Posts from the ‘virtual worlds’ Category
This past Saturday I participated on a panel at Harvard Business School’s Cyberposium Conference. The panel was on Virtual Worlds and Online Games — itself enough of a draw for me. But we were all in for a treat: Curt Schilling, who in addition to helping the Red Sox win the World Series (have I mentioned that on this blog before?) is running an MMO startup called 38 Studios, was also on the panel. Needless to say, it was fun…Although my kids are furious with me for not getting Curt’s autograph.
Hunh?
It’s been a fun week bouncing between LA and San Fran as the wife and kids are camped out at the in-laws in Southern California.
At about 4 am Friday morning I was shaken awake — literally — as a 4.5 Richter Scale Earthquake rattled my hotel in downtown San Francisco. I am told this is a pretty standard thing in San Francisco, but personally I didn’t think it was very cool.
Thursday and Friday were “virtual world” days for myself, my partner Steve Arnold and our summer associate Vikram Goel as we met with a handful of the smartest online game/virtual world folks around. We continue to think the intersection of social media, online games and virtual worlds is a fascinating topic and an area that will see lots of opportunity.
One of our meetings was with Sean Ryan, CEO of Meez. Kudos to Sean: when we arrived at his office Sean offered us an unusually broad array of drink options, including beer from the kegerator he keeps in the Meez kitchen. I think this was a first for me (I took him up on the beer offer — several times…).
On Wednesday I had a lunch meeting with WCSN CEO Claude Ruibal. We were scheduled to meet at Claude’s Beach Club in Santa Monica. Must be nice, hunh? When Claude phoned to say he was running late I threw on some shorts and took a dip in the ocean. I think I could get used to the notion of “working” in Southern California.
Today is Wordcamp. I’ll be going native, hanging out with the hardcore WordPressies for a day. Stay tuned as I blog this exciting event …
Last September I wrote about something which has intrigued me for quite a while — the notion of a virtual world as a “third place.”
Michael Arrington just wrote on MyMiniLife, which a great example of what I was thinking about then.
I am going to try reaching out to these guys and see what I can learn.
Will let you know what I find out.
Addendum: also check out this NYT article on the new Barbie-world.
I’ve spent a fair bit of time over the last 18 months exploring both the in game advertising space (Massive, IGA, DoubleFusion, AdScape) and the virtual world/MMO space (my portfolio company Turbine Entertainment).
Evidently so has Google. They just acquired in game advertising firm AdScape.
And, reports are bubbling around out there that Google is working on creating a “virtual Google Earth.”
Pretty interesting stuff. As I’ve posted before, there is a pretty clear trend line where online communities/expression and 3D avatars/virtual worlds seem to be colliding. Second Life is, I think, a harbinger of things to come. As with most emerging trends, it probably will take longer than most of us imagine, but I’ll put a stake in the ground to say this is one of the big opportunties over the next few years…
This was the first year in a long time that I didn’t make the pilgrimage to the Consumer Electronics Show this past week in Vegas.
I hate Las Vegas, particularly when the throngs are there for this show.
And, it now dawns on me that, with all the bloggers covering the show, I am not sure I really missed much…
Amongst all of the hullabaloo about the iPhone — I am sure I will buy one in a couple years — the thing that actually most intrigued me was Les Moonves’s announcement that CBS is creating a Star Wars world in Second Life.
As I have previously posted, I continue to believe that the looming intersection between virtual worlds and social networking is a fascinating, and potentially quite rewarding, opportunity.
VCMike's Blog 