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

Myrl is a London-based startup that is pioneering the digital bridge between the ‘virtual cloud’ that is the internet with the currently closed-systems that are virtual worlds. As more and more applications move away from the local desktop to the virtual cloud to become web-based applications, it makes sense for Myrl to attempt the momentum of this phenomenon to include virtual worlds. Just going into private beta, Myrl is a social network for the virtual worlds.

To quote TechCrunch UK: “So, a new London-based startup is going to integrate virtual-world-style avatars with the web on an open web platform. Myrl (which stands for My Real Life / My Role Life) is a collaborative platform for avatars enabling interaction between different virtual worlds and the web. Think of it as a social network based on avatars.”

The United States Government is jumping on the virtual bandwagon to create their own virtual world. The purpose of this virtual world, exclusively for government agencies is to improve cross-agency communication. To quote the article, “The project has been commissioned by In-Q-Tel, a national-security-focused technology investment company funded by U.S. intelligence agencies, and has the mission of using virtual environments to let uncommunicative U.S. intelligence agencies interact with each other more efficiently and with more trust.”

This begs the question: with all the power and technology behind government communications, how ineffective is communication between agencies right now? It must be pretty bad if the solution being offered is a virtual world. The corollary to this is that virtual worlds are an effective alternative in communication, than simply recreation.

Avatalk is BT’s phone and texting service in Second Life. As a followup to the post announcing BT’s trial run of new phone and texting services for Second Life, the question of why must be asked. As avatars in Second Life, we control our virtual characters. If we’re at control, at what point do we think it a natural step to communicate via phone or text message from within Second Life, than access other voIP services from the same computer?

This is a cause and effect test for BT. To quote the article: “What we wanted to do after [Area 21] was launch elements of that as a trial service just to understand what the demand for virtual-to-real-world communications and also virtual-to-other-virtual-world communication is.”

This is quite startling. As players in Second Life, at what point will it be a logical choice to communicate through a virtual world to the real world via a virtual red phone booth? We logically already known such a service is voIP; what is to prevent us from picking up our mobile, or launching SKYPE? Both logical options are either a simple desktop icon or within one’s pocket. It’s a startling thing to wrap your head around.

What does seem like an innovative move is communicating from one virtual world to another. Could something be possible? Would calling your friend in another virtual world outside Second Life, say World of War Craft, be legitimate? Does Second Life really want to wrap itself up with other virtual realities?

Only time will tell.

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.

Wagner James Au has just published a book on Second Life called “The Making of Second Life.”  Au runs a website called ‘New World Notes’ where he talks about Second Life. Back in July 2007, he published a story that got Chris Anderson’s attention, the author of The Long Tail. In the article he talks about how Second Life creates a long tail effect. This article was a critique to Anderson’s change of praise to criticism of Second Life. Anderson makes note of his newfound criticism and repsonse to Au on his website. In Anderson’s post, he makes clear his support of Wired Magazine’s article, by Frank Rose, ‘How Madison Avenue is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life.’

Many companies are leaving Second Life, supporting Frank Rose’s article. On March 18th, Mercedes Benz closed down its Second Life presence. Mercedes noted on its blog: “This brief and exciting foray into virtual communities brought us several essential realisations and the conviction that 3D worlds play a vital role as engaging communication channels. We will continue to monitor this theme and keep you updated on any new developments.” This is most likely a nice way of saying ‘Second Life’ isn’t for them. Most importantly, take note of the word ‘theme.’ To many companies, this is still considered a novelty of sorts. Most companies are trying this new marketing “theme” but most don’t understand how to go about doing it properly. Au discusses this fault on an old article published on GigaOm, as does the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing, University of California, Riverside.

In the above articles the stance is clear: companies don’t quite understand how to use Second Life, and the technology isn’t quite right yet - but Second Life supporters compare this critism to that of the ‘early web.’ It’ll be great to see Au’s viewpoint nicely refined in his book, “The Making of Second Life.”

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.

