Make way for “Blue World Notes” apparently. Seems our man Au is going to Avatar-Reality and Blue Mars as the in-house journo.
Make no mistake, writing is a business. Though we don’t always follow the money, if you want to keep the mortgage paid and food on the table, and a new 3D card every now and again, you have to keep some business priorities in mind. What I find particularly interesting is that – from a marketing and community standpoint – Avatar Reality seems to be following almost exactly the same path that Linden Lab did with Second Life. Update: Hamlet apparently is accompanied to Blue Mars by Iris Ophelia. The first post from Hamlet just went live. AVATAR REALITY AND METAVERSE EXPERT WAGNER JAMES AU LAUNCH BLUE WORLD NOTES New Blog Will Chronicle Evolution and Growth of Next Generation 3D Virtual World Blue Mars _____________________________________________________________________ HONOLULU and SAN FRANCISCO, SEPT. 9, 2010 — Avatar Reality, creator of the 3D social gaming world Blue Mars, is proud to announce its partnership with well-known technology writer and metaverse consultant Wagner James Au. Blogging as his popular reporter avatar “Hamlet Au,” Au will write “Blue World Notes” (http://blog.bluemars.com/), an ongoing journal documenting the launch, evolution and emerging online community of the user-generated 3D virtual world Blue Mars. “We are very pleased to have James join our team,” says Avatar Reality CEO Jim Sink. “He’s a great advocate of user-created content in virtual worlds, and we’re excited that he has chosen to showcase the creative community that is emerging in Blue Mars, allowing us to reach a much larger audience.” Au is the author of The Making of Second Life (HarperCollins), which was based on his experience as an “embedded journalist” starting in 2003. He is the second alumnus from Second Life to join Avatar Reality, following the 2009 addition of Chief Financial Officer John Zdanowski, who previously served as CFO for Linden Lab. “With cloud-based deployment, COLLADA-compatible graphics and an executive team with a strong track record of successful game development, I’m convinced Avatar Reality has the best strategy for launching the next generation of immersive, user-created virtual worlds,” says Au. “I’m excited to help Blue Mars grow, and write about all the creative and interesting users who are already making it a growing, thriving online community.” Au will be joined by a popular virtual style and fashion columnist Janine “Iris Ophelia” Hawkins (http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/iris_ophelias_gaze/), who will cover the emerging fashion scene of Blue Mars. “Fashion is an under-appreciated killer app for 3D virtual worlds,” says Au, “And Iris can showcase why Blue Mars is an ideal place for fashionistas to create and share their styles.” New World Notes (http://nwn.blogs.com/), Au’s popular blog about Second Life, OpenSim, and Blue Mars, will continue, offering metaverse fans regular news and views on numerous virtual worlds and next generation gaming. “I am not ‘giving up’ on Second Life,” notes Au. “However, I believe we need to grow the market for user-generated worlds, and just as important, launch a new world where game developers, virtual fashion designers, and other great 3D content creators can safely and easily sell their work. That’s what Blue Mars offers.” About Blue Mars and Avatar Reality Inc.
Developed by Avatar Reality, Blue Mars is a premium 3D social gaming platform featuring unparalleled interaction, fidelity, scalability, security and connectivity. Blue Mars enables artists, game, and application developers to create and distribute amazing 3D games and applications for a global audience, and users enjoy the immersive environment and features not found in other worlds. Blue Mars launched in Open Beta in October 2009 and began selling virtual land to third party developers in January 2010. Avatar Reality was founded in 2006 by interactive entertainment visionaries Henk Rogers – best known for introducing Tetris to the world – and Kazuyuki Hashimoto, former CTO of Squaresoft and vice president at Electronic Arts. Led by CEO Jim Sink, the Avatar Reality team features industry veterans and world-class experts in casual, PC and console games, and virtual worlds and economies. Privately held, Avatar Reality is based in Honolulu and San Francisco begin_of_the_skype_highlightingend_of_the_skype_highlighting. For more information, visit http://www.bluemars.com/. About Wagner James Au In addition to his writing about the metaverse, Au is a virtual goods analyst for Social Times Pro (http://www.mediabistro.com/socialtimes-pro), was recently a writer/designer for the massively social game company ohai, and a virtual worlds analyst for GigaOM Pro (http://pro.gigaom.com/members/au/profile). He’s also written for Wired Magazine and Salon, and has been frequently interviewed on these topics on the NPR, the BBC, the New York Times, and the Discovery Channel’s “History of the Videogame”, and has spoken at SXSW, O’Reilly’s Web 2.0, and the Virtual Worlds Conference. Update: Better late than never! Avatar Reality have just sent me the press-release that goes with this news:
