While I didn't attend Virtual Worlds 2007 in San Jose this week, my friend, Jared Freedman did, and was written up by ClickZ in Metrics, IBM and Dancing Avatars at the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo:

"..Seven out of 10 businesses fail in the real world, and over 15 years it's nine out of 10," said Jared Freedman, president of Code 4 Software. "You're going to see a lot of losses."

Even so, several companies used the show to release tools and software efforts to help bolster marketers' and advertisers' ability to track and manage virtual campaigns online. Code 4 Software quietly started offering its AdSoft SL Powered Networks as an ad network system specifically for Second Life. Although the company will officially launch the system November 15th, Code 4 customers can now purchase ad space in the virtual world which the company monitors and tracks using its own V-Tracker application. V-Tracker will log how long a users' avatar is near an advertisement, said Freedman. "It tells you how many people came, where they went, what they did," he said. "I'll need to know how long you were there to get the impressions. Ad networks need to have verifiable return on investment."

Also, I'll be presenting about Second Life Analytics at IBM next week at the Emetrics Marketing Summit - and Jared Freedman will also be presenting during the same session:

Old & New Together Again for the First Time

Rick Wehrle, Monster.com

Marshall Sponder, IBM

Jared Freedman, Code4Software

We've been calibrating the business impact of the Internet since before the browser. Rick will relate stories of taking the measure of FTP, Gopher and USENET postings in the early '90s. Marshall is a Director of the Web Analytics Association, tasked with getting a handle on social media and Jared has written the first application for analytics for Second Life. What do these people have in common? What's changed? Come learn about much we've learned and how little we know, how far we've come and how far we have yet to go.

Wednesday - 11:10 am - Blue Ballroom

I knew something was coming down today about IBM and Linden Labs - and this is what it turned out to be, according to New World Notes in a post titled IBM partners with Linden Lab: NWN prediction fulfilled?

"..IBM and Linden Lab's Official Announcement: "The partnership has now been officially announced, with more specific plans on what the goals are for making virtual worlds interoperable…"

The nice thing about this is IBM is going to work directly with insiders at Linden Labs further advance 3D Virtual Worlds.  IBM has the brainpower and resources to help make this happen and honestly, of all the major corporations, IBM is on of the thought leaders in Virtual Worlds community.

Here's the official announcement:

"…SAN JOSE, Calif. - 10 Oct 2007:  IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Linden Lab®, creator of the virtual world Second Life® (www.secondlife.com), today announced the intent to develop new technologies and methodologies based on open standards that will help advance the future of 3D virtual worlds.

IBM and Linden in Push for Open, Integrated 3-D 'Net: Two IBM employees — represented by their 3-D avatars — have a discussion prior to a business meeting at the IBM Open Source and Standards office in the virtual world Second Life. IBM and Linden Labs today announced they will work with a broad community of partners to drive open standards and interoperability to enable avatars — the online persona of visitors to these online worlds — to move from one virtual world to another with ease, much like you can move from one website to another on the Internet today. The companies see many applications of virtual world technology for business and society in commerce, collaboration, education, training and more.

As more enterprises and consumers explore the 3D Internet, the ecosystem of virtual world hosts, application providers, and IT vendors need to offer a variety of standards-based solutions in order to meet end user requirements. To support this, IBM and Linden Lab are committed to exploring the interoperability of virtual world platforms and technologies, and plan to work with industry-wide efforts to further expand the capabilities of virtual worlds.

"As the 3D Internet becomes more integrated with the current Web, we see users demanding more from these environments and desiring virtual worlds that are fit for business," said Colin Parris, vice president, Digital Convergence, IBM. "BM and Linden Lab's working together can help accelerate the use and further development of common standards and tools that will contribute to this new environment."

"We have built the Second Life Grid as part of the evolution of the Internet," said Ginsu Yoon, vice president, Business Affairs, Linden Lab. "Linden and IBM shares a vision that interoperability is key to the continued expansion of the 3D Internet, and that this tighter integration will benefit the entire industry. Our open source development of interoperable formats and protocols will accelerate the growth and adoption of all virtual worlds."

