(Image courtesy Sococo.)

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Press release: Sococo Debuts Team Space at Demo Fall 2010 New Communication Service For Professionals Demonstrated at Premier Silicon Valley Confab SANTA CLARA, CA — At DEMO Fall 2010, Sococo® debuted Sococo Team Space, a group communication service for distributed teams. Team Space is built on Sococo’s revolutionary communication platform.Read More →

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You might be interested to learn that virtual world IMVU has almost 1.4 million fans of their Facebook fan page. Why do they use Facebook? Lots of reasons… It’s a marketing and communications channel: IMVU communicates the latest news, competitions and user updates Their users also use Facebook: So itRead More →

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Press release: Utherverse® Digital, the Leader in 3D Virtual World Webâ„¢ Development, Seeks First-Ever Venture Funding at Banff Venture Forum Largest Player in Software for 3D Internet Communities Sets Sights On Raising $20 Million for Broad Range of Marketing/Sponsorship Initiatives Vancouver, BC — Virtual world developer Utherverse Digital Inc. todayRead More →

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Press release: Wiecha Receives Grant to Study Face-to-Face vs Virtual Health Education for African-American Women BOSTON — Boston University School of Medicine Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs John Wiecha, MD, MPH, in the Department of Family Medicine, has received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) American Recovery & Reinvestment ActRead More →

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Last week, InWorldz became the second-largest grid running on the OpenSim platform, after shooting up the charts over the course of just the past three months. Between April and September 15, the grid grew from 130 regions to 531 regions. In addition, the grid now has over 15,000 registered usersRead More →

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Press Release: UBM Studios Introduces LAUNCHPAD, New Virtual Platform to Launch Products and Product Enhancements CHICAGO — UBM Studios, delivering a complete solution for virtual events and virtual business environments, today introduced LAUNCHPAD, an interactive platform that allows businesses to deliver targeted information and materials directly to key audiences toRead More →

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Press Release: Inaugural Virtual Car Show Features Latest Green Car Technologies DETROIT, MI and SAN FRANCISCO, CA– AutoWeek is hosting its first virtual auto show, the AutoWeek Virtual Green Car Show, in partnership with ON24, the global leader in webcasting and virtual events. The live event is scheduled for SeptemberRead More →

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Press release Shaker Recruitment Advertising & Communications has strategically partnered with InXpo to provide companies with innovative opportunities to attract talent by hosting their own Virtual Career Fairs. The mutually beneficial relationship enables clients to capitalize on Shaker’s nearly 60 years of recruitment expertise and the advanced technology resources providedRead More →

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We don’t normally cover the InWorldz grid — the owners have told us that they don’t consider to be an OpenSim grid — but we have to make an exception this month because of the grid’s stellar performance over the past thirty days. The grid — which runs on aRead More →

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Press Release: ProtonMedia Releases ProtoSphere 1.5: First Portable 3-D World for Business Collaboration Now Companies Can Stop Meeting and Start Working with World’s First Portable App for 3-D Virtual Collaboration LANSDALE, Pa.–Today ProtonMedia released ProtoSphere 1.5, a major update of the company’s market-leading virtual collaboration environment for the high-performance workplace.Read More →

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Press Release: ON24 Survey Shows Dramatic Preference for Webcasts With Increased Interactivity and Social Networking Next-Generation Platform Enables Greater User Control, New Applications SAN FRANCISCO, CA –  ON24, the global leader in webcasting and virtual event solutions, announced today the results of its recent survey of webcast attendees participating inRead More →

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Press Release: Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Support to be Introduced in ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere LANSDALE, Pa. — ProtonMedia today announced that its ProtoSphere virtual immersive environment for the high-performance workplace will support the new Microsoft Lync Server 2010 (formerly known as Microsoft Office Communication Server). By incorporating ProtoSphere into their MicrosoftRead More →

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Press Release: Unicruit Partners with the Big East Virtual Career Fair, Combines Expertise to Deliver 3D Virtual Career Fair on November 10, 2010 Revolutionary approach to recruiting college students and alumni that brings the career fair to the employer and job seeker Chicago, IL — UBM Studios’ Unicruit today announcesRead More →

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I regularly hire people I’ve never met in real life. We cover international business, and we like having correspondents and editors around the world — and with today’s economy, we just don’t have the budget to fly out and meet everyone in person. So we make do. We review resumesRead More →

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The adult-themed Utherverse virtual world platform is in discussions with former developers of the controversial Emerald Viewer for Second Life, the company announced. Prior to recent scandals involving an alleged distributed denial of service attack, privacy violations, and a Second Life ban this Wednesday, the Emerald viewer was primarily knownRead More →

