Hollywood2020

JULIAN DIBBELL THE BAD BOY OF VIRTUAL WORLDS

A SHOUT OUT TO JULIAN DIBBELL ...who's fast gaining a rep as the 'bad boy of virtual worlds" ....by Joyce Schwarz blogging at www.hollywood20202.blogs.com, We were going to blog about STATE OF PLAY the conference in NY looking at what's next for Virtual worlds in terms of legal, education and more...but our attention was suddenly caught by Julian Dibbell's blue tong and his outrageousness which we realize we've never catured in this blog!

WHO IS JULIAN? The description on the STATE OF PLAY website describes him as:an author, a professional baiter of IRS agents, a ninja-looter, a purchaser of gold farming services, and a relentless tab-targetter.  He is mad, bad, and dangrous to raid with. www.juliandibbell.com

It's been three years since Dibbell announced to his family he was going to start a new career trading 'make-believe' commodities and that he was going to get rich doing it....that's the essence of the opening paragraph of his new book. Now who wouldn't be intrigued! Play for money....money for play-- what an amazing combo!

Here's part of the description of the book on Amazon.com:Play Money is an extended walk on the weird side: a vivid snapshot of a subculture whose denizens were once the stuff of mere sociological spectacle but now--with computer gaming poised to eclipse all other entertainments in dollar volume, and with the lines between play and work, virtual and real increasingly blurred--look more and more like the future. More on Dibbell in the future...it was that blue tongue that got us! Oh and the lure of making real money in a virtual world...that's a good attraction too!

CLUB PENGUIN -- REALLY KEWL -- AND TIMELY -- KIDS SOCIAL NETWORKING HEATS UP IGLOOS

CLUB PENGUIN is HOT -- okay so that's a pun..even if you can build your own igloos....by Joyce Schwarz, Hollywood2020.blogs.com.

Scene from build your own igloo on www.clubpenguin.com

Club Penguin

Club Penguin is a kid-friendly virtual world where children can play games, ... Want to become a member of Club Penguin? Learn what membership is all about ... www.clubpenguin.com/ - 14k - Cached - Here's what WIKIPEDIA SAYS ABOUT IT:

Using cartoon penguin avatars, players can converse, play minigames, and participate in other activities with one another in a snow-covered virtual world Club Penguin was first made available to the public in October, 2005, and has since expanded into a large online community.

FACTS: you can play free, but you don't get all the kewl stuff unless you pay the $5.95 subscription fee per month.

PUFFLES: Puffles are small balls of fluff which penguins may have as pets. They're available from the Pet Shop in blue, purple, green, pink, or black. Players who don't own a membership have access to only one blue puffle.

WHY MEMBERSHIP?

Players who subscribe for memberships get many benefits. They may buy anything from shops, own multiple puffles (pets for their penguins), host parties, enjoy early access to new parts of the game, have more room on servers, buy furniture for their puffles, and have access to all puffle breeds

SAFE CHAT VERUS REGULAR CHAT? Of the current 73 computer servers running the game, 6 are Ultimate Safe Chat and 67 are Standard Safe Chat.

MINI-GAMES.....The single player games, which generally earn the player more coins include Cart Surfer, Ice Fishing, Astro Barrier, Bean Counters, Puffle Roundup, Jet Pack Adventure (which was only recently introduced), and Ballistic Biscuit.

CLUB PENGUIN CHEATS -- gathered from around the web-- we have not tested these-- so you might want to beware!

the pumpkin on the dance club near the stairs is a shape of the ship in astro barrier and its eyes are pointing up to the dance lounge

the northern lights thing says jetpack

Emotes
EP Puffle
EI Igloo
EF Flower
ET Fart Noise
EM Coin

Astro Barrier
On the loading screen, press:
1 to go to level 10
2 to go to level 20
3 to go to level 30

Secret Agent
To become a secret agent, simply click the moderator logo at the upper right of the screen then answer the quiz. If you have answered all the questions correctly, you should recieved a spy phone on your next log in.

