It’s only a vision at this point, but technology companies like Facebook are aiming to make the metaverse the setting for many online activities, including work, play, studying and shopping. How do we ensure everyone has a say in how it develops? It's a question Shel and I considered in the primary discussion in the August episode of The Hobson & Holtz Report aka episode 210 of the For Immediate Release podcast published on August 23. We started with a definition. Wikipedia's is … [Read more...] about Considering the forthcoming metaverse
Virtual Communities
Hyper reality: merging physical and virtual realities
Augmented reality will be a huge part of our individual and collective experiences in the not too distant future. Our daily lives will be like a journey in virtual reality except in actual reality, immersively overlaid with personalized information that we will engage with, where everything we do is part of a giant contest that awards points to reward behaviours and actions. This is a future vision that I think is persuasively presented in a high-definition video (embedded below) that runs a … [Read more...] about Hyper reality: merging physical and virtual realities
FIR Speakers and Speeches: Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz on Building Community with Podcasting
Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz co-presented a session on the second day of Ragan Communications' Public Relations and Social Media Summit at ING House in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, on April 12, 2012. The session covered how a podcast can transform independent listeners into an engaged community. The presentation included audio clips of familiar FIR voices including correspondents Dan York and Michael Netzley, as well as other PR podcasters, and explored how the communities these podcasts … [Read more...] about FIR Speakers and Speeches: Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz on Building Community with Podcasting
Guidelines for using avatars in business
Do you ever pause and think about the avatar you use online as the visual representation of you: your persona or alter ego? What it says to others about you and the organization you work for or represent? Avatars are creeping into business environments and will have far reaching implications for enterprises, from policy to dress code, behaviour and computing platform requirements, according to a report from industry analysts Gartner. Gartner predicts that by year-end 2013, 70 percent of … [Read more...] about Guidelines for using avatars in business
Watching the Watchmen
I’m watching with great interest some of the social media communication Dan Light is involved with as part of the marketing for Watchmen, a movie about American superheroes based on a DC Comics series, due out in the UK on March 6. Directed by Zack Snyder – who directed 300, adapted from a classic Frank Miller graphic novel – the flic is at the top of my ‘must see’ list at the cinema for this Spring. I’ve worked with Dan before on movie marketing and Second Life, notably on the … [Read more...] about Watching the Watchmen
Workplace collaboration on the 3D web
A news item Shel and I discussed in FIR #390 yesterday was a report in the Wall Street Journal’s Technology Blog about a partnership Linden Lab, the developer of Second Life, is announcing this week with Rivers Run Red, a developer of content, applications and tools for virtual worlds like Second Life: […] [Rivers Run Red] has developed software that it styles as a Web-based companion to Second Life, allowing companies to manage their 3D meetings, store multimedia information, manage … [Read more...] about Workplace collaboration on the 3D web
Second Life support for Windows Vista
Does Second Life now officially support Windows Vista? According to the Second Life wiki, the answer is no. The wiki page in question, last updated on October 2, still says Vista is not supported: [...] Officially at this time (2007-08-27), not yet [...] Second Life actually works fine running on Vista. That's my experience, and that of many others, although much depends on your particular hardware configuration especially the type of graphics card you have and the version of the … [Read more...] about Second Life support for Windows Vista
The PR battleground for social networks
With social networks like Facebook and MySpace in the news a great deal, I find it interesting to get a sense of the depth of behind-the-scenes business planning going on and the role of PR in that planning. According to BrandRepublic: Facebook hunts UK agencyA dozen UK PR agencies have been approached by Facebook as it sets out to challenge MySpace’s dominance in Europe. Agencies including Mantra and Fishburn Hedges have been invited to present their credentials to coincide with Facebook’s … [Read more...] about The PR battleground for social networks