Entrepreneurial E-business student Theodoulou Theodoulos (Colton Lytton) talks about his experience of making a living in the new virtual world called Second Life. (more…)

The following has been accepted for publication in Technological Forecasting & Social Change:

Making Real Money in Virtual Worlds: MMORPGs and Emerging Business Opportunities, Challenges and Ethical Implications in Metaverses

Savvas Papagiannidis, Michael Bourlakis and Feng Li

Abstract

Today, millions of people from around the globe play online role playing games (MMORPG), in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world, either using their existing identities in the physical world, or more often than not, through new virtual identities that might not even be remotely linked to the identities of the players in the physical world. The number of users is growing at an exponential rate and we are probably on the verge of a new development that is going to be as significant as the Internet itself. This positioning paper will discuss the business opportunities and challenges of such a virtual world, that of Second Life, and will examine the resultant corporate social responsibility implications focusing on the ethical and policy-related ones. This will help to identify important research questions that need to be systematically addressed.

Keywords: massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG), virtual world, metaverse, entrepreneur, corporate social responsibility and ethics

You may have noticed that our art gallery now features a number of paintings. All of them were kindly provided by North-East based artist Mark Mooney and were painted between 2001 and 2005. The paintings will also feature around the island and decorate the various office and residential spaces.

The entrance of the gallery:

The interior of the gallery with the paintings:

If you would like to see your artwork in Second Life, then why not get in touch me with?

In order for me to appear on a screen (we could argue about my persistent state for ever: If a tree falls in a forest with no one to hear it, then does it make a sound?) someone needs to the client. For the client to work it needs to be bug free and this is not currently the case.  (more…)

Virtual economies and world in general have been attracting a  lot of academic interest the last 3-4 years. For example, for a comprehensive list you could visit the Virtual Economy Research Network’s bibliography of books, articles and online materials on real-money trade of virtual property and related topics.

The Ebusiness@Newcastle team has also been very active in the area. The following three pieces of work are the first articles to get published:

•  Berry, J., & Papagiannidis, S. (Forthcoming). Live music and performances in a virtual world. In M. Pagani (Ed.), Encyclopedia of multimedia technology and networking (2nd ed.). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Reference. 

 Other forthcoming papers:

• Papagiannidis, S. and M.A. Bourlakis, The Consumer Ethics of the Virtual Environment: An Aetiology in 2007 IRMA International Conference. 2007: Vancouver, Canada.
• Papagiannidis, S., M.A. Bourlakis, and F. Li, From E-retailing to Meta-retailing: Evolution or Revolution? , in British Academy of Management. 2007: Warwick, United Kindgom.

I am still alive and kicking! I have been very busy with Second Life work and I will be posting the latest developments here soon.

In the meantime you can try the brand new SL search engine by Electronic Sheep Company which is available at: http://search.sheeplabs.com/.