Agent Quiz Answers
Honest
Being mean or rude
Report them
Saying their address
I want to keep Club Penguin Safe
I want to help other penguins

FOR MORE CHEATS AND HINTS GO TO any/all of these websites/weblogs:

Club Penguin Secrets

Club Penguin pirate ship. The ship Is in the Light House. The Journal of captain RockHopper is in the ship. Free Item For Non member in the ship (pirat’s ... flyboy6464.wordpress.com/ - 25k - Nov 15, 2006 - Cached - 2006 October « Cheat Penguin Its kinda amusing and at the same time scary, by the way here are the current statistics of Club Penguin. Parties: 12 free party items given away: 16 ... sanitypenguin.wordpress.com/2006/10/ - 26k - club penguin cheats & tips Bad news for club penguin hackers! Now when u hack u dont get banned for 24-64 hours! ... free hat! new pin is on the dock! new clothes only for members! ... paintboy100.wordpress.com/ - 18k - Nov 15, 2006 - Super light house glitch « Club Penguin Master cheats and secrets Cached - Cached -

SECOND LIFE GETS 100 TV CHANNELS --

now why didn't DIRECTTV think of this?

For the past year or so I've been writing about how I feel television is going to hit the Virtual Worlds soon...and this became a big discussion in one seminar at Digital Hollywood. I went over to talk with the person asking the question after the session and it turned out it was a researcher with IBM. I said I was sure this was going to be happening VERY soon....and was already happening on Myspace.com etc.

IN FACT, I"VE BEEN SO SURE...that my room at HABBO.com is called HOLLYWOOD -- and guess what I have inside it -- scores of RED TV's -- just ready to air any TV show anyone wants to pay me to put up there ! --- So bring it on SCI FI channel...

See the complete article below:

In-game TV channels for Second Life
Pro-G, UK - Nov 8, 2006
... Run Red has teamed up with a number of content providers, and will be offering TV channels from the likes of Channel 4 and the Sci-Fi Channel on virtuallife.tv ...

Second Life plugs into broadband TV
Guardian Unlimited, UK - Nov 7, 2006
... metaverse". Rivers Run Red is partnering with 10 big content companies to provide material for TV channels on virtuallife.tv. By ...

SECOND LIFE WILL SELL YOU YOUR OWN NAME NOW!

SECOND LIFE www.secondlife.com -- will sell you your own name now-- really -- in the past you had to take a last name from a list the virtual world provided you...Hollywood2020.blogs.com blogger Joyce Schwarz is known as "Hollywood Link" -- LINK being among the 'family names' available via Second Life...now I could be Joyce Schwarz -- ooops I am Joyce Schwarz-- well you get the idea and if you don't....

here's what CNET says about it that should help clear this up for you:

'Second Life' to begin selling real names"

"That's because the company has decided, CNET News.com has learned, to charge individuals who want a real last name a $100 setup fee and a $50-a-year maintenance fee. Companies that want their corporate name can have unlimited accounts for a $1,000 setup fee and $500 a year.

CNET also notes (as we have at www.hollywood2020.blogs.com) that: big companies, such as Reebok, American Apparel, Warner Music, Sun Microsystems and even CNET Networks (parent company of CNET News.com have begun setting up shop in Linden Lab's metaverse -- Blogger note: Intel's also there especially with their 72 hour LIVE WINDOW in NYC and also IBM is there supposedly in stealth mode..and there's an Amazon.com store...and much more...

3.6 Million SECOND LIFERS by 2007?

ACCORDING TO THE MOST RECENT STAT WE SAW ON SECOND LIFE

from of all places THE TIMES OF OMAN: SL is growing by 22 per cent each month and if this continues there will be 3.6 million Second Lifers by July 2007.

WHILE WE WERE BLOGGING ABOUT INTEL'S LIVE PERFORMANCE EVENT-- SECOND LIFE WENT DOWN >>>>VERSU BUILDS NEW WORLD IN 72 HOURS IN WINDOW ON 5th AVE.

http://millionsofus.com/blog/archives/category/nyc-live-window/ 

Here's why.......
SECOND LIFE HIT BY SPAMMERS this past weekend-- click to the official Linden Blog (Linden Lab is the creator of SECOND LIFE): Mass spam issue inworld being investigated

Grid temporarily closed to investigate permissions exploit (October 14 6:21 a.m.)

