New platform offers developers On-Demand Web Services and 3D Flash experiences. Press Release by e-releases

Jeremiah Owyang has an interesting posting on his Web Strategy blog titled “Web Strategy: How To Integrate Social Technologies with Virtual Events“.  Jeremiah notes that the integration of social technologies should apply to both virtual and physical events – by way of these principles:

Three Principles Of Modern Events
To be successful, virtual –and real world– event planners must abide by the following principles:
1. Events should integrate with existing communities and social networks where they exist.
2. Events should have a strategy that includes the before and after –not just during.
3. The audience can assert control over the event, so encourage audience participation and know when to get out of the way.

I left the following comment for Jeremiah:

I’m a big fan of social networks – today, my primary networks are Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.  That being said, I’ve considered today’s social networks to be a Version 1.0 of Web 2.0.  Now that social networks have built a critical mass of audience/community, I think that some key technologies can advance us to Version 2.0 of Web 2.0.  Some examples:

1. Presence Indication – While Jeremiah blogs that email was the first social network, I think of instant messaging as the dawn of social networking.  So all the way back in the mid 90’s, we had a technology to allow us to connect with friends, family and colleagues – and, provide presence indication.  I knew if my mom, colleague or best friend was online – and if they were online, they could indicate to me whether they were available or “Away from my desk”.  While some social network sites include in-page presence indication (including Facebook, with its Facebook Chat), I’m surprised that presence indication (and chat) have not been more tightly integrated into the core service of social networks.  If I’m running a social network site, but my users are using AOL IM or Skype for presence indication and text/webcam chat, then I’d want to build better presence/chat tools into my core platform.  Or, integrate existing technology, so that my users launch their IM client within my service.
2. Personalized Spaces – Facebook has done a great job in allowing me to post pictures, videos, links, status updates, etc.  What about blending the existing technologies/applications within Facebook with virtual world technologies to create a virtual room (for personal use) or a virtual office (for b-to-b use).  Vivaty is thinking along these lines, as they’ve integrated their 3D virtal world technology into Facebook.  So within Facebook, I can build a personalized room with Vivaty and invite my friends (or colleagues) to visit and interact with the objects I’ve placed in that room (e.g. perhaps a link to a movie review).
3. Profile Matchmaking to Extend Your Network – Virtual Event technologies have their roots in b-to-b use, in which virtual event show hosts tend to collect a deep registration profile on attendees.  This provides data points that allow the virtual event platform to recommend  like-minded attendees (who have similar profiles).  For personal use of social networks, matchmaking may not be relevant – you know whom your friends and family are and you’re probably not inclined to go find new friends (with the exception of a social site for online dating).  In a b-to-b setting, however (e.g. Linkedin), profile matching can be very powerful, as it allows you the potential to extend your network.  B-to-b networking sites that combine presence with matchmaking can create a powerful combination – imagine that I find like-minded people.  Instead of pressuring them to accept me as a connection, I can chat with them (based on presence indication) and introduce myself.  Later, both parties may be comfortable enough to become connections within that social network.

I’d be interested in your thoughts – what related technologies should social network sites look to build or integrate?

Il est désormais possible d’ajouter une ou plusieurs “Twitter Bubbles” dans ses propres scènes Vivaty.  Celles-ci peuvent être facilement posées où on le souhaite et il suffit de saisir un identifiant Twitter pour que le dernier tweet correspondant s’affiche. La mise à jour se fait à chaque fois que l’on pénètre dans la scène.

Vivaty indique qu’il s’agit d’une première version et prévoit à l’avenir des extensions de fonctionnalités, avec en particulier la possibilité de poster un tweet depuis l’environnement 3D.

This is part 2 of an ongoing series about what works and does not work in 3D Virtual Worlds (3DVWs) in hopes of educating anyone thinking of building their own. In part 1, I discussed the importance of avatars. For part 2, I want to discuss the silly but strangely popular idea that if we could access a 3DVW from a web browser it would be a huge hit, and finally bring 3DVW programs to the masses.

The primary attraction for even attempting to create a 3DVW that runs in a web browser is from looking at all the success the 2D virtual worlds have been getting.  Conventional wisdom says that the primary obstacle standing in the way of 3D virtual worlds having the same level of success is that people do not like downloading and installing a separate program just to play.

