Virtual Worlds in the near future are going to play an increasing role in our lives. The fact that Google with Google Lively its first footsteps in the digital universe continues, suggests that more has happened than just a new gimmick. The number of virtual worlds is also growing. Most of the virtual worlds in the Netherlands we hear nothing or very little about. Yet another far-from-us-bed-show? Gary Hayes is currently engaged in an investigation into virtual worlds and he has recorded his journey on YouTube. This provides a seven-minute film in which 50 virtual worlds pass the revue.

Second Life, HiPiHi, Kaneva, Twinity, ActiveWorlds, LagunaBeach vMTV. There.com, Habbo, Google Lively, FootballSuperstars, Weblin, AmazingWorlds, CyWorld, Whyville, Gaia Online, RocketOn, Club Penguin, YoVille, Webkinz, BarbieGirls, Prototerra, IMVU, Spore, vSide, Tale in the Desert, SpineWorld, Stardoll The Manor, There.com, ExitReality, Vastpark, Qwaq, PS3Home, GoSupermodel, Grockit, Croquet, Metaplace, Coke Studios, Dreamville, Dubit, Mokitown, Move, Muse, The Palace, Playdo, Sora City, Voodoo Chat, TowerChat, Traveler , Virtual Ibiza… Are you on your journey?

On his site Gary also refers to a beautiful visual of the Examination Kzero where several virtual worlds in a useful overview (jpg) are plotted against each other.

EVERYONE should be doing videos

- I have seen this video 3 times before reading the content above - andrew peters aka aplink

PS: theRedlightcentre missed a debute in the video - i wonder why ?

I have a apartment at www.twinity.com, verry focused on the human world, associated on cities and countries in Real Life. It is in a beta stage, so there are not many avatars inside and the strange thing was that the few you meet there dont talk or is it becouse of me ;-P

My visite to www.hipihi.com metaverse, ok it was "nice", i will come back in some years :-P

A little moonsick and struggling around with chinesä letters.

And www.tribalnet.se could be an option to play around if there is time. Me there as Ruth.

If current trends hold, the Internet will evolve into a 3D space, and virtual worlds will become an integral part of human communication.  Real life will never be the same.

Here's the OPAC record for Mr. Duranske's book:

Author: Duranske, Benjamin Tyson.
Title: Virtual law : navigating the legal landscape of virtual worlds 
Imprint: Chicago : American Bar Association, c2008.
Physical Description: xv, 461 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents: Big picture questions in virtual law -- Evidence and virtual worlds -- Governance of virtual worlds -- Property law and virtual worlds -- Contract law and virtual worlds -- Intellectual property law and virtual worlds -- Civil procedure and virtual worlds -- Tort law and virtual worlds -- Criminal law and virtual worlds -- Privacy law and virtual worlds -- Securities law and virtual worlds -- Tax law and virtual worlds -- Establishing a professional virtual world presence.
Subject (LC): Computer networks--Law and legislation--United States--Cases.
Subject (LC): Internet--Law and legislation--United States--Cases.
ISBN: 9781604420098

I've tested this in Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3, Opera 9.5, Flock, and several other browsers.

I believe there's a problem with FckEdit.

Could some please try to post in the Overseas Zone forum at forums.hipihi.com and let me know what the result is? Thanks.

In both Hipiihi and Novoking you can make it full screen or not, when not, it doesn't fill the screen, and doesn't fill the screen minus the taskbar.

So with both programs, you can accidentally hit the area outside of the virtual world's window, like some annoying add on the browser, or accidentally hit the close window X on the program behind the virtual world window.

These two programs are the only programs I use that have this flaw.

In my decades of computer use I have never once wanted a program to work like these programs do regarding the size of the program window.

It's annoying.

Tags: Novoking, Hipihi, virtual worlds, annoyances, Suezanne, SuezanneCB

We are very excited announce the debuting of HiPiHi’s open public beta test, beginning from April 18^th,
2008. From now on, our HiPiHi world will welcome new residents from all
corners around the world and join our existing residents on this
magical land created by yourselves.

1. Resident
   “Happygirl” did not complete the name-change process during April 2nd
   -17th. From April 18th, new residents may take this name as their
   nickname.
2. If Resident “happygirl” trys to log in after
   April 18th, she will be auto-directed to the name-change page, where
   she may still use “Happygirl” as her username if it has not been taken
   by new users, or to change her name (e.g. “happgirl_me”) if her old
   name was occupied by a new resident.

The start page for Hipihi is hipihi.com .

