The online gaming market began with single player and simple games and went on to encompass complex games, involving multi-players, creating, in the process, virtual communities.

Jekyll in real life wants to be Hyde in the virtual world. Very often, the real person behind the virtual persona is never revealed. The virtual avatar is often not linked to the real person, and it is more a fantasy of “what if.” This is a major challenge to advertisers, since the revenue model of online markets depends on advertising and subscriptions. With a low subscription to attract audience, and advertising revenues not really taking off, game providers need to become innovative.

Online gamers such as Second Life, Sim City and others have started taking these gaming platforms innovatively forward, selling their platforms and tools such as 3D animation to marketers across the world. Unlike communities evolving on their own, the innovative use of applications and platforms require additional software work and customisation to suit the needs of the real world companies. (more…)

In March, Linden Lab VP of customer relations Cyn Skyberg introduced a policy change that would see Adult-only activities and content in Second Life moved to a separate continent. “The core goals of this initiative are to improve Second Life for everyone — by giving Residents more control over what they see, and by providing the best available method to make Adult content accessible only to those who ought to (and who desire to) access it,” the post said.

Second Life watchers reacted strongly. Web site Massively.com wrote, “this is certainly one of the most — perhaps the most — far-reaching and profound set of changes to Second Life since 2003.” (more…)

Human-computer sexual interaction - whether using interactive stimulus-toys or engaging your `virtual self’ in fantasy romps with mythical creatures - is slowly gaining in popularity, but as the line between the real and virtual experience blurs, sex educators are faced with some tough ethical questions.

Emerging technologies offer individuals greater access to diverse sexual practices, says sex educator and online columnist Cory Silverberg, who spoke this past week at the annual Guelph Sexuality Conference in Guelph, Ont.

Those new technologies encompass everything from having cybersex on websites such as Second Life - where the user creates an avatar or `virtual self’ - to the more hands-on approach of experimenting with `teledildonics,’ the latest technological twist in virtual jollies. (more…)

For many of us, the ever-increasing count of American and Iraqi dead has been a central fact driving our political lives since it became clear that Bush was intent against all reason on pursuing a preemptive misadventure in Iraq. It is what drove us to the blogs, to march and to protest, to speak out.

For those in Red States, where opportunities to voice opposition with any real effect have seemed too few and far between, few examples of principled dissent have been more inspiring than that of Sgt. Marshall Thompson, who–on his return to Utah from a year in Iraq as an Army journalist–undertook to walk the state’s length to talk with everyday Utahns about war and peace. The award-winning 2007 documentary A Soldier’s Peace by Kristen and Marshall Thompson chronicles his remarkable 500-mile journey into activism. (more…)

Another big bank is the subject of a depositor run amid charges its chairman has run off with customers’ money. Thankfully, this scandal is taking place in Eve Online, a space-age virtual reality created by CCP, a games developer and Iceland’s coolest company. But these troubles in the ether may offer some valuable lessons for earthly banking and regulation.

Eve is one of the more successful multiplayer online games. Some 300,000 people — as it happens, nearly equal to the population of Iceland — pay $15 a month to navigate characters that pilot intergalactic spaceships, manufacture and trade goods, mine resources and enter into big alliances, or bloody battles, with one another. (more…)

2007 was the year that Second Life, the virtual world started by Linden Lab, seemed to explode: Jay-Z held a concert there; politicians gave stump speeches; and businesses rushed to establish their own branded hang-outs. And then the buzz died.

But Second Life might have a few surprising second acts through the work of Eric Gordon, a professor of new media at Emerson College, and Gene Koo, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. They recently won a MacArthur grant for using Second Life as a tool for community-led urban planning. (more…)

Erica and Sam Driver, the principals and founders behind research consultancy ThinkBalm, have come up with an interesting twist to breath additional life into data the company released last month. Complimenting the results of the firm’s ThinkBalm Immersive Internet Business Value Study, Q2 2009, they developed the ThinkBalm Data Garden in Second Life and are leading in-world tours.

The garden essentially provides a 3D, immersive, in-world proof of concept experience for those who may doubt the effectiveness of an enterprise-virtual world marriage. The researchers call the garden “a data visualization experience” built around the study. (more…)

This year, the progressive community will descend on Pittsburgh for the fourth annual Netroots Nation conference, taking place August 13-16, 2009.

Not everyone can travel to Pittsburgh, but you don’t have to miss out on the party. Netroots Nation also occurs in Second Life, running concurrent with the conference in Pittsburgh. You don’t even have to leave the house, and you can still connect with like-minded folks from around the globe. In addition to live streaming sessions from Pittsburgh, there will be Second Life-only events and interactive events between the two gatherings.

