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MaMachinima International Festival 2010

Saturday Feb. 20th 2010 at MMIF sims (SL) and Planetart, Amsterdam (NL)

The MMIF is a celebration of ‘Machinima’: a new cinematic art form, created with virtual worlds and video games. On 3D Internet platforms like Second Life, any kind of movie set can be built for very low costs. The MMIF aims to bring machinima to a wider audience, online – and offline. Machinima artists from all over the world are present in real time at the virtual MMIF Theatre. They will present over 50 short films and have talks with other machinimatographers and an international audience. Audience in Amsterdam can follow the MMIF event projected live on a big screen at the Planetart Medialab Artspace. MMIF 2010 info, teleport links, promo video, full programme, live streams, contact and latest updates and changes at http://MMIF.org

MMIF 2010 ARTISTS:
Gala Charron – Ogogoro – Lainy Voom – Draxtor Despres – Bryn Oh – Rohan Fermi – Toxic Menges – Tara Yeats – Phaylen Fairchild – Pooky Amsterdam & Russell (Rosco) Boyd – Poid Mahovlich – CodeWarrior Carling – Evie Fairchild – Graham Miami – Kronos Kirkorian – Osprey Therian – Chaffro Schoonmaker – SaveMe Oh – Dulci Parx – Chatnoir Studios – Paisley Beebe – Rysan Fall – Sol Bartz (phil Rice) – Rocksea Renegade – Cisko Vandeverre – Nitwacket (Pyewacket Bellman) – Chantal Harvey – Lowe Runo – Pia Klaar – Al Peretz – Halden Beaumont – Kolor Fall – Binary Quandry – spyVspy Aeon – Animatechnica – Miles Eleventhauer – Lizsolo Mathilde – Delgado Cinquetti – L1aura Loire – Iono Allen – Pyewacket Kazyanenko – Fort Knight – Luca Lisci – Larkworthy Antfarm – Beans Canning – Gtoon Jun – Tutsy Navarathna – Hadji Ling – Colemarie Soleil – Xineohp Guisse – Lorin Tone – Ian Friar – Suzy Yue – Claus Uriza / Emily Hifeng – Meta Lord, and others.

The MMIF is a volunteer-run non-profit collaboration of MaMachinima with Planetart, UrbanResort, Meta.Live.Nu, Pop Art Lab, VMax, Ystreams.TV, Metaworld Broadcasting, MetaMeets, Gallery Fermate, and many volunteers. MMIF 2010 is financed by donations and gifts. Virtual land sponsored by Linden Lab. The MMIF was initiated by the Dutch Film maker Chantal Harvey.

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By dixi – 2010/02/09

Guest lecture by Edward Castronova, June 4th 2010, CBS

Professor Edward Castronova will be visiting the Virtual Worlds Research Project this June and guest lecturing at the Copenhagen Business School June 4th 14:00-16:00 CEST (8:00-10:00 EST).  For those unable to be in Copenhagen, the Virtual Worlds Research Group will be streaming the lecture live here on the Virtual Worlds Research Project blog.

On Magic and Money: The Growing Economic Importance of Virtual Goods

Professor Edward Castronova of Indiana University explores how trade in virtual goods has exploded since 2005. The real and virtual economy has been blurring for the past decade, and the boundary is increasingly hard to find. Are gold pieces in online games real money? If you buy virtual flowers for someone’s Facebook page, is it a real gift? Castronova explores these questions at two levels. First, the social: What has the sale of virtual goods gone up so rapidly? What are the markets saying? Secondly, the psychological: Why do people treat virtual items like real items? The lecture concludes with predictions about virtual business, virtual work, and the real profits to be earned from both over the next decade. Continued…

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By dixi – 2010/02/02

“Avapreneurship Day” at Stockholm School of Economics, the SL island SSE

Last Friday January 29 was the “Avapreneurship Day” when 11 groups of students from Stockholm School of Economics, Master of Marketing and Media Management Studies presented some of their Second Life studies . The students’ studies covered many different Second Life entreprises from virtual footwear to furniture ;-)

The Avapreneurship Day was chaired by Associate Professor Robin Teigland, who teaches the international group of MBA students, and it took place at the Stockholm School of Economics’ SL island SSE MBA.

Recently, Robin Teigland also managed to obtain economic means from the Nordic Innovation Centre to run a network and research project about Virtual Worlds: Nordic Knowledge Network of Virtual Worlds.

Our Virtual Worlds project at Roskilde University is an active partner in the Nordic Knowledge Network; in particular, our project will contribute new knowledge about entrepreneurs, events, and enterprises in the field of Machinima.

Posted in Blog, Machinima, Workshops and Seminars.