IBM and Linden Lab plan to work together on issues concerning the integration of virtual worlds with the current Web; driving security-rich transactions of virtual goods and services; working with the industry to enable interoperability between various virtual worlds; and building more stability and high quality of service into virtual world platforms. These are expected to be key characteristics facing organizations which want to take advantage of virtual worlds for commerce, collaboration, education and other business applications.

More specifically, IBM and Linden Lab plan to collaborate on:

    * "Universal" Avatars: Exploring technology and standards for users of the 3D Internet to seamlessly travel between different virtual worlds. Users could maintain the same “avatar” name, appearance and other important attributes (digital assets, identity certificates, and more) for multiple worlds. The adoption of a universal “avatar” and associated services are a possible first step toward the creation of a truly interoperable 3D Internet.

    * Security-rich Transactions: Collaborating on the requirements for standards-based software designed to enable the security-rich exchange of assets in and across virtual worlds. This could allow users to perform purchases or sales with other people in virtual worlds for digital assets including 3D models, music, and media, in an environment with robust security and reliability features.

    * Platform stability: Making interfaces easier to use in order to accelerate user adoption, deliver faster response times for real-world interactions and provide for high-volume business use.

    * Integration with existing Web and business processes: Allowing current business applications and data repositories – regardless of their source – to function in virtual worlds is anticipated to help enable widespread adoption and rapid dissemination of business capabilities for the 3D Internet.

    * Open standards for interoperability with the current Web: Open source development of interoperable formats and protocols. Open standards in this area are expected to allow virtual worlds to connect together so that users can cross from one world to another, just like they can go from one web page to another on the Internet today.

IBM is actively working with a number of companies in the IT and virtual world community on the development of standards-based technologies. This week IBM hosted an industry wide meeting to discuss virtual world interoperability, the role of standards andthe potential of forming an industry wide consortium open to all. This meeting is expected to also begin to address the technical challenges of interoperability and required and recommended standards. 

Linden Lab has formed an Architecture Working Group that describes the roadmap for the development of the Second Life Grid. This open collaboration with the community allows users of Second Life to help define the direction of an interoperable, Internet-scale architecture.

For more information about the Second Life Grid visit http://secondlifegrid.net/. The Second Life community maintains information about the Architecture Working Group at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Architecture_Working_Group.
About IBM
For more information about IBM, please visit www.ibm.com.

About Second Life
Second Life is a 3D online world with a rapidly growing population from 100 countries around the globe, in which the Residents themselves create and build the world, which includes homes, vehicles, nightclubs, stores, landscapes and clothing.

The Second Life Grid is a sophisticated development platform created by Linden Lab, a company founded in 1999 by Philip Rosedale, to create a revolutionary new form of shared 3D experience. The former CTO of RealNetworks, Rosedale pioneered the development of many of today’s streaming media technologies, including RealVideo. In April 2003, noted software pioneer Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corporation, was named Chairman. Based in San Francisco, Linden Lab employs a senior team bringing together deep expertise in physics, 3D graphics and networking.
Note to editors: Second Life® and Linden Lab® are registered trademarks of Linden Research, Inc.

Google is going to announce it's own Virtual World at Virtual Worlds 2007 on Wednesday, October 10th, according to information from The Grid Live in a post titled: Architectural Wonders - Using Google to Create a Virtual World:

"…The Multiverse Network is announcing a partnership today that will allow you to create a virtual world using Google Earth and Google’s 3D Warehouse, a repository of 3D models created using tools like Google Sketchup. So, say if a city has 3D models built of it’s buildings, you could create a virtual world from them, almost instantly using this new technology. They are planning on showing Architectural Wonders at the Virtual Worlds conference tomorrow in San Jose, California."

I already wrote about this a week or two ago in a post titled Google Virtual World could be called My World, Googleworld, Google's World or Googleworld.com. 

