1. BBC News (UK) – Police investigate Habbo Hotel virtual furniture theft. “Thieves have struck again in the virtual world Habbo Hotel. Finnish police are investigating up to 400 cases of theft, with some members reporting the loss of up to €1000 (£840) worth of virtual furniture and other items, according to Detective Sergeant Marko Levonen. “We have done five home searches in five cities in Finland,” he said. This is not the first time Habbo Hotel, which allows users to meet friends and buy virtual goods, has been targeted. In 2007, a Dutch teenager was arrested for allegedly stealing virtual furniture worth thousands of euros on the site, which is believed to have more than 100 million registered “avatars”.”

2. AsiaOne (Singapore) – Students create virtual-world temple. “Internet users can now visit a three-dimensional virtual world of Thailand’s past, presenting a new and surprisingly real insight into Thai heritage, arts and culture. Called 3D Virtual World Heritage Wat Chaiwattanaram, the glimpse into Thailand’s history is a joint effort by Kasetsart University, Sun Microsystems and the Inter University Network, UniNet, using Sun Wonderland technology. Above all else, the project, at http://niramit.hpcnc.com/WatChaiWatanaram, involves pride in the Thai heritage, by promoting a kind of Internet tourism. A professor at Kasetsart University’s Computer Engineering Department, Putchong Uthayyopas, said the three-dimensional virtual world of Wat Chaiwattanaram had been developed by students of his department.”

3. New Scientist (UK) – Impossible figures brought to life in virtual worlds. “Ever found a computer game truly impossible? If not, you soon might, thanks to Chinese computer scientists who have found a way to depict physically impossible figures in 3D virtual environments. The endless staircases of the Dutch artist M. C. Escher appear impossible and possible at the same time, and able to go in all directions. Such visual trickery depends heavily on the observer’s viewpoint – and that makes it difficult to animate Escher-type figures in games. If the viewpoint pans around a 3D computer depiction of such a staircase, “the impossibility is lost”, says Tai-Pang Wu at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.”

4. Entrepreneur Magazine (USA) – Should We Meet in Another World? “Like so many things in cyberspace, Second Life, a 3-D virtual world, began with a lot of hope–and hype. Who could resist what was promised? Islands full of new friends! A new era of human interaction! Hundreds of retailers opened virtual stores, and Reuters even launched a Second Life news bureau. Well, the bureau closed early last year, and Linden Lab’s virtual utopia is full of malls selling nothing but pixilated genitalia. But Second Life is hoping to polish up its reputation in the business world by solving virtual reality’s very real problem: the absence of security layers and administrative control functions that would make such an environment a safer place to do business.”

5. Destructoid (USA) – Browser-based Star Wars Clone Wars Adventure revealed. “This fall, Sony Online Entertainment will release Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures, a free-to-play, browser-based virtual world based on the popular animated series. Based on SOE’s Free Realms engine, the game will allow players to create a character and then enter a world where they’ll have immediate access to a host of mini-games, with an emphasis on action, competition, and socializing. The game, like the show, is clearly aimed at a younger audience. But after a short time with an early build of the game — from pick-up-and-play speeder bike racing to a typing mini-game, to a super-addictive tower defense game — there may be a bit of something for everyone in Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures. ”

6. Department of Defense (USA) – Technology to Drive New, Better Ways to Educate the Force. “Got a cell phone handy? It could be your ticket to keeping up with your professional development requirements. That’s just one concept being explored at Air Education and Training Command, the Air Force’s training and education component. Like its counterparts in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps, AETC hopes to take advantage of new and emerging technologies to provide more efficient, effective educational opportunities to the force. Most servicemembers are familiar with the concept of distance learning, with training delivered through the Internet or snail mail. Distance learning is a big money saver for the military, reducing travel and temporary duty costs associated with classroom training. And in light of heavy mission requirements, it enables servicemembers to meet many of their educational requirements without extended absences from their duty stations and loved ones. But with ever-expanding technologies and young “digital natives” now entering the force, officials hope to take military education to a whole new level.”

