Virtual Worlds and Disruptive Change

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Virtual Worlds and Disruptive Change

• Roland Legrand, Mediafin

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What are VW?

• - persistent
• - multi-user
• - user represented by avatar
• - wide area network 

 
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Many virtual worlds

• - kids and teens (Habbo, Neopets, Club Penguin,
  WeeWorld, Taatu...)
• - professional collaboration (Forterra, SL,
  ActiveWorlds, Qwaq...) 
• - games (WoW, MMORPGs) 
• - open ended worlds, adults, user generated
  (Second Life)
• - mirror worlds and augmented reality (think
  Google Earth, mobile devices)

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Some figures

• - About 40,000/gt80,000 concurrent users in SL
• - More than 400 million hours spent in 2008 (SL)
• - WoW gt 10 million subscriptions 
• - Habbo gt 8 million unique visitors monthly
• - Registered VW users 465 million (2007)???

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Why I took notice disruptive change

• - Economy / Society decentralization,
  globalization, individualization, flexibility,
  barriers of entry, collaboration
• - Social media blogs, forums, wikis, twitter
  (microblogging), sharing of texts, pics and
  videos, presentations... and virtual
  environments 
• - Use cases enterprises, education, networking
  (serendipity, immersion), non-profit
• - Disruptive change newspapers, music, retail,
  services, manufacturing

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Challenges

• - Acceptation 
• - Needed hardware, broadband connection 
• - Firewalls
• - Stability, security, identity verification
• - Property rights

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Benefits

• - cost reduction (travel expenses) 
•  
• - visualization (science, tech, mirror worlds...)
•  
• - creativity and serendipity 
• - networking and immersion
• - Millennials

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Bottomline

• Nicholas Negroponte in Being Digital, 4 qualities
  of the Digital Age 
• - Decentralizing 
•  
• - Globalizing
•  
• - Harmonizing 
•  
• - Empowering
•  

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Reading...

• - http//www.virtualworldsnews.com/
• - http//www.kzero.co.uk/
• - http//virtuallyblind.com/
• - Learning Matters! 
•  
• - Metanomics
• My personal blog
• - http//www.mixedrealities.com

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Oh yes... also watch...

• - Tour of Virtual Worlds 
• - Educational Uses of Second Life 
• - Collaboration Wikitecture

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Contact

• - legrandroland_at_gmail.com
•  
• - Skype roland.legrand
• - Twitter www.twitter.com/rolandlegrand
•  
• - Second Life Olando7 Decosta