1. InformationWeek (USA) – 1 In 10 Internet Users Buys Virtual Goods. “Virtual weapons, Facebook favors and other forms of digital currency are a growing market, according to a survey released Thursday, with 12 percent of Americans saying they spent real money on these items in the last year.
The heaviest buyers of these objects — which are bought over the Internet and exchanged through online games, social networks, and virtual worlds such as Second Life — appear to be young and middle-aged women ages 12 to 44, although they were also purchased by young men.”

2. The Guardian (UK) – Virtual worlds are getting a second life. “We haven’t heard much recently about so-called virtual worlds such as Second Life, in which you move around with your own avatar. Critics must be hoping they have disappeared up their own ether. Actually, they are booming. The consultancy kzero.co.uk reports that membership of virtual worlds grew by 39% in the second quarter of 2009 to an estimated 579 million. Not all these members are active but I can’t think of anything, anywhere, that has grown so fast in the recession this side of Goldman Sachs bonuses.”

3. Hypergrid Business (Hong Kong) – Copyright in virtual worlds. “As the virtual worlds grow and develop — and evolve into the next 3D Web — the issue of copyright is being debated again. In some ways, virtual worlds copyrights may require changes in the way we think of and use copyrights. But, in most respects, virtual worlds copyrights are no different than the copyrights we currently have today. For example, today, if a content producer makes an original work and sells to a buyer, then, by default, what is sold is single-time use only.”

4. PBS (USA) – Virtual Worlds Show Promise for Newspaper Communities. “In my previous post, I talked about the browser-based virtual environment Metaplace, which I think may provide a way to boost interaction with our community on newspaper website Mediafin. To test how well virtual worlds could be used to build a community, I undertook some experiments in organizing “conferences” in worlds like Metaplace and Second Life. And the results turned out to be quite promising. How can we at newspaper websites experiment with new media without upsetting the community or — possibly even more — our colleagues? Virtual environments are not yet universally accepted as useful for newspaper communities, so the question of how to introduce community and colleagues to these spaces is especially pertinent.”

5. The Globe and Mail (Canada) – Avatars come alive in workplace. “Avatars will become the big buzz this year, thanks to director James Cameron’s pending flick of the same name. They’ve been all the rage among video gamers for years. Now they’re also sprouting up in the workplace, and experts predict they will emerge as a key trend in the coming years. For puzzled employers and perplexed employees, what’s the sense of using a digital person rather than a real one?”

6. Singularity Hub (USA) – Haptics Unleashes Virtual Reality and Telepresence Revolution – Awesome Vids. “Whoah! Prepare to be blown away with this post! Here at the Hub one of the things that we are all about is the coming merger of the physical world with the virtual world. Programmable matter, moving beyond the outdated mouse and keyboard interface model, immersive environments, and so on. Now we are here to tell you about a seriously game changing technology that is absolutely busting apart the traditional barrier between the physical and virtual worlds. Its called haptics, and if you haven’t heard about it yet then read on and prepare to be thrilled.”

7. San Jose Mercury News (USA) – Stanford’s virtual reality experiments transport knowledge to new vistas. “Even as it gained acceptance on college campuses during the 1990s, “virtual reality” could never quite escape having just a whiff of junk science. The graphics created for early virtual worlds were so clunky and slow they conjured up bad LSD trips. Giant helmets immersed subjects in fantastical environments far more virtual than real. It was like conducting a seance in a hat. “Until five or six years ago,” says Jeremy Bailenson, director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford, “when I told people what I did for a living, they laughed.”

8. ReadWriteWeb (USA) – How To: Use Virtual Worlds for Business. “Despite the hype, only 11% of enterprises have adopted virtual worlds to augment their work, says a new report by Forrester. Virtual worlds have been around since about 1995, but it took businesses half a decade to realize the potential value within the enterprise. But the research released this week isn’t just an outline of the market: it’s a how-to guide for doing business in a computer-generated universe. Vendors may not have done a very good job of marketing themselves to the enterprise to date, but there’s still a huge opportunity for your company to get virtual, if you know how.”

9. Xinhua (China) – Virtual reality – a new world awaits… “Virtual reality is no longer a concept of the future, innovative 3-D technology can now transform a desktop computer into an interactive world of adventure, fashion, fun and entertainment. Using the Internet as an entry platform, the new technology is blurring the lines of the real and virtual worlds. In contrast to a traditional two-dimensional interface, the 3-D environment provides a completely immersive and highly social world, enabling access to people and places that would be virtually impossible in the real world. Through the use to avatars, a virtual replica of yourself, or whoever you want to be, life can literally take on new dimensions in cyberspace.”

10. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Augmented Reality To Get iPhone Push. “ugmented reality is quickly gaining a foothold among entertainment brands. In the last few days, Mattel’s foray into augmented reality, with its upcoming Avatar line of action figures, has resulted in a wave of coverage. Now, iPhone developers are coming out of the woodwork with uses that coincide with the September release of version 3.1 of the iPhone software. The new iPhone software, and the subsequent listing in AR-enhanced applications in the App Store, will mark a turning point. Some dozen or so companies, according to reports, are gearing up for the day. And just yesterday, according to AppleInsider, Apple provided iPhone developers with a third beta of iPhone 3.1 software.”

1. Associated Content (USA) – Tron Legacy Coming Soon in 2010. “Some test footage from Tron Legacy, the sequel to the 1982 cult classic Tron, was shown at Comic Con 2009. The Tron Legacy footage depicted a battle between a blue and yellow “light cycle”, familiar to those who recall the first film.
Tron was the first film to make heavy use of computer generated images (CGI). Tron depicted the adventures of Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges, a computer programmer who had been literally sucked into a virtual, computer world and forced to fight in deadly arcade like games, such as the light cycle battle, by the Master Control Program, played by David Warner. Flynn was aided by two computer generated characters, Tron, played by Bruce Boxleitner and Yori, played by Cindy Morgan. Tron and Yori had real world counterparts, Alan and Lora, who were Flynn’s friends and also computer programmers.”

2. The Economic Times (India) – Could virtual gaming contribute to medical research? “If twitter is the tech-story turned mainstream media darling of 2009, then San Francisco-based Linden Lab’s virtual reality world “Second Life” (SL) was clearly the fancied one in 2008. There was a bizarre SL related story – virtual rape/murder/suicide – every other day in the papers , CNN and Reuters had news bureaus within SL and journalists were getting invites to attend virtual press conferences in SL from gimmicksavvy tech companies. In 2009, while the limelight has gone and its user base has remained stagnant at about 800,000, Second Life has made that allimportant leap: converting hype into REAL money. Some analysts estimate that it will make a 100 million dollars this year and turn a net profit of about 35 million dollars within two years. The main source of revenue of course is the “real money” users pay to acquire real … err virtual estate in the SL universe. ”

3. The Telegraph (UK) – Addiction therapists signing up to World of Warcraft. “Experts have said that some massively multiplayer online games, in which players battle enemies for weapons and rewards, are as addictive as crack cocaine.
Dr Richard Graham, a consultant psychiatrist at the Tavistock Centre in London, is so concerned that he plans to provide online therapy for youngsters who are spending so much time playing these games that they have lost touch with the real world. A recent report by Sweden’s Youth Care Foundation described World of Warcraft as “more addictive than crack cocaine”. The game, which attracts almost 12 million players every month, is set in a fantasy environment, with users taking on the characters of dwarves, elves and wizards, interacting with other players throughout the virtual world.”

4. Computerworld (USA) – Faux pas at virtual world discussion highlight continuing ‘transitional phase’. “Virtual worlds are growing in colleges and universities despite significant problems in using them to teach courses and communicate, a panel of experts said during a virtual discussion sponsored by Cisco Systems Inc. The problems range from giving students and educators access to networks to reach the online virtual worlds to ease-of-use with the applications and tools inside of the virtual worlds, panelists and audience members said. “There’s a long way to go with this technology to make it easy for everybody to do,” said Sarah Smith-Robbins, director of emerging technology for Kelley Executive Partners at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. She has taught and written about virtual worlds for six years, and specializes in creating learning experiences that build on virtual worlds and alternative and augmented realities.”

5. The Age (Australia) – ‘Risk illiteracy’ among the young and reckless. “”THE only thing that shakes us is when one of our friends dies,” admits 19-year-old Hamad Al Mazmi in Prahran on a Friday night he has spent riding around in a high-powered Holden ute. The international student’s words are the last thing that police, the Transport Accident Commission and parents of young drivers want to hear. They know they are true. It’s a terrible irony that the deaths of nine young drivers and their passengers in the past month may have done more to teach inexperienced drivers about the fragility of life than could any government-funded campaign or parental tirade.”

