Registration: Registrations received after that deadline will not be accepted,
unless youve registered for the $140 ongoing membership rate or the $80
on-site payment.
Audience: Entrepreneurs,
Intrapreneurs and Investors only. No service providers please.
Second Annual State
of the Virtual Worlds Industry Event
FountainBlues Second Annual State of the Virtual Worlds
Industry conference updates entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and investors on the
successes, challenges and trends of the industry overall, and showcases
corporate and entrepreneurial virtual world demos. Beginning with a panel
sharing the growth of the industry from the legal, venture, research and
corporate perspectives, the program will next highlight how leading
corporations are leveraging virtual worlds solutions to better serve their
constituents, and culminating in showcasing early stage, funding-bound virtual
worlds entrepreneurs with a range of solutions pushing the technology and
business envelope.
Agenda
8:30 Registration and
Networking
8:30 Welcomes and Thank Yous
8:45 The State of the Industry: An Update on
Whats New and Whats Coming
Moderator
to be confirmed
VC,
to be confirmed
Accounting
firm, to be confirmed
Law
Firm, to be confirmed
Virtual
Worlds Roadmap Group Update, speaker to be confirmed
9:45 Virtual Worlds Corporate Demos: Training,
Communication and Management Solutions
Moderator
TBD
First
5-6 corporate sponsors to demo
10:45 Morning Break, with Corporate Exhibits
11:15 Entrepreneur Showcases, 5 minute demos and
pitches
In the Consumer, Six to Twelve Category:
In the Consumer, Teenagers to Adult Category:
In the Enterprise, Virtual Events and Tradeshows
etc. Category:
In the Enterprise, Virtual Meetings Category:
In the Enterprise, Tools Category:
2:00 Adjourn and
Further Networking and Corporate Exhibits and Entrepreneur Showcases open until
3:00
As a member, you are welcome to pre-register for any other upcoming FountainBlue event as well. Note that registrations must be time-stamped by noon on the business day prior to the event. Registrations arriving after that deadline will be applied to NEXT MONTH's event.
FountainBlues first Annual Virtual Worlds Conference, on
the topic of Where Weve Been and Where Were Going took place at Sun
Microsystems on September 25, 2009. We would like to congratulate our winning
entrepreneurs and thank our speakers, presenters and panelists for freely and
candidly sharing their knowledge and advice and contributing to our excellent
program. We would like to recognize them below.
Introductory
remarks, framing the discussion were provided by:
Michael
Gialis, New Business Development for Sun Microsystems Lab and Chief
Technology Office, Founder of Virtual Worlds Roadmap Group
Barry Holroyd, CTO, Masher Media
An Overview of
the History of Virtual Worlds What is it, Where Has it Been? was provided by:
Benjamin
Duranske, Associate, Pillsbury Winthrop
Our first
Panel Discussion: Virtual World Business Trends featured:
Moderator
Sibley Verbeck, CEO, The Electric Sheep Company
Below are notes from our conversation, along
with resource links from our presenters.
Virtual Worlds
offer a dynamic, ever-changing landscape of technology, community, interaction.
Although Virtual Worlds have evolved over the past few decades, it is now
coming to the mainstream, and its impact is deep and broad. It affects many
facets of the way we do business from the financial, economic, technology and
legal aspects, as well as HOW business is done, leveraging software the enables
creative and dynamic interaction between people with virtual presences and
online communities overall.
Virtual worlds are
evolving from the walled gardens of the 1990s to more and more dynamic,
interactive and creative sites that incorporate user content and creativity.
This seems to be following the familiar evolution of the web itself; America
Online and Prodigy became supplanted by more open browser standards from
Mosaic.
Indeed, Virtual Worlds
are evolving from a fad and a toy to a valuable business tool, serving and
connecting various stakeholders. The graphics abilities introduced in the 80s
and 90s brought in the era of avatars and games which were wildly popular, with
some running still today. Now these graphics are being harnessed in virtual
environments to effect value in a variety of non-game related use cases.
As more people
got more deeply engaged, user communities arose and questions on policies,
procedures and how users can interact and communities can grow arose. In
addition, a business model evolution is now occurring where we are redefining
who developers, publishers and retailers are and how they work together, as
well as who is funding, marketing, and servicing these individual users and
user communities. Users continue to raise the bar for what they can do and how
they can do it, increasingly demanding more customized solutions and experiences
tailored to themselves personally, and to the communities they join.