The English information page is at http://www.hipihi.com/index_en.html .

The English registration page is at http://service.hipihi.com/member/register/en/register.jhtml .

For help in English with Hipihi you can use the Hipihi OverSeas Zone forum, once you've registered with Hipihi. Note that the forum software itself is in Chinese.

Another place to go for help in English with Hipihi is http://www.ideashape.cn . Note that the forum software at www.ideashape.cn is in English.

There's also a Hipihi group in facebook.

The downloads from Hipihi have always been slow for me, and they might for you. So - be patient. It's not like you have to just watch the download screen it's downloading.

I'm still waiting for the download to complete, so I don't know exactly what to expect yet.

This is a beta; it's not the finished product. One can expect to have some rocky riding during a beta.

I'm not sure about the language requirements for this version, or the degree to which the interface is available in English.

So - why not give Hipihi a try?

Tags: Hipihi, Virtual Worlds, SuezanneCB

http://signup.qq.com/ is the url.

Tags: QQ, China, Chinese, QQ registration

This fine looking building in the Hipihi virtual world must have taken a lot of prims to make.

I would be pleased if some Hipihi and Novoking users would add me to their QQ lists.

I have a partially English version of the QQ messenger installed now.

I have a QQzone page but haven't figured out how to edit it yet since the page itself is in Chinese.

A Hipihi user set up my QQ account and thus my password is known to someone else. I will have to figure out how to change the password, which might be a bit of a job since the links for the password changing page and the page you change the password on will all be in Chinese.

Tags: China, Chinese, Hipihi, Novoking, QQ

During my stay in China I will visit the following companies to talk about their international strategy and ambitions:

Baidu (search engine market leader)
Sina (online media company for China and Chinese communities around the world)
Giant Interactive Group Inc. (online role-playing game developer )
Hipihi (Virtual world developer)
Netease (one of China’s leading Internet and online game services providers)
Perfect World (online game company specializing in MMORPGs)
Sohu (Internet Portal operator)
Tudou (online video site)
Tencent (Internet service portal)

Besides speaking with representatives from these companies I have corresponded and set up meetings with prominent bloggers, research companies, foreign companies in China, intellectual property legal experts, and everybody that could help me create a better insight in future developments of the Chinese Internet market and the Chinese creative industry as a whole.

These are most of the other companies or persons I am visiting:

Danwei (Chinese media, advertising, and urban life)
DLA Piper (International law firm)
JL Mc Gregor and Company (research and consulting services focused on China)
Ogilvy China (communication experts)
+8* (Mobile and Internet business consulting)
Spill Group Asia (casual gaming websites)
Springtime (PR and communications company)
Thomas Crampton (blogger: ‘Internet, media, and new ideas seen from Asia’)

Also I am planning on visiting Shenzhen High Tech Industrial Park (SHIP), Shanghai Pudong Software Park (SPSP) , and ZhongGuanCun Science Park. When on sight I hope to be able to arrange meetings with English speaking officials concerned with these designated innovation, and self-owned intellectual property boosting parks.

After five weeks of research in China, where I will pass through Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai and finally Beijing, I will hopefully be able to answer the following questions: which companies have global ambitions and what are they, how do companies see the near and far future, how are they trying to fulfill their international ambitions, do they stimulate creativity and innovation, and what does their strategy look like, also how will they be able to differentiate themselves from international competitors?

Theories on the development of Chinese cultural and creative industries - from made to created in China - will play an important role in my research. Other elements that will be taken into account are: intellectual property rights, the pro-active role of the government and international political and economic influences.

During my stay in China I will keep track of the interviews, lost in translations, proceedings, multiple 20 hour train rides, interesting cultural experiences, dim sum breakfasts, chicken feet dinners, etc. on my blog ‘Pieter-Paul’s Masters Thesis: Chinese Internet Companies Expanding Overseas’.

