Virtual Worlds

A Virtual Worlds is a computer-based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars. This habitation usually is represented in the form of two or three-dimensional graphical representations of humanoids (or other graphical or text-based avatars). Some, but not all, virtual worlds allow for multiple users.



Second Life

• Entrepreneur gain great profits via cyberspace, they can make real money buying and selling virtual items with no rules attached.



• Used to socialise, more than 9.8 million people use it for different reasons, huge rise from a mere four characters in 2002.



• Linden dollars is the currency used within the game and converts to roughly 500 linden dollars to the pound.



• The creator of second life (Philip Rosedale)makes money by selling land and charging for the rent of the land.



• The first consumer to make a million pounds from it was 'Anshe Chung'. She made the money from trading exclusively on second life.



• Company Linden Lab grows by 15-20% a month, which is pretty massive. Other companies havemade advantages from it by creating online virtual stores, including Toshiba, Sony and Reebok.



• Products advertised and used in the virtual world can be linked to other internet sources for real life purchase.

Virtual World Games

• World of Warcraft - 8,500,000 players use it online



• LOTR Online (CODEMASTER) had 40-50 million pounds invested into it to create the life like online virtual game.

Advantage and Disadvantages of social networking?

A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, conflict, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease transmission (epidemiology), or airline routes.



Advantages

• Allow users to create a profile for themselves and can often be "friends" with other users. In most social networking services, both users must confirm that they are friends before they are linked.



• Social networks usually have privacy controls that allows the user to choose who can view their profile or contact them, etc.



• The ability to create groups that share common interests or affiliations, upload videos, and hold discussions in forums.



• Companies like MySpace and Facebook sell online advertising on their site. Sites are also seeking other ways to make money, such as by creating an online marketplace.

Disadvantages

• On large social networking services, there have been growing concerns about users giving out too much personal information and the threat of sexual predators. Large services, such as MySpace, often work with law enforcement to try to prevent such incidents.



• There is an issue over the control of data - information having been altered or removed by the user may in fact be retained and/or passed to 3rd parties.



• There is a perceived privacy threat in relation to placing too much personal information in the hands of large corporations or governmental bodies, allowing a profile to be produced on an individual's behavior on which decisions, detrimental to an individual, may be taken.

Web 2.0

Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software

• Hints towards better World Wide Web. Websites enhance over 'read-only' websites (including web-blogs, services such as ebay and otehr web pages).
• "An idea in people's heads rather than a reality. It’s actually an idea that the reciprocity between the user and the provider is what's emphasized. In other words, genuine interactivity if you like, simply because people can upload as well as download", as kindly quoted by Stephen Fry.
• In the opening talk of the first Web 2.0 conference, O'Reilly and John Battelle summarized what they saw as the themes of Web 2.0:

• the web as a platform
  
• data as a driving force
  
• network effects created by an architecture of participation
  
• innovation in the assembly of systems and sites composed by pulling together features from distributed, independent developers (a kind of "open source" development)
  
• lightweight business models enabled by syndication of content and of service
  
• an end to the software-adoption cycle (the so-called "perpetual beta")
  
• software above the level of a single device, leveraging the power of the "Long Tail"
  
• ease of picking-up by early adopters