6. ZNet – Elites and power. “The following text develops an argument that leads up to the vision of its last paragraph – which, to some, might seem enigmatic or disappointing in its implications. It is all about the concept of planning – of participatory or democratic or, as I would prefer to call it, scientific (interdisciplinary) planning. It is about the multitude of experts, scientists and professionals that are involved in the incredibly complicated planning processes of today. How to move from ‘here’ (private ownership of the means of production, corporate divisions of labor, plutocracy, the specter of markets, autocratic planning) to ‘there’ (a socialism based on science, knowledge, reason) is the central question. And you can’t move without movers. Writing about a strategy for the future cannot compel a European of my generation to dismiss the lessons of 20th century’s Left Project, which started out under the banner of ‘scientific socialism’ – and dismally failed. But do we refrain from returning to classical art and thought just because the project of classical antiquity ‘failed’? To Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and to thousand other thinkers the concept of scientific socialism was essential. And many think, that advances in the soft and hard sciences are such that this concept finally has a chance. ”

7. Top Tech News (USA) – Collaboration Tools Can Cut Costs, Boost Productivity. “At a time when enterprise software investments are trending town, companies may not be looking to invest in unified communications and collaboration tools. But with the boost to business productivity, the contained costs, and the chance to be a good corporate citizen by reducing your company’s carbon footprint, it may be time to look at how collaboration tools — both enterprise-level and low-cost open-source solutions — can benefit your company. “Providing employees with collaboration tools that enable them to work together effectively, no matter where they may be located, is no longer a wish-list or nice-to-have item — it’s a requirement,” said Kent Erickson, senior vice president and general manager of Workgroup Solutions for Novell.”

8. North Shore Times (NZ) – Study out of this world. “Virtual worlds and computer games aren’t only for teen cyberjunkies, says Massey University associate professor Erik Champion. He says computer games have enormous potential and tools to explore and interact with ancient cultures, distant places and inaccessible environments. The new media lecturer at the design school on the Albany campus is seeking designers to create more New Zealand-themed virtual worlds. “The challenge is to find new interactive ways to experience things through digital media,” he says. Dr Champion says those worlds will soon become more popular than travelling and book learning and the like.”

9. The Economist (USA) – Online playgrounds. “REMEMBER Second Life, the virtual world that was supposed to become almost as important as the first one? Now populated by no more than 84,000 avatars at a time, it has turned out to be a prime example of how short-lived internet fads can be. Yet if many adults seem to have given up on virtual worlds, those that cater to children and teenagers are thriving. Several have even found a way to make money. In America, nearly 10m children and teenagers visit virtual worlds regularly, estimates eMarketer, a market researcher—a number the firm expects to increase to 15m by 2013. As of January, there were 112 virtual worlds designed for under-18s with another 81 in development, according to Engage Digital Media, a market research firm. All cater to different age groups and tastes. In Club Penguin, the market leader, which was bought by Disney in 2007 for a whopping $700m, primary-school children can take on a penguin persona, fit out their own igloo and play games. Habbo Hotel, a service run from Finland, is a global hangout for teenagers who want to customise their own rooms and meet in public places to attend events. Gaia Online, based in Silicon Valley, offers similar activities, but is visited mostly by older teens who are into Manga comics.”

10. VentureBeat (USA) – Do you have the right to socialize on multiplayer games? ““Erik Estavillo is suing Sony over being banned from PlayStation Network, claiming that the company violated his right to free speech and has caused him pain by removing his only form of socialization, as he suffers from agoraphobia.” When I first read about this lawsuit, I wondered if the plaintiff in the case filed his suit pro se — representing himself. My thought was that any attorney who represented him might be subject to professional discipline for bringing a meritless claim. A suit that blatantly lacks jurisdiction would probably fall under that category. On second review though, I thought that there might be a colorable basis for this suit, enough jurisdiction for the lawyer to avoid censure at least. The plaintiff’s complaint doesn’t specify exactly how Sony’s Resistance: The Fall of Man (RFoM) game platform qualifies as a “public forum”, but this point will determine whether the court can even entertain the case.”

