Troubled developer, Realtime Worlds has gone into administration now – an insolvency measure few companies successfully return from. Selling Project: MyWorld could pull it off for them, however.
|
Featuring...
    Everybody makes mistakes. You do. I do. We all do. Mistakes are an inevitable part of living and learning. We make mistakes all the time, we learn from them and we move on. There are, however, two broad categories of mistake. There’s the honest mistake, and there’s the institutional error. The most important statements people are making about your brand, especially in social media like Twitter, Plurk and Facebook don’t mention your brand by name. It might be mentioned before, or after, but the key points that you really want to be hearing rarely have your brand-name in them. Unless you’re already a part of the conversation, you’re missing the most important statements that your market is making about you. The WSJ carries a piece called How Facebook Ruins Friendships. The author writes,
It’s attributed to narcissism, and they wish our friends would stop boring us all with this trivial stuff. A number of virtual environments are fighting for mainstream acceptance and popularity. Yet those same environments often select names for their users that then need explaining and encourage the mainstream to look askance. “Marketing intelligence firm Pear Analytics found that 40% of the tweets flowing on the site were about someone eating a sandwich or some other “pointless babble,” and 37% were parts of conversations.“ – Information Week. Well, wake up and smell the culture. Twitter, virtual environments, television, radio, water-cooler conversations, blogs, Facebook walls … this is who we are, honey. That’s the susurration of culture, the sounds of our societies being themselves. Immersion occupies an interesting and multifaceted place in our societies and cultures. It is a quality of focus and attention. It’s what your boss wishes you had more of when it comes to your tasks and meetings. It’s what your teachers wish you had more of when it comes to lessons and homework. It’s what your spouse wishes you had more of when it comes to the dishes, cooking and the laundry. It’s what your kids wish you had more of when they’re telling you about their day. And when we wind up immersed in anything else – particularly if it is something personally enjoyable or fulfilling – it is considered deeply suspect and somehow wrong.
You see, Facebook doesn’t allow aliases, such as avatar names, stage names, pen names, and so o– Wait a minute! Yes they bloody well do! I’ve done many things in my time. No, I’m not ancient (it just seems that way). I’ve just packed a lot of things in in the time I’ve had. I’ve been to school, I’ve had jobs, and I’ve had hobbies. It’s kept me pretty busy. There’s one hobby that I’ve never made enough time for: fashion design. Do you draw little sketches of ideas, and occasionally develop those into full-colour plates and flats? Make your own patterns? Sit down at an actual sewing machine and construct a garment? Peruse magazines, books, and Web-sites, and any other fashion-related material you can lay your hands on? There’s a new way to share and to indulge that passion, regardless of your skill level: Frenzoo! Don’t wander off quite yet, if you’re a Second Life user, because there’s a chunk of awesome coming.
Still in beta, Frenzoo is already a fine establishment, and steaming along at speed: The web site is easily useable and navigable, with a minimalist look and feel that is pleasant to the eye. The design tools for clothing creation are already superlative. The tool interface is simple and intuitive, while allow quite sophisticated designs to be put together. As a user with a free account, I have not yet had access to the Advanced features of the design tools; access is currently restricted to VIPs and people on the Frenzoo team. Nonetheless, the quality of the available tools leads me to expect more of the same from currently unavailable tools. Now that design tool would be absolutely amazing in Second Life. Seriously. Imagine being able to design clothing for an avatar without reaching for The GIMP or Photoshop. It’s all kinds of clever, and it’s the sort of thing that Second Life is clearly missing. It’s accessible, live and immediate. Frenzoo is only to be used by those persons 13 years and older; those persons under 18 must have the permission of their legal guardian. Thus, considering that the age of many users will lie between 13 and the low 20s, the users for the most part show great maturity, and respect for each other, in all form of contact (forums, comment walls, clubs). I hope that this community spirit will continue to pervade Frenzoo well into the future, and that these users will, by their actions, encourage more people to join who will act the same ways. Having noted that many users treat each other well, it’s also worth mentioning that moderation across the site is excellent — swift, transparent, and thoughtful, the moderators let users know where the limits are, and then stick by that fairly. I hope that they are able to maintain this standard as the number of users grows and the feature list is expanded. Frenzoo, right now, consists of tools and stores without too much context. There’s no worlds or rooms, just profiles and social networking and forums and walls to write on. It’s a Facebook of fashion-designing, but the people behind it are steadily evolving it through the beta, and the distance they’ve come so far leads me to expect more to come. 
|
Support us |
|||||||
I use and recommend DreamHost
Not just because their stuff works, but because they're also good people.
Not just because their stuff works, but because they're also good people.
Dwell On It is proudly powered by
WordPress
Entries (RSS)
and Comments (RSS).
© Tateru Nino. All Rights reserved.
Tateru Nino and Dwell On It are trademarks of Tateru Nino. Your local laws provide the conditions for your fair and reasonable use of these marks.
All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.