Adoption has not
reached explosive double-digits figures yet for most virtual world communities,
but with that said, in general the virtual worlds for kids sub-industry has
benefited from the fastest and broadest adoption rate and continues to grow,
showing that this is not a transient fad, but a real opportunity. Indeed, savvy
publishers, manufacturers, producers and others selling to the kids market are
factoring in web sites, books, toys, and virtual world communities as part of
their marketing and outreach efforts. Successful examples of this maturing mass
market segment include Webkins and Club Penguin.
Both panels
remarked on the huge opportunities available in the media and entertainment
industry. According to latest PriceWaterhouseCoopers Q2 2009 report, media and
entertainment investments, totaled $115B, averaged $2 million per deal and
totaled 52 deals, mostly from Silicon Valley (19), but also 10 from New York, and 6 from
LA/Orange County. https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/MTPublic/ns/print.jsp?page=industry&industry=7100®ion
The panelists
and presenters had the following advice for virtual worlds entrepreneurs and
intrapreneurs:
The growth of an individual virtual world, and
the industry altogether might grow in fits and starts, depending on technology
availability, user communities, adoption of standards, bandwidth constraints
and other factors. Awareness of these challenges and addressing them headlong,
in collaboration with other stakeholders will help drive the growth of the
industry.
Minimize the barrier to adoption and drive the
user base for your community: making adoption friction-less a critical factor
for success. Make sure that there are no technology hassles (installing
separate plug-ins and technologies), process hurdles (logging in, taking
surveys, confusing steps), or marketing/branding confusion (they have to know
where to go and that their trusted colleagues have recommended the experience),
for example.
Take advantage of the Hybrid Tiered Solution,
where general users (about 85%) get in free, and a certain percentage (around
15%) pays through micro transactions for premium services and a smaller
percentage (1-3% for example) pays for ongoing subscription levels. The
successful organization will offer a solution which would serve the individual
needs of all three types of users, treating them all as valuable members.
Leverage the social communities (FaceBook,
Twitter, iPhone, etc.) of the audience to leverage the growth of your
community.
Content is king. Everyone wants more content,
richer interaction, more activities, more engagement, etc. The successful
company offers solutions which engages users while also setting appropriate
controls and boundaries.
Focus on the needs of your target audience,
whether they are frequent texters, or users of Twitter or FaceBook, creating a
virtual world that lets them interact the way THEY want to will attract the
audience youre targeting.
Research patents in your space, and consider IP
issues associated with user-generated content. Find the edge of the law to remain
competitive, but stay on the right side of the law to avoid litigation and
other problems.
Policies, regulations and enforcements in the
virtual worlds space are rapidly evolving. Leverage resources to stay informed
and be prepared to help shape, respond to these changes.
Adoption of hardware such as headsets and webcams
etc. will continue to occur, but not nearly at the pace of the evolution of
software. Therefore, if your virtual world incorporates hardware components,
create games which work with existing hardware, and leverage existing markets.
Create a simple communication device to share
information to the whole community, like a leader board, as it would generate
discussion, invite more engagement, and help with the viral growth of the community.
Ease of use can be defined as the first 30
seconds, the first 30 minutes, the first 30 hours, and the first 30 days.
Strategies for retaining and securing users for each of the first 30s may
vary, but they are also inter-dependent, and must always focus on the needs of
the customers.
When designing a virtual worlds solution, speak
to the people who would use it, like nurses or service station attendees rather
than doctors (if they are not the ones who will use the solution) and managers
(if they are not the ones serving the customer).
The panel raised
some questions which could lead to hot virtual world business opportunities:
What are the challenges and opportunities in
synchronist and asynchornistic communication? How can solutions bring more
people from more places together and more richly interact?
How can virtual worlds assist with visualizing
and modeling to support the innovation process and more cost-effectively make
real technology- based solutions?
What opportunities can data analytics and data
visualization provide?
Solutions across sectors offer opportunities.
What might work for the education market, for example, might also serve a life
science market. In addition, the technology for conducting a quest for a game
might be adapted to organizational and productivity tools for businesses. What
could this mean for YOUR company?
