I am in London, about to speak at Virtual Worlds Forum (just realizing that I won’t be able to blog live too much while speaking!), and will try to cover as much as possible of the event, with reporting, photos, and more.
This post is going to be updated for some time, then I will switch to an other for the afternoon, and the same for the second day. Please reload the page for updates regularly (maybe every 10 to 20 minutes is optimal…). (I also put some stuff on Twitter as soundbites…)
09:10 Lord Putnam “Since achieving consciousness umankind has lived in a virtual world”
09:34 “People in virtual worlds have agency”. “An eminent historian told me a couple of weeks ago that he would have written his works differently had he had access to virtual worlds. This is a very important indicator from a very serious observer”. “Virtual worlds have very little sense when you are alone”. “I am old enough to remember that cinema, and television received the same treatment of virtual worlds now regarding the possibility of addiction. Online gaming is almost certainly not as addictive as it has been reported. The conversation has to be very nuanced, and deep.”
09:39 “I promise you that it is only question of time for a serious crime to be committed under stimulation by an avatar.” (Wonder if he heard of the CSI episode about to air which involves Second Life, and exactly this scenario.)
Lord Putnam’s speech was very, very good. I hope that the transcript is going to be available as well. (Looks like it will…)
09:48 Lord Triesman is Minister of Intellectual Property (!) He is talking about his Ministry’s work, and about IP Crime (!), the WIPO, and I am waiting for Cory to jump on him 🙂
10:04 “As a government we have to embrace these technologies” Well, it looks like they are.
10:08 Paul Jackson of Forrester and Jess Mulligan from Cyber Sports converse about Virtual Worlds (definitions, markets, and there will be also Q/A.
10:09 Jess “Virtual World is any connected computer space, with an avatar (not necessarily human), persistence, and persistence of your growth”. “Twenty percent of the Ultima Online players who started with the game which is ten years old now, are still participating, playing every month!”
10:20 “Issues looking forward are legal mainly, with governments worrying about a lot of stuff, but it all comes down to making sure that it can tax the income.” The presentation was very dense with data, and the slides should be available for further analysis.
10:25 Paul is using cartesian plane of engagement vs game/social axes to plot the various worlds.
10:40 Jess “The elephant in the room is Google. They hired all our friends to do their stuff, so even if they are not talking we know they are about to release an online world. What will that do to the rest?”
Coffee Break and Networking
11:15 James Au Wagner is moderating a “Consumers or Community – what is the direction for brands” panel. He says “The fashion reporter for our blog went to the Armani store in Second Life, and she was not impressed. The suits, and apparel designed by an independent couple of residents with a similar fashion style as Armani were much better!”
Each member of the panel is showing short videos. I don’t even bother to watch, and wonder how to others. The backchannel is more interesting any minute, then smoothed out corporate machinima.
11:47 “We are quickly seeing the move from 3D worlds to the 3D operating system”. “An other SL fashion designer is getting her clothing made into physical products by a Chinese textile production house”.
Chatted with Bjorn from HiPiHi, and I am really looking forward to see their platform launching next year. It is very ambitious!
12:30 Vivox CEO confirms that they are bringing voice changer functionality to Second Life to better match the avatar’s voice to its image.