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Press release: NextVR Completes First Live Broadcast Quality Virtual Reality Patented Technology Ushers in a New Era for TV, Film, Events, and Communications  Laguna Beach, CA – NextVR, a technology company that captures and delivers live and on-demand virtual reality experiences, last Friday announced they have successfully conducted the first ever live, broadcastRead More →

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The good folks at the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable are training new people to host our meetings, and they’ve asked us veterans to share our ideas. The following  principles have worked fairly well for me over the past few years. 1. Open forums are not completely open When I host one ofRead More →

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People pay the same amount of attention at virtual and physical events, says a  new report from the Professional Convention Management Association, UBM Studios, and the Virtual Edge Institute, detailing the behaviours of people in regards to virtual events that will be released Monday. “Too often the argument centers onRead More →

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Press release: Brandman University Research Study Shows Companies Can Better Embrace Virtual Work Force as a Competitive Advantage Managers eager for workers to understand collaboration tools, but still rely on face-to-face contact for building trust IRVINE, Calif. — While businesses increasingly play on a global stage and a work forceRead More →

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While most of the attention within our industry has been on the 2D and 3D platforms for virtual events, I envisioned that a simpler, website-like interface may begin emerging for digital events. My post last December postulated that this website interface would be widgetized, allowing users to add or removeRead More →

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Press Release: Virtual Edge Institute Launches Extensive Survey about Work-Related Uses of Virtual Technologies Giving away two free iPads to participants Pleasanton, CA – The Virtual Edge Institute (VEI) announced today that it is launching a comprehensive survey to understand the work-related uses of virtual technologies and digital environments. The ProfessionalRead More →

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Press Release: Annual Unisfair Survey Shows Virtual and Hybrid Events are the New Normal in Marketing, Training and Collaboration 550 Marketers Weigh in on Why and How They Use Virtual Environments Key findings: 60% will increase spending on virtual events and environments in 2011, while 42% will decrease spending onRead 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: 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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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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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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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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Press release: ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere Now Integrated with Kaplan EduNeering’s ComplianceWire LANSDALE, Pa.—ProtonMedia and Kaplan EduNeering have integrated their technologies to create a new way for life sciences organizations to meet regulatory and compliance regulations. The companies have combined ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere virtual immersive environment with Kaplan EduNeering’s ComplianceWire learning management system. With this integration, companiesRead More →

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Press release: Avaya Launches Cloud-Based, On-Demand Immersive Web Collaboration for Businesses BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Avaya Inc., a global leader in business collaboration systems, software and services, today announced the launch of new cloud-based, on-demand purchasing options and features for Avaya web.alive, the company’s innovative, immersive web collaboration platform designedRead More →

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Chris Lineberry is the principal of the Florence Virtual Academy in Florence, Arizona, about 60 miles southeast of Phoenix, serving students in grades six through 12 who live in the district – or anywhere else in the state. The school currently has 23 students, and enrollment is expected to riseRead More →

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There are three main ways today to have a 3D virtual business meeting using your browser – VenueGen, Altadyn’s 3DXplorer, and Avaya’s  Web.alive. Of the three, VenueGen stands out by actively marketing its platform with ubiquitous Internet advertising. But the company wants to be known for its ease of useRead More →

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Press release: MediaTec Publishing Creates Virtual Human Capital Media Convention Center Partners with Unisfair to expand beyond in-person event experience Chicago, Jan. 18 — MediaTec Publishing Inc., publisher of Chief Learning Officer, Talent Management and Diversity Executive magazines, is partnering with Unisfair, the leading provider of virtual events and virtualRead More →

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Every year I look forward to attending the Virtual Edge Summit online. Not only is it free to consume the content online and saves my travel budget (one of the keys for virtual events) but it also showcases some of the top vendors and trends in the virtual event industry.Read More →

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On a recent trip to London, I found myself sitting in a Yo! Sushi. As I watched the colored plates winding their way around the room, I noticed a poster on the wall advertising “Blue Plate Mondays” (any sushi plate for £2 as opposed to the usual £3-5). Since gameRead More →

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Press Release: Web3D Technology Boosts User Engagement for eTraining and Corporate Events: VenueGen CEO to Discuss at Virtual Edge Summit 2011 David Gardner will explore the potential of new in-browser meeting environments to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of dispersed business teams Morrisville, NC –For business to truly recoup valueRead More →

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Companies looking to hold virtual conferences first have to decide whether to hold a Web-based conference – normally some combination of streaming video, live chats, slide shows, and social media – or one in an immersive environment. The immersive conference allows avatars to walk around inside a three-dimensional virtual environment,Read More →

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Event management is tough… really tough. In fact, if you are an experienced event planner, you are probably one of the only people in the world that knows how to ship an elephant from Dallas to Alaska, negotiate with three vendors at the same time, or find 200,000 Lego bricksRead More →

