1. BBC (UK) – Virtual worlds and web ‘merging’. “Second Life boss, Mark Kingdon, said identity is key in virtual worlds. “You take one avatar and you cross multiple virtual worlds… that is going to be a really powerful and important part of the virtual world future,” predicted Mark Kingdon, the boss of Second Life. This online fantasy space had 1.4m users over the past two months, out of its 17m registered users, who can access to products and places replicated from real life. The residents can spend their time visiting exact replicas of actual tourist hotspots, shops, or even bizarre fantasy lands. Videos on the site’s homepage aim to help users find content that interests them within the vast 3D environment. Second Life may have been one of the first virtual worlds of its kind, but six years on, the competition is fierce.”

2. USA Today (USA) – In virtual worlds, kids just want to grow up. “While Peter Pan never wanted to grow up, it seems that today tweens (kids ages 8 to 12) are anxious to do so, at least in virtual worlds. Banking on kids’ desire to play at “growing up” is a new online game called SuperSecret.
The site was created to give kids a place to go after they outgrow the mega-popular virtual worlds of Club Penguin and Webkinz but before they are ready for the more adult online games of World of Warcraft or the social networking sites Facebook and MySpace. SuperSecret entices kids with the wish fulfillment of living a virtual life that ages them a lot quicker than in real life. After playing the game for about 30 days, kids will age from the entry age of 10 years to age 15. With each birthday comes new privileges and things to do, as well as access to new parts of the virtual world.”

3. CNET (USA) – Hacking online games a widespread problem. “It will likely come as no surprise to anyone familiar with virtual worlds and online games that they can be hacked. But what might come as a shock is the sheer breadth of types of exploits that are possible. That was the broad message of a Thursday panel called, appropriately, “Exploiting Online Games” at the RSA 2009 security conference here. Moderated by Gary McGraw, CTO of software security consulting firm Cigital and an author of several books, the panel took the audience on a deep dive into the diverse ways that hackers and others have figured out to either skim real money or to gain game play advantages not available to normal players.”

4. Touch Arcade (USA) – ‘World of Warcraft’ on an iPhone… For Real? “Most of you have probably seen World of Warcraft-on-iPhone claims/videos/mock-ups before, but this time it looks like it might actually be true. Someone posted this YouTube video of World of Warcraft running on an iPhone.”

5. Federal News Radio (USA) – Virtual Worlds: the next-generation of web 2.0. “Imagine being a soldier in Saudi Arabia who steps into a holographic tent for the training he needs to pass the sergeant’s exam. Or an emergency manager in a rural Oregon county who goes to a telepresence room where her avatar meets with the avatar of the state emergency management director to negotiate for badly needed relief supplies after a flood. That’s the promise of “virtual worlds”, a term which describes such popular web destinations as Second Life and sites where users can meet and interact in graphical environments that exist only in a computer. Today, some of the best minds in government, private industry, and science are wrapping up the 2-day, 2nd annual Federal Consortium of Virtual Worlds conference. The meeting is being held in the analog space of the National Defense University, at historic Fort McNair in southwest D.C., but there are also virtual participants online watching through webcasts, and in a number of virtual communities, as well as on Facebook and Twitter.”

6. The Guardian (UK) – A whole new world of studying. “There’s not a red pen in sight when Russell Stannard marks his master’s students’ essays – but it’s not because the students never make mistakes. Stannard doesn’t use a pen, or even paper, to give his students feedback. Instead – and in keeping with his role as principal lecturer in multimedia and ICT – he turns on his computer, records himself marking the work on-screen, then emails his students the video. When students open the video, they can hear Stannard’s voice commentary as well as watch him going through the process of marking. The resulting feedback is more comprehensive than the more conventional notes scrawled in the margin, and Stannard, who works at the University of Westminster, now believes it has the potential to revolutionise distance learning.”

7. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – Second Life to banish racy content. “Second Life plans to clean up the streets of its virtual mainland by providing stricter control of adult content and sending racy material to a separate faux continent. The announcement comes as Second Life creator Linden Labs moves to enhance the virtual world’s viability as a venue for education, conferences, and business.”

8. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Wiggles Release Pseudo-World For Preschoolers. “I started my day off with some WiggleTime, the new pseudo-virtual world from the very energetic child’s group The Wiggles. I call it a pseudo-virtual world becuase it’s described as a virtual world and hews to that metaphor, but it’s a single-user experience for now. ”

9. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – Second Life’s second wind. “Doomsayers rashly declared it “dead and buried” and the media lost interest, but virtual world Second Life continues to prosper as the real economy falters, a virtual world commentator says. After a few years of immense hype, reports late last year chronicled Second Life’s apparent malaise, as companies faced having to ditch their virtual presence as users lost interest.”

10. The Age (Australia) – Your Turn: eKidna World. “You have to admire 40-year-old Brisbane mum Karen Orford. The response from most parents fearful of the impact of games and online worlds on their kids is to ban them from the household, but instead, Karen put her house and $300,000 on the line to build a kid-friendly virtual world. The result is eKidna World, a safe and fun online site designed for 8-12 year olds that is uniquely Australian, and includes games like surfing, fishing, kangaroo racing, snowball throwing and sheep herding. “

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. The Economist (UK) – Intangible value. “Perhaps it should not be a surprise. In the midst of a global capital shortage, the first company to list this year on New York’s NASDAQ exchange not only needs no money; its source of profit is receiving cash for items that do not exist. Changyou is a three-year-old online-gaming business being spun out of Sohu, China’s second-largest internet portal. The deal was due to be priced on April 2nd, as The Economist went to press, in a nostalgic reminder of what the stockmarket used to look like. At the top of the expected price range Changyou will be valued at about $820m, after a special distribution of $100m to its parent. The opening price may be higher still, given strong demand.”