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Many virtual designers are wary of coming to OpenSim because of worries about content protections. One virtual worlds company is bending over backwards to alleviate these concerns and to create a safe and supportive social environment. But the security comes at a cost, that of heavy restrictions on enterprise users.Read More →

Mark Szelenyi (Image courtesy On24)

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Webcasting is seen by many professionals as an ideal marketing and communications tool, offering the effectiveness and efficiency that enterprises require in today’s business environment. These best practices can help you easily run a successful webcast. Maximizing Registration Rates Timing.  Avoid Mondays and Fridays, as these are peak meeting daysRead More →

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Press Release: Daden Announce Series of Emerging Technology Seminars Virtual world solution specialists Daden Limited announce the inaugural dates for a programme of half day seminars on emerging technologies. The seminars are designed to help businesses develop a greater understanding of how virtual worlds and chatbots can be used withinRead More →

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The world is about to turn nasty. I don’t mean the world is about to turn nasty on you, personally, but its going to be a much harder world to do business in, as economic disruptions throughout Europe make strikes much more likely. Greece already is as close to aRead More →

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Press Release: Unisfair Hosts “The Virtual Classroom: Effective Training on a Virtual Platform” Showcase Event on Sept. 9 Experts from ASTD and The eLearning Guild Outline How to Effectively Train Key Audiences While Significantly Reducing Cost per Attendee Menlo Park, CA — Unisfair, the leading provider of virtual events andRead More →

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International Freelancers Day is “the biggest ever (FREE) online conference exclusively for solo professionals.”  Want to know how to effectively generate virtual event registrations? Follow this event’s lead.  They make it easy for you to sign up.  And once you do, they provide you with compelling value well before youRead More →

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Mike Treder, the managing director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, recently asked a loaded question: If you could live in a world that was just the way you wanted it to be, with specifications you’d chosen, customized and personalized to meet your every need and fulfill yourRead More →

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Press Release: Unisfair launches virtual training environment Shown to reduce costs by up to 95% Companies like IBM, Intuit, Novartis and ACS Are Leveraging the Unisfair Virtual Classroom to Easily and Cost-Effectively Train Customers, Partners and Employees Menlo Park, CA – On September 15, Unisfair, the leading provider of virtualRead More →

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Press Release: ON24 Special Edition Features Real-World Examples and Best Practices SAN FRANCISCO, CA –  Demand for virtual events is growing so rapidly that everyone needs to know what virtual solution would be right for their company. That is the premise underlying the new “Virtual Events For Dummies,” ON24 SpecialRead More →

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Press Release: Teleplace Enterprise Fall ’10 Adds SharePoint Support, Enterprise-Class Enhancements Commercial, Government Customers Benefit From Enhanced Collaboration, Security, Scalability, Manageability REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – Teleplace, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise-class immersive learning and collaboration solutions, today announced the immediate availability of Teleplace Enterprise Fall 2010. Teleplace Enterprise isRead More →

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Press Release: UBM Studios Expands its Virtual Recruitment Fairs with the Acquisition of Astound LLC Adds Fortune 500 Clients to UBM Studios’ Customer Roster Chicago – Building on its track record of producing successful virtual recruitment fairs, UBM Studios today announced it has acquired Astound LLC, the creator of MilicruitRead More →

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A couple of weeks ago, the ever-insightful Seth Godin pointed out that every new activity has a learning curve — and also a joy curve. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes a bit of time before we learn enough about how to do an activity to derive any joy from it. ThisRead More →

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Update: I still recommend the OMC currency, which has grown substantially since this article was first written and now used on 30 OpenSim grids. The two other currencies I mentioned — V$ and G$ — have not been getting much traction in OpenSim, and have pretty much faded away. SomeRead More →

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Utherverse, a proprietary virtual world platform known for its adult content, has launched a virtual casino targeting US customers. While the winnings cannot be converted into cash today, that might change if a new gambling bill is able to make its way through Congress. Meanwhile, Utherverse hopes that casino operatorsRead More →

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Hosting providers with previous experience in Second Life are bringing some Second Life terminology with them into OpenSim. For example, Coral Estates draws a distinction between “owning” a region and paying “tier” — and “renting” land. “All of the land in this section of the web site is non rentalRead More →

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Correction: Coral Estate regions start at $20, not $10. OpenSim hosting prices have fallen to a record-low, with providers like New Voice offering regions for just $10 per month — though the performance of such low-cost regions may be in doubt. New Voice on the map If you’ve glanced atRead More →

(Image courtesy Intel.)

