Real Opportunities inVirtual Worlds

Pauline Woolleyaka Saffia Widdershins

Pauline and Saffia

• Pauline is a fifty-one year-old virtual world consultant of a certain size

• Saffia is a media executive who exists only in virtual worlds

• Saffia gets the looks and the glamour

• Saffia gets the Google hits too

• Pauline does the work!

What are virtual worlds?

• 3-D Environments

• Persistent

• Massively Multi User

• Resident Built and Textured

• Resident Scripted and Animated

• Resident Owned

Why should we be interested?

Opportunities for:• Fund-raising

• Awareness-raising

• Development projects

• Communication

• Training

Why should we be interested?

Web-based system that allows:

• Group Chat and Instant Messaging 1-2-1

• Streaming audio and video content

• Video Conference potential• 3d modelling in easy format

All for no charge to individuals Not-for-profits can create a

presence for about £80 per month

Fundraising

• Internal fund-raising in Second Life:Relay for Life:Prim Perfect launch

• Fund-raising in Second Life linked with real life:St.Jude’s Hospital

Awareness-raising

• Possibilities exist to create information points and interactive exhibitions in world – and more – such as Camp Darfur

• Events can become a focus for awareness-raising – a recent example has been International AIDS Day

Communication

Virtual Worlds can bring people together

• Without the need for expensive software

• Without the need for complicated packages to learn

• Giving them physical entities to interact with

Training

• Excellent in-world training opportunities

• Many universities exploring the possibilities of SL

• Wide range of web tools available within Second Life

Second Life v. Open Source

• Second Life already established and populated

• Technology established and tested

• Communities and support already in place

Second Life v. Open Source

• Offers a greater opportunity for individual development

• At the moment, largely untried and untested

• A number of key issues still to be determined

But it is the future ...

Some Useful Addresses

• Second Life: secondlife.com/

• Mal Burns, Metaverse commentator: Mal has an invaluable twitterfeed of information about virtual worlds:twitter.com/malburns

• Calaméo: http://en.calameo.com/ - the web book format. Hosts many Second Life amenities.

Contact Details

• Pauline WoolleyVirtual Worlds ConsultantOxmust28 Wolsey Road, Oxford, OX2 7SZTel: +44(0)1865 512286 Email pauline.woolley@oxmust.co.ukWeb: www.oxmust.co.uk Facebook: Pauline WoolleyLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulinewoolley

• Saffia WiddershinsCEO Prim Perfect PublicationsEmail: saffia.widdershins@gmail.com Web-sites: www.primperfect.net & slcn.tv/programs/meta-makeoverBlogs: primperfectblog.wordpress.com/ & metamakeover.wordpress.com/Twitter: twitter.com/PrimPerfect Plurk: www.plurk.com/primperfect Calaméo: http://en.calameo.com/accounts/4234