Archive for Buzz
May 9, 2007 at 3:14 pm ·
Filed under PR, Buzz, Projects, Community
As mentioned on the 3pointD blog, we’re launching an island dedicated to Visual Studio in SecondLife. The MillionsOfUs team blogged about it yesterday, and it’s on TechMeMe today too. Although it is closely related to the secret project I’m working on, I didn’t contribute to this one. Pretty cool how they had a teaser trailer posted for it. Here’s the SoapBox edition of the movie:
So, what’s up with this island? It’s not the first island we, as Microsoft, own. As far as I know it’s the second one. The first one has been around for quite some time already, and the project I’m working on will be kicked off there pretty soon. This Visual Studio Island, however, has a special purpose. Over and above some truly unreal events, the island also contains a series of hidden logic puzzles. If you solve them all, you’ll get into Second Life’s top VIP room where the grand prize awaits.
What you need is a break from arguing over your favorite Star Trek captain, the doldrums of watching Frodo defeat Sauron…again, and re-enacting those classic Snake Eyes vs. Destro battles. (Please, no Ewoks.)
You KNOW you want to join in the fun. [..] we’ll have an island full of mystery eggs and a giant blimp. What’s not to love?
WHEN: Thursday, May 10th, 6pm PST / 6pm Second Life time
WHERE: Visual Studio Island in Second Life
DRESS CODE: PJs, jeans or your favorite sweats
SNACKS: Whatever’s in your fridge
Register for the Event:
To get access to the Island and attend the event, please visit the Visual Studio Island registration page. If you’re already a member of Second Life, you’ll be able to teleport directly to the Visual Studio Island and you’re on your way. If you’re a newbie, we’ll help guide you through the Second Life registration process and help you set up your Avatar. Registration Zone - Click here
SLURL (direct link in the game)
March 15, 2007 at 5:59 pm ·
Filed under Buzz, MicroLife, Technology, CeBit
Last night I took a direct flight to Hannover in Germany to go to the CeBit event. The world’s largest consumer electronics fair. I was a little late with booking the hotel (a year late, because I’ve heard people are booking a year ahead) so I ended up on 90 km from Hannover. The cab drive to the hotel took 1.5 hours from the airport, and it was 120 km. (75 miles)… I had a really retarded cab driver. In Germany, large parts of the freeway have no speed limit, but he kept driving 70 miles an hour. I ended up in some sort of spa, in the middle of nowhere. When I look outside my window I see trees. Trees as far as the eye can see. My hotel room has a 14 inch tv with 9 channels, all German. There is no bar in the hotel, and no internet access. Well, there is internet access before 8 PM, after that there’s no more access to the booth. Argh. My hands are shaking… Must Need Access…
Anyway, I had to unplug the tv and the night-light because I needed the plugs to charge my cam and the two laptops. I set the alarm on 7 am, took a shower when I woke up and went downstairs to order a taxi. 20 minutes later I was well on my way to the event. This cab driver was a little more relaxed at higher speeds, and we flew at 240 km/h (150mph) in the general direction of Hannover’s ‘Messe’. The weirdest thing ever I encountered was that, while driving at 240 km/h, the cabbie had to pull over to the right lane to let a series of cars pass us by. It looked like we were standing still. You gotta love the Germans.
I got dropped off at the main entrance, and met up with Hans Mestrum and Erik Van Roekel, two Dutch bloggers who’re experiencing some ‘wow’ at the CeBit fair. I gave Erik a private Vista demo, because he was a little disappointed when he installed it and he didn’t really ‘felt’ the difference with XP. I showed of some tools and we discussed the ‘best’ new features, and he said that what he missed the most was a decent tutorial when you buy it, because a lot of the things I showed him weren’t really known. (disclaimer: Microsoft sent me to CeBit to make a documentary). Then I gave Hans the Sony Vaio I brought with me, and with that, my influencers program kicked off. I showed off the goodies that came with the laptop and Hans actually started blogging with it almost right after we had lunch. He was really excited with the Vaio and impressed by what Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 Ultimate have to offer. He connected his camera to it and started uploading pictures to Flickr from the CeBit event through his Flickr client which he installed as soon as he got the laptop. With a fast internet connection and some funky reliable tools, life of a blogger is a small paradise.
