Virtual Worlds Conference 2007- Morning Session/RAW NOTES

Welcome
- Christopher V. Sherman, Executive Director, Virtual Worlds Conference



  • "We are at the beginning of something big"


Introduction
 - Philip Rosedale, Founder and CEO, Linden Lab



  • "We probably won't crash" (Philip joke about all of us being able to hear him :) )


  • Who would be if you could be anyone..."Me"

    •    If pressed on the question he said he would be Richard Feinman



  • "The atomic details of the world are very fine grained"

  • "There is something magical that is in these machines"

  • Virtual Reality as space exploration, inner space

  • "We dreamed we could become something new....a place where anything can happen"

  • "Space is cold inhospitable and mostly empty"

  • "When we started working on Second Life we though of it more of a physics code'

  • "The most important thing about virtual worlds has to do with people"

  • Virtual Worlds value proposition is not that it is 3D per se, it is that it enables you to do thing with other people. We can be there together. We can make things together. We can do all the things that people wanted to do on the web at its inception

  • "Virtual Worlds fundamentally change the nature of who we are"

  • "We are still early in this"


Trends and Numbers - where is it all going
This session lays the groundwork giving you the numbers you need to understand how to take advantage of Virtual Worlds today.  We'll also look at forecasts for where Virtual Worlds are going. What are the growth projections?  And what are the factors that will promote or inhibit growth.
 - Chris Collins, Business Analyst, Linden Lab
- Sibley Verbeck, CEO, The Electric Sheep Company
- Joe Laszlo, Analyst, Jupiterkagan
- Steve Prentice, Distinguished Analyst & Chief of Research, Gartner
- Justin Bovington, CEO, Rivers Run Red
- Daniel Terdiman, Senior Writer, CNET News.com(moderator)
 



  • "We are at a point of still be extraordinarily undefined" Verbeck

  • "The interest level is very and we all have a lot of questions"

  • "We are just at the point where Virtual Worlds are being defined as their own medium" Bovington

  • "We are pretty much where the internet was in the mid 90's" Collins

  • "There was only one internet, there are multiple virtual worlds"

  • we are getting to the time when companies are actually interested in performing their business models through virtual worlds- Verbeck

  • "How do we use this medium to drive actual business model" Verbeck

  • Co- Collaboration and Co-Design

  • Second Life as a great way to create additional content

  • Podcasts and Videopodcasts from within virtual worlds

  • Verbeck speaks about the importance of simpler virtual worlds such as Club Penguin, Webkinz etc.

  • "Virtual Community as high performance work place"


  • What is the ROI?

    • With the money Adidas spent in SL they would get an average 6 minutes user attention. On SL we they got 11- Bovington

    • How long are users engaged



  • Second Life is a great catalyst- All of the activity does not happen in world. Much of it happens as a result buzz

  • Why VLB leveraged There?

  • "We need more platforms out there, we need more competition" Bovington


Comment from (CEO??) of  Whyville- This is all very Second Life-centric and it is a disservice to the audience


Spurred on a conversation about platforms, MySpace as the largest virtual worlds?


Are we at the beginning of the next gold or are the only people going to make money the ones selling pick axes to the gold miners


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