(* Source: Jim Bachalo *)
For all of you out there that love slideshare. Here's another...
Built in Flash and Flex, another web2.0 application for creating quality presentations.
You can sign up for the private beta here: http://www.sliderocket.com/index.html
Some of the buzz: http://www.sliderocket.com/buzz.html
(* Source : Fred Cavazza *)
Virtual universes are hype, that’s a sure bet. With very strong media coverage for universes like Second Life or World of Warcraft, announcers and users are discovering new spaces for playing, communicating, entertaining and even working which are in complete rupture with 2D spaces they already know.
Complete rupture? No, not exactly since most of these universes are evolution from existing services (chats, social networks, maps…). All these virtual universes bring some oxygen to sometimes unappealing concepts by providing new possibilities. But with new opportunities comes a lot of covetousness and build a very competitive environment inside which the most media covered are not the most interesting.
Do these figures astonish you? Well… so they did to me! But they are real.
Comparing all these universes won’t make any sense. First of all because they are very different and then because they target very different audience. But if you REALLY need a comparison, then you can have a look at these two (partial) comparison charts: Virtual Worlds Comparison Chart, Casual Immersive Worlds and Virtual Worlds Platforms and User Numbers.
Let me introduce you to these universes by using a map where I positioned most of them. All of these are not vast virtual world like Second Life, but they all share common characteristics: avatars, virtual currency and virtual places where avatars can meet, chat, play and interact.
This map is divided in 4 main fields:
Please not that these fields overlap themselves:
You can find on this map various groups which are related to specific usage:
Obviously, all these universes are not at the same maturity level: some are approaching the final stage of their life cycle (like Everquest), some others are crossing a turbulence area (Yankee Group Says Hype of Second Life Far Outweighs Its Ability to Impact Mainstream Interactivity), others are growing very fast (Gaia Online) and some are repositioning themselves (like IMVU which is morphing into a social network and Entropia Universe which will try to compete with video games).
With more than 150 active or soon-to-be-launched virtual universes, accept some numerous take over and disappearances. In this profusion, which universe is the right one? Its’ a hard guess since only two audience niches are sharply targeted: teen and adults (Virtual Worlds Are Trendy Spot for Kids and Teens).
It took 10 years to structure the internet media landscape and provide announcers with reliable communication tools (adwords, adsens…) and measure tools. How long will it takes with the virtual universes media landscape? Who will master advertising inside these new territories / markets? Is co-creation a reality? So many questions… which will find answers in the next months. Stay tuned.
(* Source : Caleb Booker *)
We started off in Skype voice chat, but then he met me in Second Life at the same time. Using tools his company haven't even named yet, he was able to broadcast video of our avatars meeting through Skype. (Click the picture for full-size.) They still consider it technology in the pre-alpha stage, and won't feel like it's ready for consumers until they have it running in much higher detail. Even at the low resolution, being "in" Second Life through Skype and, in addition, seeing myself through multiple camera angles at once was a pretty impressive experience.
This was, of course, just the beginning. He switched from Second Life to a custom environment they had built with the Unreal 2 engine and again, streamed it right through Skype. The great part about using an engine like this one was that they were able to import high-detail AutoCAD files and make them look extremely realistic. Soon I was watching a high-quality alien avatar from Mars Attacks! exploring the environment in real-time. Below is a video of the world he had walked me through that they apparently built over the course of a few days.
Recently Rigby showcased the technology at the Copper/Cobre Conference. All of the other presenters went up and showed PowerPoint presentations. Rather than show a series of AutoCAD sketches, he plugged his laptop into the projector and walked the crowd through a 3D rendering. A copper smelter in the U.S. retained him to create a "virtual furnace" that not only showed the schematics in high resolution, but had walls lined with photographs of how everything is supposed to look as you assemble the machine. Not only that, but you can actually enter the furnace itself and (through color coding) see how everything is supposed to fit together.
Even though his company has already been retained by a few engineering firms for more work, Rigby sees more applications for high-resolution custom worlds. He's currently in touch with several galleries in London to create scale models of the buildings with high resolution art renderings inside. People could download them for a token fee (maybe five dollars) and collect them over time as the gallery updates itself with new exhibits. Also, since "Unreal 2" is a server-based platform, you could walk around these little worlds with your friends.
MellaniuM has only been experimenting with the possibilities since September of last year and has already shown some great innovations. If they keep up this pace they'll be the ones to watch in the future.
See Video
(* Source : Nextgreatthing.com*)
Sherrie Hui says :
Imagine how much you would shop if you could pick a perfect body. With the advent of computer graphic simulation, playing dress-up has taken on exciting, previously unattainable possibilities. Just about everything looks good on your idealized avatar, right? Virtual costumes play into today’s love of customization, allowing men and women to more fully realize an online or gaming identity, and savvy businesses are taking the first steps to brand fantasy fashion.
