Today we continue our series of interviews with some virtual world experts filmed during the Roskilde Virtual Worlds Workshop in June by Serdar Temiz of NVWN. Today please listen to 1) Thomas Kohler, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Hawaii Pacific University who studies the use of virtual worlds for open innovation/co-creation and 2) Carrilynn Reinhard, Post-Doc Researcher at Roskilde University who is interested in new approaches to media reception studies and dialogue communication studies, with a focus on the ways in with interactive digital media are or can be involved in either. Carrielynn is part of the Virtual Worlds Research Project at Roskilde University.

Thomas Kohler – Trends in Virtual Worlds
Uploaded by NORDICWORLDS. – Technology reviews and science news videos.

Carrilynn Reinhard – Trends in Virtual Worlds
Uploaded by NORDICWORLDS. – Technology reviews and science news videos.

CCP are soon launching an addition to their game EVE online and there are lots of people working on designing the clothing for that. This is all very hush-hush but there is a sample on Youtube of what they are doing, and this is the best I have seen so far in terms of rendering and design. I can almost tell what kind of fabric is in those garments. They are true to their aesthetics which is darkworld/goth but that is a style that for some reason works very well in virtual worlds.

This looks so much better than the stuff they are doing in the Fashion research institute which you can see here:

I find what they are doing at the FRI very naïve and there is lacking some understanding of the fashion industry.

In general those clothing labels that are sold in SL are amateurish designed.

What is unattractive for me as a designer to work designing virtual clothing and sell them in a virtual world is that all systems are lacking, such as retailers and the wholesale market. It is mostly designers selling their creations in one place and for not so much money. Even though the turnover overall is not so bad I think that one company cannot earn enough money to make good revenues. It is hard to imagine that a virtual label can become a valuable one long term.

The fashion industry in SL is more like a game or a craft market.

I do think that a virtual good/clothing can become very valuable items and possibly  collector’s items. For that to happen then the design has to be of quality and groundbreaking and a personal work of an artist/designer with a serious vision and career, and it has to be in connection with what is happening in the industry outside of the VW.

For a talented and ambitious designer to want to work with virtual goods then the product has to be valuable and important in and outside of the Virtual World it is created in.

I have been looking for designers and artists that are doing quality things with virtual goods/worlds. Miltos Manetas is a greek artist that created an artpiece called ipollock.com that was later sold to a major collector. You can see it here http://www.ipollock.com. Click on a canvas to start.

This is an important art piece that was sold for a lot of money and will be valuable long term.

A lot of big fashion companies have done things in SL such as American apparel, they have a store and HM that did this design competition in SIMS 2. This is only marketing and it works well as such. If the aim of this design competition of HM was to get a lot of ideas from the public then they would not have done it in a VW.

I was wondering whether there were other virtual world economies similar to Second Life and Entropia Universe/Planet Calypso where the VW platform provider supports the trading by individuals of their virtual currency for RL currency through the virtual world itself. So far I have not found any, but I did find that First Meta Exchange supports the trading of virtual currencies for USD and EUR for the VWs of Toribash, IMVU, Frenzoo, FriendsHangout, and SL. It was unclear as to how active this site is though; the latest news and announcement on FMX was from September 2009.

Here are links to some reports/research/websites on virtual goods, virtual economies, and avapreneurs that I found during my searching:

• AVEA: Advanced Virtual Economy Applications Project Report
• Virtual Consumption, a PhD thesis
• JVWR issue on virtual economies, goods, and service delivery
• Virtual Economy Research Network
• Virtual Goods Forum in June 2010
• Social Gold virtual economy platform
• Gaming for Profits: Real Money from Virtual Worlds in Scientific American
• Real Economist Learns from Virtual World in Wall Street Journal
• The World’s Most Expensive Island — Online in Forbes
• Top Architecture Journal Lists Second Life Avatar among World’s Noteworthy Architects

Please feel free to comment and add more interesting links here!

Call for Participation and Proposals

4th Annual Workshop on Learning and Research in Second Life at Internet Research 11.0 Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden, Wednesday Oct 20, 2010 and in Second Life

DESCRIPTION
The 4th annual workshop on Learning and Research in Second Life aims to improve the understanding of Second Life as a Learning and Research environment by inviting researchers and educators to share experiences, discuss and develop research and education in and about Second Life and virtual worlds. This year the workshop invites discussion on the aspects of the main conference topics of sustainability, participation and action in addition to other current issues of research and education in Second Life. The workshop will consist of networking, group work and short keynote presentations.

ORGANIZERS
Kim Holmberg (Åbo Akademi University, Finland) Ph.D. (Kim Zwiers in SL)
Isto Huvila (Uppsala University, Sweden and AVO-project at Åbo Akademi University, Finland) Ph.D. (Ab Marvin in SL)
Professor Terry Beaubois (Montana State University, US) Director, Creative Research Lab (Tab Scott in SL)

FEES & LOGISTICS
Date: Wednesday, October 20, 2010.
Time: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Location: Chalmers student union building, room TBA and in Second Life.
Fee: 330 SEK (~35 EUR) for onsite participation.
Lunch and coffee included.

SUBMISSION & PARTICIPATION
To apply to the workshop, you are expected to send your CV and a short Letter of interest (1 page) describing your interest and experience in Second Life and virtual worlds, and topic(s) and/or questions you would especially like to discuss during the workshop. Indicate clearly in your application whether you intend to participate in Gothenburg or via Second Life. Submissions are open from this date onwards and should be sent as soon as possible by email to isto.huvila(a)abm.uu.se . Invitations will be sent to selected applicants starting from 15 August, 2010. The final deadline for applications is September 15, 2010 or when 35 invitations have been sent.

Applicants from organizations that require an accepted refereed paper to participate in the workshop, may submit a full paper that will be formally peer-reviewed on request.

Submissions are encouraged from professionals, faculty and graduates.

CONTACT
Isto Huvila, isto.huvila(a)abm.uu.se or by IM (Ab Marvin) in SL.

More information on the conference at http://ir11.aoir.org