There is some truth to that, studies have shown that only one out of 10 new visitors to a 3DVW website will bother to download the program. So requiring a download apparently drops your audience 90% right off the bat.

I believe this is only an obstacle initially. People will download a good program that promises to benefit them, especially if it is free and comes from a reputable source.

From what I have seen so far, and from what I have heard is in the pipeline, there is no real point in trying to run a 3D virtual world in a browser, its bad conventional wisdom based on faulty logic.

There may be some good reasons to have 3D displays embedded in a web page, if nothing else its an attention grabbing novelty.  But 3D multiplayer worlds with chatting and building capabilities do not fit into the web page model the same way they do with 2D virtual worlds.

The state of the art

A quick note on the state of the art (in case you do not follow my blog): There are a few 3DVWs that can run in a browser already. Among the ones currently available are Exit Reality, Just Leap In, and Vivaty. All three still require either a small download or a browser plug-in to work. I have tried all three and they all feel like novelties rather than full fledged 3DVWs. If the primary goal is to add a 3rd dimension to the 2D Virtual World, none of these come close.

There is a largely unrecognized truth in all this: 3D virtual worlds are not 2D virtual worlds with depth. The two attract different kinds of players. Play style and activities are of a very different nature. 2D is much more social, 3D is a more creative outlet. 2D is “point and click” just like the web. 3D is played like a video game.

Once you accept this truth, it logically follows that a 3D virtual world designed to play in a web browser will never work. Playing inside a web browser is too limiting, too simplistic.

A good example is Google Lively. It was probably the greatest 3D virtual world ever to reside in a web browser. It was a failure, because people found it too limiting. Outside of chatting, the two primary activities in 3DVWs is building stuff in 3D, customizing your environment.  Lively provided a simple but inflexible interface for building, and no real ways to customize. Exploring what other people have built was not that interesting due to limited content. Every room was variation of the same 5 or 6 rooms. Lively’s legacy is that it mostly killed the dream of browser based 3D worlds.

A downloadable full fledged client may limit your audience, but it makes your world much more flexible, usable, and customizable.

Alternate approach #1: Put the client in a browser

Since it seems that every browser based 3DVW requires a download anyways, maybe the approach is to embed a mini client in a browser.  This is the approach being used by Pelican Crossing and 3di. This allows you to create an embed on a web site that opens the Second Life client inside the browser, the user of the embed is taken to a location specified by the embed.

The primary question that comes to mind is “why?” Linking to Second Life locations is already possible via SLURL. There.com and other 3DVWs have ways of creating links to specific locations as well. A client embed looks cool, but it is limiting the size to a part of a web page (which you can click to full screen) but does not add functionality to the client. Multiple embeds on a page are unworkable unless you have a really good computer.

Now what would be cool is a way to convert Second Life places to VRML and embed them so you can show non SL users your creations. People would not have to have an SL account to see it, nor have a full SL client, just some generic VRML viewer. This is actually possible. There are tools available to convert SL objects to XML files for backup purposes, and these could easily be converted to VRML files.  The biggest obstacle to this idea is the lack of wide access for SL to XML converters. This is a very sticky issue (maybe you have heard of the copybot controversy?).  Still it is a cool idea.

Bottom line it is easier to add a browser to a client, than a client to a browser.

Alternate approach #2: Accessing 3DVRs via interactive streaming video (Cloud gaming)

Cloud gaming via embedded video is coming very soon. At least two companies OnLive and Gaikai are developing interactive web video technology allowing you to play (nearly) lag free video games remotely through streaming video.

Most online games works like this:
1. your computer or console “renders” your environment from game data stored on your computer.
2. you take action
3. action is sent to gaming server
4. gaming server decides outcome which is sent back to your computer
5. go to step 1.

“Cloud Gaming” works like this:
1. Your computer gets a streaming video feed from an online server.
2. you take action
3. action is sent to gaming server
4. gaming server decides outcome, renders the outcome from game data stored on the server, and converts it to streaming video
5. go to step 1.

That seems like an awful lot of work for the game server to handle, but if they can get it to work, there is no real need for powerful gaming computers to use the service. Theoretically, I could play Crysis in high definition detail on my ipod. There would be no need to get the latest hardware, or constantly updating your console.

