As it celebrates a decade of enabling virtual experiences, Second Life provides startups with a few hard but valuable lessons on the realities of creating products and building audiences.
I am very excited about Wagner James Au’s new report on virtual worlds for reasons both personal and professional. On a personal level, I love gaming, particularly online gaming, so naturally this research briefing is required reading.
Second and more importantly, I believe Au has done important work by correctly identifying the growing nexus between social networks and virtual worlds. Increasingly, the line between casual gaming, online worlds and social media is blurring, as social networks allow game developers to hook into their platforms.
Wagner James Au, aka Hamlet Au in Second Life, is author of “The Making of Second Life”, a GigaOM contributor and founder of New World Notes. For three years, starting in 2000, Au was hired by Second Life creators Linden Labs as an “embedded journalist” to cover the world’s emerging society.
Here he talks about why he uses Paint.net and Plurk.
What’s Your Favorite Web App, Wagner James Au? from WebWorkerDaily on Vimeo.
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