “Avatars in virtual worlds provide a richer way than email or chat to communicate online, but despite better graphics and sound quality, they still can’t rival in-person meetings. Now new software may help virtual characters appear more lifelike by imbuing them with realistic body language. Rather than assign physical gestures based on the literal meaning of a person’s spoken words, the program focuses on prosody, the combination of vocal rhythm, intonation and stress. To assemble a library of gestures associated with prosody features, Sergey Levine and Vladlen Koltun at Stanford University, California, used a motion-capture studio to digitise the movements that an actor made as he spoke.”

7. Computerworld (USA) – Second Life should be more iPhone-like, says CEO Philip Rosedale. “One of Second Life’s biggest problems, says CEO Philip Rosedale, is that it’s not enough like an iPhone. From the moment you open the box on an iPhone, it’s fun to use, and in playing, you learn how to use it. The whole process is pleasurable. Second Life is nothing like that, learning to use it is a long process, and painful for many people. I talked with Rosedale three weeks ago, when he’d been back as CEO of Linden Lab for two months. Rosedale is founder and chairman of Linden Lab, the company that created and operates Second Life. He stepped down as CEO two years ago, and returns to find the company battered and troubled.”

8. The Toronto Star (Canada) – Techno-porn: how the sex industry drives mainstream technology. “Patchen Barss might well have called his first book Hard Drive. After all, the central thesis of The Erotic Engine is that pornography has almost always powered human communication, all the way from dirty cave paintings to Google. The cover shows a couple of computer mice in a compromising position, an illustration reflective of the wit the 40-year-old Toronto author has brought to his research. Today, the international pornography industry is estimated to be a $25-billion business, and, technologically, it’s driving all sorts of things that nobody would ever connect with one-handed typing.”

9. VentureBeat (USA) – LOLapps thrives as under-the-radar Facebook social game maker. “You probably haven’t heard of LOLapps, the maker of social games on Facebook. But the company has quietly become one of the leaders of the pack among hot social game companies that are still independent. The San Francisco company has more than 100 million users. But almost nobody has kept track of that. On AppData, which measures Facebook traffic, LOLapps is listed as having about 10 million monthly active users, which doesn’t even put it the top-10 developer list. But if you consider the 100 million number, only Zynga and CrowdStar are in the same ballpark. The undercounting happens for a simple reason. The company’s two top apps, Gift Creator and Quiz Creator, have many more users than are shown in the official stats. That’s because users create their own quizzes and gifts with those apps, and are then counted as the developers of apps; LOLapps doesn’t get credited or recognized when its users create apps that spread virally on Facebook. In that sense, LOLapps is a lot like CrowdStar, another leading Facebook social game company whose quiz games don’t get counted much.”

10. Hypergrid Business (Hong Kong) – Sex world recruits Emerald team. “The adult-themed Utherverse virtual world platform is in discussions with former developers of the controversial Emerald Viewer for Second Life, the company announced. Prior to recent scandals involving an alleged distributed denial of service attack, privacy violations, and a Second Life ban this Wednesday, the Emerald viewer was primarily known for a nicer user interface than Second Life’s own official viewers — and for its “breast physics.” But bouncing boobies wasn’t the only factor that caught Utherverse’s attention.”

1. Rochester Post-Bulletin (USA) – Mayo Clinic expands in the virtual world. “Mayo Clinic has opened a new, virtual bookstore in the imaginary world called Second Life, one of many online realms that increasingly are taking on real-life importance. Mayo first opened a Second Life Gonda Building in December 2009. But now you can walk into the Mayo bookstore by signing onto secondlife.com and naming an avatar — an online caricature of yourself. It’s sort of like an avatar from the popular movie of the same name. With an avatar, you become part of the the virtual world. “Virtual Worlds hold great opportunities to grow Mayo Clinic offerings and reach out and interact with patients and non-patients in new ways, regardless of geography and in real time,” says a poster placed on an easel outside the Second Life Gonda Building.”

2. Gamasutra (USA) – US Buyer Completes Purchase Of Realtime Worlds’ MyWorld. “An anonymous US buyer has completed the purchase of Project MyWorld, the 3D virtual world platform in development by recently collapsed studio, Realtime Worlds, according to a report by Develop. However, it is still not understood whether the buyer has purchased just the MyWorld IP and game build, or will be taking on the remaining staff on the project in order to form a new spin-off studio. The news comes a fortnight after it was announced that Realtime had hired back 23 developers who had previously been laid off days before the company went into administration.”

3. Memeburn (USA) – Immersive journalism uses virtual gaming platforms to tell stories. “Ernest Wilson, the dean of the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism, put it like this: “What if, after receiving the home and garden section in the morning, the reader could walk right into the section and visit a garden?” This bucolic vision reflects one potential scenario for what we at the Annenberg school are calling “immersive journalism,” a new genre that utilises gaming platforms and virtual environments to convey news, documentary and non-fiction stories.”

