Friday, April 4, 2008

Virtual World 2008 Conference @ New York City - Day One

Excellent first full day to the VW 2008. Highlights included two major presentations by the Electric Sheep Company. The evening keynote by Sibley Verbeck looked at the projected future of the Virtual Worlds in General. His presentation will be available soon and liked to this column. John Swords of the ESC (blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/sibley or /swords) gave a white paper on a comparison of Virtual Worlds. That paper will also be linked in this column as soon as available.

Projections rise as high as 80% of web users will be in some form of 3-D Web/VW by 2010. An interesting aspect of the conference was looking at and talking to people in the forefront of the emerging technologies. So much is in development. I strongly suggest that you go to the VW 2008 site and look at the speakers and presentations. Graphics is developing at a very very fast pace. Colleges and Universities are going to have to move these areas to the fore-front if they hope to contend with the coming need for advanced digital graphics and 3-D web applications.

Advertising / marketing seems to be a big thrust as is 'avatar' and building development in the coming year. Have to admit I attended a couple of law based sessions - very dry - very focused on lawyers - not of much substance for the general consumer or developer in virtual worlds. They are definitely making a place for lawyers to carve out a niche.

On the really bright side I was able to meet with Earth Alcott, Pathfinder Linder, and many from Second Life that I have known this past year. An exciting new program I have installed is from http://www.weblin.com/ - I won't tell you about it but I think it has some unique possibilities for keeping contact with friends on the net. A second free graphics program that is available after April 15 is from www.daz3d.com/studio .

Strongly recommend that you obtain a copy of The Making Of Second Life by Wagner James Au from Harper Collins. A book that is very well written and hard to put down.

On to the second day in a drizzly wet cold NYC.

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