7. Kotaku (USA) – When World Of Warcraft And The Real World Come Together. “This is a charming short film about everyday people and their World of Warcraft avatars, interviewing a few players while their characters stroll around in the real world. It’s only four minutes long, but in that four minutes you get to meet a number of Irish players who give honest, enjoyable stories of just why it is they play the game, and what it is they’re getting out of it.”

8. Otago Daily Times (New Zealand) – Screen technology taste of the future. “Imagine ultra-high definition TVs not much thicker than a millimetre, electronic books made with plastic screens that flex like a magazine and displays that let you touch a virtual version of yourself on the other side of the glass. The technology to build these crazy new gadgets was shown in Seattle last week during Display Week, the Society for Information Display conference. A combination science fair and industry bazaar, the event attracted almost 6000 people from most of the companies developing TVs, monitors, touch screens, electronic books and cellphone screens.”

9. Kotaku (Australia) – World Of Warcraft Creatures Prowl The Waters Of Southern Australia. “Behold the Pink Handfish, one of fourteen species of bottom-dwelling marine fish endemic of the waters of Southern Australia and Tasmania, or, as World of Warcraft players know them, Murlocs. It’s easy to imagine the handfish as the inspiration for some of World of Warcraft’s most hated and beloved enemies. They’ve got the same hands and feet as the fantasy race, after all, as well as that striking crest, formed out of its secondary dorsal spine and a flap of skin.”

10. The Daily Mail (UK) – ‘Avatar’ mother goes missing after becoming obsessed with online 3D world. “A mother has gone missing after becoming obsessed with a 3D virtual world on an internet chat site. Annemarie Squires has not been seen for three weeks after leaving her home without warning. Her partner of eight years, Andrew Jobe, and her son have not heard from her and her mobile phone is switched off. Miss Squires’ family said in the months before she vanished, the 40-year-old spent most of her spare time on imvu.com.”

1. USA Today (USA) – Spending on virtual goods continues upturn. “Spending on virtual goods in games, virtual worlds and on social sites such as Facebook continues to show real increases. About 13% of Americans bought virtual goods in the last 12 months, with average spending of $99, up from $87 last year (a 14% increase), finds a new survey from research and consulting firm Frank N. Magid Associates and virtual goods monetization firm PlaySpan. The nationally representative online survey of 2,412 was conducted May 7-14, 2010. (1,955 were aged 18-64; 457 were 8-17). And more than one-fifth (21%) of spenders say they expect to spend more in the coming year. Biggest spenders? iPhone owners, with 43% of them saying they made virtual goods purchases (up from 28% last year). Next came virtual worlds visitors, 41% of whom say they have bought digital goods.”

2. Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (USA) – Caprica, Gamer, & Surrogates: Overlooked Benefits of Virtual Worlds. “In its first season, Caprica has done an excellent job of exploring the ethical issues relating to V-World (the virtual world created by the ultra-rich Daniel Graystone), looking at the dangers of becoming overly immersed in V-World, and whether an avatar constitutes a real person. Also in the past year, we’ve seen Gamer and Surrogates, two movies that explore some common themes with interesting parallels to those in Caprica. In Caprica, Tamara Adama’s storyline is what gives us the richest opportunity to explore V-World. Killed in Zoe Graystone’s MAGLEV bombing, a copy of her lives on in V-World as an avatar. Her father Joseph, although he’d never used a holoband before, becomes obsessed in his quest to find her avatar, neglecting his son and turning to drugs to make himself faster in the game. Joseph says Tamara isn’t dead, because according to him the avatar is his daughter. At the same time, Tamara meets a man who’s obsessed with the game as it finally allows him to be something. Tamara suggests that maybe if he didn’t spend all his time in here he would be something out there.”

3. Federal Computer Week (USA) – Government-only virtual world on the way. “Federal employees and managers will be able to meet, interact, train and learn together in a government-only online virtual world being created in the vGov project. The Agriculture and Homeland Security departments, Air Force and National Defense University iCollege have joined to create the vGov virtual world behind a secure firewall that can only be accessed by federal employees with authenticated identities. Paulette Robinson, assistant dean for teaching, learning and technology at the iCollege, said at the Gov 2.0 Expo today the project will use the three-dimensional immersive experience of virtual worlds to bring employees together from locations worldwide for real-time interactions. People will use avatars to appear in the virtual world, where they can chat with other avatars and interact with the environment.”