4. io9 (USA) – Scenes from a 3-D, augmented reality metropolis. “Keiichi Matsuda creates incredible short films that depict an augmented reality city where synthetic information clouds are grafted onto brick’n’mortar material spaces. Here are two of his futureshock videos. Matsuda created this first 3D video, “Augmented (hyper)Reality: Augmented City,” for his final year at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London.”

5. Canada.com (Canada) – Children wield outsized economic clout. “At age nine, the sandy-haired boy from Markham, Ont., is already a savvy shopper of electronics. When his mother told him the Nintendo DSi game he wanted was too expensive, he pursued a new strategy. He told family and friends to forgo birthday and Christmas presents and buy him gift cards to put toward the new device. Now he saves for the accompanying games – most recently Super Mario Galaxy 2. Next on his wish list: the iPod Touch. “My aunt has one and lets me play with it when she visits,” he says. Jackie Macdonald-Bartkiw, Andrew’s mom, figures that by Christmastime, he will be lobbying for more gift cards to buy his own touch technology. “I’m amazed at his patience . . . and persistence.”

6. Reuters (Canada) – Gameworld: Tween players impacting online game development. “A booming market of tweens is changing the landscape of online games.
This audience of boys and girls aged 8 to 11 has game publishers launching new games like Disney Online’s “World of Cars Online” and Sony Online Entertainment’s “Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures.” As these tweens grow older, they are also fueling the success of established online games like Blizzard Entertainment’s “World of Warcraft” and Zynga’s “Farmville.” In 2007, when children’s marketing research firm KidSay asked boys what virtual worlds or online games they had visited in the past two weeks, 35 percent of boys aged 8 to 11 replied “none.”

7. Philadelphia Inquirer (USA) – Online support for significant others of military personnel overseas. “he first thing Tatiana Simpson did after her boyfriend proposed to her in a phone call from Iraq was to log on to Facebook. “Right after it happened, I posted. I had to tell them,” Simpson, 17, of Sewell, said of her social-networking friends. Simpson says the Facebook page Army Girlfriends: For All the Girls Waiting Back Home is her favorite among the forums she uses to connect with others who are dating members of the military. Simpson, who doesn’t know anyone locally who is dating a service member, relies on the site for advice. “The girls on Facebook are so easy to talk to, because you’re going through the same thing they’re going through,” she said. Like others, she has found support on Facebook from those who share her situation – the strain of having a boyfriend in the military, and often in a war zone. First-time deployments can unleash emotions and questions that are addressed in more than 1,000 Facebook forums. The military provides support groups, which helps, but most are limited to spouses and families of service members.”

8. CNN (USA) – Who says video games aren’t art? “According to Merriam-Webster, the word “art” can be defined as “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination, especially in the production of aesthetic objects.” The Oxford Dictionary says art is “the expression or application of creative skill and imagination, typically in visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” So why do so many critics — most notably Roger Ebert earlier this year — still assert that video games, the best of which rank among today’s most visually arresting and touching experiences, don’t fit these definitions? (To be fair, Ebert later amended his comments, saying, “I should not have written that entry without being more familiar with the actual experience of video games.”

9. The Next Web (Dubai) – Beladcom to build a Virtual Planet in Entropia Universe for Arabs. “Jordanian game development firm Beladcom signed a deal with Swedish software company MindArk to create an online virtual world with content specifically tailored toward Arab audiences. Beladcom will be building a virtual planet within MindArk’s Entropia Universe, which is a highly advanced 3D online virtual universe, to create a virtual gaming environment with high quality entertainment, social networking, and work simulation and learning tools.”

10. VentureBeat (USA) – LOLapps thrives as under-the-radar Facebook social game maker. “You probably haven’t heard of LOLapps, the maker of social games on Facebook. But the company has quietly become one of the leaders of the pack among hot social game companies that are still independent. The San Francisco company has more than 100 million users. But almost nobody has kept track of that. On AppData, which measures Facebook traffic, LOLapps is listed as having about 10 million monthly active users, which doesn’t even put it the top-10 developer list. But if you consider the 100 million number, only Zynga and CrowdStar are in the same ballpark. The undercounting happens for a simple reason. The company’s two top apps, Gift Creator and Quiz Creator, have many more users than are shown in the official stats. That’s because users create their own quizzes and gifts with those apps, and are then counted as the developers of apps; LOLapps doesn’t get credited or recognized when its users create apps that spread virally on Facebook. In that sense, LOLapps is a lot like CrowdStar, another leading Facebook social game company whose quiz games don’t get counted much.”