Sounds pretty good, but unfortunately it could not work with Second Life as it is currently designed, because there is no way the service could handle all the custom textures. Handling the bandwidth of the streaming video is one thing, handling the bandwidth with the Second Life Servers as well would be a networking mess.

Just because SL will not work in a cloud computing environment does not mean another 3DVW could not.  If models and texture data were hosted on the same physical network as the rendering, it would eliminate the extra bandwidth. The 3DVW would have to work via submissions like There.com does, rather than instant feedback like SL. Building could be done with offline tools, then submitted. Since the whole technology of “Cloud Gaming” is in its infancy, I do not expect to see a 3DVW built with it for at least another 5 years.

Sounds difficult, but that may be the only way to get a usable 3DVW to play in a web browser.

Really, I don’t see the point.

Ya es oficial: Google Lively, la plataforma de mundos virtuales de Google cerrará definitivamente el 31 de Diciembre. Como yo, seremos muchos los miles de homeless electrónicos que nos quedaremos sin nuestras habitaciones virtuales.

Originalmente ideado para competir con SecondLife, Lively.com se caracteriza for su  versatilidad, facilidad de uso y la posibilidad de insertar el código de las habitación virtual en cualquier página web o blog, de la misma forma que YouTube. Desgraciadamente, para los amantes de los mundos virtuales, Lively no podía competir ni de lejos con SecondLife en cuanto a la complejidad de los escenarios virtuales y la equipación de los avatares.

Yo potencié el uso de Lively.com en la institución donde trabajo como plataforma para realizar meeting virtuales y la iniciativa fue muy bien acogida. La ventaja de Lively, además de ser gratuito, es que permitía crear un escenario virtual en muy poco tiempo, y los usuarios maduros, no acostumbrandos a la realidad virtual, encontraban más facil navegar en Lively que en SecondLife.

A no ser que empecemos a desembolsar dólares linden, existe una interesante alternativa por explorar: Vivaty.com. Anunciada como “Virtual Social Network”, que pretende ser como una especie de sinergia de todas las herramientas de redes sociales 2.0 en una plataforma virtual. Lo he provado poco, pero los gráficos y escenarios me parecen más elaborados que Lively. Además Vivaty ofrece add-ons para integrarse con Facebook, Photobucket or Flirck.

Por si acaso, yo ya me he creado una nueva habitación en Vivaty antes de que llege el desalojo.

It’s not unusual to jump into Vivaty and find a few Vivaty employees chatting with folks, or playing the new Eskape Cove shell game, or checking out the latest scenes. But sometimes even we need to get back to work!

We introduced something pretty cool this week so that even when you’re not logged into Vivaty in your web browser, you can still get the latest updates when your friends log in or drop by your scene, so you can then jump in and join them.

Vivaty Message Center

It’s a small little thing that sits at the bottom of your Windows task bar. It’ll fade in a little balloon that tells you when your friends have logged in, sent you a gift, commented on your scene, or when some other cool bit of activity takes place in Vivaty. You can easily customize it, too, to just get the messages you want to receive.

You don’t have to do anything special to get this. We’ll install it automatically when you download the latest version of the Vivaty Player on your next visit (You can always uninstall or disable it if you don’t want it, too).

Eskape Cove Shell Game

Also, the next time you’re online, check out the Shell Game at Eskape Cove. No, it’s not some guy with a wooden box betting you $20 you don’t know which shell the ball is under. Instead it’s a fun game where you race the clock to pick up enough shells in order to bring out your inner hula. Best scores gets an exclusive gift from Vivaty that you can’t get anywhere else! It’s a lot of fun, and is the first in a series of fun games that are on their way, so stay tuned for more!

We’ve seen some great scenes recently. Loved seeing Stephane C.’s scene and Summerdays2106’s scene. We love Papillon Denuit’s scene, too. Finally, I think people can thank xion696 for the results in last week’s elections.

See you soon!

Mark Hull
VP Product Management

Say you’re looking for the perfect place to watch the election results pour in tonight, but your living room seems too lonely, your favorite blog seems too impersonal, and (depending on how the vote goes) your neighborhood bar may break out into a fight.