2. Virtual Edge (USA) – Virtual World Evangelist at IBM Produces Virtual Meetings in 3D. “Big Blue has a lot of irons in the fire these days. As a virtual event platform agnostic company, IBM has worked with Second Life, Open Sim, Torque, Active Worlds, Unity 3D and Olive. Karen Keeter, a marketing executive with IBM research, believes that, at this point, no single platform is the magic bullet for all 3D virtual business demands. IBM virtual event clients (internal and external) demonstrate needs across a wide spectrum, from strategy workshops to marketing and sales to collaboration among a global workforce, and the company utilizes a variety of platforms, in some cases integrated with IBM tools and applications, to meet these new demands. IBM has a strong presence on Second Life, growing from approximately 12 virtual islands to somewhere between 45 and 50 which are managed independently of IBM’s corporate home base.”

3. Washington Post (USA) – Virtual World Habbo Sold $60 Million In Virtual Goods In 2008. “Sulake Corp., parent company of Habbo, one of the most heavily-trafficked, advertiser-friendly virtual worlds for teens, is privately held, so financial details about Habbo have been a bit of a black box. But the company recently served up some details: It says it brought in roughly $74 million (50 million euros) in revenue last year. And just about $60 million of it, or 80-85 percent, came from users who bought virtual goods like furniture, clothing or paid for access to the Habbo Club.”

4. Idaho Business Review (USA) – U of I virtual technology program aids microbiology research. “What if doctors could perform surgery from thousands of miles away? Or an architect could walk into a virtual building plan and move beams and joists to test for structural integrity? What if you could meet with potential business partners online, shake hands and physically feel it? Those are just a few of the long-term implications of the work being done by the University of Idaho’s Virtual Technology and Design department – a program in the College of Art and Architecture on the bleeding edge of virtual reality, where complex sets of data like building specs or disease pathology are transformed into interactive 3-D models that allow students, businesses and researchers to gain new insights into the information they work with.”

5. The Times of India (India) – For training, medicos turn to Second Life. “A British medical institute has given e-learning a whole new dimension. Med students at Imperial College London navigate a full-service hospital where they see patients, order X-rays, consult with colleagues and make diagnoses. But none of it is real. These prospective doctors are treating virtual patients in Second Life, the internet world where users interact through online alter egos called avatars. The third-year med students are taking part in a pilot program for game-based learning, which educators believe can be a stimulating change from lectures and textbooks, reports CNN.”

6. The Telegraph (UK) – Second Life’s span is virtually over as firms decide to get real. “While the site is still beloved by geeks and the socially awkward, Deloitte’s director of technology research, Paul Lee, says it has been “virtually abandoned” by “normal” people and businesses. In 2006 multinational companies, including BT, Coca-Cola, Adidas and Toyota, were scrabbling to create “in world” presences to profit from what was expected to be the next great internet cash cow. But today the Second Life high street is mostly deserted, as businesses have realised that despite management claims that the site has 15m members, far fewer people actually play the game. Research for The Daily Telegraph shows just 580,000 people logged on to the game last week.”

7. InternetNews.com (USA) – SimCity’s Will Wright: ‘Web Colliding With Reality’. “The richness of Web-based environments is starting to blur the distinction between games and reality, according to Will Wright, the gaming industry legend perhaps best known as the creator of SimCity and Spore.
“I think the Web is letting people think more about their identities and we’re starting to see overlap of [the real] and virtual environments,” Wright said during an onstage keynote interview here at the Web 2.0 Expo Thursday. “We’re at the point where we can pretty much hold up a cell phone to get someone’s profile. I think the Web is starting to intersect and collide with reality in interesting ways.”

8. The National (UAE) – The net effect of digital Islam. “I am writing in the shadow of a small mosque. This morning I visited several other mosques, admiring their architecture, and then listened to some sermons and recitations from the Quran. While having my coffee I talked to acquaintances on Islamic issues and went to other sources for information on Islamic medicine, fatwas and jihad in Somalia.
The fact that I happen to be in the heart of Wales and stuck in my university office has not prevented me from making these visits and engaging in these discussions.”

9. Scientific American (USA) – Therapists Use Virtual Worlds to Address Real Problems. “When a troubled 13-year-old named Joe first entered the Kids in Transition program in 2007 in Camden, N.J., he hardly spoke to his therapist. Like many teens at this residential mental health treatment facility, he was admitted because he had trouble controlling his anger, had run away from home several times, and had a history of run-ins with the law, according to Heather Foley, a social worker with the program. Therapists typically encourage patients like Joe to get at the core of their problems via face-to-face role-playing—pretending to be in a situation and having the patient practice how to handle it. But Foley says this approach was a nonstarter for Joe, whose confrontational behavior and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) impair his ability to engage and focus in this way.”

10. Vineyard Gazette Online (USA) – Islanders Create Online Community Devoted to Wildlife Conservation. “The internet may have been designed for scientists to collaborate across vast distances, but it has since become all things to all people. Accessing seemingly infinite information and instant communication across the globe are still the main uses of the Web, but there’s a new trend swiftly becoming standard online practice: social networking. This is about creating a personal presence in cyberspace. Facebook and MySpace were some of the first major social networking sites, but another fast-growing sector of the social web, called Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, or MMORPGs, represents a different kind of online community. Rather than creating a personal page that shares your thoughts, contact information and photographs as on Facebook, these MMORPGs ask the user to invent an avatar, a character that represents less of who you are and more of who you’d like to be. Players then move their avatars throughout vast virtual worlds, doing battle, completing quests, buying virtual goods and real estate, or just chatting with other players. Second Life, World of Warcraft and Everquest are among the more popular, with World of Warcraft now boasting over 10 million subscribers worldwide.”