Virtual Worlds: A Business Guide

by Ben Lorica, Roger Magoulas, and the O’Reilly Radar Team
March 2008, 41 pages
PDF

What's the real business opportunity in Second Life and other virtual worlds? What trends and innovations point the way to success? Why have some high-profile virtual worlds flopped? You'll find answers in this report.

Topics Include:

• An in-depth look at Second Life: usage & engagement data, economic activity, goverance & intellectual property, hot buttons (griefing, cyber sex), demographics, popular sites
• Virtual Worlds, the Next Generation: what children's engagement in virtual worlds tells us about the future of the medium.
• The best of both worlds: fascinating new applications that combine data from real and virtual worlds to give us a better reality

Virtual Worlds: A Business Guide examines the major players in the space, assesses what businesses are doing now, and lays out success strategies for doing business in virtual worlds.