Grid closed while permissions bug is addressed (10/14: 7:31 a.m.)

Grid is upSaturday, October 14th, 2006 at 12:07 pm by bluelinden

Here’s the official word from Doug Linden…

“Earlier this morning we closed down the grid while we were investigating a widespread permissions errors involving clothing. We currently have a required viewer update that temporarily disables the Appearance -> Save As and Make Outfit features, which will prevent permissions errors from occurring. We are working on a fix for these errors, and hope to have it available early in the week. We do not anticipate that this bug fix will require more grid downtime or a forced update.”

Datavision-- the store window where it's all at!

VERSU DOES IT 72 HOURS TO BUILD A WORLD

Versu Has Now Left the Building! according to: http://millionsofus.com/blog/archives/category/nyc-live-window/ by Joyce Schwarz, Hollywood2020.blogs.com -- see our previous post for our encouraging words to Versu...as we said then and repeat now-- WE ALWAYS KNEW A WOMAN WAS BUILDING THE NEW WORLD!

Sunday, October 15th, 2006 According to the Millions Of Us Blog archive --"With a little help from her friends, she (VERSU) built 2 blocks of New York, the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Yellow Cabs, the list goes on and on. Now for some sleep."Hollywood2020.blogs.com got up early (by our standards at 6 am. PST and she was gone already....we listened in on a recording of her final words from inside the window...here's an excerpt:"

I didn't do it alone and I couldn't have done it alone...Sl...people who came to the window in NY...I'm losing my voice been up all night and all day...there are the final words...here's the link to the real recording....Final Words from Versu 5 Mins Before Leaving the WindowSunday, October 15th, 2006 powered by Hipcast.com *courtesy of the Millions Of Us blog.
THE WHOLE EVENT was instigated by INTEL who is promoting:

Courtesy Intel® Centrino® Duo virtual and real worlds collided for 72 hours -- October 12-15 -- in a window on 5th Ave & 39th in a store called Datavision..

JOIN HER & HER PALS IN SECOND LIFE THIS AFTERNOON:If by any chance you missed it -- or you'd like to 'relive the experience' -- go to: by the Live Without Boundaries region at www.secondlife.com after 4pm PST on Sunday, October 15th. (Note Second Life software needs to be installed). Here's the link to the Hollywood2020.blogs.com first post on the LIVE event...VERSU BUILDS NEW WORLD IN 72 HOURS TO PROMO INTEL & DATAVISION

VERSU BUILDS NEW WORLD IN 72 HOURS TO PROMO INTEL & DATAVISION

VERSU BUILDS NEW WORLD IN 72 HOURS IN WINDOW ON 5th AVE. post by Joyce Schwarz, www.hollywood2020.blogs.com at 11 p.m. PST Saturday, October 14, 2006

FIFTH AVENUE, New York City known for shopping and parades...is in the news this weekend for being the 'home' of Versu Richelieu, a virtual worlds builder from Millions Of Us (www.millionsofus.com) who is 'living her digital life' in public for 72 hours in a window at 39th & 5th courtesy of Intel(R) and Datavision's store at that locale. And, yes, Versu is a woman-- we always knew that the world was created by a SHE -- didn't we?

See that wording on the left in blue--That's how the Youtube.com video of this guerrila marketing/performance art project by Versu opening screen reads..

WINDOW TO NYC & THE WORLD IN PROGRESS...

Check out this window to her world via the website set up for just that: nyclivewindow.com.

GO GIRL.....Versu @ 39th & 5th...great window shopping!

Versu (her name in www.secondlife.com is eating, sleeping and living in the store window-- and her exploits are being carried via webcam and video feeds from Second Life to the rest of us out in RL (real life).