For further reading on my Ma Thesis subject I recommend the following books, articles, blogs, websites, and articles:

Readings:
From made in China to created in China – Andrew Keane
My Creativity Reader: A Critique of Creative Industries – edited by Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter
Fast Boat to China – Andrew Ross
Silicon Dragon – Rebecca Fannin
China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Inc. – Willem van Kemenade (Dutch)
The Internet an Etnographic approach – Miller and Slater
The World is Flat – Thomas Friedman
Catching Up Fast: PR and Marketing in a Web 2.0 China - Björkstén, Lockne, Spännar, and Thorstenson
China’s Emerging New Economy:The Internet and e-Commerce - Wong and Nah
The Search for Modern China – Pei-kai Cheng and Michael Lestz
CHINA Contemporary
ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age – Andre Gunder Frank

Blogs and websites:
Ogilvy China Digital Watch
Ich Bin Ein Beijinger
China Web 2.0 Review
China Blogging
China: Tech news from CNET News.com
Danwei – Media, Advertising, and Urban Life in China
Marc van der Chijs’ Shanghaied Weblog
The MOBINODE – Tracking Dragon’s Web – Best China Tech Blog
Community Blogs: Little Red Blog
Shanghai China Snippets
WangR English
SHANGHAI – HONG KONG
Travelers’ Tales – The FEER Blog
All Roads Lead to China
Thomas Crampton
Web Marketing China
The China Vortex
ING Asia/Pacific’s Blog
BDL Media
Online Marketing in China. SEO.

Tags: Hipihi, Rick Mollor, Xu Hui, Toshitaka Jiku, Virtual Worlds, SuezanneCB

  HiPiHi World New Naming System Public Announcement

And Re-registration notification

HiPiHi World’s Beta test has brought to light a number of problems and limitations regarding the original naming system, and we have also received a lot of valuable feedback to the forum posting “HiPiHi World New Naming System” (19 January 2008).

The naming system is the basis of HiPiHi World’s social and credibility system, as well as every resident’s intangible asset. After compiling opinions and discussions, we have reached a consensus to launch a new naming system in the upcoming public test. Here are the Objective, Principle, and Implementation of this new naming system, please take some time to go through it and feel free to drop us a note on what you think.

HiPiHi World New Naming System: Objective, Principle, Implementation

Objective
1) Standardize the naming system
2) Facilitate and promote interactions between global multilingual residents
3) Establish a credibility system related to user names
4) Give the priority of naming right to existing residents

Principles
1) The new user name consists of two parts: Username and Nickname. They both have to be unique.
Username is the same idea as “account number”, it may contain characters (a-z), numbers(0-9), symbols (-) and (_);
Nickname is your name in HiPiHi world, it has to be between 6-16 characters, which may contain the language of your local settings (e.g. simplified Chinese), characters (a-z), numbers(0-9), symbols (-) and (_);
Both parts are unique; you login with your Username.
2) You may not change your User ID or Nickname once registration is done.
3) Residents can define the way others’ names are displayed , choose either nickname or username.
4) early resident have the exclusive privilege of using this new naming system ahead of the public-beta.
5) We will try our best to protect all existing residents’ property.
We will provide certain channels for reclaiming in-world assets, should an existing resident fails to re-register within the given time period, and their user name gets registered by someone else.

Implementation
In order to ensure existing residents’ priority on naming rights, implementation will have the following stages:
a) Apply for “brand name protection campaign for 18 close beta testers” （April 1st 2008—April 17th 2008）
This event is for protecting existing resident’s name brand’s sake. We sincerely hope that those residents who has been caring ,helping, supporting other residents’ can keep their name brand. For more details, please refer to the Apply for close beta tester name brand!
b) Re-registration for existing residents，（ April 2nd 2008—April 17th 2008）
Within this time period, existing residents may access the “Change your name” page with their current username and password.
Symbols (like #, *) may no longer be used for the new User ID and Nickname
The new User ID and Nicknames may not be less than 6 Characters
Please make sure you do not use someone else’s existing user name as your new User ID or Nickname.
Examples:
Resident “John” can change his username to ”John_D”, and the same nickname.
Resident “John_luo” can still use it as his username and nickname.
Resident “*%%Jennis%%” has to change his name to “Jennies”.
c) Open registration for everyone（April 18th 2008）
i. For existing residents who have not completed their re-registration by now, their in-world assets will be kept, however, their user name may be taken by someone else. In-world assets may be recovered with the old user name and password through certain channels.
ii. Once a User ID and a Nickname are registered, in principle, they may not be changed.
iii. The new User ID and Nickname may not contain any symbols other than (-) and (_)。
iv. The new User ID and Nickname may not be less than 6 characters
Examples:
Names cannot be used as username：wuxu、.wux、wux。
Names can be used as username：wuxuzhiya

Please click on the following link (http://service.hipihi.com/member/oldUserRename/en/oldUserRename.jhtml) to change your  name

Please Note：
1. In the New Naming System，User ID or Nickname of less than 3 Chinese characters or 6 English alphabets will be removed. (E.g. “傻兔” , “Johny”)
2. Existing user names may be taken by new registrants after 18 April 2008, when the registration becomes open to everybody. So to ensure you get to keep your user name, PLEASE go to www.hipihi.com anytime bewtween 2 April -17 April 2008 to re-register.