Miuccia Prada’s creations, often dubbed “cerebral” or “highly editorial”, translated perfectly into the high-gloss CGI world of Shinji Aramaki’s anime film Appleseed: Ex Machina
. The designer’s costumes have added a touch of luxury to the virtual world of anime—possibly the only other facet of Japanese pop culture that generates a Prada-sized tsunami of consumer fanaticism. Design influences have always flowed between worlds both physical and imagined. Prada’s Appleseed outfits informed her fall 2006 Metropolitan Arrmor collection, and Vogue’s new darling, Rodarte, drew inspiration from Hayao Miyazake’s Spirited Away for spring 2008. The trend that’s truly grabbing everyone’s attention is virtual retail.
A costume from Appleseed: Ex Machina
Fashion brands are transitioning from the real world to simulated environments, like The Sims and Second Life, with increasing fluidity. H&M has partnered with The Sims and Yahoo to give consumers the ability to do everything from dressing an avatar in H&M to creating personal designs and assembling an online runway show. From the virtual designs submitted to The Sims 2 H&M Fashion Runway Showcase, H&M will choose one design to manufacture and sell in stores.
H&M in The Sims 2; Aimee Weber on Second Life
While simulated sex is still the most profitable Second Life industry, fashion is growing fast enough to garner investments from American Apparel and Adidas, which have both opened virtual stores selling styles that imitate the ones they carry in their brick-and-mortar establishments. (Second Life avatars deal in Linden Dollars, which can be exchanged for actual currency.) Avatar fashion has even spawned Second Life critics and commentators, like Janine Hawkins (alias: Iris Ophelia) of the popular fashion magazine Second Style. Hawkins earns a Linden Dollar salary from arranging fashion shoots, writing about trends, and interviewing designers in the virtual world.
For those still anchored to their first life, gaming offers another entrée into avatar fashion. Even retail-allergic men enjoy customizing the outfits on their wrestlers for Xbox 360’s WWE Smackdown vs. Raw, and players can earn “style points” for their outfits on Def Jam: Icon, a street-fighting game with hip-hop elements. Video game developers can earn product placement dollars by branding items found in games, like Vans sneakers in Tony Hawk’s Project 8. Gamers who fall in the love with the Vans on their avatars can seek them out in real life.
Life gets easier in the avatar world. If you want to design your own wedding dress, just create a virtual model on iVillage and piece together design templates for a personalized gown. You don’t need to draw, sew, or get out of a chair. Despite the obvious limitations of an avatar stand-in, virtual fashion allows consumers to explore creative arenas that seem intimidating in everyday life.
(* Source: b-side *)
Thanks David for the invite to your digital conference. Here is a copy of my presentation for your reference.
(* Source: James Mowery *)
Being unproductive on the web is easy: click over to YouTube, surf Facebook profiles or go on a Wikipedia binge for a couple of hours. But thanks to the many free and useful new applications on the web, it’s also getting easier to keep your life in order. For the next installment of our “toolbox” series, we take a look at the best services for staying in control of your life on the web.
Word Processing Services
Online word processing provides you with ways to manage and write documents without a download - great for collaboration or those using multiple computers.
Google Docs - A way to create your documents and share them too.
Zoho Writer - Serious competition to Google Docs. There are some options present that Google Docs lacks and of course vice-versa.
ThinkFree - Think Microsoft Office, except this is the online equivalent.
Buzzword - A recently discovered service that is still in private beta. It has many offerings and a slick interface to boot! (Private Beta)
Web Portals
You have the potential to be productive the moment you turn on your computer and fire up that web browser. You can have all the information you want and need accessible to you immediately by using one of the following services.
Netvibes - Generally considered to be the first successful, independent startpage.
Pageflakes - Pageflakes could be considered the brother-in-law to Netvibes and both have very similar offerings in customization and content.
iGoogle - If you have a Google account, then the iGoogle comes part of the package deal, and since many of us have Google as our home page anyways, why not give iGoogle a trial?
My Yahoo - The offerings are somewhat more customizable than iGoogle, but essentially the same concept from a different provider.
Calendar Services
Let’s say you have your parent’s anniversary, project deadlines, and finally taking the family pet to the vet all coming up this week. Having all these things on a calendar is undoubtedly the way to go for keeping track of these events. Unless you prefer writing it on your hand…
Google Calendar - I personally use Google Calendar on a daily basis. It is just that freaking awesome!
Yahoo! Calendar - Yahoo provides a pretty good, but basic, calendar application for organizing your life
30 Boxes - Has a lightning fast interface that is really easy to navigate makes this a good contender.
Kiko - A very nice calendar application with a drag & drop interface.