4. 3 News (New Zealand) – Like a drug: Videogame addiction. “A lot of us can confess to being addicted to videogames. Whether it’s spending your hard-earned moola on the latest console, suffering sleep deprivation, taking days off work or missing homework in order to get your gaming fix. Plenty of you reading this right now will be familiar with the impact that being a gamer can have on your everyday life. However at what point does an enthusiastic pastime get out of hand? Sadly, there have been many cases around the world where gamers have not only destroyed their own lives, but affected the lives of others as well.”

5. Hypergrid Business (Hong Kong) – Paper: Second Life, OpenSim best for education. “The Second Life and OpenSim platform are the best bet for educators, according to a white paper released today by virtual worlds research firm Daden Limited. “It is the only one offering reasonable graphics with in-world building tools, and as a result high levels of flexibility,” wrote author David Burden. The platform also offers the largest user community, he added, and a high degree of innovation. “If the shared hosting of the Second Life main or Teen grid are a blocker to adoption — or there is a need [for] access across the age 18 divide — then Second Life Enterprise … or OpenSim may be a solution.”

6. The Online Journalism Review (USA) – Learning by doing: Seeking best practices for immersive journalism. “Ernest Wilson, the dean of the 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 are calling at Annenberg “immersive journalism,” a new genre that utilizes gaming platforms and virtual environments to convey news, documentary and non-fiction stories. As a senior research fellow, I am prototyping immersive journalism stories, hoping to discover and create best practices for a burgeoning filed that can capture audiences increasingly accustomed to experiencing digital worlds. The fundamental idea of immersive journalism is to allow the audience to actually enter a virtually recreated scenario representing the news story. The pieces can be built in online virtual worlds, such as Second Life, or produced using a head-tracked head-mounted display system, or HMD.”

7. ARN (Australia) – CeBIT 2010: NBN will lead to crime surge, expert claims. “Vice-president of IT security group Cyveillance, Eric Olson, has warned cybercrime will surge with the increased connectivity of the National Broadband Network (NBN). Olson’s keynote presentation was delivered during CeBIT 2010 in Sydney. He said the benefits of fast and readily available Internet outweighed the negatives, but told communities and governments to be ready for the rise in crime. Large-scale data theft, wage slavery due to Internet gaming and the number of computers being taken over by bots would sharply increase because of the ubiquitous Internet provision provided by the NBN, Olson claimed.”

8. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – Red Dead to revive the Western. “The Western genre, long described as dead, could be set for revival thanks to the most anticipated video game of 2010. Red Dead Redemption, from the makers of the hugely successful Grand Theft Auto franchise, has been released to almost immediate and universal critical acclaim. Set in the dying days of the Wild West, RDR is inspired by such Westerns as 1969’s The Wild Bunch and Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western classic The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.”

9. Seattle Times (USA) – Displays of the future: Smart, bendy, 3D and more. “Talk about gazing into the future. Imagine ultra high-definition TVs not much thicker than a millimeter. How about electronic books made with plastic screens that flex like a magazine? Or perhaps a display that lets you touch a virtual version of yourself on the other side of the glass? The technology to build these crazy new gadgets is being shown in Seattle this week during Display Week, the Society for Information Display conference. A combination science fair and industry bazaar, the event is drawing 6,000 people from most of the companies developing TVs, monitors, touch screens, electronic books and cellphone screens. Inventors and component manufacturers will be showing their latest creations to consumer-electronics companies, looking for technology and materials to build the next iPad or wafer-thin 3-D TV.”

10. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Club One Uses Virtual Worlds To Battle Obesity. “The Second Life virtual space Club One Island announced that participants in its behavior modification program had lost more than eight pounds over the course of a twelve-week period. A control group that was attempting to modify behavior using the same methods but without the aid of a virtual world lost, on average, slightly less than six pounds per week. Club One attributes the virtual world’s success in aiding weight loss to certain key features of how people interact with virtual spaces. “Club One Island is a new approach to health that encourages individuals and organizations to rethink how we deal with obesity issues in this country,” said Celeste DeVaneaux, Creative Director of Club One Island, in a press statement. “Program participants are very pleased with their weight loss results and we believe that there are tremendous implications for companies, health insurance providers, and governments looking to reduce the burden of health care costs and improve the lives of entire populations.”

1. The Australian (Australia) – When games start playing you: cyber addicts. “Obsession, fantasy and the internet can be a destructive trio, as a South Korean couple learned last month. The pair were sentenced for negligent homicide after allowing their three-month old daughter to die of malnutrition. In the cruellest irony, the couple apparently neglected the infant for up to 12 hours a day while they were in internet cafes playing Prius Online, a fantasy game in which players rear a virtual girl called Anima. The disturbing case not only hit headlines worldwide, it highlighted the seemingly addictive allure of the internet. Although the medical world is divided as to whether internet addiction exists, Online Gamers Anonymous offers a 12-step program to help players wean themselves from games such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest and Final Fantasy. David Smallwood, addiction treatment program manager at The Priory in London, believes such games are particularly addictive for young men, who gain status through online prowess they couldn’t get in real life. But University of Sydney psychologist and clinician Andrew Campbell isn’t convinced.

2. VentureBeat (USA) – Sulake’s Habbo virtual world for kids keeps growing at fast clip. “Virtual worlds aren’t fashionable in the age of social networks. But Finnish virtual world operator Sulake reported strong growth in the first quarter as its Habbo Hotel expanded quickly despite the lingering recession. Helsinki-based Sulake said its revenue grew 25 percent to $20 million in the March quarter compared to a year ago. Thanks to cost savings achieved in part through layoffs in the fourth quarter, the company reported earnings before income taxes and depreciation (EBITDA) of $3 million, compared to $1.3 million a year ago. Habbo Hotel is a virtual world for kids and teens. Its more than 15 million monthly unique visitors (11.8 million a year ago) spend a total of 45 million hours playing each month versus 36 million a year ago. The simple Flash-based world is available in 32 countries and 11 languages.”

3. MedCity News (USA) – Mayo Clinic explores the virtual world of Second Life. “Mayo Clinic is a world famous hospital and research institution. But owning a tropical island seems a bit excessive, especially for a non-profit organization. Alas, “Mayo Clinic Island” isn’t real, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. The island only exists in the virtual 3D world of Second Life, where avatars, online personas of real people around the world, freely mingle and attend lectures on cancer and heart disease.”

4. afaqs! (India) – Turner Interactive to launch Tom & Jerry virtual world. “Turner Interactive, the digital arm of Turner Entertainment, is developing a 3D online virtual world which will be based on the popular cartoon characters Tom and Jerry. The virtual world will be available as a dedicated website and will enable users to create their own cartoon characters such as ‘cat’ and ‘mouse’. There will be many environments or destinations such as parks and malls inside the world, where users will be allowed to roam and socialise. The company will embed various games inside the world to raise the level of engagement. The virtual world will be launched across various parts of the world. “India could be the first market where Tom & Jerry virtual world will go live in the second half of 2010,” says Benjamin Grubbs, regional director, interactive media, Turner Entertainment, during an exclusive conversation with afaqs!.”

5. The Irish Times (UK) – Avatars play starring role at virtual seminar. “The programme for the recent Metameets conference at Dublin Institute of Technology – flagged as Europe’s Premier 3D Internet and Developer Conference – carried an unusual little note after each speaker’s name: “live” or “virtual”. For a conference about 3D and virtual worlds, perhaps it isn’t odd at all that about a third of the presentations were given not by someone standing before the audience, but by their avatars in some online virtual world like Second Life. That a good proportion of the audience was scattered across cyberspace too is the norm for this international event, now in its second year (it debuted in Amsterdam last year). Add to that the oddity of having the conference organisers listed by both their real-life and their avatar names, and you get the picture. These are people passionate about the virtual, who do not consider it just an amusing pastime, or a hobby, but a significant element of daily life and for many, their chosen area of entrepreneurship and business.”

