The Swedish Tax Agency posted a statement/ruling on their website, titled “Virtual worlds — value-added tax” (”Virtuella varldar — mervardesskatt”). In it, the agency states that in-game transactions may incur liability for both value-added tax as well as income tax under Swedish law. Read the rest of this article at Virtual-World.org.
If you are interested in a job in the virtual world industry (no the real one!), then try: http://www.virtualworldsjobs.com.
The Journal of Virtual Worlds Research is a online, open access academic journal that adheres to the highest standards of peer review and engages established and emerging scholars from anywhere in the world. The Journal of Virtual Worlds Research is a transdisciplinary journal that enagages a wide spectrum of scholarship and welcomes contributions from the many disciplines and approaches that intersect virtual worlds research.
For more information please visit: http://jvwr.org
Silicon.com reported that BT is upping its presence in Second Life with a trial of its free ‘Avatalk’ phone and texting service. The one month virtual world pilot will start on the 26th of March allowing users to make 10 free calls (of up to one hour each) and send 10 SMS messages to almost anywhere in the world.
Click here if you would like to find out more about this.
PandaLabs -Panda Security’s malware analysis and detection laboratory- has detected an increasing amount of malicious codes (usually Trojans) that steal online game and virtual world user credentials.
For more information click here.
Vodafone has decided to extend InsideOut until 31st of March 2008. If you want to find out more about this service, then visit: http://secondlife.vodafone.com/
With Vodafone InsideOut you can text friends to meet you on your favourite island before you log-in, or make and receive real voice calls from wherever you like in Second Life. An excellent example of how technologies can cross spaces!
For more information about costs (there is a free trial version until 30th of November) visit http://secondlife.vodafone.com.
IBM faces virtual reality’s first picket line today at the company’s offices in online community Second Life. Workers have taken their industrial relations dispute online and have received attention and backing from all over the real world. Click here to read the rest of the story. It may be that this is the very first Strike 2.0!
What do you get if you put Google Earth, Google Map and Google SketchUp-3d together? Perhaps a potentially good platform for Google’s MMORPG played on planet Earth with some 6billion concurrent users.
“When discussing Second Life, students felt that games and virtual worlds as part of learning could easily become “tragic” – technology being used for its own sake, and used rather childishly. They would need to understand the educational benefits of virtual worlds or games, it is not enough that they are simply ‘new’.”
To download the full report please click here.
WWF have joined the club of RL organisations that have a presence in SL. Check out a few other examples in our RL organisation list.
A few weeks ago Ginko Financial, a SL bank, collapsed raising questions about unregulated banking and financial services in metaverses. This could potentially lead to RL intervention, similar to what happened with gambling in SL. Of course there are arguments from both side of the coin as to whether intervention is needed and if it’s going to beneficial for the community. For similar cases not to occur in the future, both the operator and the community itself should be more proactive in protecting themselves.
There is a place that broadband has no meaning and Internet connectivity is still measured in Kbs. Try connecting to SL or use any other Internet services that are bandwidth intensive. You may be able to check emails and even browse a few pages (before getting frustrated), but it makes you wonder. Are metaverses enforcing the digital divide? One day perhaps this place and all places out there that have no connectivity whatsoever may have broadband connections (or whatever they will be called then). Until that day comes, users in these places will have only one life. Ironically, they don’t have to download a 20Mb executable… it would have taken an eternity!
Japanese firms are eager to get into SL while Western firms seem to have had enough. This was based on LA Times article that has propagated throughout the Internet, with the majority of the articles just replicating the new found knowledge that plugging products is as problematic in the virtual world as it is anywhere else. Why would it be any different?
There are other ‘interesting’ statements. For example, did you know that even at peak times, only about 30,000 to 40,000 users are logged on SL? Of course you did because that’s on the home page of Second Life. So how can that be an excuse for poor retailing performance? If that was an issue then why did these companies established a presence in SL? Another perhaps even more ‘interesting’ statement is that for some advertisers, the problem is that Second Life is a fantasy land. Was it the name that gave SL away?
In anyway, first mover advantage and adoption of new technologies always come with a certain risk tag and SL is no exception. Good marketing plans and clear objectives are needed as in any other case.
This event may be particularly relevant, after reports that real companies have second thoughts about SL.
Creating a virtual world presence to fast track your brand in the real world
September 25 - 26, 2007 · Thistle Hotel Marble Arch, London, UK
For more information please click here.
If I was to be like this, then I prefer to have only one life.
I put together a directory of real companies in Second Life. If you know of any other please leave a comment!