1. Information Week (USA) – U.S. Armed Forces Look To Second Life For Training. “The Second Life role-playing and gaming communities are home to dozens of make-believe armies and navies. But you can find the real thing in virtual worlds too. The Air Force, National Guard, and Navy are using Second Life and other virtual world technology for collaboration and training. The armed forces are looking to virtual worlds to reduce the time and costs associated with travel, and create more realistic experiences for users than those provided by flat-Internet applications.”

2. VentureBeat (USA) – Facebook platform developers could see $500M in revenue this year. “A growing number of game makers on Facebook are making money from virtual goods — from poker chips to virtual clothes that users can buy or earn while playing gaming applications with their friends on Facebook. The combined ecosystem of these game developers and other companies supplying services to them could generate half a billion dollars in revenue in 2009. That’s significant, considering third-party applications on Facebook have been viewed as gimmicks making no significant revenue. Facebook itself appears headed toward the $500 million revenue mark this year, mostly through advertising.”

3. The Economist (UK) – Of dragons and dungeons. “HAVING once lost badly at three-card brag—poker’s brutal ancestor played in the pubs and clubs of Britain—your correspondent worked double-shifts to pay off his gambling debt, and vowed never again to play games of chance. The only exceptions he has allowed himself over the years have been the odd video game or two, where the stakes are measured more in terms of satisfaction than hard cash. But even his early forays into the grinding world of monsters and loot favoured by “massively multiplayer online role-playing games” have dwindled since parenthood. Such virtual worlds are far too immersive and addictive—and keep getting more so with every increase in the number-crunching power and graphics of personal computers and game consoles. Better to stay clear of online communities like “EverQuest” or “World of Warcraft” if you are perpetually running out of time in the real world.”

4. Business Week (USA) – Studying Epidemics in Virtual Worlds. “A day after news reports about an outbreak of swine flu in Mexico, health officials in Allegheny County, Pa., huddled to discuss contingency plans. How should they respond if the virus came to their part of the world? By closing schools? With widespread vaccinations? To test different courses of action, they turned to computer scientists who had built a working model of the county. “It helps come up with recommendations of when and how to intervene,” says Dr. Ron Voorhees, chief of epidemiology and biostatistics at the Allegheny County Health Dept.”

5. ICT Results (European Union) – When virtual reality feels real. “Despite advances in computer graphics, few people would think virtual characters or objects are real. Yet placed in a virtual reality environment most people will interact with them as if they are really there. European researchers are finding out why. In trying to understand presence – the propensity of humans to respond to fake stimuli as if they are real – the researchers are not just gaining insights into how the human brain functions. They are also learning how to create more intense and realistic virtual experiences, opening the door to myriad applications for healthcare, training, social research and entertainment. “Virtual environments could be used by psychiatrists to help people overcome anxiety disorders and phobias… by researchers to study social behaviour not practically or ethically reproduced in the real world, or to create more immersive virtual reality for entertainment,” explains Mel Slater, a computer scientist at ICREA in Barcelona and University College, London, who led the team behind the research.”

6. The Gazette (UK) – Godfather of online gaming: Inventor of Mud Dr Richard Bartle. “Virtual worlds are a global industry worth tens of millions of pounds a year. Eleven million people pay an annual fee of $15 – a bit less in poorer countries – to play the adventure game World of Warcraft. Twenty five million players have at some point entered the kids’ on-line universe Habbo, and players spend an astonishing average of 38 Euros a month buying imaginary possessions for their on-screen characters.”

7. MediaPost (USA) – Are Media Companies Missing The Virtual World Mark? “Many traditional entertainment media companies are missing out on huge opportunities to market and monetize their content libraries in Casual Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) worlds. Some forward-thinking companies have dipped their toes into the interactive entertainment pool, but there are many obstacles to successfully extending your brand into an engaging interactive experience. As innovative brands explore developing Casual MMOs, a number of important lessons can help lead them to success.”

8. Business Week (USA) – Virtual Currencies Gain in Popularity. “Make way, Zambian kwacha. There’s a hot new exotic currency on the market, only it’s not from any country on earth—at least not one in the material world. This currency is called the Project Entropia Dollar (PED) and it’s used to buy and sell goods on the planet Calypso, in an online gaming world called Entropia Universe. The PED is among a growing number of alternative currencies changing hands in virtual worlds, social networks, and other Web sites eager to make it easier for users to spend money and carry out other transactions while online.”

9. Information Week (USA) – Rumors Of Second Life’s Failure Are Just Lousy Journalism. “As a journalist and Second Life enthusiast, I’m annoyed by irresponsible articles that take it for granted that the virtual world is dying, or already dead, or a failure. In fact, Second Life is healthy and growing — I say this based on personal experience, and statements made by officials of Linden Lab, the company that created, develops and operates Second Life. Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon described a couple of the signs of Second Life’s health in an interview Wednesday conducted inworld at Metanomics, an interview program hosted by Cornell University, conducted inside Second Life. The number of active users now stands at about 600,000, Kingdon said; that’s up from about a half-million last year, and it follows a period of roughly a year when Second Life’s user base had plateaued. Blogger Wagner James Au analyzed the growth last month at GigaOM. Monthly repeat logins — people who logged in more than once per month — were 731,000 in March, climbing upward since August. Active users — people who’d spent more than an hour in Second Life — were 650,000.”

10. Times Online (UK) – Free Realms is latest children’s craze. “Forget the youth club — record numbers of children are spending their leisure time exploring online worlds that combine the fantasy element of traditional games with social networking. The games mark a shift in the industry away from adult-oriented virtual reality adventures and towards less gritty and more fun titles aimed at pre-teens. The popularity of these games has surged in recent months as word of mouth spreads. Two sites stand out: the Disney-owned Club Penguin attracts an estimated 4m primary-school-age children every month, and Habbo Hotel has signed up 120m teenagers worldwide. These are figures that dwarf much-hyped adult worlds such as Second Life, which has never drawn more than 2m users in a month.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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