What are the intersections of where gaming meets
music or education or homework and what solution could you create to serve the
needs of that market?
In summary, our
panelists and presenters have shown and told us that Virtual Worlds:
Are not only becoming more and more useful, they
are also engaging and fun and potentially profitable.
Are being adopted in different ways to create and
serve communities for personal and business benefit.
Are being increasingly more integrated into
everyday business functions from training to education to service, branding and
outreach. As such, challenges such as IP, security, privacy, and other factors
will arise.
Are mature enough that metaphors and examples
exist, making it easier for potential customers and partners to understand new
technology and business model solutions. Second Life, early games, Mosaic,
Silicon Graphics, Tivo, Qwaq and other others have forged the business,
technology and cultural grounds and helped grow the industry. They have been
around long enough so tools and technologies and solutions are available, and
the technology adoption curve is not as steep.
Is not dominated by the US, as adoption of virtual goods and mobile
platforms for example is 4-5x faster in Asia and Europe.
Additional
information and resources:
Presenting Entrepreneur Brian Bauer, OnTrack Health,
winners in the Enterprise,
Other Category (Collaboration in Health Care): http://ontracktechnology.blogspot.com
Linden Lab:
Second Life enters the realm of the enterprise
Joe Miller, VP of Platforms and Technology Development,
at Linden Lab talks to CNETs Dan Farber about the challenges in developing
dynamic and reliable backend operations for the 3D virtual world of Second
Life. Miller also discusses how theyre incorporating new hi-tech conferencing
tools for business users such as VoIP solutions and video streaming
technologies. http://video.zdnet.com/CIOSessions/?p=310
Emcee, Speaker
and Sponsor, Michael Gialis, New
Business Development for Sun Microsystems Lab and Chief Technology Office,
Virtual Worlds Roadmap Group and
Survey: http://virtualworldsroadmap.blogspot.com/
Presenting Entrepreneur Troy Hipolito, CTO and Owner, ISO
Interactive, winners in the Consumer, Teenagers to Adult Category: http://www.isointeractive.com
Presenting Entrepreneur Stevan Lieberman, SpotON3D,
winners in the Enterprise,
Other Category (Virtual Real Estate and Office Tools): http://www.spoton3d.com
Demo
presentation by Chris Platz, Creative
Director, Sirikata, Stanford Humanities
Lab and Computer Science, projects: Virtual Museum and Virtual Live Music
Performance: http://www.sirikata.com
and http://shl.stanford.edu
Panel
Moderator Jeffrey Pope, Founder of
Virtual Worlds Roadmap Group, Former Virtual Worlds VC and Virtual Worlds
Entrepreneur, and Founding Partner, Spark
Sky Ventures:http://www.sparksky.com
Presenting Entrepreneur Terry Thorpe, Chairman, KohdSpace,
winners in the Enterprise,
Virtual Events and Tradeshows Category: http://www.kohdspace.com
Demo presentation by Nicole Yankelovich, Principal
Investigator, Collaborative Environments program including Wonderland v0.5, Sun Labs will demo the new features /
functionality and capability of our re-architected platform: http://www.projectwonderland.com
In conclusion,
the opportunities in the virtual worlds space are massive, with the convergence
of technologies and markets and solutions. And it will take basic business
principals, including strategic leadership and superior execution, constant
education, lots of hard work, and a network of influential contacts to remain
competitive in this rapidly growing and evolving space.
Congratulations to our six presenting entrepreneurs, who
have been selected as best in category categories from virtual worlds executive
summaries submitted from around the world! Please join us in hearing their
pitches at next Fridays FountainBlue Virtual Worlds Conference.
In the Consumer, Six to Twelve Category:
Sherry Gunther, CEO, Masher Media
In the Consumer, Teenagers to Adult Category:
Troy Hipolito, CTO and Owner, ISO Interactive
In the Enterprise,
Virtual Events and Tradeshows etc. Category:
Terry Thorpe, Chairman, KohdSpace
In the Enterprise,
Virtual Meetings Category:
Dustin Clingman, Immediate Mode Interactive LLC
In the Enterprise,
Other Category (Collaboration in Health Care):
Brian Bauer, OnTrack Health
In the Enterprise,
Other Category (Virtual Real Estate and Office Tools):
Stevan Lieberman, CEO, SpotON3D
Register TODAY at http://www.svvirtualworlds.com (or
by Thursday at noon at the latest) as there will be NO walk-ins allowed for
this event.
