Virtual World sig

Exploring Space Virtually: NASA and the Blue Mars Project

June 23, 2008
In January 2008 NASA hosted a forward-looking conference (http://amesevents.arc.nasa.gov/virtual-worlds/) in order to explore future uses of the virtual world space.  Part of the vision is to engage the public as real-time participants in NASA’s historic moments of exploration in the spirit of “We all get to go”.

Just as Neil Armstrong’s first moon landing was the defining moment for television, it is envisioned that coming NASA historic events will be the defining moment for virtual world technologies.

NASA incorporates virtual world developers and educators as core components of these efforts.  Virtual Space Entertainment, Inc. (VSE) will present their project “Blue Mars 2150?, a massively multiplayer virtual world (http://www.virtualspaceentertainment.com/). Launching in late 2008, Blue Mars 2150 will be the first high definition, real time virtual world.

As part of its proposal to NASA, VSE is envisioning a Mars Spaceport complex and a NASA Pavillion.  At the heart of the NASA Pavillion will be two elaborate virtual experiences. The first would be a virtual simulation of the first manned mission to Mars and the
establishment of a settlement on the surface of Mars. The second set of missions would take the user through NASA’s Return to the Moon program where users will plan and participate in Moon landings.

VSE is proposing to design a final product that will allow millions of people from around the world to experience our return to space as if they were part of the mission crews themselves.

Within the virtual venue users would also be able to visit a series of museum exhibits detailing the history of US spaceflight, and climb into all of the manned spacecraft from Gemini up through interplanetary Mars craft prototypes.  Visitors would virtually relive the pioneering days of NASA’s manned space program by interactively experiencing a select number of these historic missions.

Join us for an investigation into the uses of virtual worlds for education and remote exploration. Get an advance look at how the future of space exploration will be experienced - through virtual worlds.

Speaker Bio:
Richard Childers is the CEO of Virtual Space Entertainment and creative lead for Blue Mars 2150 project.

For over twenty-five years, Richard has led digital production teams, producing animation, interactive CD ROMs, software, games, web sites, and books. Richard developed three-dimensional visualizations for mass transit systems in

Honolulu, Los Angeles, and Vancouver as well as design studies for the National Science Foundation’s new Ahmudsen South Pole Station. In 1991 he organized the acclaimed computer graphic symposium and exhibition, Infinite

Illusions at the Smithsonian Institution.

From 1993 to 1998, he was President and CEO of Computer Visualizations, Inc., a multimedia publishing/production company he founded and grew to sales of over $2 million. He has recruited, trained, and motivated teams of up to

40 designers, producing over 25 finished commercial projects. His books have been published by Random House and Stewart, Tabori, & Chang. Over the years, he has won 11 major design awards including the Communication Arts

Gold Medal and the I-Magic Platinum award. Prior to founding Virtual Space Entertainment, Inc., Richard served as the Assistant to the President, Special Projects at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
Location

Pillsbury Winthrop Office Silicon Valley
2475 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1114
Directions

Agenda

6:30 PM Registration and Networking
7:00 PM -8:40 PM Presentations

Price
$15 at the door for non-SDForum members
No charge for SDForum members
No registration required

There’s a great post and conversation at:

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2008/06/possibility-of.html#more

by Bruce Damer asking whether we are approaching a “New Virtual World Winter”.   I’d encourage you to read the questions and join the conversation, as we’ll use these as the basis for some upcoming meetings including the annual “Future of Virtual Worlds” panel on Oct. 27.

So  the headlines have been blazing about 19 year old John Tyler Hammons (Wikipedia entry) is the “gamer elected mayor”.

Coverage: GamePolitics.com,  Yahoo games, Yahoo news, AP, G4TV

I did a bit of searching but couldn’t find a particular gaming reference but it immediately brought to mind the IBM study with Seriosity on “Virtual Worlds Real Leaders“. This is great reading - (get the full report .pdf here) and I believe there will be a lot more of these gaming parallels given the impact and reach of games on young and old alike.

Some of the folks who participated in the IBM report were presenters and attendees at the Virtual World SIG these kinds of topics were things I spoke about at both Virtual Worlds 2007, and at NASA Virtual Worlds in Jan. 2008. The notions (or theories/findings) that the gaming environment can generate leadership is encouraging. At least, gaming trains users in online collaboration by default, and we’ve realized that “work is an MMOG” along the way from the SIG presentations.

The fact that so many headlines are running the “gaming” angle on the story just might bring the concept to the mainstream discussion. Can’t wait to see what develops around it.

- Bob K.

On Monday May 5 Joe Hyrkin VP Sales and Business Development at Gaia Online presented at the Virtual World SIG.

