Metaversed has a post titled “7 Reasons Why Virtual Worlds Are Like the Web Circa 1997.”
Funny, I’ve usually used the one-liner that they’re more like Prodigy in 1994. After all, by 1997 we had common browsers, even though they supported the <blink></blink> tag. In 1994 Prodigy actually sent down pictures of the screen to be drawn bitmap style. Which let me tell you, was brutal on a modem.
V. The Water Beside the River
The sun makes its green-filtered way down past leaves.
Clouds scud when the Waingunga is not high enough.
Rocks grind and grumble current in the depths.
The breeze hackles necks and scatters mosquitoes.
The water at the edges is hidden by lilypads and leaves.
Some are dark brown and others a sickly vibrant green.
Insects skate across the water as if it were glass.
Sketchy ripples slide away from their pockmark feet.
Damp velvet water slides cold and oily against skin.
Feet feel the whispery touches of waterlily roots.
A wild plantain stretches out its sharp triangular leaf.
Where it touches the water it sends out ripples like explorers.
The UK is banning offshore gambling from advertising in the UK if the host countries don’t meet UK standards. So much for the generic “just offshore it!” solution. After all, no marketing means less users, which means less viable businesses… especially in a crowded market space.
This is for the geeks among you. A while back I was interviewed by Nick Landry for a lengthy article on XNA (along with a bunch of other well-known developers, all of whom have far more experince with XNA than I!), and today he tells me that CoDe Magazine has posted it on the web.
Virtual Worlds News has an article about ads to kids in VWs, stating that the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK has decided that it is OK to market to kids within VWs as long as the ads are happening on “sponsored land or sponsored activities.” Basically, stuff in the “public realm” such as lobbies is restricted.
Given that most of the kids’ worlds are entirely sponsored at this point, this is a dubious distinction. What exactly constitutes a public lobby in a branded world where every bit of art is branded, and you can log in and play for free? What about sponsored land that is right over there and that you can see from where you’re standing?
We as a culture and industry need to think hard about this sort of issue, because it’s basically a trap laid for us by circumstance, just waiting to blow back and cause bad press and ill feelings from parents.