FountainBlue's Virtual Worlds Team thanks everyone who submitted an executive summary in consideration for presentation at our upcoming annual virtual worlds event.
Our executive summaries were received between Friday, March 20 at 8 a.m.
and August 15 at noon and were submitted from all corners of the globe. Our volunteer pitch review and prep team is busily working with each submitting team and we look forward to hearing the presentations at our September 25 event!
Although the deadline has passed for consideration as an entrepreneur for our September 25 event, we invite you to submit YOUR summary, complete
the form below and attach an Executive Summary. Selected entrants will
receive a complementary passes to our Annual Virtual Worlds event and will receive feedback from a member of our team.
To submit your executive summary, click on the Word or PDF link.
FountainBlue's Virtual World's sub-group was launched on
March 9, with the production of our Virtual Worlds event on the topic of
Virtual Worlds: The Hype, The Reality, The In-Between, featuring a panel of
investors, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. As a follow-up to our March 9
launch event, FountainBlue will be producing an annual conference on Virtual
Worlds, with the first one scheduled for September 25 from 8:00 a.m. 3 p.m.
This annual conference will update us on Virtual Worlds trends and feature case
studies, while also profiling corporate virtual world solutions and entrepreneurial
pitches from the winners of this business plan competition in six categories.
FountainBlue's Virtual World Program Team congratulates our six funding-bound virtual world start-ups who submited an executive summary and will be making their pitches at our annual Virtual Worlds Conference,
scheduled for Friday, September 25 from 8:00 a.m. 3:00 p.m. at Sun Microsystems. We have executive summaries from each of the submitting categories:
Consumer
Six to Twelve
Teenagers and Young Adults
Adults and Seniors
Enterprise
Virtual Events and Tradeshows
Virtual Meetings
Communities and Cross-Over Solutions, includingVirtual
Identity across platforms and Convergence of On-Line and In-Person
Each Presenting Team will receive:
Submitting entrepreneurs will
receive one passes to the 9/25 event, as well as informal feedback from
FountainBlue Virtual Worlds Committee members.
The selected six presenting entrepreneurs will receive
two additional passes to the 9/25 event and have the option of meeting
informally with members of FountainBlues volunteer Virtual World committee
members, between September 15 and September 22 at noon to prepare for the
presentation.
Process for Pitching During the Annual Event
The six virtual world entrepreneurs, winners from each of
the identified categories, will be conducting fast pitches, 20 minute rounds
each, broken down as follows:
5-minute pitches
5-minutes Q&A with judging panel
5-minute feedback
Deadlines and Announcements
August 14 Deadline for Exec
Summaries Submissions (@ noon)
Sept 15
Announcing Six Finalists (by noon)
9/15-22
Informal Meetings with Finalists
Sept 25
Annual Virtual Worlds Event, with Presentation by Winners to Investors and
Entrepreneurs
Our Team
FountainBlue would like to thank our virtual world
program team for their support and contributions:
Program Team
Paul Cutt
Benjamin Duranske
Nina Gerwin
Michael Gialis
Robin Harper
Barry Holroyd
James Kempf
Matt Perez
Jeff Pope
Dennis Shiao
Sibley Verbeck
Exec Summary Team:
Sandy Adam
Laurie Dineen Dieck
Damon Hernandez
Sarita Mallya
Karen Marshall
Curt Ward
Get Involved
We welcome your feedback, input and involvement! Please
e-mail us at info@svvirtualworlds.com if you are interested in joining the
FountainBlue Virtual Worlds community as a volunteer to:
Spread the word,
Recruit entrepreneurs,
Evaluate pitches,
Recruit corporate partners, or
Manage the September 25 on-site event.