6. Gamasutra (USA) – Analysis: Being Characters In Game Worlds. “To what extent do we embody the characters we play in games? That question was on my mind at the GameCamp in London event, at which 150 attendees spent the day discussing, debating and theorizing video games. With sessions run by a variety of games industry veterans and interested outsiders alike, the event sparked a series of enlightening conversations between a group of people fiercely passionate about the medium. This question in particular emerged from a session on video game narrative, chaired by Rock, Paper, Shotgun editor Kieron Gillen. During the discussion, Kieron invited me to speak about “context as narrative”, and the ways in which I attempted to utilise this method while creating my Half-Life 2 mods, Post Script and Nestlings, which I’ve written about on these pages before.”

7. Reuters (USA) – “R U There” moves too slowly for gaming crowd. “The films in the Un Certain Regard sidebar at Cannes seem to be holding a special sub-competition of their own, to see which will have audiences checking their watches most often. The topical story and strong leads in David Verbeek’s “R U There” feel like a great short stretched into a feature that cannot sustain the tension for which it so earnestly strives. The best target audience for this film about a young gaming champ should be the enormous gaming/”Second Life” community. Yet gamers, for one, inhabit virtual worlds that are far faster and far more action-filled than the slow-paced, moody “R U There.” Ominous music throughout sets up a thriller, but it’s actually a “boy meets girl but does better with her avatar” story.”

8. Businessweek (USA) – Alcohol Companies Use New Media to Lure Young Drinkers: Report. “Alcohol companies are increasingly using the latest new media technologies — including cell phones, social networking sites, YouTube and other features of the expanding digital universe — to reach young drinkers, a new report contends. And existing regulations may not be keeping up with the marketing trend, the report’s authors added. They’re calling on the Federal Trade Commission, state attorney generals and others to investigate the phenomenon and examine whether current mechanisms to protect youth from alcohol marketing still work effectively in the digital era.”

9. AFP (France) – Teen dramas in virtual worlds darken Cannes. “The dark side of the virtual world descended on Cannes Sunday in teen suicide dramas playing on the potentially dangerous blur between reality and the Internet. “Chatroom”, the first of a trio of cyberspace thrillers chilling the film festival, sees a dysfunctional youngster (upcoming British star Aaron Johnson) obsessively watching Japanese suicide videos in a dark locked bedroom. He sets up a chatroom with four other troubled teenagers, but seems only to want to mess with their heads.”

10. CMS Wire (USA) – The Next Wave: Enterprise 2.0, Immersive Workspaces and Virtual Worlds. “When Second Life first appeared on the web in 2003 I never got into it in a big way because it appeared to me to be more distraction than useful. My work with the disabled soon made me aware of the potential of virtual reality as a means by which those with immobility impairment could walk or even fly using this technology. But it was a remark by Dr. Cheryl Shavers, former Undersecretary of Technology and senior advisor to the Secretary of Commerce in the Clinton Administration, at a speech she gave in Toronto last week that got me thinking about avatars, virtual reality and enterprise once again. Dr. Shavers had said no one knows what you look like in a virtual reality environment. They measure you by your communication and your intelligence, not by the color of your skin, or the shape of your eyes. Dr. Shavers, an African-American woman, saw in Second Life a means to eliminate race from the conversation of business.”

1. Edmonton Journal (Canada) – City leads Second Life in virtual world. “Here’s a surefire way for Daryl Katz to get the arena he wants. Join Second Life. Edmontonians, including Katz, may soon be able to revisualize the city the way they see fit when Edmonton goes virtual later this summer in Second Life. In the 3-D virtual world of Second Life, users create avatars that interact with each other just like they would in real life. They clock in hours at work, catch up over coffee, go shopping, and even buy land, which they can build up to their exact specifications. Last week, Edmonton’s chief information officer Chris Moore announced via Twitter that the city is partnering with local media design company Christie Communications and Second Life maker Linden Lab to bring Edmonton into Second Life.”