Here's what Intel says about all of this at it's website entitled what else-- www.nyclivewindow.com: "Versu Richelieu, is creating a new masterpiece in the Second Life virtual landscape using the power and performance of an Intel® Centrino® Duo based laptop featuring the Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor. The world's best mobile processors1.

72 HOURS OF DIGITAL LIVING...

For 72 hours, Versu will eat, sleep, and live a completely digital life…all in a store window in New York City! Can she do it? Check out the live webcam and Second Life feeds below to see how she is doing! Or see the experiment in person at the Datavision Store on the corner of 5th Avenue and 39th Street in New York City."

Check out the photo above courtesy of Versu's blog --

photo credit is given to the photographer who evidently

captured the event in both RL and VL (real life and virtual life).

Screengrab from Versu's blog...be there or be square Sunday am....

screengrabs from Intel's site & the blog

5th Ave in progress..

Datavision-- the store window where it's all at!

Hollywood2020.blogs.com (this blog) will try to email this blog to Versu...it should be about 1am there...EST...wish we were there to see her in the AM....oh well...we're with you virtually here in Marina Del Rey, CA....darn -- would make a great xmas card---5th Ave & Hollywood meeting with Versu!

Versu-- Happy Halloween-- sorry we missed Friday the 13th--but here's greetings from blogger Joyce Schwarz and Vincent Price...who was in a film called Master of the World (1961) .... we think he would have enjoyed a cameo in your world--heck-- a leading role.

WHAT'S UP WITH WEBLO.COM? COULD IT BE A SCAM?

WHAT'S UP WITH WEBLO.COM ...

.could this new 'community' website be a scam? Or is it just badly run? Digging deeper into Weblo's pasts we find that they got bad marks from some for a "Virtual Hire" contest they had earlier for another site developed by the same company-- more on that later...

Okay, you may have seen this blogger's post earlier this week about buying some 'virtual' cities on a new website and 'virtual' community called www.weblo.com.

We have emailed Marketing Director, Sean Morrow

who posted a note on Sept 28 saying that -- well here's the link

Read More...:Lanching Module Tile: Opening Up to You 
Lanching Date: 28-Sep-2006 
Module Details:
Hello Weblo Members... Can you help?

MAINTENANCE, MAINTENANCE and a slightly flakey background??????

At the time of Hollywood2020.blogs.com post the site www.weblo.com

was only 5 days old...

now for the past 48 hours the site constantly says it is down for maintenance

once you sign in and go to the 'location' of the properties you've purchased.

NOW, we're starting to wonder about the site....

which has been getting some decent PR in web reports

on such reputable sites as "RED HERRING", "BOSTON HERALD" ,

CNET News Canada, here are links to some of those posts

...note that it seems that any articles/interviews seem to have stopped

except to passing reference to Weblo.com as of 48 hours ago....

AND NO MESSAGE IN THEIR LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

SECTION SINCE SEPT 28 -- almost 2 weeks ago.....

Here are links to PR and note latest developments while we were

writing this blog-- read to the end of the article...we're still skeptical

because of the recent research we did...

Hollywood2020 note:we advise you do NOT buy

on this site www.weblo.com nor

subscribe to it until they fix their

technical problems and

start posting daily updates to users...

Want to run the world? Name your price: Real cash buys virtual ...
Boston Herald, United States - 23 hours ago

Weblo's world: a crazy online economy
CNET News.com, CA - Oct 6, 2006
Weblo is an interesting online game that mirrors a

Virtual World, Real Money
Red Herring, CA - Sep 29, 2006
Launched Tuesday, co-founder Rocky Mirza’s “Weblo” is a virtual epicenter 

Line between virtual and real world blurred as more pay for online ...
Calgary Sun, Canada - Sep 28, 2006
... Michael Edelson shelled out $60,000 for the right to...

UPDATE -- there is a note under LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

Blogger note: it seems to have gone up on Oct 10

NOW I did not see this at the beginning js

of writing this blog 1/2 hour ago-- here is the note:

Improvements On the Way 
Move By:  PR Director, Kelly Ekins  10-Oct-2006 

Hello Weblo’ers!

