Seems all the social sites are taking a queue from virtual worlds and letting users buy and sell virtual goods (e.g., virtual clothes, furnishings, holiday stuff, even hair-dos). Now Ning.com, the site that lets users create their own social networks, is letting them create their own virtual gifts, "bringing a built-in virtual goods store to the site’s 1.6 million networks," TechCrunch reports. … [Read more...] about Ning adds virtual gifts
virtual worlds
Virtual Halloween, real fun
Curious about how Halloween is celebrated virtually? WeeWorld.com's some 30 million WeeMees (registered users), who take the holiday pretty seriously, offer some examples. WeeWorld says that about 60% of all virtual goods purchased and "the vast majority of the gifts being given" in-world this month are Halloween-related (market researcher In-Stat predicts the total revenue in virtual worlds – … [Read more...] about Virtual Halloween, real fun
Virtual world shakeout?
That's what MediaWeek says, but it's referring to those associated with traditional media, such as MTV's virtual worlds tied to "the hit series Laguna Beach and The Hills." It adds that "the CW quietly shut down its two-year-old Gossip Girl-themed virtual world a few months ago." But Club Penguin, Stardoll, and Gaia Online seem to be unaffected. MediaWeek points to an interesting question from a … [Read more...] about Virtual world shakeout?
‘Red-light district’ makes virtual world safer
San Francisco-based Linden Lab, which runs Second Life, has sequestered adult content and activity in the virtual world onto a new continent called "Zindra." Residents of the virtual world have to verify that they're adults before they can search for anything on Zindra or go there (here's the page that explains how the age verification process works). The entire "world" is now classified as either … [Read more...] about ‘Red-light district’ makes virtual world safer
Thin avatar, thinner self?
Virtual world "residents" and their parents know what avatars are: An in-world representative of you. In Second Life, though some users have more than one avatar, most avatars are quite human-looking versions of users. It depends on the world quite a bit. In ClubPenguin, they're, well, penguins. In a lot of kids' virtual worlds, the avatars are cartoon-y humans with big eyes and heads. In … [Read more...] about Thin avatar, thinner self?