2. Ars Technica (USA) – Sociologists invade World of Warcraft, see humanity’s future. “In their continued quest to plumb the mysterious depths of human interactions, some sociologists have stopped watching people—and started watching their avatars. And the US government is paying them to do it. While playing World of Warcraft and traipsing through Second Life might not sound like traditional academic disciplines, they are increasingly important for research into virtual communities. This burgeoning subdiscipline even has its own publication, the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research. What gets studied? Gold farming, “goon culture,” griefing, entrepreneurial activity, intimacy, even “The Visual Language of Virtual BDSM Photographs in Second Life,” which appeared in the most recent issue of the journal.”

3. nextgov (USA) – Virtual Worlds — Virtually? “Today I’m covering the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds conference here in Washington. Sure, it’s being held just a few miles away from Nextgov’s offices, but I decided to try attending the conference about virtual worlds virtually. I had high expectations for this experience — after all, isn’t Second Life, one of the more widely used platforms for virtual interaction, cool?”

4. ZDNet Asia (Singapore) – Second Life can find niche in virtual events. “Virtual world pioneer Second Life can leverage its 3D environment to explore niche markets such as virtual event hosting in the face of competition from specialty virtual worlds, said a Forrester analyst. In an e-mail interview, TJ Keitt, analyst at Forrester research, said Linden Lab’s Second Life will not disappear anytime soon. However, it is facing stiff competition from specialty virtual worlds such as Disney-owned Club Penguin and Habbo Hotel, as well as business-targeted virtual worlds Teleplace and ProtonMedia. Keitt believes Second Life will be able to find its niche as an avenue for virtual events. Virtual event hosting is an emerging market which was spurred on by the recession’s effect on business travel, and is currently led by On24 and InXpo.”

5. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Virtual World Web Reaches 25,000 Virtual Worlds. “This week Utherverse announced that the 25,000th virtual world had been created for its Virtual World Web platform. The Virtual World Web is a network of independent, user-created virtual worlds developed using standard platform tools and content libraries provided by Utherverse. CEO Brian Shuster says that the Virtual World Web was designed with replacing the traditional (or “flat”) Web in mind and is well on its way to doing so. Shuster compared the current state of the Virtual World Web to the state of the Web in roughly 1994 or 1995, when online commerce was in its infancy and most sites were run for the Webmaster’s entertainment. He believes that the “Worldmasters” building out the Virtual World Web are at the same point, despite the platform launching only last September. He attributes the network’s accelerated rate of growth to Utherverse’s toolset and massive library of objects, textures, and regions. Both were developed over the course of five years. ”

6. Tech News World (USA) – Where Have All the Avatars Gone? “Many have already written eulogies for the virtual worlds. Dead, they claim; the avatar is dead in the corporate realm. But the truth reads like the “Star Trek” script for the “The Trouble with Tribbles” episode: just because you don’t see them, doesn’t mean they are not breeding like mad in a closed grain bin. Without doubt, many corporations are indeed tribbling their avatar action. “The ease with which entities can close off public access in Second Life makes it difficult to know exactly what might be going on behind closed boardroom doors with regards to their presence in Second Life or other virtual worlds,” Shenlei Winkler, CEO of The Fashion Research Institute, told TechNewsWorld. Winkler is also author of Shengri La Spirit: A Designer’s Perspective of the Making of OpenSim on content licensing for virtual goods, virtualization of enterprise in immersive workspaces, OpenSim enterprise application development, and user immersion in virtual worlds. A successful designer, her real-life apparel designs have now reached more than US$70 million in sales . Her couture work has appeared on stage, movie screens and in Second Life.”

7. New York Times (USA) – Club Penguin Misses Goals, Giving Disney a Half-Price Deal. “Club Penguin, the subscription-based online community acquired by the Walt Disney Company in 2007, has failed to meet profit targets that were tied to $350 million in payouts to the Web site’s creators. Disney’s purchase of Club Penguin was valued at $700 million, with half of the total paid up front and half coming in two payments based on unspecified growth thresholds. Disney disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last May that Club Penguin had missed the first target. On Wednesday, the company confirmed that the Web site did not meet the second one.”