How about a virtual world space, where you can follow and discuss the tally live with avatars from around the globe? Here’s a handy traveler’s guide for doing just that:

WeeWorld (free reg. required)

For the election, the avatar-based chatroom/social network has released McCain and Obama WeeMee characters, created in its distinct, South Park-esque style, so you can add the Presidential candidate of your choice to your WeeWorld room. (While decking your avatar out in campaign gear, of course.) With a simple “Who else has this” search, WeeWorld users can find others who’ve also added McCain and/or Obama to their room — a good way to find and meet up with like-minded avatars.

Barely Political on Vivaty (Plug-in installation required)

The web-based 3-D scene platform Vivaty recently partnered with Barely Political (the Obama girl people) to create official rooms for the viral video producers.

You can watch BP’s many election videos with other avatars in their loft-style hangout; assuming enough fans show up, a potentially nice place to be during the final outcome.

Second Life (Free reg. and software download required)

Of course, there’s only one virtual world where your avatar can actually look like Obama Girl or Sarah Palin. Linden Lab’s metaverse is teeming with political activity and real world social advocacy groups, so it’s no surprise that election day will be rocking in SL. An unofficial Obama group is 1,500+ members strong, while a McCain group is much smaller (450+ members) but also active. Both will be following election results from their respective headquarters. There’s also a dynamic electoral college map that will be updated through the night at Capitol Island, while Info Island will host a bipartisan blow-out starting at 4pm, with mud-wrestling matches for avatars who want to release pent-up partisanship.

Teleport links to the above locations (launch SL and take you directly to designated spot):
Obama Headquarters
McCain group’s Straight Talk Cafe
Capitol Hill Island
Info Island

With all the dreaded Halloween parties are looming within next few days, I’ve been trying to devise an escape route from attending such gastly events, as I hate the whole unsightly experience. Thankfully though, an idea occured to me – how about having virtual halloween! well, obviously I’m not the only one with the same idea, nevertheless there are quite few virtual worlds party invitations, if you fancy a bit of virtual horror.

The virtual Halloween was started by the residents of Second Life last year, and this year they’re hosting it’s second annual Halloween party filled with fun games and costume trivia, as announced here this morning. The event currently taking place at the GQ Village.

Vivaty, another popular virtual world hosting a Halloween Spooktacular for its residents, with a specially created scene set in a graveyard with fog, tombs and fireflies, so be sure to attend, the party is on till 10pm tonight.

MinyanLand, a virtual world for kids and families, has announced a month long celebration of Halloween with activities like scavenger hunt of spooky collectibles. If you’re a parent then join the fun today or Friday, October 31 7 pm EDT at the Bank neighbourhood.

Hey everyone,

This week’s release brings a lot of new Halloween content!  Come hang out with friends in the Halloween Spooktacular scene… set in a graveyard with fog, tombs, fireflies, and Halloween YouTube videos.  As soon as you jump onto a tombstone, you automatically dance.  Check it out!

Our artists went a little over-the-top with our Halloween costumes too- choose from ram’s horns, devil wings, angel halos, mini-skirts and thigh-high’s, witches hats, pirate hats, and more. What are you in the mood for this year… angel or devil?

Stay tuned for details about our Halloween parties- which will take place in all our Spooktacular Hangouts on 10/25 – 10/26. A great way to meet more users if you haven’t already. Donza and some of our other regulars will be there with bells on.

AIM users- check out our new “docked module” (which is a fancy way of saying, “look at the Vivaty app at the bottom of the AIM client”) – now you can see your gifts and all the top Vivaty hangouts so you can be more selective about where you start your experience.

Last but not least, we’ve launched a Right Click Menu. Right-click means FEWER and BETTER clicks, which we know you are probably excited about.  Right-click on your avatar, an object, or anywhere in a scene to control your experience.  See you in Vivaty!

/heidi

Taking a cue from some of the funky things in life, we’re trying to put more funk in Vivaty these days.  We know that one of the biggest challenges in virtual worlds these days is… “What the heck do I do?”  (We agree, a scene with just you and 4 walls can get pretty lonely)

You’ve already seen us rolling out things like the pet dog, dancing and more avatar outfits.  Now we’re releasing our first batch of Halloween content… we figured, why not start early?

Jack-o-lanterns, screeching cats, a ghost costume that comes in many colors, this is just the start.  Next release we’ll have surprise a Halloween “hangout” that’s more dark than our usual… and more costume goodies (devils and angels, get ready!)

