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With the recent growth of OpenSim grids, both public and private, and growing demand for both low-end starter items and high-end content, content creators have recently launched several Websites to distribute both free and commercial products for OpenSim. Total Avatar Shop Total Avatar Shop is a commercial destination for OpenSimRead More →

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(Last updated April 26, 2013) There are plenty of reasons to run OpenSim on your own computers. If you’re a content creator, you can have as many regions as you want, for free, and load them up when you need to work on them. There’s no lag due to connectivityRead More →

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The top 40 public OpenSim grids gained more than a 1,000 new regions since this time last month, propelled partly by low-cost cloud-based regions from a new hosting provider, Kitely. There are now a total of 14,566 regions on these grids alone, an increase of 8 percent since this timeRead More →

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Press Release: HP and Avaya Address Banks’ Need to Place Customers at the Center of Service Innovation Virtual Branch and Contact Centers Increase Effectiveness with Enhanced Channel and New Assisted Self-Service Technology NEW YORK — Building on HP’s Unified Communications and Collaboration Services portfolio for the enterprise, HP and AvayaRead More →

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Press Release: Digitell Releases New Hybrid Meeting Tool Kit Jamestown, NY — Virtual conference vendor Digitell has just released a free hybrid meeting tool kit to assist those organizations in deciding whether to turn their live event into a hybrid event or not and capitalize on the growing success of thisRead More →

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Press Release: The University of Central Florida Deploys Virtual Training for Accountancy Tools Birmingham, UK – The University of Central Florida (UCF), commissioned Daden Limited (Daden) to develop several accountancy orientation exercises in Second Life on UCF’s campus “ReallyEngagingAccounting.” Dr Hornik, an early adopter of virtual worlds for education has been using SecondRead More →

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Latest update: April 8, 2013 This is a primer for folks considering moving into OpenSim who have never used OpenSim before and who don’t have much of a technical background. First look at OpenSim If you want to get into OpenSim in the quickest, easiest way possible, just follow thisRead More →

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UBM Studios Offers Mobile Support on iOS and Android-Based Tablets for Virtual Events Chicago, IL – Today, UBM Studios announced it now offers support on iOS and Android-based tablet devices including: Video delivery through Ustream, Silverlight, YouTube, MP4 videos and InXpo’s proprietary on-demand media player; and Text chat supported throughRead More →

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Machinima, once banished to the realm of the basement dwelling geek, is now being let out of the closet and into the company of professional society. No longer relegated to fanboys, the cinematic art is finding a new life as a highly effective method of marketing. A few factors haveRead More →

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Technology improvements have allowed us to meet, connect and engage online. The 2008 financial crisis further drove the adoption of virtual events for organizations. But even to this day, there is no standard definition of what a virtual event is today and where it should be tomorrow. My partner atRead More →

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The evolution of the Linden Dollar from a strictly virtual currency and economy to a currency that intertwines with recognized currencies and economies has created many issues that need to be addressed in order for Second Life to continue to flourish as a developing world and be a viable blueprintRead More →

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Update: There are now two marketplaces, Cariama and HGExchange, that deliver items to multiple OpenSim grids. Read more here: Where to get content for OpenSim. As a business owner — and someone who is very concerned about inadvertently violating copyright, having recently done so to my great chagrin — I’ve beenRead More →

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Press Release: Designing Digitally, Inc. Partners with the United States Air Force Academy to Develop a Browser Based 3D Virtual Campus Tour Based on Unity Virtual world developer Designing Digitally, Inc. used the Unity development platform to design a browser based interactive 3D virtual campus tour for prospective cadets toRead More →

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Today, we are seeing an explosion in virtual world platforms. We’ve got various — and incompatible — open source projects, including OpenSim, Open Wonderland, Open Cobalt, Sirikata, and Vastpark. We’ve got stand-alone proprietary software that runs behind corporate firewalls, and requires dedicated viewer software, including ProtoSphere, Teleplace, and SAIC’s Olive.Read More →

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Press release: VX Platform Combines Industry Leading Scalability, Reliability and Security with new User Interface, Making Virtual Event Production Easier than Ever CHICAGO — INXPO announces the General Availability of INXPO VX Platform. The most scalable, reliable, secure and flexible virtual business platform is now the easiest to use. AfterRead More →