Contact Management Services
Your cell phone and e-mail program are likely your primary sources for keeping information about your contacts. This is fine. You must ask yourself though, what happens if your cell phone is lost, your webmail account goes down or you lose all the data on your computer? You are pretty much screwed. Time to rethink the way we do contact management.
Plaxo - One of the best known services which allow you to keep track of contacts. Other services that can tap into your Plaxo account and utilize your contacts with your permission.
Tabber - was created with the notion of linking together friends from many social sites and services, but it still serves very well as an address book and contact management application.
Highrise - A premium option to manage your business contacts. If you are more serious about keeping your contacts and have hundreds of them, this could be a cost efficient solution depending on your needs.
HyperOffice - Another premium service that offers control of your contacts. This is for more serious contact management.
News Readers
Why bother with the daily newspaper when you can receive all your information through the Internet? These news readers will help you stay on top of current events with nothing but a browser and a connection.
Google Reader - If you would like a straight and simple news reader, then Google Reader might be worth your time to check out.
Bloglines - A competitor to Google Reader, and offers most of the same services, just a matter of personal taste as to your selection.
Netvibes - Netvibes, as well as being a web portal, serves the other critical purpose of being a news reader for any page that provides an RSS/ATOM feed.
Pageflakes - Like Netvibes, provides RSS modules and can be used as a news reader.
Communication Services
Stickam - If live video conversations are your thing, then Stickam provides you an excellent opportunity to mingle with friends, coworkers, or just random people if you so desire. We wouldn’t use it for business calls, though.
Google 411 - This service from Google is likely something you have never tried before, but once you do, you might use it for a long time coming. A good 411 replacement. (US Only)
Meebo - If you prefer to communicate with friends and colleagues through IM, then Meebo is the site for you to do it all in one easy to use program.
Gmail - The king of e-mail? We think so. Much more efficient at handling large volumes of email than rival services.
Charting & Diagram Services
Ever heard of brainstorming? Of course you have! Well, the following applications follow the same line of thought, but now you can throw your ideas in charts and diagrams often referred to as “mind maps” to plan any future project you may attempt. I personally use these types of applications very often.
Flowchart.com - The title says it all really. Flowchart allows you to create charts and diagrams in a nice drag & drop interface. (Private Beta)
MindMeister - Offering both a free and premium version, MindMeister focuses on collaboration in an easy to use “mind mapping”environment.
Mind42 - Yet another “mind mapping” web app that allows you to collaborate with others. This one is completely free.
Gliffy - Likely the most technical and detailed option on this list. It has many more options available than the others.
Mapping Services
If you need to find out where you are going, and how to get there, these tools can help prevent (or at least reduce) the amount of times you get lost on those long road trips.
Google Maps - Recently has taken over as one of the best mapping tools out there. Not only does it have streets, but you can get an insane amount of data displayed on Google Maps through other services like StreetAdvisor.
Yahoo Maps - Google has obviously driven Yahoo to improve its mapping services, and it shows here.
Mapquest - A very reliable source for getting you from point A to point B.
File Storage Services
Box.net - A very nice solution to uploading and backing up your files, as well as sharing them. You can sign up for free and get a gig of space, or you can have additional storage with the premium options.
MediaMax - Another powerful and useful service to regularly back-up all your important data.
(* Source: James Chadwick *)
James says...
Last month Slideshare ran a competition to find the world’s best presentation. They got over 400 enteries and they just announced the winner and runners-up here.
The winner was Shift Happens, an overwhelming collection of powerful statistics about the shifting power dynamics in the world today. More proof that stats and facts, not soft rhetoric, are the most powerful form of persuasion and communication.
(* Source: Misha Cornes *)
Last week I gave a lecture at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. A former professor asked me to speak to her Integrated Marketing Communications class, and I spent some time talking to them about trends in user-centric design, inter-agency collaboration, and a view of the agency world from the MBA perspective. It's always fun to meet with students, and it was great to be back at my alma mater on a sunny Berkeley afternoon.
I think most students see themselves as brand managers, not ad professionals, and it was great to have an engaging and frank discussion with a bunch of smart future clients. Among their more interesting questions:
You can view the slide presentation here.
(* Source: Piers Fawkes *)
PSFK Conference Presentation: A Whole New World - David Rosenberg
David Rosenberg is the Director of Emerging Media at JWT in New York. Currently at JWT for almost two years, David's group focuses on gaming, mobile and social media programs that utilize new media technologies to deliver strategic branding solutions for clients. In addition, David constructed the marketing wire frame for The Nursery (thenursery.tv), a creative incubation and experimentation lab that produces original animation content in order aggregate audiences on and offline.
This talk given at the PSFK Conference New York 2007 looked at what was driving the widespread adoption of video gaming and online worlds and what cultural shift video gaming was defining.
Video here.