FountainBlues
March 9 High Tech Entrepreneurs Forum was on the topic of Virtual
Worlds: The Hype, The Reality, The In-Between and featured:
Facilitator Glenn
Von Tersch, Partner, TIPS Group
Panelist Anne-Marie Roussel,
Microsoft
Panelist Michael Gialis, Business
Development Manager, Project Wonderland and Project Darkstar, Sun Microsystems
Panelist Robin Harper, Former VP of
Marketing and Community Development, Second Life, Linden Labs
The
emergence of social virtual worlds as a cultural and business phenomenon has
astounded and mystified some, and excited and profited others. In these trying
economic times, people are escaping to fantasy lands and adopting new online
personas, businesses are profiting from the upsurge of people actively participating
at many creative levels, investors are looking carefully at the returns for
existing companies, and corporations are wondering how virtual worlds will make
them money, while providing better service for their customers.
Virtual World Definition:
Wikipedia: A virtual world is a
computer-based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and
interact via avatars. These avatars are usually depicted as textual,
two-dimensional, or three-dimensional graphical representations, although other
forms are possible (auditory and touch sensations for example). Some, but not
all, virtual worlds allow for multiple users.
Excerpted from Gartner Analyst
Steven Prentice talk on July 30:
Prentice said a virtual worlds is
a presence in a space where interaction takes place in real time with digital
personas.
Prentice pointed out that our
avatars identity represents how we want to be perceived.
How Virtual Worlds Are Different
There are elements of
interactivity, collaboration, immersion and immediacy which distinguish virtual
worlds from canned games or regular webinars.
Theres a potential for higher
engagement and better connection between participants during the experience,
which may lead to a more persistent and relevant memory. For example, a webinar
in a virtual world may mean more than a regular webinar, particularly if you
identify closely with your avatar.
The best virtual worlds offer
tools which make it easy for people to be creative and express themselves,
connecting with others.
Advice About Virtual Worlds:
Plan for and understand
expectations from you/your companys participation in a virtual worlds project.
Make the outcomes timelined and measurable where possible.
Consider the importance of the
(positive and negative) experiences of the users and what that would say about
your brand.
Be open to letting users
experiment within the virtual world, and event to take it in a direction which
you may not have originally intended.
Companies that manage virtual
worlds must establish policies for behavior, taxation, democracy, economy,
governance, etc., In many ways, its a society and a culture should be
proactively managed, just like in real life.
Creating an economy and an
exchange allowed people to create their own land, reap benefits from their
creativity and ideas, and own their ideas and concepts. The people who are
successfully profiting from the economy on Second Life pave the way for others
to do the same, and are attracting more people to investigate opportunities for
themselves.
Costs for creating a virtual world
are minimal. As this is a new area, this is a good time to experiment with
different revenue models and niche markets to find something that works.
Partner with established
entrepreneurial companies and established corporations to leverage their
applications, research, and markets and find a win-win.
Make your virtual world intuitive
to use, to encourage mass adoption.
Opportunities for Virtual Worlds Solutions:
Offer interactive early and
secondary education and training.
Provide interactive training and
simulation games which may have military or flight/drivers applications for
example.
Offer mapping tools which would
have real-world applications, like providing law enforcement or military
personnel detailed geographic maps of areas where there might be danger.
Sales force education to learn
everything from how to sell the product/service to how to manage/overcome
rejection. This type of training might be more real online as avatars can get
quite animated!
Create mixed-reality concepts such
as sensors in high-crime or war areas to help identify sources of gunfire for
example, to respond quickly, to electronically map area, etc., all to help law
enforcement and military professional proactively manage violence and protect people.
Leverage virtual world tools for
project management/collaboration training or execution or for negotiation and
sales training.
Create a virtual world call center
to build better connections with customers and perhaps better collaboration
between customers/between customer and company.
Use virtual world experience for
diversity or innovation training.
Use virtual world to create
support groups for people of similar interests and challenges, particularly if
they have physical challenges making it difficult to connect in person with
others or learning challenges like Aspergers where it might feel safer to
connect and experiment with people similarly afflicted before trying out ideas
and concepts live.
Ideas for Making Money on Virtual Worlds:
Own the virtual world, like Linden
Labs
Sell virtual goods millions of
dollars can be made annually on selling virtual goods
Create virtual world tools for
mobility, analytics, decision-making, design etc.,
Be a design agency or Sherpa to
help others with their virtual world projects
Save money on training and
communication/collaboration/project management for your company with a virtual
world presence.