Bring your avatar to Netroots Nation Island, participate in the discussions, dance to the spinnings of DJs Dano Bookmite and Zathras Afarensis, and visit the booths of Etopia and Jackson Street Books. (more…)

Gazira Babeli is an avatar in Second Life since spring 2006 and an artist. She is like a tornado in Second Life - a disruptive element! She does performances in Second Life which deal with the 3D-enviroment in a critical and humorous way. Her performances are documented through films and prints. We show her new installation “Hammering the Void”. Parallel to the preview at the gallery in Berlin the Hammering-Performance of Gazira is taking place in Second Life - in the virtual rooms of our gallery!

In Hammering the Void there is not only one Gazira, no, there are 14 and they all fight against an inner void. 14 clones of an artifical person, they all have imaginative names of Virtues and Sins: Greed Petrovic, Sloth Swansong, Temperance Navarita, Courage Sparta, Envy Sixpence etc. Equipped with a hammer in their hands they descend from the socle in the gallery, they swarm to openings of exhibtions and public events. They stroke the other unsuspecting avatars with blows from their hammer appearing to say: “Wake up! Defend yourself! Act!” They force them to react. You love them or you hate them, but you cannot remain indifferent against this agression which can be understand as an attempt for an intellectual waking-up or simply as a malice. (more…)

Online options have rewritten the world of corporate training, expanding possibilities well beyond the traditional presenter with Powerpoint show.

Today, businesses across the globe are using 3-D virtual world technology as a way to hold meetings, simulate business in any environment, conduct training and much more.

One growing example, Second Life, dubbed a “virtual world imagined and created by its residents,” is an online world that businesses have begun to get acclimated with over the last year or so because of the possibilities it holds for nontraditional learning. (more…)

Molaskey’s is one of the best pubs I’ve never seen. Or should I say, never seen in real life. But in Second Life, the cyber pub is the equivalent to the mythical Cheers bar - “You’ve got to go where everyone knows your name” – and this includes avatars.

This Second Life tavern is the pentacle flag ship of Sue Martin Mahar and husband Jay Mahar. They built it from nothing and want to show the rest of us how to build something meaningful from scratch.

But this isn’t another ‘Get Rich in Second Life’ scheme: the Mahars practice what they preach in-world at their pub and out-world in their new book - The Unofficial Guide to Building Your Business in the Second Life Virtual World. (more…)

Second Life parent company Linden Lab says that since its introduction 18 months ago, the Web voice feature in the virtual world has carried 15 billion minutes, and now averages more than 1 billion minutes per month.

For Second Life’s 700,000 users, “voice has become an integral component of the Second Life experience,” the company said in a statement.

Since its creation in 2003, Second Life has become a popular alternative reality where avatars, designed to emulate (or disguise) users’ real-world personalities, interact in real time. Several businesses now use Second Life for virtual meetings and training, but Linden Lab is looking for ways to make money off the virtual world.

“The rapid adoption of voice services we’ve seen over the last 18 months demonstrates that we have a significant opportunity to evolve our offering while further strengthening our business model,” Joe Miller, VP of platform and technology development at Linden Lab, said in a statement. (more…)

What can you do when life throws you lemons?

A few options exist. Firstly, you can do as they say and make lemonade; but that is just way too cliché. Secondly, you can take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them; of course this Shakespearean suicidal approach is never the best option. Finally, you can start your life afresh in a 3-dimensional virtual world called “Second Life”, an online platform that mimics life in the real world. As you will find out, this final option is probably the best choice as our society cruises further into the 21st century.

As its name suggests, Second Life provides an opportunity to live a second life in a virtual form, separate and apart from any aspect of the “physical” world. Online users who sign up for this experience become “residents” in the Second Life virtual world. (more…)

Ever wanted to control the stars with your outstretched arm? An open-source virtual reality platform just made it possible.

What in 1991 was a novel physics solution now comes packaged in a virtual world for you to intuitively explore. A new simulation in OpenSim, an open-source version of the popular virtual world Second Life, shows how a handful of objects floating in space react to each others’ gravity.

In physics, this is known as the N-body problem. It’s simple if you have only two objects: they orbit their common center of mass in a circle or an ellipse. But three or more objects send the system into chaos. Physicists and mathematicians banged their head against it for centuries, with a general solution emerging less than 20 years ago. (more…)

Students the world over can now visit Texas State University without ever setting foot on campus. All they need is a computer and a little help from the virtual reality known as Second Life.

Second Life is a free 3-D virtual reality created and maintained entirely by real-life users with online personas. Linden Labs, the company that owns Second Life, reports that the online community is home to more than 200 educational groups and virtual campuses, including Texas State. (more…)