Then I went on a booth tour with Erik to score some swag and see what’s new on the technology front. This CeBit event is HUGE. It’s a small city filled with vendors. Thousands of people walking around and every company with digital or electronic products is represented here. It’s geek paradise. I’ll edit my videos tonight at the hotel and hope to have them online as soon as possible. I’m already very happy that the Tulip booth has a lounge with network cables available, so I could post this :)
I saw a lot of cool things, but didn’t see anything revolutionary yet. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open to see what else goes down. There’s still so much to explore. We’ve been running around for hours on end, and still have done only 15% of the total event floor.
March 15, 2007 at 5:44 pm ·
Filed under Buzz, Projects, Vista, Vaio
Today, the Vaio project I’ve been working on kicked off when I handed over the first laptop to the first blogger in the project. The setup of the project is rather simple. There are 10 laptops, and on all of them runs a Vista Ultimate. Besides the Vista, there’s also an Office Ultimate 2007 installed (the complete edition with OneNote, Grooves, and Outlook with Business Contact Manager). Those are the basic tools. The extras I installed are Windows Live Toolbar, Windows Live OneCare (90 day trial, Microsoft points will be sent out later on to have a 12 month subscription) and Windows Live Writer beta.
Other than that I preinstalled the most common web tools like a recent Flash player, a Shockwave player, an Adobe Reader and a QuickTime standalone player without iTunes so that the laptops are really ready to use and the bloggers don’t have to start their experience with downloading all sorts of things.
As an extra, I downloaded all the original drivers and utilities that were installed on the laptop when I got them delivered with the Windows XP on, so that in case of a system problem, the orginal drivers are within reach. I also added all the released Vista compatiblity patches that Sony listed on their site. Everything is working fine, and I only had to install one XP driver, the one for the Mass Storage Controller. There wasn’t a Vista driver for that yet.
In the favorites folder of IE7, I added links to the Vaio Help Center, so the bloggers can check for theirselves if they want to update that driver, but like I said, everything is running smooth, normally there should be no need to reinstall or update the drivers. It’s just a service in the spirit of ‘precaution’.
For the sidebar, I added over 40 gadgets the bloggers can play with, going from Soapbox -, iStockPhoto - and Wikipedia search to a quick-play Media Player and Outlook alerts. The list of gadgets (gadget name + version / creator / description):
- Alarm Clock + 1.1 / link8506 / provides visual feedback when alarm rings
- BarCode Clock + 1.0.0.0 / Loke Uei / cool barcode clock
- Binsearch + 0.0.0.1 / Andrew Haigh / Find the binaries you want
- Bloglines Feeds + 1.0 / Jim Rogers / Keep track of bloglines feeds
- Bubble Wrap + 1.0.0.0 / Tim Blackshirt / Pop! Pop! Pop!
- Color Swatches + 1.0.0.0 / Tim Blackshirt / Slowly changing color combinations (copy RGB values)
- Contacts + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / See list of Windows contacts, search contacts etc
- CPU Meter + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / See current CPU and memory use
- Currency + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / Convert from one currency to another
- Digital World Clock + 1.5 / Sanwar / place multiple clocks, edit the description and timezones
- Empty Space + 2.0.0.0 / All in One Computer Center / make empty space between gadgets
- Feng Shui Gadget + 1.0.1 / Techie Type Guy / Improve your energy flow, Feng Shui your desktop
- FTP Access + 1.0 / Rick Robey / easy to use FTP sever access gadget
- Future Clock + 1.0.0.0 / Mark Van Beek / Modern clock of the future
- Gmail checker + 1.1.0.0 / Jack Chapple / checks your Gmail account for new email periodically
- Gmail Inbox Reader + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / Stay up to date on your Gmail inbox
- Gmail Quick Login + 1.0 / Justin Vaillancourt / Allows you to quickly login to Gmail
- Google Search Bar + 1.1.0.0 / Tijl Deneut / Search google for text or images
- IP Config + 1.0 / Vinod Unny / Displays your machine’s IP Address info
- iSee + 3.0 / Herman Amiune / Sidebar access to last YouTube, Google Videos and iTunes podcasts
- iStat Battery + 1.01 / iSlayer / Monitor battery usage
- iStockphoto Search + 1.0 / François Sachs / Search for stockphotos on istockphotos.com
- Live Messenger Gadget + 0.5 / Gary Zhao / Chat from the sidebar, see status of friends
- Live Search + 1.0.0.0 / Ross Dargan / Search the web using Live.com
- Live Search Maps + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / Monitor Traffic Flow in your area (US)
- Magic 8-Ball + 0.5 / B. Rasmussen / Can’t decide or problems prediciting the future? The Magic Ball has it all!