The fact that Google is showing up to Virtual World 2007 in San Jose (I didn't see them at the New York show earlier this year) with this announcement says that Google means business and is ready to try to take over Virtual Worlds community - the same way they attempt to take over any field they get into.  

If Google does succeed, it is because they have a better model, better way of integrating the web and even analytics, than anyone else.   But lets be clear, when Google decides they want to be part of a market, anything they do - it's to dominate it - and that's been their pattern all along.

In Google tools to power virtual worlds, CNET goes into more detail about Google's pan to offer a virtual-world production tool:

"…If you want to build a virtual world centered on, say, downtown San Francisco, you could use the new technology to create the area itself and populate it with the digital versions of real-world buildings that have been created and uploaded to the 3D Warehouse. "

In one fell swoop, Google has undercut Second Life by making it really easy to build things - like a virtual city, based on a real one.

"…"The goal is to grab things from the 3D Warehouse when looking at things in Google Earth and then make an instant multiverse world," said Multiverse co-founder Corey Bridges. "What we've done is provide a more streamlined interface for using (Google's technology) as a virtual-world production tool."

Also Jerry Paffendorf, who I've met a few times in New York, weighs in on the new Google instant virtual world creator tools:

"..For Paffendorf, one of the most vocal proponents of a 3D massively multiplayer environment based on Google Earth and SketchUp information, Multiverse's innovation is nothing short of groundbreaking.

He said he's particularly excited and hopeful that the Architectural Wonders project will allow virtual-world designers to incorporate not just models and terrain from Google Earth, but also much of the metadata that makes it so powerful: the personal notations and photographs that millions of users have added to it. "

To sum up, Google has gone for the Jugular and undercut everyone else in the Virtual Worlds environment by making Virtual Worlds easy to build from scratch, something none of the others, including Second Life, could not offer.

There's no metrics yet …… but I would think Google will eventually connect up it's  Google Virtual World with Google Analytics, in some sort of way.   There's probably a window of another 6 months or so, take advantage of these developments - after which, Google will probably situate itself as not only a Virtual World creator, but a metrics collection tool as well for Virtual Worlds.

What form of tool that is … remains to be seen.

Last week I heard from Chris Sherman that Virtual Worlds 2007 Podcasts were ready and I'm sharing the links here:

Day 1
- Philip Rosedale, Founder and CEO, Linden Lab
- Trends and Numbers Panel
- MTV Nickelodeon Keynote
- Platforms and Technologies
- Defining Your Strategy and ROI
- Sundance Channel Case Study
- Virtual World Consumer Behaviors
- Virtual Worlds Casestudy - “CDC in Whyville and Second Life”

Day 2
- Virtual Worlds Roadmap
- IBM Keynote
- Integrated Marketing
- Sibley Verbeck of Electric Sheep
- Case Study: Pontiac in Second Life
- Virtual World Applications

As I was in a seporate press room (which also served as the lunch room) I did not see or hear much more than this for many of the sessions - the value of being present was more in who I talked with in between sessions and the relationships I forged, or interviews I conducted on my own.

As far as content - you could get most of the gist of what was discussed by just listening to the podcasts - and there are several I'll probably listen to also - as I did not take in everything while I was at Virtual Worlds 2007 - I was pretty busy talking with others about Virtual Worlds.

But I want to take the rest of this post to address Maurizio Fionda over at IAB Europe Congress Blog, who recently wrote The Web Analytics Forum at Yahoo Groups with a question about Second Life Analytics.  In case you don't have membership to the group - here's the question:

Hi all

Inside SecondLife you can potentially register 100% of what happen, even the dialogs, perhaps at Linden lab they are doing it now.

Can you imagine the insight you can have here on uman behaviour?

Is somebody having experience in some kind of SecondLife analytic?

What kind of tools are available today to register and analyse data in SL?

Best regards.

