In February I'll be speaking at MeetDifferent 2009 about virtual worlds for events and meetings. I'm also in the process of putting together a comprehensive reference for business use of virtual worlds.

If your organization uses virtual worlds, or similar environments for meetings, events, conferences etc then I'd love to talk with you. Please email me: nick@cleverzebra.com

Talk to me about meetings, it'll take just 15mins...

Despite the constraints of a very formal, academic style imposed at the Journal of Medical Internet Research, Margaret Hansen, of San Francisco School of Nursing has done a cracking job of overviewing virtual healthcare. The paper is Second Life-centric, and doesn't draw any firm conclusions on the effectiveness of virtual worlds in healthcare enducation but it does provide a good list of project examples as well as detailing some of the relevant theories attached to 3D learning environments.

I've been a fan of Sun's Project Wonderland almost from the start. I've said many times that I think it's potentially a complete game changer in virtual worlds. Particularly for enterprise and edu. The overly techie, wikified code dump that is their website however makes a lot of folks' eyes glaze over before they've even had a chance to grasp it's full potential. The new Wonderland videos make it a lot quicker to understand.

It's becoming easier and easier to build white label virtual worlds. I can think of a half dozen ways just off the top of my head, and now Moondus enters the fray. I completely missed this announcement at last weeks conference but despite being a little shakey, the video doesn't look half bad.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a measurement for just how "real" virtual worlds

The researchers focused on developing a measurement tool specifically for business applications in the virtual world, noting that the productivity and effectiveness of workers interacting via these online environments is closely linked to how well the workers are able to feel as if they are in the virtual realm.

I had the distinct pleasure of attending the recent Virtual Worlds London show as the guest of Chris, Joey et al at Virtual Worlds Management this week. To say it was a mixed bag would be an understatement. The media, kids and games sessions where alive and vibrant, and absolutely full of excitement The enterprise sessions were lackluster, stale and unconvincing.

But not in the Netherlands, they just arrest you if you're caught stealing virtual goods. Astonishing. Apparently these kids beat up and threatened some other poor junior-neck-bearder to get his "magic amulet". Sheeesh..

And the winner is... Second Life Offers Business Teleconferencing, Now Penis-Free by Eric Krangel referring to the Linden/RRR announcement this week re Immersive Workspaces. I have to say I saw the video at the VW London conf and was somewhat less than convinced, as were others I spoke to but to be fair I've not tried it yet, it could just be tacky machinima and bad presentation to fault..

It's true. I can't seem to help it. So Mrs W was only mildly worried when she found me sat cross legged at the desk today flitting around a magic forrest full of flowers wearing a pink dress and butterfly wings...

Or at least so says Christian. It's nice to have an excuse to link over to his new company. It's not all doom and gloom though...