SOMEWHAT FRANK

Metaplace Web Virtual World Launches

Metaplace, a company founded by San Diego-based Areae, has just launched a virtual world at TechCrunch40 that can be embedded on the Web via a flash-based client widget. Dubbed Second Life on the Web, Metaplace leverages open standards to enable players to develop worlds that can be accessed anywhere from the Web to mobile networks. Every world is indexed, tagged and rated by users on the Metaplace portal, so virtual worlds in the Metaplace network can be easily linked together.

Do You Need A Hug (Shirt)?

CuteCircuit thinks you need a hug as the company has created an innovative shirt called the Hug Shirt. Leveraging Bluetooth technology and SMS text messaging, the Hug Shirt lets you send a hug to your fellow hug shirt wearing friends via your mobile phone. Each hug you send is played back like a message. So if you tap on your left shoulder the receiver of the message will feel that tap wherever they receive the message.

PMOGs Turn The Web Into A Game

Are you looking for a little more out of the time and energy you spend on the Web?  If so, you might want to check out a Passively Multiplayer Online Game or PMOG. A proposal created by Justin Hall, Passively Multiplayer Online Games look to create a game around your Web attention data. Justin Hall has been referred to by the NYTimes as the "the founding father of personal bloggers" and decided to create a game out of the Web with PMOGs as part of his Masters project at the USC Annenberg Center.

Sloog.org Offers Social Bookmarking Mashup For Second Life Virtual World

Mapping mashups have become extremely common in the web 2.0 as developers have leverages web services to combine data with maps of Earth. I recently had a close encounter with a mapping mashup of a new kind called Sloog.org.

Sloog.org is a bookmarking service for Second Life residents and offers a unique mashup experience because rather than plotting items to a map of Earth, it plots location in the virtual world, Second Life. That's right, Sloog.org leverages a tagging infrastructure to offers users a way to search Second Life. Sloog.org is free and enables users to tag and search both places and avatars. Users (with Second Life access) can also teleport directly to visit locations bookmarked with the service. Sloog.org showcases some of the most recently visited and most popular places like Mercedez Benz Island, Virtual Morocco and Mosi-Mosi Headquarters. I did a search and found AOL Pointe, the AOL virtual real estate, and displayed the results below.

Sloog.org is a product of the Barcelona-based multimedia studio Mosi-Mosi. They are determined to make Second Life and a better place. To stay up to speed with the latest Sloog.org happenings check out the official Sloog.org blog.

Bottom-line: Sloog.org is a social bookmarking services for Second Life that offers users a great way to search and discover new parts of the virtual world.

Election 2.0

With a number of political candidates creating MySpace profiles, YouTube videos and Second Life avatars it appears that the Internet and web 2.0 technology are being leveraged for political campaigning.

TechPresident, a project of the Personal Democracy Forum, launched recently to aggregate the activities of U.S. presidential hopefully on popular web 2.0 social media sites. Aside from a blog which gives perspective on the presidential race, TechPresident also tracks each candidates MySpace friend counts, YouTube videos, and Technorati mentions and Google and Yahoo ads. I would love to see it add Second Life (virtual world) and Twitter (micro-blog platform) to the mix as candidates also appear on these sites.

The video below titled, Election 2.0, explains just how the 2008 United States election will be like no other election as web 2.0 takes on an unprecedented role. My only critique of the video is that it breaks the "context before detail" rule which would have made the message more powerful. Nonetheless, I think it is well done and worth watching.

Gates & Jobs Duke It Out In Apple iWorld

The "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials produced by Apple which consist of a war of words between two actors playing the roles of a Mac and a PC have created quite the buzz. With the release of Vista the most recent commercial describes the user "Allow/Cancel" prompts that might frequently bombard a Vista user. Current.tv decided to see what would happen if  one of these Mac commercials consisted of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Place your bets now, as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs square off and duke it out in the clean white virtual world of the Mac ads. Who do you think will win this "tech czar" duel?

 

Gizmoz For Customized Talking Heads

Gizmoz, an Israel-based company, offers a suite of tools for generating animated avatars and buddy icons thus enabling users to create messages to share over email, the web or even instant messenger. You can create an custom animated message by selecting an avatar to deliver the message and then either recording a 20 second message, typing a message to be converted into an audio voice or by selecting a pre-recorded message. Upon selecting an avatar and message option you can preview the animated video before sharing it with others. However, all messages that are created on the site are placed into a public gallery of Gagz for others to watch, rate and share. I created an animated avatar and have embedded it for viewing above or by visiting this link.

Aside from animated gag creation, Gizmoz offers a free plug-in to bring talking heads to just about every instant messaging client available (i.e. AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, Google Talk). The software enables users to share gags and exchange instant messages via a Gizmoz talking head. Find out more here.

In addition, Gizmoz is working a product called Headz Maker that allows anyone to create a custom talking head from a facial photo. TechCrunch previously reported more details on the head maker. It sort of reminds me of Max Headroom, are we catching up with the technology forecasts of 1985?

Mix-Mas: A Virtual World For Sending Customized Holiday Greetings

With the holidays upon us hopefully you have sent your holiday wishes to all your family and friends. However, if you have not and you are still looking to send a holiday greeting you could send them a dancing elf greeting or you could give something a little more interactive a try. I recently was sent a greeting via Mix-Mas, a product created by Mantis, which brings holiday greeting customization and social interactivity to a new level. Mix-Mas is a flash-based web service that lets you send holiday greeting that all live together in a holiday greeting virtual world.

With Mix-Mas you can create a custom avatar to represent you in your greeting. The avatar will live in the Mix-Mas virtual holiday greeting world. While creating your avatar you can select from a number of options very similar to WeeWorld. A screen-shot of the creation screen can be seen above. After creating your avatar messenger you can send the greeting to anyone. I have created one here. Upon recieving the greeting you are directed to it in the Mix-Mas virtual world as shown below.

You will notice a number of other avatars which carry the messages as well. If you click on any avatar they will display their holiday message adding a web 2.0 social hook to the holiday greeting product. You can see my holiday greeting here or search Mix-mas by avatar name (i.e. Frank Gruber). If you still need more details check out this Mix-Mas video demo or by clicking the video below.

Bottom-line: Mix-Mas is a fun new way to send online holiday greetings. Create a custom avatar and send a holiday greeting today. Happy holidays!