–
Maurizio Fionda
Diennea Italy
www.mag-news.com
Technologies for marketing

www.Code4Software.com  has the best analytics package for Second Life that I've seen - and it is capable of doing A/B Testing by it's use of Campaigns, a unique feature.  I don't yet have permission to show screen shots but I believe there will be more information being posted shortly on V-Tracker - besides the reviews I've written.

There's a lot of new development here and every one involved with Second Life that I have spoken of, seems to have their own opinion about what Metrics ought to be - and some package they've seen or heard of that ..they think … is similar to V-Tracker.   Most of what I have seen, so far, besides V-Tracker, it not analytics and not scalable, robust and query-able (no data warehouse).  Another feature of V-Tracker it's easy to deploy (takes about 3 hours for a full install) and very flexible - the very thing you need the most in a Web Analytics package.

As far as Second Life: a new networking protocol - Maurizio Fionda  brings up a point that is being actively discussed:

"…Everyone together will form the second life universe and each of us will be able to have our own server, just as every one of us has an intimate and indivisible individual sphere"

I think, this is where it's all going but it's going to take at least 3-5 years to get there - maybe more.

"..Today secondlife is an environment with very few rules, all decided arbitrarily by the board of directors and the executive management of Linden Lab, in the interests of the firm shareholders, who in my opinion understand the problem very well, given that so far, they have shown great foresight.

If Linden Lab know how to run this process, it will remain the main protagonist for a long time, otherwise it will be crushed by the development of another secondlife environment having resolved this phase; a solution, perhaps the only one, could be to open the standard to anyone who supports the technical interface - meaning anyone will be able to run the servers and decide the rules connecting to a network of servers."

Personally, I was surprised Linden Labs was not aquired - I know that sounds strange - but I was sorta expecting to hear something like that at Virtual Worlds 2007.  I'm looking at it more from an infrastructure and QoS point of view - the grid is down often enough - and the services are uneven enough - wit
h just 50,000 inhabitants on at any one time - that it's hard to see how 10 times that, or a hundred times that number can be online at anytime without totally crashing Second Life - and without some serious horsepower on the backend - something the large corporations know how to do - I'm not sure how else it's going to be accomplished - that you have 10 million avatars online at one time (not just registered - but active and moving in Second Life).

From my point of view Maurizio's point about what needs to happen as far as control of the Virtual Worlds community comes after we figure out that the community can be big enough and sustainable in any Virtual World and that there are good metrics packages that call pull the data.

And now that I'm on the Board of Directors for the Web Analytics Association - focusing on Social Media - I think it's time the Web Analytics Association becomes part of that debate and it's resolution.  I'm member 2844, incase, if joining, your asked the member who referred you.

I'll be creating a section of the Web Analytics Association to deal with Social Media and include Second Life and other 3D Virtual Worlds and I invite people interested to join the WAA and work with me on this (bear in mind - I'm just getting started and feeling my way into this new role of Directorship - so be patient with me):

I'm really glad IPTV Evangelist attended Virtual Worlds 2007 - there are excellent interviews, both written and video of Sebley Verbeck - CEO of The Electric Sheep Company, Jerry Paffendorf - Resident Fururist of The Electric Sheep Company, John Martin, Product Manager of Reallusion (who I also spoke with and who makde an "iclone of me").

All three interviews are worth reading and listening to.

I went over the the Metaverse Meetup last night that was really, really, rocking!  I tried to take some pictures but hardly anything came out - I'm sure others will be posting pictures and I'll include links to them in a later post.

However, I do want to say a couple of things about yesterday - one that I'll be working on a internal Second Life Project providing Metrics at IBM and also met and some wonderful people last night as well as seeing some pretty amazing stuff at the Meetup.  I just got done emailing all the people I'm mentioning here - or I hope I have got most of them as I had several conversations last night.

CombinedStory - Boris Kizelshteyn - I met Boris at the Virtual Worlds 2007 conference earlier this week while talking with Ancient Shriner - Jared Freedman.  Boris is really nice guy and seemed to know a lot about the SL Community and it's really rich.  His company, CombinedStory, is actually right around the corner from where I work at IBM.  We were discussing getting me some SL immersion training and I learnt a lot from talking with him.