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Press Release: Intel and Nokia Create First Joint Laboratory: New University Research Center will Lead to New User Interfaces and Experiences Intel Corporation, Nokia and the University of Oulu have announced the establishment of their first joint research center. One of the first objectives of the new lab is toRead More →

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The hypergrid is like the World Wide Web of 3D worlds. You can create your own world, at your company, school, or government agency, and link it to worlds owned by partners, clients, or information providers. Hypergrid teleports look and feel much like regular, in-world teleports. In fact, usually theRead More →

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Business users choosing virtual environments usually focus on particular features — does it support mesh imports? Are there in-world editing tools? How good is the voice? Is the a web viewer? However, most of these features are time-dependent — eventually, every virtual world platform is going to have mesh importsRead More →

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My company is a small, enterprise user of virtual worlds. Over the past year, we’ve used them for meetings with partners, new hires, internal collaboration, and external business networking. There were plenty of virtual worlds to choose from. But since we wanted to be able to customize our environment ourselvesRead More →

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Tonight’s meeting of the Hypergrid Entrepreneurs Group was an eye-opener for me and several other attendees — well, ear-opener. We got a chance to try out the new Whisper directional voice system for OpenSim, and it was amazing. Not amazing as the way in Freeswitch was amazing, in that youRead More →

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Update: “As Philip has mentioned, Linden Lab has discontinued the Second Life Enterprise development program,” Adam Nelson, Linden Lab’s Executive Director of Monetization, told Hypergrid Business. “We will continue to honor our beta customer commitments and contracts, but will not be accepting new customers for the beta product. Second LifeRead More →

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Running a successful virtual event takes face-to-face contact on the part of the team running the event, said InXpo product marketing director Dennis Shiao, in a recently-released report about virtual event best practices. Shiao, who is also a regular contributor to Hypergrid Business, admits that this sounds ironic. But, “there’sRead More →

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Press Release: Teleplace Appoints Anthony Nemelka CEO, Initiates Next Phase With Solutions for Enterprise Learning and Collaboration New Financing Round Will Fuel Enterprise-Class Solution Development, Securing Company Leadership in Immersive Business Applications REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – Teleplace , Inc. today announced that Anthony Nemelka has joined as president and chiefRead More →

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Last week, I had a conversation with someone who’s organizing a virtual event. She wanted me to speak on the topic of using telesummits to build your list and I gladly agreed due to the quality of speakers and the refreshed format (I’m on that tip these days). As IRead More →

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CyberCoinBank’s G$ is taking an early lead over the OMC multi-grid currency from Virwox. Although G$ is only accepted on 8 grids, compared to 14 grids for OMC, there is over 63 million G$ (US $210,000) in circulation, compared to just 302,037 OMC (US $1,045). There are several reasons forRead More →

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The latest versions of OpenSim support Second Life Viewer 2 and, over the next couple of months, grids and hosting providers will be upgrading their OpenSim server software to make Viewer 2 usable everywhere on the hypergrid. I’ve spent the last five weeks heavily using SL Viewer 2 in SecondRead More →

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As businesses look to cut costs, one technology that they have begun adopting is the use of 3D virtual immersive environments or virtual worlds to hold meetings, trade shows and even conduct training. This is all done with users who log into these environments as avatars. An avatar in aRead More →

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Today, vComm Solutions of Switzerland released Whisper, a high quality voice solution for OpenSim based on the popular Mumble open source VoIP client. The key feature of this solution is that it enables avatar lip sync and speaker indication to work correctly, in addition to providing very stable, high qualityRead More →

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Press Release: Computer and Video Game Degree Programs Continue to Grow at Colleges and Universities Across the U.S. A Record 300 Institutions Offer Degrees in Game Design, Development and Programming WASHINGTON, DC –300 American colleges, universities, art and trade schools will offer degrees in video game design, development, programming andRead More →

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Press Release: Free Online Seminar in 3D: How to Make Your Online Meetings More Engaging and Productive According to a recent Gallup study, disengaged workers cost US companies over $325 billion each year in lost productivity. Fully engaged workers and learners demonstrate an energy, creativity and level of interaction thatRead More →

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The TeenGrid has low traffic compared to Second Life’s mainland, and its primary renters — educators — pay half of what Second Life’s other customers do for land. It makes sense for them to close it down, from the standpoint of basic economics, but bad in another sense. The educationalRead More →

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The top 40 public OpenSim grids resumed their breakneck growth pace this month, gaining a total of 1,139 regions and crossing back over the 10,000 mark with a total land area of 10,427 regions. This was a growth of over 12%compared to last month, which translates to an annual growthRead More →

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The hypergrid economy continued its steady growth this past month, with a total of 1,091,000 OMC (US $3,775) spent on the 14 OMC-enabled grids since the multi-grid currency launched in March. This total doesn’t include local grid currencies, CyberCoinBank’s G$, or Virtual Wallet’s V$, none of which report their transactionRead More →