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Press Release: ProtonMedia and PPD to Introduce New Virtual Clinical Trial Training Solution LANSDALE, Pa., and WILMINGTON, N.C.—ProtonMedia and PPD, Inc. today announced they have entered into an agreement to jointly develop a new virtual clinical trial training solution that will improve the cost effectiveness, speed and quality of clinicalRead More →

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Kitely offers OpenSim hosting in the cloud — ridiculously easy to use and ridiculously cheap for low-traffic regions. Now, anyone can have their own sim up and running in less than two minutes, at a cost of $0.10 per region per month — yup, ten cents — with an extraRead More →

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Kitely may be turning the OpenSim hosting model upside down with its metered pricing, but other OpenSim hosting providers have already embraced the cloud. “We already utilise cloud based resources to allow for dynamic commission and decommission of region servers, both in our private cloud and [Amazon] EC2,” PioneerX ownerRead More →

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Update: AvWorlds abandons high-price strategy At a time when most OpenSim hosting providers are attempting to attract users with low prices, or, at least, moderate prices, one  OpenSim grid — AvWorlds — plans to buck the trend by pricing its regions at $145 per month. “I am looking to give ourRead More →

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With Kitely‘s bill-per-minute, cloud-based OpenSim hosting service now available, non-technically inclined folks now have a real choice in what kind of hosting they’d like to have. Here is a breakdown of common use cases of virtual environments, and whether Kitely makes sense, or whether you should go with Second LifeRead More →

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How’s this for a match made in heaven: One company has a Web-based viewer for OpenSim. Still in early, experimental stages, but fast and responsive. Add avatars, voice, and the ability to sit down and they’ve got themselves a big winner. The other company has a Web-based front end forRead More →

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San Francisco-based Tipodean Technologies launched a public beta today of its BuiltBuy.me Web-based viewer for OpenSim and Second Life. The viewer, formerly known as Canvas, is free, and can be embedded inside a Website, YouTube-style. The latest update includes several improvements over the private beta release in December, including speedRead More →

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A lot of debate about open source code versus proprietary code these days centers on the personalities of the folks involved, or on the politics behind the idea of open source. But, from a business perspective, the availability of open source alternatives is a net positive for enterprise — andRead More →

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In a major step forward for usability of OpenSim, Israel-based startup Kitely has created a Website that allows any Facebook user to create, load and enter an OpenSim world in less than two minutes. The world owner can then invite other individual Facebook users to visit, invite an entire group,Read More →

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Now that you’ve settled on the title, topic and date of your virtual event, it’s time to rally the sales team to go out and sell sponsorships. We provide six tips on how to approach the selling process. 1. Target wisely. As with any sales effort, categorize your accounts basedRead More →

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Back when I was fresh out of college, in my first reporting gig, I learned that context matters a lot in getting folks to talk to you. At the start, a typical conversation would go like this: “Hi, this is Maria Korolov from the Chicago Tribune…” “No, thank you, weRead More →

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CliniSpace took first place yesterday in the AI-assisted training category of the Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge with its virtual medical training simulation. Los Altos Hills, CA-based Innovation in Learning, Inc. launched CliniSpace in September of 2010, based on the Unity 3D platform. (We’ve written about the company before, see full story here.)Read More →

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Press Release: UBM Studios Introduces New Evolution of Virtual Environments’ Chat Tool Chicago – UBM Studios continues to follow on its mission of transforming the way show organizers and event attendees interact through world-class engagement.  Today, UBM Studios adds a new chat tool to its virtual environments.  Key features include:Read More →

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Avination grid owner Melanie Thiekler rolled out Vivox voice to her grid today — at no extra cost to residents or land renters. Residents immediately began trying it out, and it sounded great. Those who had good microphones came through crystal-clear, without any of the cutting in and out andRead More →

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What would happen if at a school’s talent show some parents stood up and started heckling the child playing the piano or dancing in front of them? “You’re awful!” or “You call yourself a dancer?” For one thing, it would never happen. And if it did, the rest of theRead More →

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InWorldz has taken a further step way from mainline OpenSim Tuesday with the announcement of a proprietary scripting engine, called Phlox, which is expected to enter beta testing this week. The new scripting engine promises to support 99 percent of existing Second Life scripts, with increased speed and stability. ScriptsRead More →