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By sisse – 2010/02/01

The Use of Avatars as Personal Mediators, MediaCulture Vol. 47, 2009

My article “Actors and Their Use of Avatars as Personal Mediators – An Empirical Study of Avatar-Based Sense-makings and Communication Practices in the Virtual Worlds of EverQuest and Second Life”  has been published in the journal MediaCulture, Vol. 47, 2009 – Special Issue on Online Worlds as media and communication format

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By sisse – 2010/01/28

Virtual Worlds on facebook?

Gaming virtual worlds are becoming so ubiquitous that they are even appearing in the facebook social networking platform.  What I provide below are some examples of these various social games.  The question I would like to pose to our readers is this: Do these facebook apps qualify to be virtual worlds? And why or why not?

YoVille-OldYoVille:  In the first of what could be classifiable as true virtual worlds, YoVille is produced by app developer Zynga, the most profitable app developer on facebook.  In YoVille you can decorate yourself and your house, buy items, send gifts to friends, visit friends, and play a variety of games. At one time, you could invest in the baking of cakes and cookies, where they could be produced over a certain time and then sold for profit. However, they have since reverted to rewarding bonuses for making an appearance at the Factory.  In the first version, you could get drunk at the nightclub, making your screen go blurry, and you could encounter strangers to make new friends.  In the beginning, the app would be crowded with people.  Since then, you encounter fewer and fewer strangers,  until now when you are only likely to encounter people you have already friended on Facebook.

SmallWorlds14SmallWorlds: SmallWorlds is unique in that the potential true virtual world exists as a separate website: it is an in-browser virtual world that has created an app for users to access their account without leaving the facebook platform. In SmallWorlds, the user has more control over the customization of the avatar than s/he does in YoVille. Also, there is no production scheme integrated into the world; instead, the user gains money and experience by going on missions. As with YoVille, the user is given a house to decorate as a starting base. Consistent in SmallWorlds is the potential to make new friends via strangers; this is especially important as it is not as integrated into facebook as is YoVille, meaning that the friends list of facebook does not inform who one’s friends are in SmallWorlds. Continued…

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By CarrieLynn – 2010/01/27

Project meeting, 19th March 2010

Our next project meeting is coming up, open to anyone interested. The meeting will focus on INNOVATION and will comprise presentations and joint discussions of (1) mobile innovations for virtual worlds, (2) how sociological theory can inform our understanding of innovation, and (3) how innovation is understood and practiced in a Danish case study.

Date and location: Friday, March 19th 2010, 10.30 to 17:00, room 43.3.29, house 43, at Roskilde University -  MAP. The meeting will be followed by dinner at Rådhuskælderen, Roskilde (at your own expense).

Registration due: Tuesday, March 16th to dixi@ruc.dk or Phone +45 4674 3813

1. Virtual Worlds for Mobile Phones – Peder Burgaard, Innovation Lab
The proliferation of smartphones with laptop-like 1 GHz processor, gigabytes of storage, larger screens and mobile broadband has enabled the mobile phone as a virtual worlds platform and natural extension to drive both social and action worlds. The future of virtual worlds for the mobile platform can among others integrate with mobile phone sensors like motion, direction, distance and image to drive new features and formats. The avatar could for example be controlled by phone motion, point of direction or jump according to applied force by the user etc. The presentation highlights three different strategies of current virtual worlds for mobile phones i.e. Stand alone, Extension and Multiplatform, mobile phone technologies. Furthermore, demographics, business models and go-market strategy for each case will be presented.

2. Technical Innovation, New Markets and Sociology – Ursula Plesner, Copenhagen Business School
Ursula Plesner from CBS will present an account of technical innovation informed by Science and Technology Studies. She will address how the technical, the social and the economical are closely intertwined, and how new markets are configured by new innovations. As an empirical example, she will talk about virtual models of cityscapes as innovations in the making.

3. Innovation in practice: Innovation Lab as Case – CarrieLynn Reinhard, Roskilde University
Innovation Labs defines itself as an organization devoted to developing innovative strategies, practices and products for other organizations. When it comes to virtual worlds technologies, they have dual positions as consumers of virtual worlds technologies in order to become potential producers of it. In a series of structured group interviews, we discussed their experiences with innovations in virtual worlds technologies from both of these positions. The resulting discussion led to reflections on agreements and disagreements regarding the nature of innovation in relation to virtual world technologies. The session will also discuss what possibly led to the disagreements, and how such gaps could be potentially bridged.

Program
10:30 Welcome and news, Professor Sisse Siggaard Jensen, Roskilde University
11:30 Virtual Worlds for Mobile Phones, Peder Burgaard, Innovation Lab
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Innovation in practice: Innovation Lab as Case Study, Post Doc CarrieLynn Reinhard, Roskilde University
15:15 Coffee
15:45 Technical Innovation, New Markets and Sociology, Post Doc Ursula Plesner, Copenhagen Business School
16:45 Closing, Sisse Siggaard Jensen
18:00 Dinner, Rådhuskælderen, Fondens Bro 1, Roskilde

Looking forward to your registration and participation!

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By dixi – 2010/01/25