This sort of technology is not only awesome it’s based on Open Source software. Definitely full of WIN.

Mellanium have also been working with the web.alive guys and the video above shows me wandering around their proof of concept – an apartment block. It was filmed entirely within the web.alive enviroment – yes, that means it was shot using my browser and FRAPs. FRAPs isn’t supposed to be able to do that but it can with web.alive.

I found it a little laggy and I tended to spurt forward every now and again, but in general it was a pleasant experience. The Apartment model is fantastic with great textures. It really heralds a potential new yardstick for modelling in virtual worlds. Especially given that it only took 15minutes to import it in world. Truly amazing stuff.

Enjoy the video. Apologies for the ‘almost subliminal’ title. Both blip and youtube gobbled it during conversion.

The financial crisis is likely to hit the fine dining industry very hard. Already there have been reports of exclusive London restaurants slashing their prices in order to maintain a steady flow of clientele and therefore subsequent cashflow. Competing on price, however, is never a wise, or usually profitable, strategy, so dining establishments need to look for alternate ways to bring in the customers. One easy way is to develop a social media strategy to connect with your customers and create a community of regular diners.

While every restaurant should develop their own strategy in order to connect with their key demographic the ideas I put forward here should offer you an insight into how to go about it. The tools I’ll be using to implement the strategy are easy to learn and use. In fact you may already be using them, but not necessarily in the most advantageous way. Also the tools are either free or cheap so you should see a good return on your investment (ROI) in a relatively short period of time.

The core of the strategy is to open the lines of communication both from you to the customer and from them to you. This allows you to inform them about what you offer as well as allowing them to offer feedback about what you’re doing well and what you can improve upon. This later part essentially allows you to use your customers as a free, perpetual, up-to-the-moment focus group. Once you’ve opened up the lines of communication there’s then an opportunity there to create a community, which brings benefits like brand loyalty, reliable and trusted feedback and word-of-mouth marketing.

The Corporate Web

If your restaurant doesn’t already have its own website get one. Now! Just as it was once a necessity to advertise in the Yellow Pages it is now a necessity to have a website. Your website is the most likely second point of contact with a new customer. Whether it be as a result of a review, a recommendation or even a click-thru from a restaurant aggregator. Without a web site you’re missing out on a valuable marketing tool that requires little set-up and maintenance cost.

Even if you already have a website established you may be underutilising it as a marketing resource. Too many websites are like advertising billboards strewn along the information superhighway. Once you’ve seen them they’re quickly forgotten and there’s really no reason to return. Your website needs to move beyond being a static billboard to become a dynamic portal for you to provide updates and to generate feedback. I won’t go into any the technical details but you need to be using a good content management system (CMS). A CMS allows you to easily add or remove information to/from your website without needing to know how to code. Talk to your web professional about which one is the best for you.

In order to encourage visitors to return you need to offer good content that is regularly updated. For restaurants one way is to have your chefs develop a recipe of the week and then post that on your website. This can be part of their experimentation and development process. Then by adding the recipe to your weekly specials you can encourage visitors to try it at home and then compare it to your version at the restaurant. By allowing visitors to leave comments on the recipes you also open up a dialogue and get immediate feedback about what works and what needs further work.

Something else you might care to try is establishing a regular event – maybe once per month – in which you offer a range of different foods from your ordinary fare or a special theme. You can then post details of the event up on your website beforehand. Afterwards you can post an event report including what happened, how many people were there and possibly any interesting – but tasteful – anecdotes. Allow users to comment on the report and you not only get immediate feedback about the event, but you also begin generating a sense of community especially if they’re featured in the anecdote or the photos. I do urge you to err on the side of caution with anecdotes and photos though. What may be fun on the night may be embarrassing in the cold light of morning. Manage the risk and cater to your own particular clientele.

All a Twitter

You can also use social media networks to perpetuate your new community . You could for instance establish a Facebook group or a MySpace page. Of course if your particular clientele are unlikely to be using those services then it would be a waste of time doing so, so you need to find out where your demographic ‘hangs out in cyberspace’ and target that.

One social networking tool that has explosive growth in the 18-49 age range is Twitter. Twitter is a microblogging tool that offers you another way to connect with potential customers and further establish your community. And all you have to do is have conversations. For further details on what Twitter is check out our previous article. There are already several restaurants using Twitter to engage diners online so you’ll be in good company.