 AVATAR REALITY AND METAVERSE EXPERT WAGNER JAMES AU LAUNCH BLUE WORLD NOTES New Blog Will Chronicle Evolution and Growth of Next Generation 3D Virtual World Blue Mars _____________________________________________________________________ HONOLULU and SAN FRANCISCO, SEPT. 9, 2010 — Avatar Reality, creator of the 3D social gaming world Blue Mars, is proud to announce its partnership with well-known technology writer and metaverse consultant Wagner James Au. Blogging as his popular reporter avatar “Hamlet Au,” Au will write “Blue World Notes” (http://blog.bluemars.com/), an ongoing journal documenting the launch, evolution and emerging online community of the user-generated 3D virtual world Blue Mars. “We are very pleased to have James join our team,” says Avatar Reality CEO Jim Sink. “He’s a great advocate of user-created content in virtual worlds, and we’re excited that he has chosen to showcase the creative community that is emerging in Blue Mars, allowing us to reach a much larger audience.” Au is the author of The Making of Second Life (HarperCollins), which was based on his experience as an “embedded journalist” starting in 2003. He is the second alumnus from Second Life to join Avatar Reality, following the 2009 addition of Chief Financial Officer John Zdanowski, who previously served as CFO for Linden Lab. “With cloud-based deployment, COLLADA-compatible graphics and an executive team with a strong track record of successful game development, I’m convinced Avatar Reality has the best strategy for launching the next generation of immersive, user-created virtual worlds,” says Au. “I’m excited to help Blue Mars grow, and write about all the creative and interesting users who are already making it a growing, thriving online community.” Au will be joined by a popular virtual style and fashion columnist Janine “Iris Ophelia” Hawkins (http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/iris_ophelias_gaze/), who will cover the emerging fashion scene of Blue Mars. “Fashion is an under-appreciated killer app for 3D virtual worlds,” says Au, “And Iris can showcase why Blue Mars is an ideal place for fashionistas to create and share their styles.” New World Notes (http://nwn.blogs.com/), Au’s popular blog about Second Life, OpenSim, and Blue Mars, will continue, offering metaverse fans regular news and views on numerous virtual worlds and next generation gaming. “I am not ‘giving up’ on Second Life,” notes Au. “However, I believe we need to grow the market for user-generated worlds, and just as important, launch a new world where game developers, virtual fashion designers, and other great 3D content creators can safely and easily sell their work. That’s what Blue Mars offers.” About Blue Mars and Avatar Reality Inc. Developed by Avatar Reality, Blue Mars is a premium 3D social gaming platform featuring unparalleled interaction, fidelity, scalability, security and connectivity. Blue Mars enables artists, game, and application developers to create and distribute amazing 3D games and applications for a global audience, and users enjoy the immersive environment and features not found in other worlds. Blue Mars launched in Open Beta in October 2009 and began selling virtual land to third party developers in January 2010. Avatar Reality was founded in 2006 by interactive entertainment visionaries Henk Rogers – best known for introducing Tetris to the world – and Kazuyuki Hashimoto, former CTO of Squaresoft and vice president at Electronic Arts. Led by CEO Jim Sink, the Avatar Reality team features industry veterans and world-class experts in casual, PC and console games, and virtual worlds and economies. Privately held, Avatar Reality is based in Honolulu and San Francisco begin_of_the_skype_highlightingend_of_the_skype_highlighting. For more information, visit http://www.bluemars.com/. About Wagner James Au In addition to his writing about the metaverse, Au is a virtual goods analyst for Social Times Pro (http://www.mediabistro.com/socialtimes-pro), was recently a writer/designer for the massively social game company ohai, and a virtual worlds analyst for GigaOM Pro (http://pro.gigaom.com/members/au/profile). He’s also written for Wired Magazine and Salon, and has been frequently interviewed on these topics on the NPR, the BBC, the New York Times, and the Discovery Channel’s “History of the Videogame”, and has spoken at SXSW, O’Reilly’s Web 2.0, and the Virtual Worlds Conference. | Make way for “Blue World Notes” apparently. Seems our man Au is going to Avatar-Reality and Blue Mars as the in-house journo.