HiPiHi team
2008/04/02

from a post at forums.hipihi.com made by happy慧慧(Hi.慧慧)

I had a Google translation of my email about this subject here earlier today.  I'm glad this better version of the news about the name system change appeared in the Hipihi forums.

http://forums.hipihi.com/read-topic-68-ff808081190e81a801190eaead460322-0-1-index-1.html 

What are the implications of this?

If memory serves 3Di, Inc. is part of the Japanese Meet-Me virtual world project.

I'm at work at not able to check further on this at the moment.

Hipihi 50012 SP1 is running now, the servers are back up and the new client is available for downloading.

This picture shows a problem I'm have several times in Hipihi and have read about others having.

The terrain is showing as rather or completely flat, but the trees are positioned in way that would be appropriate if the terrain was hilly or mountainous.

This is the result of some old terrain date being used for some reason instead of the correct terrain data being loaded from the Hipihi servers.

The usual fix for this is to delete the folder the Hipihi terrain and other data is stored in.

I'm pretty sure that renaming or deleting the Data folder in the Program Files/Hipihi folder will force Hipihi to redownload all the data which will include the appropriate terrain data.

I have done this now and it appears to be working.

This is at Hipihi coordinates -5970 11950, but the problem is not limited to that location.
Well, I tried my usual fix described above and I was hoping to show a picture of this terrain as it it supposed to appear.  Unfortunately this did not solve the problem.   It may be a matter a waiting for a fix at the Hipihi  company end of things.

It's good to see Hipihi back up in  a timely manner.

I take the gist of that as Chill re Hipihi till March 21, 2008 . Which side of the date line and if it's 8 am or 8 pm I don't know.

Tags: Hipihi, SuezanneCB

I tried to start up Hipihi and an english language dialog box came up and said to download 50012 and offered me a choice of downloading or not. The message said yes or no, but the buttons on the dialog were labeled ok and cancel.

Another dialog appeared with the buttons labeled in chinese. I chose the one on the left. Sometimes this works, sometimes I should have picked the one on the right. Not agonizing too much over which choice to make is one of the secrets of using a program that has an interface partially in a language you can't read.

If the download is going true form it will be very slow and since it's after 1 in the morning I won't get to try Hipihi 50012 out till tomorrow.

Oops, spoke too soon.. Up till now, the Hipihi downloads have been very slow. This time it's changed, the download is at 150 KB/s, a perfectly acceptable rate at which to get a file that's 62 megs big.

This faster download is a great improvement. I hope it's permanent.

The TOS (License Agreement) is still in Chinese.

The PDF help file, which looks like it would be real helpful if I could read it, is still in Chinese.

I've tried to translate these with Google but it's just too much to deal with convering the file from pdf to html and copying the text chunk by chunk into the translator and back. I'm sure there a "pay for " method to do this easily but I can't find an easy "for free" method.

Hipihi 50012 has a bunch of red in the color scheme for the manual and login screen in connection with the Spring Festival and Chinese New Year celebration . There's a picture of some kind of treats and beverages on the login screen. They have good designers at Hipihi.

I did remember to go the xml file in the Hipihi program folder and change the 0 to 1. This is part of using the partial English interface.

I haven't gone to the forums or the website to figure out what is different about 50012.

I'm logged in now.

Last time I was in Hipihi, someone gave me something they'd made. I put it on as an attachment.

Starting out now, I'm still wearing it.

The hair texture is from a globe of the earth.

The attachment is a snake, multiple prims, made by Bullman, attached to one of the numerous attachment points Hiphi avatars have.

Someone asked my why I wearing cowboy clothes. That's what the system put on me! I don't have much other clothes in Hiphi. I haven't gone to the bother of making any, but I think I could ask people for some now that one can do inventory transfers.

Time to look around. Hi.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Hipihi, virtual worlds, SuezanneCB, SuezanneC Baskerville

O'Harrow (whose overwriting skills I've noted before) cites ominously an anonymous source with this line:

"Virtual worlds are ready-made havens," said a senior intelligence official who declined to be identified because of the nature of his work. "There's no way to monitor it."

Well, in fact of course there are ways to monitor it, they're just hard, time-intensive, and require careful thought and imagination, mindful of legal restrictions and appropriateness.  Hmm... that makes it a lot like intelligence work in the real world.  Or police work or government work or simple everyday life, for that matter.