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Press Release: ON24 Survey Shows Dramatic Preference for Webcasts With Increased Interactivity and Social Networking Next-Generation Platform Enables Greater User Control, New Applications SAN FRANCISCO, CA –  ON24, the global leader in webcasting and virtual event solutions, announced today the results of its recent survey of webcast attendees participating inRead More →

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Press Release: Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Support to be Introduced in ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere LANSDALE, Pa. — ProtonMedia today announced that its ProtoSphere virtual immersive environment for the high-performance workplace will support the new Microsoft Lync Server 2010 (formerly known as Microsoft Office Communication Server). By incorporating ProtoSphere into their MicrosoftRead More →

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Press Release: Unicruit Partners with the Big East Virtual Career Fair, Combines Expertise to Deliver 3D Virtual Career Fair on November 10, 2010 Revolutionary approach to recruiting college students and alumni that brings the career fair to the employer and job seeker Chicago, IL — UBM Studios’ Unicruit today announcesRead More →

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The adult-themed Utherverse virtual world platform is in discussions with former developers of the controversial Emerald Viewer for Second Life, the company announced. Prior to recent scandals involving an alleged distributed denial of service attack, privacy violations, and a Second Life ban this Wednesday, the Emerald viewer was primarily knownRead More →

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Press Release: Daden Announce Series of Emerging Technology Seminars Virtual world solution specialists Daden Limited announce the inaugural dates for a programme of half day seminars on emerging technologies. The seminars are designed to help businesses develop a greater understanding of how virtual worlds and chatbots can be used withinRead More →

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Press Release: Unisfair Hosts “The Virtual Classroom: Effective Training on a Virtual Platform” Showcase Event on Sept. 9 Experts from ASTD and The eLearning Guild Outline How to Effectively Train Key Audiences While Significantly Reducing Cost per Attendee Menlo Park, CA — Unisfair, the leading provider of virtual events andRead More →

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Press Release: Unisfair launches virtual training environment Shown to reduce costs by up to 95% Companies like IBM, Intuit, Novartis and ACS Are Leveraging the Unisfair Virtual Classroom to Easily and Cost-Effectively Train Customers, Partners and Employees Menlo Park, CA – On September 15, Unisfair, the leading provider of virtualRead More →

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Press Release: ON24 Special Edition Features Real-World Examples and Best Practices SAN FRANCISCO, CA –  Demand for virtual events is growing so rapidly that everyone needs to know what virtual solution would be right for their company. That is the premise underlying the new “Virtual Events For Dummies,” ON24 SpecialRead More →

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Press Release: Teleplace Enterprise Fall ’10 Adds SharePoint Support, Enterprise-Class Enhancements Commercial, Government Customers Benefit From Enhanced Collaboration, Security, Scalability, Manageability REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – Teleplace, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise-class immersive learning and collaboration solutions, today announced the immediate availability of Teleplace Enterprise Fall 2010. Teleplace Enterprise isRead More →

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Press Release: UBM Studios Expands its Virtual Recruitment Fairs with the Acquisition of Astound LLC Adds Fortune 500 Clients to UBM Studios’ Customer Roster Chicago – Building on its track record of producing successful virtual recruitment fairs, UBM Studios today announced it has acquired Astound LLC, the creator of MilicruitRead More →

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Correction: Coral Estate regions start at $20, not $10. OpenSim hosting prices have fallen to a record-low, with providers like New Voice offering regions for just $10 per month — though the performance of such low-cost regions may be in doubt. New Voice on the map If you’ve glanced atRead More →

(Image courtesy Intel.)

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Press Release: Intel and Nokia Create First Joint Laboratory: New University Research Center will Lead to New User Interfaces and Experiences Intel Corporation, Nokia and the University of Oulu have announced the establishment of their first joint research center. One of the first objectives of the new lab is toRead More →

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Update: “As Philip has mentioned, Linden Lab has discontinued the Second Life Enterprise development program,” Adam Nelson, Linden Lab’s Executive Director of Monetization, told Hypergrid Business. “We will continue to honor our beta customer commitments and contracts, but will not be accepting new customers for the beta product. Second LifeRead More →

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Running a successful virtual event takes face-to-face contact on the part of the team running the event, said InXpo product marketing director Dennis Shiao, in a recently-released report about virtual event best practices. Shiao, who is also a regular contributor to Hypergrid Business, admits that this sounds ironic. But, “there’sRead More →

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Press Release: Teleplace Appoints Anthony Nemelka CEO, Initiates Next Phase With Solutions for Enterprise Learning and Collaboration New Financing Round Will Fuel Enterprise-Class Solution Development, Securing Company Leadership in Immersive Business Applications REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – Teleplace , Inc. today announced that Anthony Nemelka has joined as president and chiefRead More →

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CyberCoinBank’s G$ is taking an early lead over the OMC multi-grid currency from Virwox. Although G$ is only accepted on 8 grids, compared to 14 grids for OMC, there is over 63 million G$ (US $210,000) in circulation, compared to just 302,037 OMC (US $1,045). There are several reasons forRead More →