There are good ways and bad ways to use Twitter. The good ways will get you a thriving community of friends and loyal followers. The bad ways will get you ostracised and ridiculed. Here are some guidelines to using Twitter for the best ROI:

• Be real. Be yourself. Establish your restaurant’s Twitter account as a person not a faceless organisation. By all means use your restaurant’s name in your Twitter name, but make sure that the people that read your bio know that you’re the owner, the chef etc.
• Twitter is global. Restaurants are local. You’ll see a better return if you follow people using twitter in your local area. Services like Twitter Grader allow you to find who the top Twitter users are in your area. Check them out. Start by following 20 or so and over time build from there. TwellowHood also allows you to find Twitter users in your area but is only currently available in the US and Canada. You can also find interesting people by checking out who others follow. Include your Twitter on your website and encourage visitors to follow you.
• Don’t broadcast. There’s a temptation to boldly tell everyone in Twitter who you are, what you do and what a great place your restaurant is. Don’t. The best way to engage people is to listen to them. Where you can answer other people’s questions, make light and friendly conversation and maybe solve a problem or two. Only once you’ve established a relationship with your followers – because inevitably if you’re friendly people will want to follow you too – then you can mention that you’re having an event and link to that event on your website. If people ask for more details then indulge their curiosity. After the event post pics – remember be tasteful and always professional – using a service like Twitpic.
• Be an expert. Seek an expert. Look out for opportunities where you can use your expertise to help someone. If you’re a chef you can offer cooking advice. If you’re an owner then maybe help another small business owner with a thorny issue. Don’t be afraid to ask your own questions or seek your own help either. Twitter is full of people from a wide range of backgrounds and they generally love to help others.
• Keep an eye on your brand and your industry. Twitter allows searches to be converted to rss feeds which can then be piped, filtered and ready to be read in your rss reader. For instance set up a search for your restaurant’s name and every time someone mentions it that tweet will show up in your reader. That way you can respond. You can also set up searches for keywords in your industry or keep on the look-out for catering opportunities in your area.

And all this is just the tip of the iceberg. Once you’re established you can find other ways to engage your customers and establish long-lasting relationships with them. Tools like YouTube and Flickr, as well as other feedback facilities like Google Alerts and social calendars like Upcoming offer you a wide number of options to expand and focus your social media marketing activities. Don’t be afraid to experiment and try new techniques and tools as they become available. While you should always ensure that the technology works for you it’s important to remember that it’s people that really count.

Following in the footsteps of Nokia Friendview, Google has decided to delve into the world of location-based mobile social networking. Google Latitude is a free addon service to Google Maps Mobile that allows users to add friends and share current location and status updates with them. Of course this requires that the user have a GPS enabled mobile phone.

One of the fears of location-based services is the lack of privacy. Google Latitude allows users to control who has access to what information including the ability to hide or share only a city-level location.

If mobile-based social networking is likely to take off then this is the service that will initiate it. Most people who use mobile maps services are well familiar with Google Maps. It has already become an invaluable tool so adapting its use to social networking is really a no-brainer especially when you can invite your entire Gmail contacts list to join you. That’s something that Friendview really failed at.

Over the last few years business has shown a great interest in using virtual worlds for enterprise. Everything from seminars and conferences to virtual trade shows and retail. However, after an initial flurry of activity many soon abandon them. For some the required learning curve is too high to be an effective tool. For others the return on investment is not high enough. Whatever the reasons, no virtual environment seems to have really delivered what enterprise needs for its mass adoption. That may be about to change.

e-lounge's Entry Page

Yesterday I toured Lenovo’s eLounge. eLounge is the beta test for Nortel’s web.alive project chainsaw which is based upon the Unreal engine. web.alive is a multi-featured true-3d virtual environment offering cutomisable avatars, voice communications, security privileges and inworld item interaction. Unlike most virtual environments however web.alive runs in a web browser. It still requires a software download to run, but currently the initial plug-in is only a few hundred kilobytes (yes, kilobytes not megabytes =). That said, there is a delay as you first visit as the plug-in downloads all the required objects and textures but we’re talking only a few minutes here. Subsequent visits access much faster.

The graphics are detailed and richly colourful. The controls are devilishly simple. Anyone that has used a first-person shooter like Doom can easily master using either the arrow keys or W-S keys to move forward and backward and the mouse to look around and change direction. You can use the s and d keys to strafe but unfortunately the arrow keys (my preferred option) don’t allow you to. The voice communications are clear and offer seminar speakers the ability to throw their voice to everyone in the room. Voice also doesn’t travel very far so its possible to have a conversation with those in the same area without disturbing others (or the speaker). It’s also possible to restrict voice communications to only those within a certain room or area thus allowing confidential meetings.