8. VentureBeat (USA) – Rocktropia virtual world for music lovers debuts. “If you can’t get enough rock and roll in your life, you might want to go live in Rocktropia. That’s the new virtual world for rock music lovers that is debuting today. It’s a world where you dress up like a rock star, immerse yourself in rock lore, explore a rock-inspired landscape, and go listen to live events. Building a virtual world in the age of social networks such as Facebook may seem antiquated. But Jon Jacobs, creator of Rocktropia, believes that virtual worlds will become popular again once the Facebook crowd moves on to something new. “I think that high-end 3D virtual environments will be the next step,” said Jacobs. “Our platform has all of the features of a social network. It has immersive storytelling, and is an entertaining game.”

9. Hypergrid Business (Hong Kong) – How open are virtual worlds? “There are three ways in which a particular platform or service can be considered to be “open.” One is whether it runs on multiple systems, or is locked into a system from one particular vendor. For example, Apple’s Leonard operating system only runs on Apple computers. The Windows operating systems, by comparison, can be installed just about anywhere. The Wii Sports game only runs on the Nintendo Wii. Microsoft Word can run — sometimes with emulators — on pretty much any machine out there.”

10. VentureBeat (USA) – Woozworld raises $3M to expand virtual world for tweens. “Woozworld has raised $3 million in a first round of funding for a tween-focused virtual world. The Montreal-based company is spinning off from parent Tribal Nova so that it can concentrate on building a world for tweens, a age group which embraces kids aged 9 to 14. Investors included Canadian venture firms Inovia Capital and ID Capital. Woozworld already has 350,000 members and a million user-generated virtual places after launching in December. The product lets tweens build worlds where they can engage with their peers, design their own spaces, set up activities, and manage a business. Previously, Tribal Nova was focused on developing a virtual world for children dubbed Kid Studio.”

1. Wall Street Journal (USA) – Q&A: A Real Study of Virtual Worlds. “Students of Ulrike Schultze might know her better by her Second Life avatar, Uskla. That’s because the Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business professor utilizes the online game to connect to her students in an unusual way. Ms. Schultze, who teaches management and information technology, leads both an online and physical classroom — students have the option of attending either or both. But for her, Second Life goes beyond being a teaching tool. Ms. Schultze explored the avatar-self relationship with a paper she presented at the 30th International Conference on Information Systems in Phoenix back in December. With her research, funded by the National Science Foundation, she will write a series of papers that look into the different aspects of these avatar-self relationships.”

2. Nextgov (USA) – Virtual Worlds on the Rise. “In her blog on Thursday, Paulette Robinson, the assistant dean for teaching, learning and technology at the National Defense University, posted an item on Thursday about her effort to create a group in the federal government to talk about the use of virtual worlds in the federal government. It started out slow she said, but now the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds has 1,600 members – and a conference starting May 13.”

3. BizReport (USA) – InXpo’s new suite integrates social, gaming, virtual worlds‎. “We are witnessing an important shift in how organizations connect with their customers and their own people,” said Chris Meyer, Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing, InXpo. “By incorporating these three transformative technologies – virtual, games and social media -in our powerful virtual platform, organizations have entirely new ways to connect people, foster education and improve productivity, all within a single virtual environment.” With the suite of tools, marketers could engage the attendees of a virtual conference by placing an interactive social or gaming widget in one of the virtual rooms. Visitors then click to use the tool and can share information on the products or services through their own social networks. ”

4. CNET (USA) – Measuring the sales of virtual goods. “New data from PlaySpan, a provider of payment and monetization solutions for online games and virtual worlds, shows that digital and virtual goods purchases are going global, and that revenues can be tracked to better ascertain the size of the market. It’s estimated that virtual goods will generate $1.6 billion in the U.S. in 2010. Some predict that sales of digital goods will account for 20 percent of gaming revenue by 2011. As part of analyzing which players and geographies drive the most revenue, PlaySpan has settled on a metric of average revenue per paying user (ARPPU), similar to how mobile phone companies measure customer value.”