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Press Release: Computer and Video Game Degree Programs Continue to Grow at Colleges and Universities Across the U.S. A Record 300 Institutions Offer Degrees in Game Design, Development and Programming WASHINGTON, DC –300 American colleges, universities, art and trade schools will offer degrees in video game design, development, programming andRead More →

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Press Release: Free Online Seminar in 3D: How to Make Your Online Meetings More Engaging and Productive According to a recent Gallup study, disengaged workers cost US companies over $325 billion each year in lost productivity. Fully engaged workers and learners demonstrate an energy, creativity and level of interaction thatRead More →

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The top 40 public OpenSim grids resumed their breakneck growth pace this month, gaining a total of 1,139 regions and crossing back over the 10,000 mark with a total land area of 10,427 regions. This was a growth of over 12%compared to last month, which translates to an annual growthRead More →

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Press Release: CyberWatch Launches Virtual World Environment for Learning, Training and Global Meetings Second Life environment will extend services to national members in virtual space. Washington, DC., August 15, 2010 — The CyberWatch organization announces today the launch of a 3D online virtual environment in Second Life. The virtual islandRead More →

Philip Rosedale at Second Life Community Convention 2010.

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Philip Rosedale who recently returned to the helm of Linden Lab, gave his first major speech of his second term as CEO on Saturday with a couple of bold announcements — Second Life was definitely rolling out meshes, and the Teen Grid will soon close. Rosedale gave no firm deadlineRead More →

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Press Release: Unisfair Experiences 60% growth year over year, adding 20 new virtual event customers in first half of 2010 Companies like 3M, EMC, Genentech and Tourism Fiji Turning to Virtual Events for Improved ROI and Customer Engagement Menlo Park, CA, Aug. 10, 2010 – Unisfair, the leading provider ofRead More →

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Would be sim-commerce millionaires gathered at the Hypergrid Entrepreneurs Group meeting Thursday night on the Trombly Grid to discuss recent innovations in OpenSim hosting, currency systems, and selling real homes and real furniture in virtual environments. Towards the end of the meeting, the conversation somehow turned to virtual sex (okay,Read More →

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Update: See end of story for new pricing information. Two of the world’s largest German grids — Grid4Us and GermanGrid — are merging this week, in order to provide a richer — and more populated — world for residents and visitors. The merger is scheduled for August 13 through 15,Read More →

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Second Life released Viewer 2 in February and, though many complained that the new interface was confusing and less efficient it did offer a significant new benefit to enterprise and education users: the ability to show websites and other media on any in-world surface. However, the new viewer — commonlyRead More →

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Press Release: Turnkey Portal Ensures Business Communications through Interruptions Chicago, IL — Business continuity planning is an imperative business practice for organizations.  Business interruptions are difficult – whether they are related to volcano eruptions, supply chain issues or key employee announcements – and communications are imperative.  UBM Studios today unveiledRead More →

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Back in February, the Virtual Edge Institute — a virtual events consulting firm — conducted a conference for virtual event organizers. Some 400 attendees went to Santa Clara to attend in person. Another 1,500 attended virtually through a variety of channels — the VirtualU immersive environment, the Unisfair and theRead More →

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A recent Wall Street Journal article proclaimed, Fraudsters Like Virtual Goods: Fast-Growing E-Commerce Segment Seems More Vulnerable to Cyber Criminals based on research from CyberSource Corp., which processes credit cards for online merchants. The article makes it sound that virtual goods sales are more prone to fraud than physical products.Read More →

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Press Release: VenueGen Announces New Enterprise Collaboration Capability for Its 3D Web Conferencing Platform VenueGen Releases the First Multi-Dimensional Platform for Web Collaboration RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC– VenueGen today announced a major new release of its 3D virtual meeting and training platform, targeted at the enterprise collaboration market. The newRead More →

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Enterprise virtual world vendor added support for the Microsoft Sharepoint service, the company announced today. Teleplace is one of the leading providers of enterprise-grade, behind-the-firewall, fully immersive virtual collaborative environments. It counts “hundreds” of corporations as customers – some of them big names, including Chevron, BP, Lockheed, Intel, and Fidelity.Read More →

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The top 40 public grids lost 20% of their reported area this past month — from 11,717 to 9,343 regions –  due to summer cleaning at OSGrid. The largest OpenSim-based grid lost more than a third of its land area, falling from 7,530 to 4,962 regions as grid administrators clearedRead More →

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Press Release: UBM Studios Introduces the Virtual Seminar Center, a 3D Environment for Conferences Chicago, IL — UBM Studios today announced a new 3D environment to help companies take advantage of the growing market opportunities in virtual business. The Virtual Seminar Center is an interactive environment integrating webcasts, training andRead More →

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Press release: Professional Virtua Designers Society Announced An integral part of the Fashion Research Institute is the Fashion Research Foundation, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization located in New York.  FRF is engaged in educational research using virtual worlds for education. Today, we are pleased to announce two upcoming sessions introducing theRead More →

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The New York-based Fashion Research Institute, Inc. is giving away five copies of its ground-breaking butterfly exhibit to researchers or educators. The exhibit, available in the form of an OpenSim archive file (an OAR) includes a copy of the entire Shengri La Chamomile region from Intel’s ScienceSim grid, with overRead More →

