What are the problems regarding virtual worlds on the web? People are getting crazy about virtual worlds. Everybody have every prospect of success being a part of one of the massive social communities (MySpace, Second Life, Facebook, etc.). In virtual worlds nobody knows whether you nerd or smart, ’cause you seem to be clever and pretty cool. It’s really easy to sweet-talk and give baloney to everybody one mixes with.

What are virtual worlds? “A virtual world is a computer-based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars. This habitation usually is represented in the form of two or three-dimensional graphical representations of humanoids (or other graphical or text-based avatars). Some, but not all, virtual worlds allow for multiple users.” (wikipedia)

On the one part, we see the growth of the Internet, and can’t turn a deaf ear to this process of convergence. Folks got into the habit of hacking and talking, watching and uploading their fave videos, partaking in discussions on blogs, forums, etc. On the other hand, we don’t have to forget in what way the internet may have a bad and good influence on humankind.

Virtual Worlds are around the web. You’re already probably a member of Second Life, Active Worlds, Kaneva, vSide, Entropia, Novoking, Ogoglio, etc., and the list can be extended. Such Worlds, let you visit and chat in incredible 3D worlds that are built by other users. Visitors to these online worlds can build themselves digital bodies, move into digital rooms, make friends and hang out with them in three-dimensional play spaces, shop online, explore unique virtual worlds.

According to the 2007 Influence Forum, ICANN CEO Paul Twomey told that virtual worlds are the future of global commerce, advertising, thereby suggesting the world of tomorrow is virtual one. I reckon it’s in our hands to change the world to better and decide the outcome of the world.

According to Stuart Dredge, there are 20 trends defining virtual worlds in 2007 which he compiled after the conference. The blogger supposes his ideas to be subjective but interesting:

• There’s a problem with communication. As a semi-outsider, one thing I noticed is that a lot of virtual worlds people are good at talking to other people within the industry, but struggle more to explain their worlds in language that normal consumers would understand. There’s still a bit too much jargon, and high-falutin’ language that makes virtual worlds sound eminently geeky.
• Is it an online game or a virtual world, or both? One of the most interesting trends highlighted at the conference was the blurring of the boundaries between virtual worlds and online games.
• Advertising is another wild card. Everyone knows that brands are doing Stuff And Things in Second Life and rival worlds, but that’s more branding / marketing than pure advertising.
• Media streaming is more common, but strangely low-profile. Maybe this was the result of this bunch of speakers at this particular conference, but there wasn’t much talk last week about the challenges and opportunities of streaming music and video into virtual worlds.

By the way, players hope to connect their separate domains to form a 3-D Internet, writes Erica Naone talking about Virtual Worlds. Currently users (namely geeks) hang out in 3-D virtual worlds feeling lack of chance to move freely from one world to another. Virtual Worlds should join hands and combine resources to give users what they really need.

“To make the virtual-world experience as rich as possible, developers need to find ways to consistently render objects…” adopting 3-D web standards “someone who has built a car in MTV’s Virtual Pimp My Ride might want to take it into Linden Lab’s Second Life to show it off. In order for the car to remain the same in both worlds, its underlying programming must make sense to both systems.” (via)

All the same we can’t exclude the fact that 3-D Internet may be very dangerous. Virtual crackbrains will never be the same again if they fall into virtual world and couldn’t find a way-out of there. In philosophy we can come across a term “duality”, the state or quality of being two or in two parts. For example, a gamer can’t switch over to a call or fire alarm, therefore he can’t distinguish reality and virtual world.

Take part in our poll “Virtual World for You Is”

Technorati Tags: virtual worlds, second life, videos, movies, media, streaming tv, web television, shows, games, Active Worlds, Kaneva, vSide, Entropia, Novoking, Ogoglio, research, digital media, 3-d reality, myspace, facebook

Video games are a part of our life. The role of video games and their great influence on users set thinking: what kind of future game makers prepare us for? Even today one cannot but agree with the fact that online games and video industry have something in common. Filmmakers shoot films based on games’ plots, and vice versa. Movies can be both good (Resident Evil is a real-world example) and bad (Bloodrayne). Anyway, we should take into consideration interference of these two consuming activities.