Joe gave a look at the various features and special features of Gaia Online, and we were able to ask in-depth questions about integrating brands into the world.  We were able to get up to speed quickly on the social nature of Gaia, its demographics, and how Gaia serves as a portal to other online content.  Fascinating stuff! Gaia is by the numbers (average 100k concurrent users) one of the most vibrant web properties online.

This was our first multi-platform Virtual World SIG.  My avatar Orange Montagne co-existed with Joe in Gaia,  and we were joined by Dedric Mauriac, inside Gaia AND Second Life, while California Condor and others joined us in Second Life and on the video community ustream.tv where the video was streamed.

I want to personally thank everyone who showed up for this truly multi-platform virtual event -and if you missed it, well you really need to get real with your virtual presence.

See you next time on June 23 or on the MRO Show sometime soon.

Bob Ketner

Hello Virtual Worlders,
Here’s a reminder about the Virtual World SIG this coming Monday May 5 with an inside look at Gaia Online. We will also stream live and meet in Second Life.  For media link go to http://www.virtualworldsig.com
See you there!
Bob Ketner

Virtual Worlds SIG: Extending Virtual Worlds - Gaia Online
6:30 PM - 9:00 PM May 5, 2008
Pillsbury Winthrop
2475 Hanover St.
Palo Alto,, CA
Topic: “Extending Virtual Worlds - Gaia Online”

Gaia Online is an online hangout and virtual world that has been busy over the past year bridging the connections between the “virtual” and the “real” world in very direct ways.

Gaia’s own internal market of rare and exclusive virtual items creates a thriving economy which operating as a backdrop for this youth-oriented world.  Gaia has attracted brand partnerships as diverse as Sony, Toyota, and World Wrestling Entertainment.  Recently they have added a cinema where your avatar can watch Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures films, and you can even buy prepaid cards redeemable for virtual items at your local Target store.

This year they have announced a plan to integrate an MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) into the mix, and in case you were wondering, yes, they also have a Bebo and Facebook apps. The world has a former Chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisors on its economic board and is funded by Benchmark, Redpoint, and DAG Ventures.

We are pleased to have Joe Hyrkin, VP of of Sales & Business Development to present a rare look at this booming phenomenon. Come learn how this virtual world of 5 million users engages and extends the virtual experience into so many online and offline destinations.

Joe Hyrkin has more than 15 years of experience in senior sales and business development management both domestically and internationally. He has focused his career on creating and launching new businesses around the world, and has been instrumental in pioneering creative revenue opportunities in the community Web space.  At Gaia, Joe oversees all revenue including virtual goods, advertising and merchandize as well as all Business Development efforts including strategic partnerships, and distribution. He has pioneered business models that create some of the best brand and consumer engagement on the web.

Prior to Gaia Online, Joe headed up the business side of Multimedia Search at Yahoo!, where he also served as head of Business Development and Sales for Flickr.  Before his time at Yahoo, Joe served as Vice President of Strategic Accounts and Asia Pacific Operations at publicly listed company, Virage Inc, a provider of video search and publishing services and software. While at Virage, Joe and his team pioneered some of the first business relationships in the broadband entertainment space, working with some of the world’s leading media companies. Prior to Virage, he headed sales for Sina.com, the top Chinese language web portal, and before that Joe ran The Economist Group’s business in China for 4.5 years establishing the company’s presence in the country and overseeing offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Location
Pillsbury Winthrop Office Silicon Valley
2475 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1114
Directions

Agenda
6:30 PM Registration and Networking
7:00 PM -8:40 PM Presentations

Price
$15 at the door for non-SDForum members

http://www.sdforum.org/vwsig
No charge for SDForum members
No registration required

Stanford Research Institute - Consulting Business Intelligence (aka. SRIC-BI http://www.sric-bi.com) today released results from a survey taken amongst the members of their own  Virtual Worlds Consortium, SDForum’s Virtual World SIG, Boulder, Colorado’s  Serious Second Life, and Stanford’s  MetaverseU.

The  download is available at: http://www.sric-bi.com and directly linked here (link opens .pdf document): http://www.sric-bi.com/news/VWCcollabwksurvey2008-03.pdf

The groups questioned largely focus on collaborative work (serious games) more than entertainment uses, and the survey was geared towards that.  Members of these groups are definitely motivated to use virtual worlds (70% see significant potential) and cite security and eases of use as key to adoption by enterprise and government customers.
The respondents were split 50/50 on whether Second Life would remain the leading VW platform in the next 2-3 years.