I also spoke with Melody Chamlee, of Ziff Davis who was really someone I can speak with - some one of like mind - I rarely meet someone who I am that tuned in with.  Hopefully Melody will get back to me with some questions for input she can use on some of her Ziff Davis articles.   I think Melody was also involved in one of the 4 projects we briefly looked at last night - www.DearIDea.net - I'll go into that in another post.

I ran into Nathanial Freitas last night again - he's the guy responsible for me being at Virtual Worlds 2007 in the first place! - had I not spoken to him at the Etsy party last week, I'd never know to ask for the Press Pass that allowed me to meet all the rest and know about all of this wonderful stuff - including the Metaverse Meetup that happened last night.

Funny thing, I did not immediately associate him with the party last week and feel really bad that he had to come up and introduce himself to me - I've met so many people lately sometimes it gets blurred - but as soon as he mentioned the Etsy party, I remembered, and we had corresponded last week.

I'll do a post or two about www.Cruxy.com, Nathanial's company very soon; we're setting up to meet in Park Slope soon where I'll interview him about www.Cruxy.com.   I will say that one thing people don't know about Cruxy.com is that it's hosted entirely on Amazon Web Services and Nathanial does not have to pay for any kind of hardware - I had no idea Amazon had gone so far into Web Services! I turns out Amazon did what HP and Sun talked about, years back.   But I'll leave that all for another post.  Meanwhile, check out www.Cruxy.com - especially if your a musician or artist (and I'll cover that in my art blog, www.artnewyorkcity.com ).

Also had a nice conversation with Jean-Ann Mills, an Events Producer for Electric Sheep Company in Second Life.  She said that planning an event in SL is just as involved as it is in real life except she does not have to worry about the food!  I told her….that's not true… Avatars need to eat too - just like the Pharaoh's of old - who went to the next life with all the most cherished objects of their physical life on Earth, including food. 

I also asked Jean-Ann to try to facilitate a meeting with Electric Sheep Company and me (she's an event planner - so maybe she can also help setup this "event") -so I can see their metrics backend. 

I need to see it before I can write about it (that is .. if they want me to write about it).  I had talked to Jerry Paffendorf and Sibley Verbeck over the last two or three days but nothing really concrete about a discussion over metrics - and I'm a Web Analyst - so I need to see what they're doing - especially now.

Ran into John K. Bates again, from www.EntropiaUniverse.com and we spoke again briefly last night - it was great to see the support the Virtual World Community has for all it's members.  I think John did a pretty good job of showing why someone would want to go into Entropia instead of, or in addition to Second Life.

Briefly spoke to Adam Broitman of Morpheus Media - his company sounds like the place to go if you want to get a basic implementation in Second Life and don't have a ton of money to spend.  I'm going to try to plug that service to some of my SEO clients, like www.Mascord.com that really should consider SL but haven't been willing to take the plunge.  Most of the Architects I've dealt with are kind of the conservative sort - then they wonder why the conversion rates are low or the audience is not broad enough. Seth Godin has the answers - it's just that few really want to listen to them and follow through to the logical conclusions.  What can I say … I'll keep plugging away.

And Mike Moran, who was not at the meetup, but comes into this context because of one thing he says in Chapter 6 of his new book, as yet unpublished, about Doing it Quickly.  A lot of these SL ideas I'm proposing could be doing quickly and not very expensively …. but the idea, as Mike proposes, is to do things in a small way first, and Quickly…and fail often to succeed in the long run. 

I think Mike Moran has a message a lot of people need to hear - about metrics, conversion process and Trying new things Quickly …. Testing.  I think Second Life projects, that I'm proposing is are a way in - to address the low conversion rates - or at least, to build Branding - which is what sells the Architect's plans anyway…. so maybe now, when I say, go into Second Life - I have resources and people I can send my clients to.