1. Information Week (USA) – Design Your Own Board Game With The Game Crafter. “Internet-powered personalization has changed the way products are made and sold. Using various e-commerce sites, individuals can now create and sell products like books, CDs, DVDs, mugs, posters, stamps, T-shirts, and assorted accessories with only a few digital files and mouse clicks.
The do-it-yourself ethic has also spawned Web sites like Metaplace that allow users to create online virtual worlds, but until this week, aspiring board game makers had to handle game production and assembly on their own.”

2. Hypergrid Business (Hong Kong) – Sex king takes on the hypergrid. “The battle for the future of the 3D Web is about to get hot… and steamy. Utherverse CEO tells us that he’s planning to launch an all-out attack against the other virtual world platforms out there, with free hosting and a set of free building tools designed to attract business customers. His main target is the hypergrid – worlds based on the OpenSim, RealExtend and Second Life platform which all use the OpenLibMetaverse set of communication standards and can all be accessed by the same set of browsers (now numbering over a dozen), and potentially supporting hypergrid teleports.”

3. CNET (USA) – MMPORGs, microtransactions, and user experience. “Microtransactions within online games and social networks offer one possible way to place a value on services while enhancing the experience for users. In addition to online games like Maple Story, virtual goods are launching all over social-networking sites, including Thursday’s launch of PlaySpan’s marketplace on Facebook and MySpace. Funding for virtual worlds has grown dramatically over the last year and companies need to find sustainable revenue models. Transactions of virtual goods allow for new cash flow into both subscription and nonsubscription sites. But some users don’t like the idea that you can simply buy something to affect the game in your favor. Accordingly, games need to be very clear about the purchased goods unfold into the game.”

4. TechCrunch (USA) – PlaySpan Launches Virtual Goods Marketplace On Facebook And MySpace. “Micro-payments across the gaming world is gaining serious traction, especially on social networks. PlaySpan, which powers micro-payments across over 1,000 video games and virtual worlds, is launching marketplace storefronts for Facebook and MySpace (which will be rolled out soon). The marketplace will which let users purchase online game items, virtual goods, and game currencies for online games and applications directly from their social networks. What makes the marketplace interesting is that you can buy, trade, and sell goods within the marketplaces on Facebook and MySpace and then use the items in online game environments. And making a transaction on the marketplace becomes a whole lot more social, as your friends may be able to see it on your NewsFeed. PlaySpan, which recently acquired micro-transaction app developer Spare Change, has processed more than $50 million worth of micro-transactions through its PayByCash and Ultimate Game Card products. PlaySpan also raised $16.8 million in a series B funding last Fall from Easton Capital Group, Menlo Ventures, Novel TMT Ventures, and STIC. The startup was founded by a 12-year-old, Arjun Mehta, but it is actually run by his father, CEO and co-founder Karl Mehta.”

5. Virtual Edge (USA) – Forterra the 10 Year Old Start Up Provides Secure 3D Collaboration, Learning & Marketing Solutions. “Forterra Systems, Inc. is a 3D immersive environment for meeting collaboration and marketing that started about 10 years ago as There.com. There.com was one of the first social virtual worlds (teenagers) before Second Life. About 4 years ago, management saw they had a great opportunity for more serious, business uses of the technology so they split into two parts and Forterra Systems was created to go after the business usage of the technology. They launched their Olive products about 2 years ago as a software development kit for the 3D environment. Inherently it’s been a virtual world software platform, really focused mostly on how people can craft collaboration and training applications. But, underneath collaboration, the core areas that they focus on are meetings, events, and training solutions.”

6. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – QuickStat: Korean Market Update. “Market research and consulting firm Pearl Research today teased the game and virtual worlds industries with a number of data points from its recently published “Online Games Market in Korea” study. The stats are worth noting as what is popular, and who is thriving, in Korea — in the online gaming, MMOG, and virtual worlds camps — can sometimes impact the North American market. The top five game operators in Korea in 2008, according to Pearl, were NHN (with revenues up 51 percent year-over-year); NCsoft (revenues up 5 percent year-over-year); Neowiz (revenues up 29 percent year-over-year), CJ Internet (revenues up 21 percent year-over-year); and Nexon. ”

7. ReadWriteWeb (USA) – Cross Reality Will Change Your Life, But at What Cost to Your Privacy? “Yesterday we explored an emerging trend called “Cross Reality”, one term for when sensor networks meet online virtual worlds. As this trend becomes more common over the next few years (and it will, as both Web-connected sensors and virtual reality ramp up), what are the implications on how people use the Web? How will it change our interactions in both real and virtual life? In this post we’ll explore some of these issues and offer some ideas: for example a bookstore that offers you personalized, contextual information on your mobile phone, in real time and with virtual reality.”

