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 a test we did in Blue Mars. It takes the form of a mock film trailer. Blue Mars offers sublime graphics and New Venice, the region where we filmed most of the trailer, looks amazing. If the developers of Blue Mars can implement some decent machinima tools then it has a wonderful potential for making dramatic machimima, which is something Second Life never really achieved to its full potential.
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.
Despite recent speculation about Avatar-Reality‘s fate, it seems that the creators of the virtual world known as Blue Mars are still alive and kicking. Although their latest news release dates from August 2008, they’re expected to be attending Engage! Expo in New York and GDC in San Francisco both in March.
Fonterra have announced that they have received the National Training and Simulation Association’s Modeling and Simulation Cross-Function award. The award recognizes the significant achievements in modeling and simulation innovation by commercial companies.