5. Gamasutra (USA) – Offerpal Launches Cross-Game, Cross-Platform Currency. “Social media and gaming ad company Offerpal Media announced the beta launch of GamePoints.com, a site where users earn points for taking part in offers redeemable for virtual currency in hundreds of games and different social networks. The site works similar to current systems, in which players earn free virtual currency in a specific social game by completing surveys, signing up for trial subscriptions, and taking part in other ad offers. GamePoints.com, however, adds an extra step that allows users to redeem Game Points in more than 1,500 games and apps across various social networking platforms, virtual worlds, MMOs, and other gaming sites.”

6. Brisbane Times (Australia) – Split Screen: The game of love. “On my first trip to the land of the rising sun, I couldn’t resist buying a Japanese dating game. At the time Konami was revered for Metal Gear Solid, but made more yen from dating simulations. After playing the game Forever With You, it was difficult to understand why. Your bedroom was (fittingly) your base for the game, and from here you would select icons to perform actions like schooling, working out, preening yourself in front of the mirror, and sleeping – activities presumably undertaken to make yourself more attractive to the opposite sex. Yet strangely, I could never find icons for popping pimples, getting insider tips from Cosmo or Dolly magazines, or showing off on the monkey bar in the playground. And unfortunately, when I finally summoned up the courage to use the telephone icon, my potential date sounded suspiciously like a bloke. ”

7. CNET (USA) – Class action lawsuit targets Second Life. “A number of paying users (or “residents”) of virtual world Second Life have filed a class-action lawsuit against the company and its founder, Philip Rosedale. Their complaint: The terms of virtual property ownership have changed, and residents were forced to agree to a new terms of service that eroded their ownership rights to virtual property and goods. In fact, the suit filed on April 15 claims, the promises of “ownership” were empty in the first place. Through extensive marketing, Second Life parent company Linden Lab, with Rosedale as its spokesman, “lured consumers across the United States to invest real money into (Second Life) by promising those users that they would own the virtual land and property they purchased as well as the content they created,” the terms of the suit allege.”

8. VentureBeat (USA) – Blizzard predicts biggest year ever with Starcraft II and World of Warcraft Cataclysm. “Mike Morhaime, the president of Activision Blizzard’s Blizzard Entertainment division, said the coming release of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty was the company’s “most ambitious” in history. Add to that the release of World of Warcraft Cataclysm, and the two games are going to give Blizzard a license to print money. ”We are poised to have our biggest year ever,” Morhaime said. Starcraft II launches on July 27 in 11 languages across five continents, while Cataclysm, which is an add-on pack for the World of Warcraft online game, is coming later in the year. The company made the comments on its quarterly financial call today.”

9. New York Times (USA) – Avatars Go to School, Letting Students Get a Feel for the Work World. “Even as work crews and scientists mobilized over a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, high school students in this city were hard at work cleaning up another spill — in the virtual world. Students like Christian Lopez jumped into an elaborate video game, called Spill, in which they assumed on-screen identities known as avatars to run cleanup efforts for the mayor of New City. The game, devised to help students sharpen their business acumen and skills, was rolled out in more than 750 schools across the country as part of a business contest in March and April.”

10. Telepresence Options (USA) – Beaming Into the Big Meeting. “Fallout from a recession and ash from a volcano drove more companies than ever to try videoconferencing. Once the skies clear on both fronts, will it be time to plan more business trips or will virtual meetings continue to get the job done? As a technology consultant for the IBB Consulting Group, Justin Forer of Miami takes 100 to 150 flights a year and also participates in one to four audio or video conferences a day. His answer? “I do believe you can get quite a bit done via teleconferencing” — especially things like project updates and clarifications. But when it comes to creating strategies, general brainstorming or generating new business, a trip is better, he said. He sees videoconferences as just another tool in his arsenal of business interactions.”