and Another Thing....: Fountain Blue Virtual Worlds Conference

Where We Were, Where We're Going, What Does It Mean to YOU?

[here are my mostly raw notes from this conference]

Ben Duranske, Pillsbury Winthrop (ppt slides): Internet in 1994—walled gardens (AIL, CompuServe, Prodigy); then Mosaic to access anybody's web content. Simlar to virtual worlds today, *bandwidth, process power, ease of access*. technical challenges, reliability, ease if access. Dangerous?

people standing around talking vs. people playing

200+ virtual worlds/ games where people pay

*Panel on Virtual World Business Trends

Sibley Verbeck, Electric Sheep
Virtual Worlds (VW) are a feature set, not a destination.
* kids entertainment
* 13+ year old games & entertainment (incl Facebook)
* business uses (training, events, etc. )
Michael Gold, Electrotank: "questing" can be anywhere, anything; "crafting" (collect ingredients and follow recipe); user-generated content.
Joshua Bell, Linden: standards work for VW. How do we pick which medium to use? phone, email, Texting, Twitter/ Facebook,
narrow- vs. broad-cast
planning World of Warcraft (WOW) raids in Second Life, then go execute
Lotus Same Time 3D, standards

"Puzzle Pirates" figured out (time vs. money) 1 hour of kids time = $0.25 to an adult

future of input devices? 3d mouse, webcams, Wii

>60% SL users non-U.S.

Why use/ have an avatar?
Near term future is with military, corporations lagging behind.

*Panel on Virtual World Case Studies*
mutual admiration society / respect for "heavy-lifting" Second Life did.
PS3 Home real combo of VR, game, 2D & 3D social networking.
balance of a/ synchronous
TiVo taught us to time shift content, on demand.
Training
PS3H "Warhawk" training & strategy space, has sand table, launches directly into game, and back

PS3H 3D data visualization is key, SoCom leaderboad, for game overall, and in space

how first 5 min look, appetite for learning/ time.
Plan for these: 4*30s: 1st 30sec enjoyable, 30min, 30days, 30weeks (6 mos)

input, display, sound
multi-tasking for kids (games, texting, music, homework, etc. ) doesn't a fighter pilot have as much to do/ track?

Augmented reality already exists (glasses, peope walk up to something, pull out iPhone). SFMOMA use? already blurring line between real & virtual life.

*Chris Platz from Stanford, "Sirikata"* open source, Mixed Reality, synchronized timing (accommodates lag) for simultaneous music creation. browser accessible

*Nicole, WonderLand*