Make no mistake, writing is a business. Though we don’t always follow the money, if you want to keep the mortgage paid and food on the table, and a new 3D card every now and again, you have to keep some business priorities in mind.
What I find particularly interesting is that – from a marketing and community standpoint – Avatar Reality seems to be following almost exactly the same path that Linden Lab did with Second Life.
Update: Hamlet apparently is accompanied to Blue Mars by Iris Ophelia. The first post from Hamlet just went live.
AVATAR REALITY AND METAVERSE EXPERT WAGNER JAMES AU
LAUNCH BLUE WORLD NOTES
New Blog Will Chronicle Evolution and Growth of Next Generation 3D Virtual World Blue Mars
_____________________________________________________________________
HONOLULU and SAN FRANCISCO, SEPT. 9, 2010 — Avatar Reality, creator of the 3D social gaming world Blue Mars, is proud to announce its partnership with well-known technology writer and metaverse consultant Wagner James Au. Blogging as his popular reporter avatar “Hamlet Au,” Au will write “Blue World Notes” (http://blog.bluemars.com/), an ongoing journal documenting the launch, evolution and emerging online community of the user-generated 3D virtual world Blue Mars.
"We are very pleased to have James join our team," says Avatar Reality CEO Jim Sink. "He's a great advocate of user-created content in virtual worlds, and we’re excited that he has chosen to showcase the creative community that is emerging in Blue Mars, allowing us to reach a much larger audience."
Au is the author of The Making of Second Life (HarperCollins), which was based on his experience as an “embedded journalist” starting in 2003. He is the second alumnus from Second Life to join Avatar Reality, following the 2009 addition of Chief Financial Officer John Zdanowski, who previously served as CFO for Linden Lab.
“With cloud-based deployment, COLLADA-compatible graphics and an executive team with a strong track record of successful game development, I’m convinced Avatar Reality has the best strategy for launching the next generation of immersive, user-created virtual worlds,” says Au. “I’m excited to help Blue Mars grow, and write about all the creative and interesting users who are already making it a growing, thriving online community.”
Au will be joined by a popular virtual style and fashion columnist Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins (http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/iris_ophelias_gaze/), who will cover the emerging fashion scene of Blue Mars. "Fashion is an under-appreciated killer app for 3D virtual worlds," says Au, "And Iris can showcase why Blue Mars is an ideal place for fashionistas to create and share their styles."
New World Notes (http://nwn.blogs.com/), Au’s popular blog about Second Life, OpenSim, and Blue Mars, will continue, offering metaverse fans regular news and views on numerous virtual worlds and next generation gaming. “I am not ‘giving up’ on Second Life,” notes Au. “However, I believe we need to grow the market for user-generated worlds, and just as important, launch a new world where game developers, virtual fashion designers, and other great 3D content creators can safely and easily sell their work. That’s what Blue Mars offers.”
About Blue Mars and Avatar Reality Inc.
Developed by Avatar Reality, Blue Mars is a premium 3D social gaming platform featuring unparalleled interaction, fidelity, scalability, security and connectivity. Blue Mars enables artists, game, and application developers to create and distribute amazing 3D games and applications for a global audience, and users enjoy the immersive environment and features not found in other worlds. Blue Mars launched in Open Beta in October 2009 and began selling virtual land to third party developers in January 2010.
Avatar Reality was founded in 2006 by interactive entertainment visionaries Henk Rogers - best known for introducing Tetris to the world - and Kazuyuki Hashimoto, former CTO of Squaresoft and vice president at Electronic Arts. Led by CEO Jim Sink, the Avatar Reality team features industry veterans and world-class experts in casual, PC and console games, and virtual worlds and economies. Privately held, Avatar Reality is based in Honolulu and San Francisco begin_of_the_skype_highlightingend_of_the_skype_highlighting. For more information, visit http://www.bluemars.com/.
About Wagner James Au
In addition to his writing about the metaverse, Au is a virtual goods analyst for Social Times Pro (http://www.mediabistro.com/socialtimes-pro), was recently a writer/designer for the massively social game company ohai, and a virtual worlds analyst for GigaOM Pro (http://pro.gigaom.com/members/au/profile). He’s also written for Wired Magazine and Salon, and has been frequently interviewed on these topics on the NPR, the BBC, the New York Times, and the Discovery Channel’s “History of the Videogame”, and has spoken at SXSW, O’Reilly’s Web 2.0, and the Virtual Worlds Conference.