The Top 10 Video Games That Should Be Made Into Movies. A video game nerd made up a list of games that (he wants) should be cinematized. And the first place GTA IV ranks (I’m not surprised). What about FEAR, NFS, etc.?

Free games. Believe it or not, but Electronic Arts announced that it’s going to start giving its games away for free. The reason? You see how online video services do? Users prefer to get a free lunch. Competition! “We gave the FIFA disc away free, but, instead of charging people for software, we charged small payments within the game: 5p (10 cents) for injury updates, 10p (20 cents) for a new strip (jersey color/uniform). We found that 10 percent of all Korean households downloaded FIFA online and the consumer paid us more online than they would have done buying the game in a store. “This is a model we’re going to expand internationally…The future is pay-as-you-play, downloads and subscriptions,” said CEO of Electronic Arts John Riccitiello.

Play video games on toilet. It’s a good opportunity to have many irons in the fire like Julius Caesar. You won’t have a tedious time while playing one of your fave games somewhere in the gents.
Games kill? I’m not sure in what way one or another gadget has a bad influence on folks, but according to CNN, a man in China decided to go to an Internet café…and played video games for three days. It’s a great pity.
U.S. Video Game Sales Up 46% in August. Relevant information? Sure thing. The top selling game software title in August was EA’s “Madden NFL 08,” which sold 897,000 units and took the #1 (Xbox 360), #2 (PlayStation 2) and #4 (PlayStation 3) spots.

Does the console performance race actually hurt the industry? Josh Valone suggests some important viewpoints on gamers and games manufacturers. “Manufacturers and publishers profit, developers can take daring risks, and gamers can enjoy cheaper hardware with more diverse libraries. The bleeding edge of technology may be enticing but perhaps it’s the modest advancements that bear the most fruit.”

10 Mario Fun Facts! One of the facts I was surprised is “Mario was named after Mario Segale, the landlord of Nintendo of America’s office, who barged in on a company meeting demanding an overdue rent.” Related videos and the rest 9 facts will satisfy your curiosity.
Online games business to triple in Five Years? According to the market researchers at Strategy Analytics, the video game industry is in the midst of an online revolution. “The rapid growth of the addressable market for digital distribution of both PC and Console games will help clear the way for distribution of mainstream hit titles which has up to now been restricted to the physical retail channel,” commented Martin Olausson, Director of Digital Media Research at Strategy Analytics. Recently another market research firm, Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, said that online games generate more than twice the revenue of offline titles.

The Top 10 Women of Video Games! The rating list is strictly subjective. One can name several times more sex appeal girls that are video games characters. I adore Lara Croft and in my poor opinion she must take first place. Anyway, tastes differ and depend on our personal world outlook.

Tokyo Game Show 2007. The Tokyo Game Show (東京ゲームショウ, Tōkyō Gēmu Shō?, or simply TGS) is a video game expo/convention held in the Makuhari Messe, in Chiba, Japan. Like the Games Convention, and different to from E3, the Tokyo Game Show allows the general public to attend during the final two days. As a result, it has much higher attendance than E3. In 2007, the show will be held from September 20th to the 23rd, with the first two days being business days, whilst on the latter two it will be open to the public.

Technorati Tags: video games, consoles, PS3, playstation, Electronic Arts, video services, free games, xbox, tokyo game show, mario, gamers

It’s true to say that forty years ago this month Ralph Baer (a German-born inventor who fled to America from fascist Germany) and Bill Harrison built and played the first home-video game.

Sure thing videogames turn 40! These prominent figures created the world’s first television video game hardware. Actually, it was on 15 May, 1967, when the first tv video game took place.

Does this mean that this invention made a revolution? There is no doubt that people play. What is a game? It’s a simple way to imitate a real life!