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Press Release: Researchers Find Link Between Immersion and Virtual Buying Habits Planet Calypso and Florida State University proves selling items in a virtual space can yield better results than print, internet or TV advertising GOTEBORG, Sweden — First Planet Company, developer and publisher of the largest real cash economy MMORPG,Read More →

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A new report was released today, providing a baseline measure of the state of the 3D Web, with contributions from Hypergrid Business writers and editors Maria Korolov, Jie Hu and Ankush Chibber. “We’ve only had the hypergrid for a little over a year, so it’s too early to see significantRead More →

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Press release: Linden Lab Announces Management Changes SAN FRANCISCO, June 24 — Linden Lab®, creator of 3D virtual world Second Life®, announced today that company founder Philip Rosedale has been named interim CEO, and CFO Bob Komin has assumed the additional role of COO.  Linden Lab also announced that MarkRead More →

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Avination, a new OpenSim-based role playing virtual world focusing on combat play, has chosen the XR JEVN e-commerce platform from Extreme Reality, Inc., the companies announced today. Philadelphia-based Extreme Reality acquired the JEVN networked vendor system earlier this month. The platform is already widely used in Second Life, where itRead More →

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Press Release: Merck and ProtonMedia Win Microsoft Life Sciences Innovation Award 2010 Microsoft Recognizes Merck’s Industry-First Scientific Poster Session Held in ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere 3-D Virtual Environment LANSDALE, Pa.–Microsoft Corp. has named Merck and Company, Inc. and ProtonMedia winners of the company’s Life Sciences Innovation Awards 2010. The awards, announced atRead More →

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The top 40 OpenSim grids totaled 11,717 regions this month, a respectable 4 percent increase over last month’s 11,240. However, adjusted growth is up a record-high 1,377 regions — an increase of 13.3 percent. Why adjusted? ScienceSim has been running scalability tests, loading up 1,024 regions on a single serverRead More →

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Press Release: ProtonMedia and LiquidHub Form Technology and Services Partnership Companies team to provide life sciences organizations 3-D virtual collaboration and communication solutions integrated with Microsoft SharePoint and OCS LANSDALE, Pa.–ProtonMedia, the developer of the ProtoSphere virtual collaboration environment for the high-performance workplace, and LiquidHub, a global technology consulting andRead More →

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Press Release: VenueGen Offers Free Migration Solution for Second Life Business Customers RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC- –  VenueGen, provider of a 3-D virtual meeting platform for collaborative meetings, training, and events today announced a migration solution for users of the Linden Labs Second Life virtual world platform. Linden Labs Second LifeRead More →

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Press Release: Citizant and Cranial Tap Partner to Develop 3-D Environments for Collaboration, Training and Data Visualization In Federal Agencies Second Life environments will add new dimension to transparency and performance CHANTILLY, Va. — Citizant, a leader in federal information sharing and business modernization solutions, has partnered with Cranial Tap,Read More →

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Tokyo-based 3Di, a leader in developing commercial viewers for Opensim, today announced a viewer that will run on Android smartphones. The company is currently recruiting industry partners to develop practical applications of this technology, and will share its platform with them. The platform can be used to develop online games,Read More →

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Linden Lab announced 30 percent staff cuts today, and also promised a Web-based viewer for Second Life. While a Web-based viewer would be a significant benefit for companies interested in using virtual worlds for quick meetings and public conferences, a more sobering note is that the announcement of  “strategic restructuringRead More →

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Press Release: IBM and ProtonMedia Form Joint Development Partnership IBM  and ProtonMedia have entered into a teaming agreement that will result in the delivery of innovative, 3-D virtual collaboration and communication solutions engineered specifically for global life sciences organizations. Under the terms of the agreement, ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere technology will beRead More →

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Press Release: Serious Games are Effective Learning Solutions for ‘Soft’ and ‘Hard’ Skills From leadership and program management, to emergency evacuation or electrical safety – games, simulations and virtual worlds provide an effective learning experience. Through interactive case studies, attendees at the 2010 Learning and Entertainment Evolution Forum at HarrisburgRead More →

(Image courtesy)

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Hollywood celebrities can now get their own virtual islands — at no cost — through Virtual Celebrity Islands, launching at this Sunday’s 2010 MTV Movie Awards. Between 70 and 80 celebrities will be able to get their islands at the Virtual Celebrity Gifting Lounge, sponsored by Los Angeles-based GBK Productions,Read More →

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Hypergrid travelers are more likely to be looking for shopping than any other kind of individual destination, according to May visitor statistics of the Hyperica hypergrid destination directory. The top five pages viewed overall were the full list of hypergrid-enabled grids, the hypergrid-enabled regions on OSgrid, the list of hypergrid-enabledRead More →

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Virtual events platform provider On24 has rolled out a suite of social networking tools this week, including integration with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. “We have a standard Twitter widget that can be embedded in a virtual event,” said Denise Persson, On24’s chief marketing officer. “You can see the conversation goingRead More →