Update: Better late than never! Avatar Reality have just sent me the press-release that goes with this news:
AVATAR REALITY AND METAVERSE EXPERT WAGNER JAMES AU
LAUNCH BLUE WORLD NOTES
New Blog Will Chronicle Evolution and Growth of Next Generation 3D Virtual World Blue Mars
_____________________________________________________________________
HONOLULU and SAN FRANCISCO, SEPT. 9, 2010 — Avatar Reality, creator of the 3D social gaming world Blue Mars, is proud to announce its partnership with well-known technology writer and metaverse consultant Wagner James Au. Blogging as his popular reporter avatar “Hamlet Au,” Au will write “Blue World Notes” (http://blog.bluemars.com/), an ongoing journal documenting the launch, evolution and emerging online community of the user-generated 3D virtual world Blue Mars.
"We are very pleased to have James join our team," says Avatar Reality CEO Jim Sink. "He's a great advocate of user-created content in virtual worlds, and we’re excited that he has chosen to showcase the creative community that is emerging in Blue Mars, allowing us to reach a much larger audience."
Au is the author of The Making of Second Life (HarperCollins), which was based on his experience as an “embedded journalist” starting in 2003. He is the second alumnus from Second Life to join Avatar Reality, following the 2009 addition of Chief Financial Officer John Zdanowski, who previously served as CFO for Linden Lab.
“With cloud-based deployment, COLLADA-compatible graphics and an executive team with a strong track record of successful game development, I’m convinced Avatar Reality has the best strategy for launching the next generation of immersive, user-created virtual worlds,” says Au. “I’m excited to help Blue Mars grow, and write about all the creative and interesting users who are already making it a growing, thriving online community.”
Au will be joined by a popular virtual style and fashion columnist Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins (http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/iris_ophelias_gaze/), who will cover the emerging fashion scene of Blue Mars. "Fashion is an under-appreciated killer app for 3D virtual worlds," says Au, "And Iris can showcase why Blue Mars is an ideal place for fashionistas to create and share their styles."
New World Notes (http://nwn.blogs.com/), Au’s popular blog about Second Life, OpenSim, and Blue Mars, will continue, offering metaverse fans regular news and views on numerous virtual worlds and next generation gaming. “I am not ‘giving up’ on Second Life,” notes Au. “However, I believe we need to grow the market for user-generated worlds, and just as important, launch a new world where game developers, virtual fashion designers, and other great 3D content creators can safely and easily sell their work. That’s what Blue Mars offers.”
About Blue Mars and Avatar Reality Inc.
Developed by Avatar Reality, Blue Mars is a premium 3D social gaming platform featuring unparalleled interaction, fidelity, scalability, security and connectivity. Blue Mars enables artists, game, and application developers to create and distribute amazing 3D games and applications for a global audience, and users enjoy the immersive environment and features not found in other worlds. Blue Mars launched in Open Beta in October 2009 and began selling virtual land to third party developers in January 2010.
Avatar Reality was founded in 2006 by interactive entertainment visionaries Henk Rogers - best known for introducing Tetris to the world - and Kazuyuki Hashimoto, former CTO of Squaresoft and vice president at Electronic Arts. Led by CEO Jim Sink, the Avatar Reality team features industry veterans and world-class experts in casual, PC and console games, and virtual worlds and economies. Privately held, Avatar Reality is based in Honolulu and San Francisco begin_of_the_skype_highlightingend_of_the_skype_highlighting. For more information, visit http://www.bluemars.com/.
About Wagner James Au
In addition to his writing about the metaverse, Au is a virtual goods analyst for Social Times Pro (http://www.mediabistro.com/socialtimes-pro), was recently a writer/designer for the massively social game company ohai, and a virtual worlds analyst for GigaOM Pro (http://pro.gigaom.com/members/au/profile). He’s also written for Wired Magazine and Salon, and has been frequently interviewed on these topics on the NPR, the BBC, the New York Times, and the Discovery Channel’s “History of the Videogame”, and has spoken at SXSW, O’Reilly’s Web 2.0, and the Virtual Worlds Conference. | |  | |
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Possibly related posts Avatar Reality (Blue Mars) Rogers new CEO, Blue Mars Mobile Becomes First 3D iOS App with Thousands of User Generated Items Available for Purchase, Blue Mars Mobile Now Available for Free on App Store, Blue Mars cancels PC development, cuts back staff and CEO, Bettina’s Blue Mars Leave a ReplyCommenters are to be civil, courteous and respectful to others, insofar as it is possible to do so. Beyond that, you're not required to agree with the opinions expressed by me or by others. Think for yourselves! First time commenters will wind-up in the moderation queue and your comment won't appear right away. Ditto for anything that gets flagged by the anti-spam rules. |
Isn’t Blue Mars’ CEO a former Labber? That would explain how they follow known paths.