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Yesterday, I posted a story (yes, a little on the long side) about a new services from PioneerX Estates where they manage your whole grid for you. Everything — estates, land rentals, voice — all the tech stuff for a ridiculously low price of $41 a month. (No, they areRead More →

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Back when 3rd Rock Grid first launched in the spring of 2008, it was one of the earliest OpenSim grids and the owners had to figure out everything on their own. The grid’s managers had to learn how to install the software and maintain it, manage upgrades, backups, modules, land,Read More →

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Resellers of open source software survive by making life easier for their customers. For example, Website hosting providers handle the setup, backups, updates, load balancing and server management for you. Yes, you could run Apache for free on your own servers — but would you really want to? Those thatRead More →

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Press release: SAIC Demonstrates OLIVE Virtual World Solutions at the 2011 Defense GameTech User Conference ORLANDO — Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) will feature advanced virtual defense, medical simulation, and collaboration solutions at the 2011 Defense GameTech User Conference, Mar. 22-25 at the Caribe Royale Hotel and Convention Center inRead More →

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The results of this Harvard Business School study, and many others like it, provide ample and compelling evidence to suggest that virtual collaboration is a powerful means of achieving new levels of efficiency and effectiveness: “Remarkably, an extensive benchmarking study reveals, it isn’t necessary to bring team members together to getRead More →

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The world’s top 40 public OpenSim grids gained 424 regions and 12,746 registered users since the middle of February, a slightly slower than usual growth rate. However, we’re continuing to see growth in private and mini-grids. For example, 466 new copies of the Diva Distro were downloaded last month.This doesRead More →

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OpenSim’s largest commercial grid, Avination, announced a major new milestone today — it will be offering in-world Vivox voice at no charge to its residents and region renters, as well as to customers who host private grids with the company. Vivox is currently the gold standard of in-world voice, usedRead More →

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Open Wonderland — an open source, Java-based virtual world platform — marks the first anniversary of the project’s founding on March 11. Open Wonderland was originally Sun’s Project Wonderland, but support was discontinued and project staffers laid off in early 2010 after Sun was acquired by Oracle. Since then, theRead More →

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Press Release: Avatar Reality’s Blue Mars Mobile becomes first 3D iOS app with thousands of user generated items available for purchase App Now Available to Download for Free on App Store HONOLULU, HI — Avatar Reality, developers of the premium 3D virtual world and social platform, Blue Mars, today announcedRead More →

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Press Release: eTraining Experts Tony O’Driscoll and Karl Kapp To Host an Intimate Talk in VenueGen on Immersive Online Learning and Collaboration Co-authors of the new book “Learning in 3D” will virtually join 40 attendees to explore the impact of the immersive Internet on the future of enterprise learning ResearchRead More →

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Press Release: Daden releases white paper on virtual worlds and the built environment Birmingham, UK – Planners, developers, builders and architects should be looking to virtual worlds to provide a whole-life model of their project, according to a white paper released today by virtual worlds solutions provider Daden Limited. The whiteRead More →

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Press Release: UBM Studios Unicruit’s Diversity Virtual Career Fair Assists College Students in Finding Employment in a Challenging Economy Nearly 25 Employers Came Together with 3,500+ Students from Over 30 Schools across the Country Chicago, IL – UBM Studios Unicruit’s inaugural Diversity Virtual Career Fair was held on March 3,Read More →

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Corporations are comfortable with using WebEx-like solutions for their virtual meetings, with some using pseudo-3D platforms for large-scale virtual conferences and trade shows. When they need more sense of presence and more interaction than the typical alternative is face-to-face meetings, even at high transportation costs. Immersive 3D solutions fill inRead More →

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Employees willing to interact with a variety of avatars — except for those that are “creepy” Employees prefer to use more formal avatars to represent themselves According to a new study from Microsoft and the University of Washington, employees are generally open to using avatars for email and instant messaging,Read More →

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Sometimes, people new to the concept of virtual engagement ask: “How do you market a virtual event? Is it necessary to drive attendance with email and other tools?” As experienced marketers, we know that virtual events require a similar effort as promoting a physical event, but there are several differencesRead More →