We know it has been a while, hence we are here!

While we admit we have been a little quiet lately,

there is a reason for it.

We’ve been working away feverishly to ensure

Weblo.com is offering you the best experience possible

and while we can agree that it is not quite

there yet, we can tell you all that it is

moving in a positive direction.

Please give us a chance to outline some

of the great things that have

been going on at Weblo.com.

In response to your feedback,

we’re happy to announce Ryan Bastien

has joined our team in the role

of Community Manager. His main responsibility

is to be out there,

in the community, to listen, to offer information,

and to keep you all up-to-date on the daily happenings

here at Weblo.com.

You'll see him popping in on forum discussions

as well as posting here at Weblo.com.

Ryan has already been posting in

a Weblo member’s forum at www.webloforum.com.

Stay tuned for more news on Ryan’s role.

The Weblo Wizard is our main priority and we expect it

to be up before the end of the week.

We know creating the sites for your Weblo

Assets is important to you

and that’s why it’s important to us.

When the wizard is up, please send us your feedback.

We’ll set up a specific email address for this

and we’ll let you know what it is tomorrow.

Yes, we’ll be back tomorrow – with more news.

PR Director, Kelly Ekins  10-Oct-2006 

OKAY KELLY, HOLLYWOOD2020.blogs.com

we will be back tomorrow too

to see what's up...

we remember Pixelon

.Pixelon issues sweeping layoffs after founder's arrest | CNET News.com

9:45 PST UPDATE FROM WEBLO.com via emai:

At the beginning of this post we emailed Weblo.com --

we did get an email back from

Sean -- the marketing director--here's what he says:

Joyce,

Have you checked the Latest Developments?

We just uploaded some new points,

we have a new Community Manager and, even more,

we expect the Weblo Wizard to be up with the next few days!!

We’re also working on getting the site faster

and more accessible! We’re well on the way to success!

Thanks for the feedback, thanks for the support

and keep checking back...we’re only getting better!

Are members are our top priority!

Best,

Sean

[email protected]

Reply To: To: [email protected] CC: [email protected]

SUN MICROSYSTEMS MOVES INTO SECOND LIFE ON TUES, OCT 10

SUN MICROSYSTEMS MOVES INTO SECOND LIFE (www.secondlife.com) on Tuesday, November 10, 2005 by conducting the first Fortune 500 press conference ever held 'in-world'. Sun Microsystems Launches Presence in Virtual World Second Life

Here are the details for the SUN SECOND LIFE invite......

www.secondlife.com

WHO: John Gage, Chief Researcher and VP, Sun Science Office
Chris Melissinos, Chief Gaming Officer, Sun
Philip Linden, CEO, Linden Lab
WHEN: October 10, 2006. 10 a.m. Pacific Time / 1 p.m. Eastern Time
HOW: Join Second Life for free at: https://secondlife.com/join.
WHERE: In Second Life, go to: "Sun Pavilion"
Or click the following shortcut link: http://tinyurl.com/m338r 
* Note: access to the Sun Pavilion will be restricted prior to the event. 

SPEAKERS INCLUDE: Gage, Melissinos & Linden

Sun Co-founder John Gage, will appear as an avatar to chat about what the SUn press release calls "the opportunities for experimentation with new forms of communication, collaboration and economic activity in the virtual world." Chris Melissinos, Sun's chief gaming officer, will also speak during the event. Philip Linden, CEO of Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, will also be on hand for the event.

LIVING A "SECOND LIFE" IS TRENDY.....next 'new, new thing'.....

'Second Life' Creator Predicts Growth
Houston Chronicle, United States - 11 hours ago
... AMSTERDAM, Netherlands —

In the beginning, Philip Rosedale created a virtual heaven ........