It seems to me that Blue Mars is seeking more exposure and attention from the SL community, which apparently has been lukewarm so far. I believe BM is facing a tough challenge, though, as the competition is not really between BM and SL, but between BM and the VW standard set by SL and OpenSim. And that is tough to beat.
Jim? No, he’s not ex-Lab stock. Used to be a business development manager at Microsoft.
CFO at AR was LL…
So it’s the new pyramid in town;) And they need someone to create nice cartouches to the pharoahs;)
enjoy.
An observation:
“Fashion is an under-appreciated killer app for 3D virtual worlds”
You know, if it is under-appreciated, it’s probably not a killer-app, I’m thinking.
I am 100% convinced that Hamlet truly said that. In fact, it sounds so natural that I’m guessing someone overheard Hamlet casually mention it while he was in a coffee shop having a relaxed conversation with some close friends.
@c3 I’m quite interested in Blue Mars. Mostly I’m holding off some until they’ve got it a little closer to ready for prime-time. It still feels very unfinished.
So does SL, Tateru, when your vehicle cannot manage a sim-crossing in an empty sim.
Blue Mars has been so confusing to follow. For example, all of these contests as of late geared towards usage and population gains. You’d think it was actually released now rather than still in production/beta.
That’s the only thing that worries me about Blue Mars at the moment. I can’t tell if its a botched release or if there’s a whole hoopla of launch related marketing, advertising and other big pushes coming down the line. Even the FAQ’s question about beta phase/release dodges clarifying all together.
EDIT: And woops, guess I should’ve waited ’til reading until the end of the article. Hamlet mentions its still definitely in beta. Guess he’s working out already, at least for me.
like other BETAS. they will be until they release the press release saying ” we failed to receive enough traction..”
beta dosent exist anymore in case you havent figured it out….
theres release something, blog as much as you can, hope someone buys you out before the “user gens” figure out whats goin on.
@c3 Like other betas? Which exactly?
It sounds like you’re lumping Blue Mars in with the kinds of online ventures that begin without a monetization plan, and offset increased operational expenses through usage gains with venture capital until monetization can be figured out. Blue Mars can’t grow without making money just as Linden Lab can’t, since new city owners are paying customers and new users are likely Blu purchasers.
My point was that I didn’t understand the madd rush as of this year to gain new users. For another example the incessant tweets that were coming out from Avatar Reality for the Thereian diaspora. It seemed they’d be more mindful of first impressions and not sell the Blue Mars platform as a place worth settling into just yet…because well its not really.
vivaty, metaplace,kaneva, lively, most facebook games, etc etc etc…. just look at the virtual worlds list of 2007-8… ogoglio….lol
gain users, gain buzz….dont make money… money is for chumps… just get bought and cash in stock (oh yeah only a few get rich this way)..ho hum.
Have to agree with Ezra et al regarding readiness – tried poo mars, got stuck on setting up an av and burnt up my 5 minutes tryout limit (I am an equal opportunity discarder of new stuff – 5 is all you get). Spin cycle on over-hype.
The couple of times I visited Blue Mars I was unable to find any people. A beautiful world without people is not interesting.
I also do not like the avatars. The clothing appears to have different limitations and problems than SL does, but it still has problems.
I did not like the interface. Was unsuccessful in trying to find a shop and buy something.
Blue Mars looks like a dud to me.
I think Blue Mars has got promise. I’m waiting until it is more finished, though (I’d like to see the UI more complete for example). I do visit quite regularly still and all.
I downloaded it and tried it again yesterday. The UI has come together a bit more since I attempted last. Voice chat is in, friend lists are in, some rudimentary display of Blu balance is in. It’s lookin’ pretty good.
Would love to see you start blogging about Blue Mars more as release approaches and afterwards when relevant things happen Tateru.
What bugs me more is that I still don’t really have a firm idea of where Blue Mars plans to be once it gets out of beta. So far, they seem to deliberately be banking on the vagueness, letting people make (and market) their own dream scenarios about what Blue Mars will be.
As for the publicity push, it makes sense that they are doing a vulture swoop as SL staggers and people are making contingency plans.