Interacting with inworld objects is also simple but suffcient. A series of red balls allows you to manipulate objects and proximity sensors allow additional information to be delivered directly into the browser. Speakers also have access to presentation and video delivery utilities. Security privileges prevent those not delivering presentations from accessing the stage or the presentation area of a meeting.

The avatars are sufficiently detailed and customisable. There’s even the ability to import a photo from various online sources like Flickr or Facebook and have that used for your avatars face. However my attempts at doing this failed. The sound is delivered in stereo and spatially aware, so you can tell from which direction a speaker is addressing you. There’s also a visual cue in the form of an arrow directing you towards the speaker should you not be using a stereo headset. My headset worked straight away without any additional configuration whatsoever.

While eLounge is free to visit I don’t currently have any pricing information for the web.alive technology. I have been told that pricing is based on a peak capacity lease spread over twelve months. I’m very impressed with web.alive and the Lenovo eLounge. The use of the unreal engine and delivering the content to a web browser is a stroke of brilliance. As my tour guide, Chris Hardy, said, the gaming industry has spent years working out how to deliver graphics and sound across the net. Why not use that? Presuming that the price is right and it scales effectively, the small learning curve and the platform’s focused capabilities make this something I really believe is a must-have tool for business.

I was planning to bring you a video review of Twinity but unfortunately a series of technical issues have resulted in us being able to do so. Hopefully the issues will sorted soon and we’ll be able to show you this cool new virtual world and social media platform.

UPDATE: The review is available here.

Download the client and add me as a friend: my username is skribe.

Designers and builders featured here range from artist Toast Bard, the eclectic Nylon Pinkney, freebies goldmine Forseti Svarog, builder Ingrid Ingersoll, and the operatic House of Lu.

And then there’s the sim itself.

Tableau is like some fabulous midnight psychedelic fantasy of New Orleans – a little bit blue bayou, a little bit decayed Victorian splendour, a little bit glow-in-the-dark funky.

There is a chill out park watched over by its patron saint, St Ingrid the Flatulent. There’s the neon graveyard with its neon tombs and fairy party lights. There’s the haunted house with the pirouetting furniture. There’s the crashed plane you can go have a private dip in. There’s the nightclub inside a giant crocodile on the hill.

In short, Tableau is a fine example of what good designers can achieve with a little imagination, vision, and humour. They have created a vivid little sim that not only showcases their builds, but creates a terrific thematic setting for their shops, and is also an enjoyable place to visit just for itself.

Come to Tableau for the shopping. Stay for the fluorescent nightlife.

Hmm, pirates, castles, and mystical elvish ruins. It’s not Tahiti as I know it, but you gotta go with your Foo.

So the builds are scaled somewhat on the big side, and there’s a tendency to vast empty rooms. Or little empty rooms. (I eventually found a scripted object in the inn that you could actually play with, but that was a case of the exception that proves the rule.)

And all the people I thought were there role-playing turned out to be just a bunch of bots.

At first glance, Liquid Heat seems pretty enough. Even if you’re not into pirates and elves. As the signs proclaim, there’s lots to do. Take a balloon tour of the island! (my balloon got stuck in a building, but never mind). Get romantic by the waterfall! (by myself? Pass). Take a ride in the Elvinator! (Just call it a lift, guys). Buy our stuff! (Ah-ha!)

Liquid Heat, you see, is a showcase sim. But, you say, what sim isn’t?

However, the purpose of this sim is to make money. Everything is either for sale as a ready made kit, or a demo of a custom build. Only problem is, there’s nothing here you haven’t already seen elsewhere and done better. As a showroom, it’s nothing outstanding. As a sim, it’s dull. There’s nothing to do, unless you enjoy pretending to make out with yourself, or watching bot actors run back and forth.

Activities, such as they are, are all passive. Sit here, admire that, look at this, look at that. Good sim building is as much about designing an experience as it is designing structures. If I wasn’t writing up this sim, I wouldn’t have returned.

But if you like pretty (and unimaginative) builds, then I have terrific news for you, because Liquid Heat has a 3-tier Affiliates program! From $L0 to $L10000, you can buy into the Liquid Heat Franchise and earn up to a whopping 50% commission from sales and demos of Liquid Heat products such as the Aztec Cave Kit or the Giant Tree Kit!

Imagine, a strip mall of identical Liquid Heat castles in the metaverse!

Quick! Get your Liquid Heat Starter Franchise Kit here!