I spoke with Peder Burgaard at the dinner last night before the MetaVerse Meetup and he's doing a research Project and had worked with several at IBM and I offered to help him with in any way I can with people I know at IBM.  Peder had some really good ideas and I'm sure we will correspond.

Honestly, I can't be totally sure  Dan Benzakein is not the guy living in Paris who I spoke with yesterday or someone else I spoke wit the day before at Virtual Worlds 2007.  I think it's the former, not latter; in either case, we had a great conversation - both cases.

And I think I was speaking with Prokofy Neva, manager of Raven glass Rentals a couple of times over the last 3 days - and we had a nice conversation about Metric last night at dinner.

And at the end of the long evening - I saw the 4 projects being talked about at the Metaverse Meetup, including a Wii interface to Second Life that is pretty neat and Open Sourced that was just thrown together in the last couple of days.

Yes, Momentum is moving very quickly in Second Life - now might be the time to jump in - that's my prediction …. the time is now.

If you wait 6 months or a year, you'll be behind the wave.

Does it sell tomorrow? No.  Does it sell cars a month from now or a year from now? Yes.  We're talking about Motorati Island in Second Life.

 Pontiac Second Life Case Study
Leo Burnett Detroit helped its Pontiac client launch a presence in Second Life in November. Pontiac’s launch of its six-region land mass called Motorati Island began with a twist–an offer of free “land” for Second Lifers to create a vibrant car culture within the community. Staying true to the spirit of Second Life, which empowers members to build the community, Pontiac has provided parcels of land around Motorati Island to Second Life entrepreneurs and artists who wish to create their own projects devoted to car culture. This session will give attendees an inside glimpse of how Motorati Island came to be, and key learnings from being a major marketer in Second Life.
- Tor Myhren, Executive Vice President, Executive Creative Director,
   Leo Burnett Detroit

Counting Clicks is not necessary the best way to build a Brand.  A Brand is a point of view, you either buy it or you don't.  We've sold 7,000 Pontiac's in Second Life but how many have we sold in real life?   I have not f….king Idea - says Tor Myhren; but that's not the point, he says.  It's old school Branding campaign run in a new way and the results have been very good in getting awareness.

ROI - I know we measure all kinds of things ….because we can, but that's not what drives the Brand.  I don't think we're doing this for an immediate ROI.

There's a portal called Motoratilife.com where you can hear about what is going on in Motorati Island and also join Second Life directly from the site.

Now, people ask us …. your not building Pontiac's on Motorati Island and your getting other people to come to your island and do their own thing (and sell other cars even) - how can you call that Branding?  Tor answered his own question by saying that Branding now is now more like "Curating" and you no longer control your brand - you "moderate it".

I am much more focused today on what people are saying at the Virtual Worlds 2007 Conference and taking few notes and writing mostly from memory and what has stuck with me.  Right now I'm listening to Virtual Worlds as Interactive Television.

Virtual Worlds as Interactive Television session
With the advent of virtual worlds networks, individual channels and individual shows can now create interactive versions of their franchises and engage fans directly, immersing them into the environment. Find out how to successfully extend a television brand, including measuring audience participation and extending the advertising business model.
- Sibley Verbeck, CEO, The Electric Sheep Company
- Additional Speakers to be announced

Right now there's not that many people in the Virtual Worlds but there's a lot of Buzz and Suits at this conference - they're not looking at us - but the next 10 or 20 million people who will come onto Virtual Worlds.  People here believe it will happen.

The interface to Virtual World is still too cumbersome for many people to use and, as a result, is a barrier to entry - but there's a lot of work that is being done to try to remedy that.  It's also necessary - when your doing customer service - to staff your virtual enterprise and that's not an always an easy task.

It needs to get much easier to import data into Virtual Worlds (ie: 3D Studio Max, AutoCad, painting, etc) and a power scripting language.  Also Video with DRM is missing from Virtual Worlds.

You need to be able virtual worlds and link them together and allow how much people can bring with them between worlds.  And Social Networks are not really facilitated yet and they need to be.