At least one quarter of the respondents use virtual worlds over 20 hours per week.  Another quarter only use them 1-5 hours per week.
Another 36% use virtual worlds in a 5-20 hour range, and the remaining 12.5% barely log on and use less than 1 hour per week.
<1 hour           12.5%
1-5 hours        26.3%
5-10 hours     15.0%
10-20 hours   21.3%
20+ hours       25%

That’s as far as I’ve had time to dig into this but there are a lot of forward-looking questions and interesting conclusions  in there - so take a look.
Thanks to  Dr. Eilif Trondsen of SRIC-BI  for conducting and sharing the survey.

-Bob Ketner

Hello Virtual Worlders,

Rob Osborn of Gemini Mobile (http://www.geminimobile.com/) will present information about the company’s eXplo platform (http://www.geminimobile.com/products/community.html) on Jan. 28.

Here’s the description of the SIG:  (http://sdforum.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=650&parentID=483&nodeID=1  )

This will be a joint meeting with the SDForum Mobile SIG.

The idea is, how can the MMO / Virtual World experience and services be extended to mobile platforms?

Virtual Worlds News had complete coverage of their latest news here (http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2007/11/wireless-mobile.html)

And shortly after agreeing to present, Gemini Mobile got blogged at Massively.com (http://www.massively.com/2007/11/07/new-product-will-let-you-mmo-on-the-go/)

So this is shaping up to be quite an interesting presentation, as we find out how virtual worlds can become lodged in the palm of your hand!

Location for Second Life and simulcast to be posted here.

Save the event for your calendar and tune in for it!

Hello Virtual Worlders…

Read all the blog coverage on the Virtual Worlds FALL 2007 conference:

http://www.djcline.com/?p=3107 

http://www.djcline.com/?p=3059 

http://www.djcline.com/?p=3097

There is so much blogging on this event I don’t know where to begin, but also check out:

http://metaversed.com/15-oct-2007/future-content-watching-detectives

http://metaversed.com/12-oct-2007/business-age-avatar

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2007/10/post-conference.html

 The conference organizers: Chris Sherman, Tonda Bunge , and Tim Williams were excellent hosts and put on an event like no other…thank you!!

 Now, for those who would like to keep the conversation going: 

On Oct. 22 we will be featuring a panel review of the year ahead in virtual wolds.
Scheduled guest panelists will include technology providers IBM, Forterra Systems, eFrontier, Multiverse, and Linden Lab and more.

Following up on some of the insights from the Virtual Worlds Fall 2007 conference, please bring your points of discussion and questions to this   interactive forum.

Find out how to best implement virtual worlds for business, networking, and entertainment, on the eve of several major promotions that will surely propel virtual worlds into the mainstream like never before.

We will organize the key points using scenario planning methods and reconnect with many of the speakers from the conference.  Not to be missed!

Media and teleport links:
http://www.virtualworldsig.com

SDForum link:
http://sdforum.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Calendar.eventDetail&eventID=12941

Location
Pillsbury Winthrop Office Silicon Valley
2475 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1114

Agenda
6:30 PM Registration and Networking
7:00 PM -8:40 PM Presentations

Price
$15 at the door for non-SDForum members
No charge for SDForum members
No registration required
See you there,
Bob Ketner

Hello Virtual Worlders,

It’s an exciting month coming up for those interested in virtual worlds.

SDForum’s CEO Susan Lucas-Conwell will moderate the panel:
Investing in Virtual Worlds   Wednesday Oct.10, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
http://virtualworlds2007.com/schedule/strategy.html

SDForum’s booth will be located at space 417:
http://www.virtualworlds2007.com/exhibits/index.html

Also speaking at the show, Virtual World SIG Co-chairs

Bob Ketner on the Enterprise track: http://www.virtualworlds2007.com/schedule/enterprise.html

and Corey Bridges on the Business Strategy and Investment track:  http://www.virtualworlds2007.com/schedule/strategy.html

Upcoming SIG Oct. 22 will be a participatory event that you will not want to miss:

Virtual Worlds SIG: Virtual Worlds - Future Scenarios
http://sdforum.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Calendar.eventDetail&eventID=12941

In this session we will draw on presentations from the Virtual Worlds 2007 conference to look at emerging factors in the virtual world space.  We will use scenario planning methods to gain insight on the upcoming year and factors to consider in launching or using virtual worlds.  Select presenters from the conference and previous SIGs will be invited to attend and contribute in this participatory event.
6:30 PM - 9:00 PM October 22, 2007

Lot’s of exciting opportunities to engage with the virtual world phenomenon.  Looking forward to seeing you there!

Bob Ketner

Thanks for the great turnout for the Seriosity event.  What a fascinating evening.  We had  a lot of viewers on Ustream.tv which  worked well.

Oct. 22 we will have a panel discussion with a set of topics tba.  To be on the panel or to participate please contact me at orange[at]studiosfo.net