Blogger Joyce Schwarz article on 'Branded Virtual Worlds" --

in case you haven't seen this article, here's the link to

imediaconnection.com

iMedia Connection: Bold New Opportunities in Virtual Worlds

VIDEO GAMES IN EDUCATION:SCHOOL GOES VIRTUAL

posted by Joyce Schwarz, JCOM, www.joycecom.com, and blogging at www.hollywood2020.blogs.com -- talking about video games as education and delving into the future of virtual worlds and other immersive environments for learning. The essence and what's new in this video is the idea of adapting commercial games and AAA publishers to adapt their games for educational purposes or at least make them available for adapting for in-classroom or on the edge of the classroom. The above video is courtesy of Orange County (CA) Department of Ecucation 22 min 12 sec - Apr 17, 2006 auto-posted on this blog courtesy of a link from Google Video.Games in Education video created by Mark Wagner and Michael Guerena of the Orange County (CA) Department of Education's Educational Technology group. Permission via Wagner and Guarena to post for educational purposes.

In doing a search for what's hot in video and virtual worlds for educational purposes, Hollywood2020.blogs.com, blogger Joyce Schwarz, JCOM, emerging entertainment analyst/consultant came across this video done by the ed-tech dept of OC's Dept of Education. The discussion (which is a little bit too many talking heads for our taste-- but it's academic I guess). includes talk about games as homework, games as group collaboration & more. Neverwinternights includes tools for modifying the game for educational purposes -- that's an off-the-shelf game according to this video. COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG: The video talks about Colonial Williamsburg who has a terrific education department-- Blogger Joyce Schwarz was very impressed with their CD ROM's and their DVDs prepared for educational purposes. They also have an ongoing PBS TV show and of course they tie-in to the Colonial Williamsburg real world re-creation which is part theme park and part museum. If you have not been there-- head there with your kids on your next vacation. OC COMMUNITY COLLEGES MULTIMEDIA PROGRAM: . Hollywood2020.blogs.com blogger Joyce Schwarz was especially interested in the OC Educational technology program because 10 years ago, Schwarz served as the industry advisor and co-creator of the Fullerton College multimedia retraining program and was a co-writer on the State of California grant for retraining of unemployed engineers and others in the OC area into the multimedia arena. AUGMENTED REALITY GAMES USED FOR EDUCATION: In the video posted on www.hollywood2020.blogs.com, Dr. James Gee from the University of Wisconsin talks about the value of augmented reality gaming systems. Where basically another screen is put on top of the real world and enables students/trainees etc to learn by exploring the new 'augmented reality'. A point that Gee makes is that students -- especially girls have to feel that tech is just a part of everyday-- that it's not hard and that it is simply another way of learning. In other words, wearing goggles or using a computer is just as simple as reading a bookjs

MTV'S VLB -- WHERE LIFE'S A BEACH!

LIFE'S A BEACH....at least at Virtual Laguna Beach - Live it!

MTV is in beta on it's "Virtual Laguna Beach" which ties in with the television show of the same name...the good news is that you'll be able to see the "Laguna Beach" TV shows a day in advance if you're a resident in VLB....and watch for Pepsi and ad agency OMD's clients to brand the area with their goodies too according to Betanews.com. "Virtual Laguna Beach also is just one example of the next-generation media models that we're creating for our viewers to connect with one another in ways they never could before; for content creators to develop experiences that live side by side with on-air content; and for marketers to become an integral and meaningful part of the programming,"according to a quote from Van Toffler, president of MTV's Music Films & Logo groups.

According to a story in imediaconnection.com:

Here's a link to that whole press release:

'Virtual Laguna Beach,' First Of Three Virtual Platforms In Development, Debuts Today MTV Networks Working Hand-In-Hand With Pepsi, Mediavest Worldwide And ... www.viacom.com/view_release.jhtml?inID=4&inReleaseID=227317 - 22k - Cached - Hollywood2020.blogs.com blogger Joyce Schwarz predicted the launch of future branded worlds in this article on imediaconnection.com: iMedia Connection: Bold New Opportunities in Virtual Worlds

The Virtual Laguna Beach site is a blend of social networking and video games. Brands including Cingular, Pepsi-Cola and Secret have agreed to participate within the avatar-based game. Brands Participate in Virtual MTV Shows