8. Computerworld (USA) – Timeline: The evolution of online communities. “In the hyperactive online venues of today, it’s easy to forget that online communities got started back when ABBA was cranking out hits. True, these early efforts didn’t much resemble Facebook or Ning, but they were communities nonetheless. Here’s how online communities have evolved. ”

9. San Francisco Chronicle (USA) – Virtual Relay For Life fundraiser in Second Life. “About 3,000 people will be gathering from around the world Saturday to journey back to the Middle Ages, do the Tour de France, take part in a scavenger hunt or sail a boat — all in the name of charity and all in the virtual world of Second Life. It’s the annual Relay for Life in Second World event, which has already raised more than $236,000 in real-life dollars for the American Cancer Society, says event chairwoman Fayandra Foley. In real world Relays, teams of participants take turns walking around a track or a park to raise money for cancer research. For the Second Life version, the teams made up of about 2,000 volunteers have set up virtual castles and villages to visit, Foley said.”

10. GamingExcellence (USA) – Cities XL PC release date confirmation. “Aiming to re-define the perennially popular city builder video game genre, CITIES XL offers an experience that pushes the limits of scale, realism and sophistication both in solo play and with the vast connected online community in the game’s massively persistent multiplayer ‘Planet’ mode. Online or offline, CITIES XL lets gamers develop cities on realistic 3D maps using a painstakingly crafted collection of unique structures and monuments based on European, Asian and American architectural styles. The numerous maps feature a variety of environments including mountains, hills, canyons, beaches and islands, all set in different climate zones ranging from tropical to desert, Mediterranean to temperate.”

1. CBS News (USA) – The Obama White House’s First Try At Second Life. “Since entering the White House in January, the Obama administration has made use of a myriad of social networking and Internet communications tools, such as blogs, the YouTube video service and Twitter, to interact with the public. Come Saturday, you can add a virtual world appearance to the list. When President Obama, who is visiting Ghana, speaks to a live audience tomorrow morning, his speech will be streamed on Second Life and Metaplace. These computer-simulated worlds offer 3D avatar-driven environments where participants can use voice or text chat to communicate. In this instance, however, there will be no Obama avatar.”

2. GameZone (USA) – Innovating Genres – Bringing Life to the City. ““City Building” – the term itself doesn’t always inspire excitement in the hearts of most gamers. The average gamer is likely to see the genre as one filled with crunchy details, obsessive micro-management and hours of watching a game that’s seemingly run on auto-pilot. Up until recently, you’d likely find few who would argue with that perception, except fans of the genre themselves, however, but in recent years, independent French developer Monte Cristo set out to change all that. Their original outing in the genre — “City Life,” took the standard city builder, and infused it with “life.” No more were citizens simple numbers to monitor, in City Life, they were living, breathing human beings, with specific wants and needs, and your job as a mayor was to do more than just plonk down buildings. City Life was met with critical and consumer praise – spawning several sequels. Now, Monte Cristo’s taken their 80+ person team (split between Paris and Kiev) and aimed it at the genre again, this time, going much bigger – with true social interactions, online gameplay and features to attract a wider audience than the traditional one of city builder player.”

3. People’s Weekly World (USA) – The impact of homophobia in virtual communities. “A few weeks ago there was a group established on Facebook called “I hate gays” which openly advocated killing gay people. When the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) sent a report through Facebook’s built in reporting system and then urged its Facebook and Twitter followers to do the same, the user was suspended, and the group abandoned and commandeered by pro-gay users in the matter of hours. It seems that real people in those virtual communities, as well as the massive companies that run the platforms, don’t like when people form groups that advocate killing people or targeting groups. Now what happens when you take that model and you turn it to online gaming virtual communities? To illustrate my point, take a look at this video previously highlighted on Kotaku and GayGamer to get a sense of the problem just in online gaming communities. ”

4. CNN (USA) – Virtual cash meets the real world. “While China is seriously cracking down on the exchange of virtual currencies for real cash, virtual economies backed by newfound legitimacy elsewhere are quickly gaining ground in the real world. There’s gold in them there screens: Real-money transactions in virtual worlds are finding new legitimacy. On June 24, 2009, the role-playing game 140 Mafia launched on Twitter, following in the footsteps of highly lucrative games Mob Wars and Mafia Wars on Facebook (and now iPhone) to link virtual-currency exchanges to real-money transactions. In March 2009, MindArk — creator of the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) Entropia, where one player famously bought an island for US$26,500 in 2004 — saw its wholly owned subsidiary Mind Bank granted a banking license from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority.”