Also kudos to our media buddies at Code & Theory. After playing around with green screening, Dana, Geoff and Mia took the latest Vivaty dance moves and gestures to another level… check our remixes on Thriller,

a tribute to Fred

and a dance mix tribute to all things Internet

We’ve already gotten a request for a Palin spoof, so hold tight for that one…If any of you want to try your hand at Vivaty machinima, let us know and we’ll set you up with our green screen environment. 

There’s a lot of new stuff this week, and we’re also happy to welcome a new product manager, Justin Gibbs.  He’ll be blogging later this week… he’s got a LOT of opinions to share!

Other new stuff this week:

New Gifts: Send a jack-o-lantern, screeching cat, jukebox or our best bottle of champagne (on the house!). Give a pet dog, a doggie bowl, or a doggie mat. Or, just choose your own! Also, you can click on any object in Vivaty and send it to friends!

New Launchpad: We expanded it so you can see who’s online now, check your gifts, or find a place to go

Dress your dog: Check out improvements to our favorite pet dog…mine is named Moxie. Single click for all his animations – panting, tail wagging, barking and more. Double click to Zoom. You can also name your dog! Choose a collar to name your dog Moxie, Kuno, Fido, Zella or Leo. PS, if you have a better name, let us know and we’ll add it!

More guy hairstyles: for the secret rocker or emo in everyone…

 See you in Vivaty!

/heidi 

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! As our US users have noticed (and probably our international ones too), you can’t escape all the election noise right now. So we made a new social scene template called Election Groove- complete with some fun Obama and McCain videos.  I personally like the MadTV stint on the candidates, and of course, Obama Girl is always a classic.

Join us in Election Groove!  http://apps.vivaty.com/meetup.php?t=election

(note: due to a Facebook bug that we’re very annoyed about, you have to be logged in before you click the Join button on this page)

Not really a political buff?  Coming to you right from Bryant Park is our Fashionistas scene! Complete with the latest runway show Flickr photos and plenty of my favorite designer, Diane von Furstenberg, it’s a nice little escape from your daily grind.  We’ve been meeting a few new AIM users in there today. 

Join us in Fashionistas!
http://apps.vivaty.com/meetup.php?t=fashionistas

Enjoy!

/heidi

Hi all,

A lot of hard work has gone into our socialization and interaction features this week so we hope you like them! It’s nice to fix up your personal scene, but then what?  We know you really want to connect with friends and do new things together.  So new this week are dancing, gifting, a new social scene (Eskape Cove), and broader friend settings. Most importantly, Firefox 3 support is here by popular demand! 

i like to move it, move it

Let us know your thoughts- and ping me anytime on Facebook or twitter if you want to meet up in Eskape Cove for some crumpin’ this week.

/heidi

my twirl in vivaty

Firefox: After lots of requests, we got Firefox 3 support out the door so please try it out and let us know if you find any issues. 

Dancing:  Whether you like to raise the roof or crump, dancing is just…fun. Click My Vivaty, then Moods, then Dance. Keystrokes trigger the moves but you’ll also get an idle dancing state.

Gifting: Be one of the first to send or get a gift in Vivaty! Click Share / Gifts and choose something from our gift gallery. We started with a pet dog, fishtank, a surfboard that leaves notes, and a few others.  I just sent a few of you some gifts, hope i get some back.  (ahem)

Eskape Cove: our first themed social scene is here, thanks to our talented artists. Vivaty regulars will have noticed that all the scenes (until now) were based on personal-sized spaces – a back porch, a rooftop garden, a living room, etc. Now we have a bigger scene with a 50-foot windmill, a tented lounge area, a beachfront, and even a shark hiding in the water.  I just met 2 new users and friended them today.  Click Meet to find Eskape Cove and all our other Social Scenes.

Public Scenes: Now you can set broader access settings on your own personal scene or browse those of other Vivaty users on Facebook and AIM.  To choose your settings, click MyVivaty, then Options. If you want to meet new people in your scene, choose Publish to Directory!

Vivaty améliore progressivement sa plate-forme d’espaces virtuels 3D (ou scènes virtuelles sociales). En particulier, depuis hier, les fonctions de personnalisation de l’avatar se sont notablement enrichies, principalement au niveau de la chevelure et de l’habillement.

