I just saw this post with an amazing tool called wordle that I saw in  Roo’s blog I decided to dump my CV into the following graphic.

In recent news, I have been co-elected IBM’s Virtual Universe Community as it Guildmaster. Holly Stewart and I will lead this community of over 5000+ IBMers.

Formed in 2006, previous guildmasters have been:
* Kevin Aires
* Dave Kamalsky
* Brian House

The VUC as it is known was the breeding ground for the formation of the the Digital Convergence EBO (Emerging Business Opportunity) outfit in IBM Research in late 2006.

This should be a very challenging and interesting job !!

Powered by ScribeFire.

I have been thinking about User Generated Content even more after my previous blog entry on the topic.

Googling further on the topic I saw an interesting study by Accenture on “User-Generated Content Is Top Threat to Media and Entertainment Industry”.

The study goes on say that such content will continue to grow and the user will gain:
* Increased power - As he can now create more content and hence can direct where a social network would grow. While the study did not examine Virtual Worlds - I would submit that a similar trend would be visible in this space too. With a far more impact being felt in such Virtual Worlds
* Increased control - The user can direct what kind of content can be published.

At this point I would aim to classify such UGC into two key categories
* Individual directed Content - This content is targeted to Avatar customizations, the way your avatar looks, dresses, walks, talks. Where are the areas that are visited, what kind of content is bought out and is used actively and also the social network of other Avatars he or she interacts with.
* Environment directed Content - This content is specifically targeted to creating the environments in which these Avatars interact in with regard to the Virtual Worlds. So whether it is a fancy art gallery or a pub or even a retail store of the future.

Different Virtual Worlds have taken different view points on the level of freedom that they give their Users with creating the above two types of content. While most Virtual Worlds give Users the chance to create Individual Oriented Content, many limit the amount content that can be Environment-directed.

One of my favourite Virtual World - Doppelganger’s vSide actually limits the amount of content that one can create from an Environment perspective.

Usually there is a cost associated with each of the types of content.
* So while Second Life requires you to have a Premium membership to buy land, you dont need one to create content whether Individual / Environment oriented.
* Doppelganger on the other hand requires you to buy individual content and has little or no flexibility with the customizations one can do from an environment based.

We see differing revenue models too.
* While Linden Labs (the creators of Second Life) have very limited custom content created by them other than the main archipelago they have a revenue model where they make money out of allowing people to create Environment oriented Content.
* Doppelganger on the other hand has a revenue model which is targeted specifically towards Individual based Content and makes money out of such sales and partnerships.

An older article by Robin Good says that “UGC is online content publishers most promising future” and I accept his thesis, however which sphere will lead to more revenues remains to be seen.

I conclude quoting from the Search Engine Roundtable :
“1) Users spend a lot of time in UGC (user generated content)

2) Consumers expect to be able to make their own content

3) Consumers trust user generated content

4) Product reviews increase sales

5) Increases conversions”

And hence UGC will become the key determining criteria for Virtual Worlds

Powered by ScribeFire.

I uploaded the presentation that I made at the IBM Software Universe 2007 at the Renaissance Convention Center,  Mumbai.

My presentation was part of Track B - Emerging Technologies Track. The session titled “Metaverses - Second Life for Business, Technology & Social Networks”.

It is embedded here:

The link to presentation is uploaded on Slide Share here.

Powered by ScribeFire.

I finally figured out the way to upgrade my blog to a website. The blog can now be accessed at http://pranabsharma.com . I am currently trying to integrate email onto the website by implementing a very interesting functionality of WordPress integrated with Google Apps.

Both, the integration from the blog to the domain, and Google Apps integration has been smooth and seamless.

Been a bit rusty with blogging lately, am using a great tool called ScribeFire recommended by Luis on Twitter. However, I have been closely following several blogs and books and plan to be writing about them soon.

Meanwhile, I present at the IBM Software Universe 2007 at the Renaissance Convention Center in Mumbai. My session is titled “Metaverses - Second life for Business, Technology & Social Networks”. Currently working on my presentation and I’ll put it up on Slideshare soon enough.

Powered by ScribeFire.

An introduction to User Generated Content:

1) As defined by Wikipedia:

“User-generated content (UGC), also known as Consumer Generated Media or User-created Content (UCC), refers to various kinds of media content that are produced by end-users.”

2) Scribe Media in their interaction with Cory Ondrejka report:

“Unlike most upload-your-content-and-we’ll-share-it-in-some-sort-of-social-media-Web-2-point-oh-way, content creation in Second Life is really, really, difficult.

Yet people still create and people still come to those creations. By Ondrejka’s account, users have contributed over $500 million in design and development within Second Life.”

 

Today, I celebrate my (Second Life avatar’s) Rez Day. I entered Second Life last year on August 21, 2006. I am called Locutus Qi in this space. The name is inspired from my Star Trek fanaticism about the Borg. Locutus was the (avatar) name of Capt. Jean Luc Picard when he was captured by the Borg.

Yesterday night, Nick Wilson (aka: 57 Miles)from the Metaversed.com team invited Steve Prentice from Gartner to defend the “80% of Active Internet Users to have a Second Life” statement that they made in April 2007. The event happened at the Metaversed Stadium in Second Life. Portraying the sheer interest in the event, the Sim was already packed 15-20 mins before the event actually started ; 9 mins before no more folks could come in. We had folks who were at the edge of the sim and using Camera Controls to listen to the conversation. As always despite Skype down after the longest of times (interesting microblogging (ie twittering) by Luis on the defending Skype which other service serves 8.5 million users with VoIP live reliably). The event was hence done over Second life Voice. The main participants along with Steve were a Rob Bloomfield (aka Beyers Sellers), Professor from Cornell Business School, Joel Greenberg from Electric Sheep, and Fiona Gallagher (Fiona May) from Sun. There was parallel twitter based discussion happening with Craig Cmehill & GoldieKatsu leading the discussion there. Again, well organized & congrats for the great turn-out to the Metaversed team.

Well, I have dived into / immersed totally into Web 2.0 technologies and have been registering / reclaiming my ids around the web. I saw a variety of interesting technologies.

An interesting widget for all things below is ShowYourself Widget.

Yesterday night (my time), there was an interesting discussion led by 57 Miles from the Metaversed.com team. Four invitees were present and discussed about the strategies of their corporations in Virtual Worlds. The venue was hosted by SAP at their (leased) location at Eclipse city Silicon City (Thanks Craig !) in Second Life. The event was well-organized and well-moderated.