Hi, I'm Antonio Barimen, aka skribe Forti. My background is in the film and television industry but about 15 years ago I began building both virtual and online communities. Now I use that experience to provide professional consultation to business, from SMEs right up to Fortune 500 companies.
My philosophy is simple: improve the lines of communication by establishing strong, engaging communities. And then build from there. It works for both B2C and B2B
Gartner recently advised that by 2013 seventy percent of businesses will have guidelines for their staff’s activities within virtual worlds. I’ve just completed a set of behaviour and dress guidelines for a company that has plans to work in Second Life. I’ve adapted them and thought I’d share:
Many of the guidelines that a company currently employs for social networking also apply in virtual worlds. If you need some help in establishing those then here are 40 examples that you can draw upon for inspiration. There are a few issues that are virtual world specific that require special attention, however. Read More
Since the open beta period for Blue Mars began I’ve noticed that some Second Life content creators have been dismissing it out-of-hand. Mostly they claimed that the tools for creating content in Blue Mars were too hard to learn. Many also said that they were not interested in providing content for Blue Mars, and some even inferred that without them to provide the content Blue Mars would wither and die. As I stated in my earlier article, Blue Mars – Being Different, Blue Mars will ultimately be able to draw on a wealth of content, possibly more than Second Life currently does. So if I were generating real world income by providing content in Second Life I would seriously consider taking the time to evaluate Blue Mars as a prospective new market. It makes good business sense, and I can tell you that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands out there, who are eagerly waiting for you to let this opportunity pass you by.
As some of you may know I’ve been spending a great deal of time in Blue Mars. I’ve been mainly providing video tutorials but I’ve also been keeping a close eye on forums and blogs that reference the new virtual world by Avatar Reality. One thing that keeps cropping up is the idea that Blue Mars will fail – or at least struggle – because it doesn’t cater to the Second Life demographic. This is a short-sighted view and fails to take into consideration what attracts people to virtual worlds. In fact, the way in which Blue Mars differentiates itself from Second Life may have a greater bearing on its success than any similarities.
This is our latest machinima commercial. It’s for SkyView Home Rentals which offers luxury homes within Second Life. We used a different technique for lip-syncing which we haven’t released publicly before. It works very effectively and increases our productivity over previous methods. What do you think?
Choosing to use a child avatar in Second Life can be risky. Many people believe that you’re automatically involved in illegal (virtual) sexual activities. You don’t even need to be a child avatar per se either. A friend of mine’s avatar is the same height as her RL self (1.7metres) but because everyone in SL are giant supermodels she looks like a kid. I don’t know if the Second Childhood Network is just a front for illegal activities or not – I hope not – but I love the concept and they’ve made a very cool machinima commercial.
Avatar-Reality have just released the SDK for their virtual world, Blue Mars. They are signing up a limited number of content partners to provide compelling social spaces, entertainment experiences, and creative content. They have also announced an art competition with the aim of rewarding and promoting artists and designers with talent and vision. Each participant receives a 3m x 3m x 3m exhibition space in a shared virtual gallery to display their work.
Back when we had some free time my wife, Nocifer Janus, and I used to wander around Second Life visiting all the art galleries we could find simply because there are some amazing artists in Second Life. Well here’s one that does house calls – kinda. Great stuff.
After having done a video tour showing off the Mellanium Apartment, I wanted to do something similar with the Lenovo eLounge. I’d previously reviewed the eLounge but at the time I didn’t realise I could capture the video content from it. Normally the quality is unacceptable when capturing from a browser, but the web.alive technology works a treat.