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Press Release: ON24 Announces Enterprise Webcasting for Internal Communications New Capabilities Enable ‘Behind the Firewall’ Webcasts SAN FRANCISCO, CA– ON24, Inc., the global leader in webcasting and virtual event solutions, announced today that it is providing full support for webcasts used in internal communications applications. A collection of services, theRead More →

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Sure we’re advocates of virtual meetings. But we’re not foolish enough to think a day will come — soon or ever — when face-to-face meetings go away. That’s just not going to happen. And the reasons are simple. They are absolutely the best way to build relationships and a senseRead More →

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Like many aspects of life sciences today, speaker programs are being cut due to budgetary constraints and the tightening regulatory landscape. I read a recent article by Bill Cooney in PharmaExec that highlighted this trend, reporting that speaker program activity is down 30 percent or more at most pharmaceutical companies.Read More →

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Much has been discussed and written about virtual environments achieving levels of immersion and interactivity that rival (and some believe exceed) face-to-face meetings. Much has also been written about increasing the retention of information shared in world. Interacting in a virtual environment But to many, the whys and hows surroundingRead More →

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Much has been said in recent years regarding the benefits and substantial returns an organisation can achieve by integrating an Online 3D Environment into their everyday operations. Indeed, examples and demonstrations of the power and financial savings 3D collaboration can bring to businesses have been researched, developed, trialed and documentedRead More →

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Press Release: ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere Works with Microsoft Lync Server 2010 ProtoSphere now provides an immersive collaboration layer for Microsoft Corp.’s latest enterprise class unified communications platform LANSDALE, Pa.–Have you heard? Word on the street is that ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere Lync Edition 2010 now has the best-sounding and most scalable Voice overRead More →

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Everyone wants to go green these days, including meeting planners. And while there are many ways to green a meeting, one of the greenest approaches to meetings is to not meet in person. This is a way to have most of the functionality of a face-to-face meeting, while saving enormousRead More →

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Much has been discussed and written about virtual environments achieving levels of immersion and interactivity that rival (and some believe exceed) face-to-face meetings. Much has also been written about increasing the retention of information shared in world. But to many, the whys and hows surrounding this remain a mystery. PerhapsRead More →

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The  OnLand business park opened today in the Blue Mars virtual world as a place for traditional companies to market their goods in high-fidelity three dimensional form to their clients. The OnLand park is targeting business-to-business sales in which 3D models are important, such as manufacturing. This is a departureRead More →

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Virtual events are undoubtedly effective… but can they also be fun? Over the last several years, many companies, squeezed by tough economic conditions, have looked for alternatives to in-person events. At the same time, virtual event providers have responded with a hundred rational arguments regarding why meeting online is betterRead More →

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Introduction 1. $54 million in cost savings 2. $19 million in productivity and time savings 3. 34,000 tons of carbon emissions eliminated If those kinds of numbers are interesting to you, we hope you will take a minute and read on, because that’s just the beginning of the story. TheseRead More →

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How do you keep up with industry trends?  You hear from the people setting the trends.  On September 24th, FountainBlue held its annual virtual worlds conference on Cisco’s campus in Milpitas, CA.  The event featured a session titled “Trends in the Virtual Worlds Industry: An Update on What’s New andRead More →

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The use of virtual meetings has grown at 80 percent of companies, according to a recent report from Carson Wagonlit Travel’s Travel Management Institute. The report, based on a survey of over 1,800 people in companies around the world, showed that the most popular virtual meeting platforms are video conferences,Read More →

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I’m ending it. Beset by criticism on all sides — okay, just one side — I am officially going cold turkey on “real life.” The phrase, that is, not the living itself. I’ve never been a big fan of the wording “in real life,” but haven’t noticed to what extentRead More →

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How do you keep up with industry trends?  You hear from the people setting the trends. On September 24th, FountainBlue held its annual virtual worlds conference on Cisco’s campus in Milpitas, CA. The event featured a session titled “Trends in the Virtual Worlds Industry: An Update on What’s New andRead More →

(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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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 →

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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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 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: 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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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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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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Despite rumors of its demise, the Australian virtual worlds company VastPark is not dead — in fact, it’s recently seen quite an uptick of interest. In April, the company won a prestigious contract from the USDA under which it and partner Assyst will build a virtual world and social networkRead More →

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Wagner Au and Gwyneth Llewelyn have recently posted thought-provoking pieces about how to make virtual worlds more engaging. Au proposed an achievement system to encourage new users to make friends and visit new locations. “Turning social networking more competitive resulted in people getting more engaged with it,” added Llewelyn, explainingRead More →

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There is a ton of debate and discussion and information Out There about why virtual worlds are, or aren’t, or might someday be, important for business. Important, that is, to people who are wearing their money-making hats to know about, or to use, or to invest time or effort orRead More →