Reuters News operates an exclusive ‘Second Life News’ section on their website. They even advertise their own Second Life presence with a slurl (Second Life URL) to come join them at their Reuter’s Atrium. Yesterday, March 14th, they broke a Second Life news exclusive: Rosedale to step down as Linden Lab CEO.

Once again this  ’step down’ is due to the fact that most visionary companies lose their founding CEO to someone with “more experience.” To quote the above article, “The shift from a visionary founder to an operations-focused CEO is typical for technology start-ups, with eBay and Google as prominent examples. A recent Harvard Business Review study found that 50 percent of founders were no longer CEO by year three, 40 percent remained by year four, and fewer than 25 percent led their companies’ initial public offerings. Rosedale, a former chief technology officer at RealNetworks, has been CEO since founding Linden Lab in 1999.”

Interviewing in Second Life is quite possibly the least likely choice you’ll have when applying for a job. Typically you’ll have your in person and phone call options. However, Linden Labs does note, without proof, that the companies buying up land in Second Life are doing it. In an article posted in February by the New York Times, a reporter tried out this virtual interview.

The interview was with Linden Lab’s Sandy Gould, director of recruiting and organizational development. Maybe some of the biggest quibbles in interviewing inside Second Life is to not let your avatar fall asleep, as this interviewer noted. “At one point — largely because of all of the attention I was paying to the chat box — Jaredpower Afarensis even appeared to slump over and go to sleep. So much of the interview revolved around the chat box that it seemed as if the avatars were barely there. That’s when it hit me: these newfangled Second Life job interviews might be fun, but they’re not exactly effective for everyone — at least not yet.”

Therefore if inteviews begin to take off in Second Life, tips should be given to help people not make interview blunders. Just like remembering not to bash prior employeers or arrive without a tie, dont forget to not fall alseep.

Today’s video games and online virtual worlds give users the freedom to create characters in the digital domain that look and seem more human than ever before. But despite having your hair, your height, and your hazel eyes, your avatar is still little more than just a pretty face.A group of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is working to change that by engineering characters with the capacity to have beliefs and to reason about the beliefs of others. The characters will be able to predict and manipulate the behavior of even human players, with whom they will directly interact in the real, physical world, according to the team. 

Video Clip: False Belief in Second Life (MOV) (WMV)

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The blog is a journal and document regarding the online and treadmill powered reenactment of Mahatma Gandhi’s “Salt March to Dandi” in Second Life from March 12th through April 6th, 2008. Joseph DeLappe  will be using his blog on a daily basis to document his progress and experience as the project evolves over the 26 days of “walking” throughout Second Life.

http://saltmarchsecondlife.wordpress.com/ 

Second Skin is a documentary about living in a virtual world. There’s been lots of promotion on the internets about this documentary, since the film was just debuted at SXSW. To quote Second Skin’s website: “Second Skin takes an intimate look at computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by the emerging genre of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs). World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Everquest allow millions of users to simultaneously interact in virtual spaces. Second Skin introduces us to couples who have fallen in love without meeting, disabled players who have found new purpose, addicts, Chinese gold-farming sweatshop workers, wealthy online entrepreneurs and legendary guild leaders - all living in a world that doesn’t quite exist.”

From watching the trailer, it seems to be a wonderful portrayed angle to virtual worlds. Let’s hope the network economy can provide a quick way to distribute this documentary.

In the online world of gaming, Second Life is no exception. A greifer is a player of any online game with one intention - ruin the experience for others. The griefer profile has been around since online games began - when the ability to victimize real people through a game reality became a possibility.

To quote Second Life Insider, “A griefer, is generally accepted as a person who derives enjoyment from being obstructive, diminishing the enjoyment of others, preventing the enjoyment of others, wasting your time, and so forth.”

Published in Wired Magazine, and posted on Wired’s website is a current article about griefers, detailing a group of individuals calling themselves the ‘goonsquad.’ It’s a fun read about both sides of what it means to be affected by a griefer, and be one.

What makes Second Life the worst victim of griefing, to paraphrase the above article, is that Second Life wants to be something more than a game. It’s the goal of the griefer to disagree - it’s still a game.