De plus, chaque avatar peut désormais disposer d’un animal familier. Il s’agit, en l’occurrence, d’un petit chien qui aboie, halète et réagit aux mouvements. Je préfère les chats, mais ce petit chien est vraiment amusant.

Des informations plus détaillées sur ces nouveautés sont disponibles sur le blog de Vivaty.

Hey everyone,

Just a quick request — if you love what we’re doing, vote for Vivaty so we can present at the next South by Southwest Interactive Festival in March in Austin, TX! SxSW is a known hotbed for new interactive businesses and ideas and we want to talk about how the immersive web is pushing boundaries for consumer experiences.  It’s refreshing to see a show that lets the audience decide what they want to hear about so help us out and vote! Voting ends 11:59PM Central time on August 29th.

Thanks again…

/heidi

Se rendre ici. Pour l’instant, je conserve les deux blogs.

Vivaty, an integrated virtual platform for Facebook and other sites, is opening its platform to developers.

Link

new! vivaty social scenes

Hi all,

You’ve been asking to meet more Vivaty users so we built Social Scenes for you!  As of last night, we launched our first templated Social Scenes, with more to come.  Now you can have a Vivaty meet-up 24 hours a day, literally.

Just click on the Meet button at the bottom of your Vivaty Scene and you’ll get to the Social Scenes landing page.  In Facebook you can see a “Social Scenes” link at the top of the screen too.

We’re starting with small groups and we’re already thinking ahead to larger scenes with new themes for you.

What do you think of Social Scenes?  What types of themes do you want next?  How many people per scene feels right?  Leave us a comment or send us feedback at beta@vivaty.com.

We are planning another meet-up inside the Social Scenes so you can test-drive them with us.

When:  Thurs, Aug 7, 1 pm PST
Who:  Everyone with a Vivaty Scene is welcome
Where:  Social Scenes – Click the Meet button to join us

See you soon in Vivaty Social Scenes!

/heidi

A few of you may have met Donza, whose guest blog is below (our first ever!). To find her, visit her scene on Facebook.

More about our new features in the next post…

/heidi

*****************************************************

Greetings Vivaty Junkies!

After inundating the Vivaty team with a constant stream of emails, they finally threw up their virtual hands and said “Why don’t you just blog?” Personally I think it had something to do with the 10-page emails I’ve been sending but maybe not

So although blogging is totally new territory for me – here I am.

I have been totally addicted to 3D since one fateful day in 2002 when I unwittingly installed Adobe Atmosphere beta (I thought it was a Photoshop plugin!) and, like Alice, fell down the rabbit hole to my destiny. From that first day (heck, first nanosecond) I was hooked.

I suddenly found myself in an environment where not only could I move but so could other “things” in the window. Wooahhh! and they were even communicating with me!! I have to confess to asking the ritual first 3D question – “uh, are you REAL??”

Those of us who have been working in 3D have always seen the boundless potential for this 3D medium. What we can’t understand is why don’t other people see it too? Why would anyone want a static webpage when they could have a website where they could hold meetings, teach classes, visit museums, even be whole in a disabled body? Unfortunately 3D has just not yet grabbed enough people who are using it on a daily basis.

But Vivaty is different. I truly believe that plugging it into existing web environments, like Facebook and other easily and widely used applications is just plain brilliant! For anyone who already uses Facebook or AIM it’s just a no-brainer! This may finally be the way that 3D gets introduced to the web world in a big way and I am thrilled to be among the people here at the beginning.

So hang on to your hats Kiddies – it’s going to be a very exciting ride!

Virtually speaking,

Donza

The outlook for metaverses has brightened with two brand new ventures: Lively and Vivaty; http://is.gd/U3O

Om det nu är så att Second Life är ute, kanske dat är idé att kolla de alternativ som dyker upp:
Jag försökte precis Googles testa virtuella tjänst Lively
- som verkar kunna vara Second Life + The Sims x VizIQ:
“Create an avatar and chat with your friends in rooms you design” Kräver Windows Vista/XP och Internet Explorer eller Firefox. Och, ja, det finns ett gäng virtuella biblioteksvärldar.

Eller varför inte Vivaty som funkar med Facebook, min dator var dock för klen – återkommer.