OpenSim Business
Have OpenSim grids enough users to make it worthwhile for a business to set up a presence? http://eicker.at/OpenSimBusiness
Augmented reality will become the next big thing: popular, mainstream, mass culture, ubiquitous in 2011; http://eicker.at/1w
Tipodean Technologies announces preview launch of Canvas, web-based viewer for Second Life and OpenSim; http://eicker.at/Canvas
Writer: I would propose that transmedia is the discipline of delivering narrative architecture; http://eicker.at/v
Linden Lab cancels educational rebates for SL; http://j.mp/cgiFFv @Fleep: Are you trying to hasten the exodus to OpenSim?
Korolov: OpenSim business roadmap, the past, present and future; http://j.mp/balwKd (via @kohdspace)
Will AR surpass full virtuality? Will SL be acquired? What about interoperability? 2010 predictions: http://j.mp/7NeF4H
Haskell: “There will be increasing awareness that Augmented Reality, and not pure Virtual Reality, will be the future for what we now call virtual worlds. … By year-end 2010, 50 of the Global 1000 will have dramatically expanded their presence in Second Life, with collaboration being a key enterprise target. … There is a 30% chance of Second Life being acquired by a larger company in 2010. IBM, Microsoft, Sony, Facebook, and Google are all candidates.”
Neva: “Augmented Reality will become the hugest thing, with everybody scrambling with zealous greed to create APIs and games and features and better phones. … Linden Lab will sell itself. Note that I say ‘sell itself,’ and not ‘IPO’. There is no IPO coming, not in this recession and post-VW boom climate. Instead, LL will become a ‘partner’ to something bigger. Perhaps IBM will buy the Enterprise function and keep Lindens on as a content-creation studio, and they will keep that brand or even call themselves Nebraska or something equally stupid but they will all be Lindens.”
Gwyn: “Interop will become a reality. Don’t expect miracles before the year’s end, though. Starting just after June 2010, when the interoperability communication protocol among grids becomes an Internet standard, LL will work together with at least IBM and Intel (and possibly some large OpenSim grid co-location services – which will exclude most of the OpenSim grids people usually talk about) to allow Gold Grid Providers full interoperability with Second Life Grid.”
MJ: “2010 will see the United States further formalise taxation arrangements in regard to virtual goods. I doubt the Australian Tax Office will make any substantive rulings in the coming twelve months. – 2010 is going to see the largest MMO launch since World of Warcraft: Star Wars The Old Republic. It won’t eclipse the incumbent but it will become the solid number 2 player in the short-term, with all bets off in the longer term. – This year saw social games like Farmville take off in a big way. There’ll be some significant fatigue from users with these platforms, but there’ll also be further innovation to make them more engaging and with easier integration of virtual goods without the spam-like accompaniments that plague people’s Twitter of Facebook timelines. Overall: continuation of exponential growth, albeit not at the same level it has been the past six months.”
Frisby: “Consolidation continues throughout the first half of 2010. – Platforms with relatively simple feature sets will continue to face increased competition from free products and their more technologically complex brethren. Many will survive on one or two large clients – but as a whole they will languish with a dearth of new clients. … Entertainment Worlds continue to quietly succeed year-after-year. – I’m not talking about MMORPG games here either. The consumer entertainment virtual worlds will continue to grow, or at least will not stagnate as fast as business worlds. There.com, IMVU, Second Life will all continue to see growth – although at a smaller percentage than they have previously (5-15%). – Blue Mars will languish for the first half of 2010, but may gain serious pace in late 2010 as usability problems are fixed and average user hardware specifications continue to improve.”
Let’s hope so :) It’s nice to see how people continue to keep their optimism about VWs and their uses! It’s a technology that is approaching maturity (at least on some platforms) but it’s still so much misunderstood… for 2010, I wish that this technology starts to become better and better understood as its uses become apparent…
Indeed. Maturity rules, the hype is (mostly) over. – I’m not setting any hopes on a broader understanding as long as (old) media still hawks “Second Life” in its literal sense.
Korolov, Hypergrid Business: OpenSim Content Management Wishlist; http://j.mp/1QeMkg
Searching for an OpenSim host? Ten questions to ask before you sign up; http://tr.im/nBV3 – http://tr.im/nBV2
LL: “We will adjust how education and non-profit advantages are provided, effective Jan. 1, 2011. All education and non-profit private regions of any type, purchased after Dec. 31, 2010, will be invoiced at standard (i.e. non-discounted) pricing. All currently discounted renewals which occur after Dec. 31, 2010, will be adjusted to the new price at that time. To continue to provide entry-level, private spaces to educators just launching their programs, we will be providing Homestead and Open Space regions to qualifying organizations without their meeting the retail full-region criterion. Customer Support will be available to answer any questions that you may have about these changes.”
DW: “Yesterday’s announcement that the Lab was raising prices on education and non-profits has kicked in a sort of reflex instinct: maybe there is a strategy, and I’m simply too mortal to get it. – I have no idea why I’m doing this to myself again. I went through this for, hmmm, a few years I guess and it turned out that there wasn’t any sort of secret answer, there wasn’t much more than the Love Machine, and Mark Kingdon was brought in to answer the same question I had pounded my own head over: where are you trying to go, and how are you going to get there?”
MJ: “And rightly so, given the critical mass of educators that have generated significant outcomes for Second Life. In fact, it could be argued that it’s only the good news stories generated by the non-profits that have helped offset some of the negative aspects inflated by parts of the mainstream media and others. The comments section below the announcement is well worth a read: even taking out the initial emotion, the overwhelming attitude is that it’s time to downsize or move on. Of course, the migration to OpenSim grids is already well underway, for a range of reasons.”
AH: “Discounted Second Life virtual land will be phased out for non-profit organizations and the education sector as of January 1, 2011 according to this announcement by Nelson Linden. Reaction was predictably negative from those whose budget cycles do easily accommodate costs doubling with three months notice – in other words, essentially all non-profits and education. … Apparently Linden lab has written off the non-profit sector to concentrate on entertainment in Philip Linden’s walled garden of cyber delights.“