Sibley also talked about focusing more on the audience in the Virtual World than the Virtual World it self - no one World will have everything you want - it's better to figure out the audience you want to reach and then build on top of that than trying to draw them all to one specific World.

Another speaker from IBM came up and spoke about how Mobile Devices are your Avatar in Real Life.  Conference with Virtual Worlds PC's and Mobile will happen and mobile can be a remote control for your Avatar.

Real Life + Virtual Life  = Interactive Life

Mobile Devices need to be treated differently due to performance issues - copying stuff from PC's to Mobile might not work that well and new thinking is needed here.

Questions: When does Virtual Worlds become a Television Phenomenon?  Forget about the PC, when can I do it directly from the TV (Cable/Phone Industry).  Do people of "color" want to consume Virtual Media more than anyone else?

Answer: Don't think of Virtual Worlds as a Broadcast Platform - what your looking at is a 2 way communication.  The TV Platform does not have 2 way, by default. In the Social Network sites you learn to communicate with others while in the 3D Virtual Wolds you learn to interact and do the whole thing.

It was a long day today and i summed up Virtual World 2007 First Day Recap and how I felt about it on my Art Blog.

As far as metrics, unless I see something different from Electric Sheep Company Thursday - I'm pretty clear on where Metrics are at in Second Life and right now - Metrics are not being built into many SL projects where it ought to be from the ground up.

Can't write much more and will be going back to virtual worlds 2007 tomorrow.

I think Jared Freedman might be the one person who knows or has accomplished the most with Web Analytics in Second Life that I met at the Virtual Life Conference. In fact, Jared Freedman and his firm, Code4Software, did the work on Coldwell Banker's Second Life in 45 days and it has gotten a tremendous amount of Buzz.

"…Unlike almost every other big company, Coldwells offices in the virtual world will be staffed with real people (in the form of avatars of course). They will not only sell virtual real estate, but also answer questions about real world transactions."

"….Visitors to Coldwells sales office (in a community called Ranchero) will, if they choose, be flown by helicopter to view available properties. (Coldwell is also selling houses in the Second Life neighborhoods Crowfoot, Elboya, Gorbash and Scurfield.)

Coldwell has designed and built its own houses, which buyers will not be allowed to alter. They will sell for about $20 (U.S.) each, lower than the average for similar properties in Second Life, says Young."

I told Jared that if I am elected to the Board of the WAA, I'll take 3D Virtual World Metrics as one of my projects to develop a platform / committee at the WAA for this.

Jared Freedman Metrics system, which he calls "VMetrics", counts activity in Second Life by:

1. Visits by Minute
2. Visits by Location
3. Visits by Customer
4. Visits by Campaign

You can also pre-define sensors that focus on certain objects (we call that "Segmentation" in Web Analytics).

Another thing we discussed was Second Life overall Metrics through January 2007 which showed very low numbers of Chinese and Japanese using the Metaverse; Jared had the answer - LOCALIZATION.  The problem is developing the language interface/translation for both is not yet in place and the cost to maintain such interfaces as more and more are added becomes more than Linden Labs can afford. 

I'm sure this will be addressed in the future, but for the time being - the Localization issue has prevented Second Life and other 3D Virtual Worlds from spreading as much as they might, certainly in Asia.  Also, some countries, like Korea, have their own gaming communities that are very strong and are not, at this time, that interested in Second Life - but that could change with Localization issue being dealt with.

And Moore's law also holds true in Second Life - Jared Freedman thinks that hardware improvements speed the adoption of Second Life. I agreed, saying that I can't even run Second Life on my ThinkPad - I have to use my HP Laptop at home that is Dual Core, to run SL.

Getting into Jared's Second Life Activities:

As "Ancient Shriner" in Second Life, Jared Freedman is well known to many of the most accomplished Second Life programmers.

Jared also runs the biggest In-World Advertising system operating on the Second Life Mainland.

It was a pretty good interview and I'm looking forward to taking a closer look with "Ancient Shriner" on his Web Analytics for Second Life, perhaps as early as this weekend.