I’ll take ya back like Galaga and AtariI was falling into junk like Pitfall Harry

My Life was game over thats when Christ saved me

so now its bonus round ever since then he changed me

it was scary how my life was run over like frogger

i was down to one life and didn’t have another

but now i’m super like the mario brothers

pulling stunts off like tony hawk pro skater

Video Games Lyrics
by KJ-52

Having said that, it is important to remember that video games are currently everywhere. It’s something common all of us do or tried.

Probably, if you want to play video games, all you need is a monitor. TV sets, PCs, iPods are used in various ways. These gadgets have everything you need to play a game and relax.

Pros and Cons

Movies (TV shows) vs. Video Games

Perhaps the most important point, however, is that movies’ plots sometimes are based on video games, and vice versa.

“The Warriors,” a film-based video game that isn’t a complete waste of your time and money. By the way it happens seldom enough, when you play a film-based game.

Needless to say, films based on video games tend to to carry with them a reputation of being lower budgeted b-movies and rarely receive the appreciation of either critics or the fans of the games on which they are based. Among them are Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, Avalon, Stay Alive, Alone in the dark, Doom. As is often the case when some films are good and others are crappy ones.

And what about TV show “Lost“ as video game?

“Lost is the first television program that owes its soul to video games. Remember the feeling you got the first time you tried a treasure hunt? For fans willing to “game” the show, it’s the same thrill.

Unlike traditionally passive television shows, which expect viewers to zone out in a couch-potato haze, Lost, which returns with new episodes Wednesday night, has embedded clues throughout. It’s these recurring tidbits and the patterns they form that make Lost the first show to resemble a video game”, writes “The Seattle Times”.

Basically, you see that television, interactive video games, and the web can be xcellent sources of education and entertainment for all ages, young and old alike. Of course, too much plugged-in time can have unhealthy side effects.

Technorati Tags: video games, tv shows, television, lost, movies, webtv, online video games, films, addiction, tv sets, ipods

Frankly speaking, when I run across ViewDo.com, another useful service came back to me. I’m talking about 5min.com, the first online videopedia. I wish these sites would become really nifty and fave for the audience.

I don’t know for sure which content is catered for you, however, there are lots of DoPartments to begin. Various content (pets, education, music, sports, outdoors, etc.) bepuzzles. It depends on your own effort and motivation what to explore first.

ViewDo.com will help you to do either a backflip or wallflip! Just try not to wring your neck. What else? Want to learn how how to approach women successfully? Get to know more on the site. ViewDo aims to help anybody do anything by means of video instrictions.

What is more, they have an RSS feed, thus you can keep an eye on their latest additions. Don’t fritter your time away on useless stuff, call in here, check it out!

They say: “Welcome to ViewDo, your one stop shop for know-how on the go now. What is ViewDo you ask? It’s the free online “how-to” video library you’ve been waiting for. When the written word won’t suffice, and a picture can’t quite get the point across either, a ViewDo gives you the detail and perspective you need to get the job done. What’s more, you can — and should, download ViewDos to your portable media player like the iPod(r), Play Station Portable(r), or many new media rich cell phones and watch it while you’re doing it! Hence the name, View->Do. Bet you wish you thought of it first! Expand your media player beyond its role as an entertainment device and turn it into a useful tool. It may just be the justification you need in talking your significant other into letting you buy one!”

Technorati Tags: videopedia, 5min.com, video library, viewdo.com, video instruction, videos, ipod, rss feed

Put off doing your work. This stuff will be useful for you if you are parents or if your nephews or/and nieces got into hot water. Don’t be so serious, just pay attention to what kids do!

Apparently, teenagers watch too much online videos and webTV, play video games. It’s a sure thing! How to reduce their time of sitting before a computer or TV set and do less harm to children by putting a ban on these consuming activities?

There is a wayout. Ticket system will help to solve these problems. Your kids will be in charge of monitoring their own screen time. You give them tickets to have an access to TV.
In my poor opinion, it’s true to say about a new system of commerce. Teens are to decide when to spend their time watching videos or play video games.

In conclusion, I would say this means will make your children self-dependent in some way. Today is the Mother’s Day and I congratulate heartily all mothers.

[via]

Technorati Tags: tv, game, videos, ticket system, teens, teenagers, webtv, online video