5. CIO (Australia) – AI-powered customer support robots bring human touch to virtual world. ““More Human Than Human” may have been the slogan of the fictional Tyrell Corporation in the sci-fi film classic Blade Runner, but it could equally apply to Australian company MyCyberTwin, a provider of artificial-intelligence powered virtual staff.
MyCyberTwin technology is designed to allow almost anyone to build a virtual, artificial human — called a CyberTwin — which can handle such tasks as personalised customer support, client sales or even entertainment and companionship. CyberTwins can take the form of a clone of yourself, or a representative of your company, and they can live in almost any digital environment, including Web sites, virtual worlds, blogs, social network pages and mobile phones.”

6. New York TImes (USA) – The Next Financial Crisis: Virtual Banks. “By now, the financial woes of Lehman, Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual, and the many other troubled banks is old news. But we may need to start preparing for another round of bank failures … in the virtual world. If indeed it happens, a character named Ricdic will likely be to blame. Ricdic is part of Eve Online, which I have never heard of, but according to this BBC news report “has about 300,000 players all of whom inhabit the same online universe. The game revolves around trade, mining asteroids, and the efforts of different player-controlled corporations to take control of swathes of virtual space.” Ricdic, according to the article, runs a large ebank at the site, and pilfered some virtual funds, traded them to other players for real money, and made a down payment on a house and paid off medical bills.”

7. PBS (USA) – 5 Ideas to Transform Newspaper Sites. “I sometimes wonder whether we are held captive by old school thinking. At our newspapers at Mediafin, we are in the process of integrating web operations with the print publication, a move which I fully endorse. There’s one major risk to this: that we might end up seeing the web as just another way to distribute newspaper articles rather than a radically new opportunity. People who have spent years writing for print newspapers could easily fall victim to the horseless carriage syndrome — the belief that they can continue to apply the same thinking that they applied to an old technology to a new, fundamentally different one. At the turn of the century, many saw the automobile as a new variation on the horse-and-carriage, not realizing that the car was in many ways very different. Just as cars are fundamentally different from horseless carriages, or cinema is fundamentally different from theater, the web is fundamentally different from newspapers.”

8. Times of India (India) – Social Networks and Fashion Trends. “Do friends sport the same style in shoes or see the same movies because of their similar tastes, which is why they became friends in the first place? Or once friendship is established, do individuals influence each other to adopt similar behaviours? Social scientists don’t know for sure. They’re still trying to understand the role social influence plays in spreading of trends because the real world doesn’t keep track of how people acquire new items or preferences. But the virtual world Second Life does. It is a free 3D virtual world where users can socialise, connect and create using voice and text chat. ”

9. Daily Kos (USA) – A Soldier’s Peace, A (Rescheduled) Documentary Premiere in Second Life. “etroots Nation in Second Life and Virtually Speaking had originally scheduled the “in-world” Second Life premiere of peace activist Marshall Thompson’s remarkable film A Soldier’s Peace on June 20, but due to a series of technical roadblocks culminating in a hard drive crash on the system from which we had planned to host the film, we were unable to premiere the film that day. However, we went ahead with our scheduled interview with Marshall, and are we ever glad we did. Marshall, an Iraq War veteran, is a passionate, warm, and kindly advocate for peace with a terrific sense of humor. ”

10. Chicago Now (USA) – Patrick Lichty: Summer of Love 2.0 (Tuesday night performance only). “Making good art with Second Life, Twitter, or Facebook sounds like a dicey proposition, but Patrick Lichty’s Summer of Love 2.0 commandeers all three social networking sites, making good art that uses technology to evaluate the depth and sincerity of the social commitment Web 2.0 fosters both on and offline. Tuesday night’s performance featured a re-performance of Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s Bed-In, staged in Second Life by Second Front, a virtual performance collective. This event kicked off the weeklong project, which turns the MCA’s McCormick Tribune Orientation Gallery (the 12×12 space) into living installation where Lichty hopes to blur the boundaries between his online community and the MCA’s undulating community of viewers. ”