- Memory Meter + 1.0 / SFkilla / Show memery stats (used, total, available), has 33 skins
- Notes + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / Sticky notes – Post-its for the sidebar
- Outlook Info + 1.5.5 / Kelly Daamen / number of unread mail, upcoming appointments and tasks
- Outlook Tasks + 1.0.121.0 / Microsoft Corporation / See your daily tasks
- Phone Notify + 1.0.0.0 / CDYNE Corporation / Calls any phone in US + Canada and speaks the text you type
- Picture Puzzle + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / Basic sliding puzzle
- Polaroid + 1.6.0.0 / Jonathan Abbott / place photos on your desktop, with some basic editing functions
- Run Program + 1.0.0.1 / Dima / type the name of a program, document, folder or internet resource and open it
- Say It! + 1.0.0.0 / LiveGadgets.net / Enjoy mindless fun listening to your computer swear
- Sidebar Pong + 1.0 / SJB / Sidebar Pong
- SlideShow 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / show a continuous slide of your pictures
- Soapbox on MSN Video Search + 1.0.0.0 / Todd Ostermeier / Search for videos on MSN Video
- Sphere Timer + 1.0.0.0 / Rogério Tomio Hirooka / Absolute TimeControl: clock-alarm-count-chrono
- Stocks + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / Monitor your favorite stocks
- Systran Gadget + 1.0.7 / Systran / Translator and dictionary for 14 languages
- Terror Alert + 0.0.0.1 / Benjamin F. Beideman / Displays the current Homeland Security Advisory level
- TwentyFourClock + 0.1 / Rick Martinez / Tells the current time, 24 style (from the tv series)
- Unread Live Mail + 1.0 / Lawrence James / view unread mail items in Lever Messenger account
- Voodoo Doll + 1.0.0.0 / Team Blackshirt / Don’t get mad, get evil ! Mwahahahaha…
- Weather + 1.0.0.0 / Microsoft Corporation / Weather from around the world
- Wikipedia + 1.0 / Eric Malamisura / Search Wikipedia for info
- Windows Media Player Gadget + 2.0 / David Thompson / Play files without opening WinMP
The purpose of this campaign is to collect feedback from bloggers with different social backgrounds, who also have different professional needs and different private needs when they use ‘our’ technology and software. Bloggers from all over Europe have been selected to participate, from Denmark, UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain… Obviously ‘we’ aimed for influential bloggers with a rather large audience in the hopes they would write about their experience with Vista, Office and the Live services. However, the bloggers are not committed to write anything. It’s not an exchange of goods for buzz or services. They are free to write what they want and if they want.
The big difference with the Ferarri campaign that ran in the US is that in this case, a personal line of communication is established between the bloggers and myself BEFORE the products are shipped, that I will ping them on a regular basis (every 2 or 3 weeks) for the coming months to help them out should anything happen or should they have questions. I will collect the feedback online through email and by following their blogs and offline as well, through meetings and phone calls, to stay in touch with them. I personally send out the laptops with my cell phone number and email address included, not some marketing agency with a call center or a ‘hold’ button, and the bloggers know exactly what ‘we’ (as Microsoft) expect when they sign up for the project. Only bloggers who have agreed to be part of this project will receive a laptop.
Starting next week on Monday, the shipping begins! I’m so excited! I really hope all goes well…
February 25, 2007 at 5:16 pm ·
Filed under PR, Buzz
I know it’s been around, but I still think it’s pretty cool and since I’ve just received a ton of images of the event, I thought I’d link them up here. You’ve probably read it on the TechEblog already, or on dozens of other blogs, but in case you didn’t see it yet, here’s what the Vista launch team in Toronto pulled for their launch event:
And here’s a selection of the load of pictures I’ve received: Read the rest of this entry »
February 21, 2007 at 6:10 pm ·
Filed under Buzz, MicroLife, Projects
Sunny greetings from Switzerland. I’ve just finished interviewing Urs Muller, Matthias Rambold and Kalle Vänskä for a nice report for either Channel 9 or Channel 10, or wherever it fits in. The first interview was about the MWPSK, -my web pages starter kit - an ASP.NET Starter Kit application to build and manage websites online with all common pages types, forms, user management, rich text editor, html editor, events, news, downloads, guestbook and a ton of other features. I sat down with Urs Muller and Matthias Rambold and we discussed this fully functional Content Management System. Agreed, there are hundreds of CMS platforms out there already, but this one is a little bit special. As soon as the editing is done, I’ll publish the video here.
It doesn’t use a database, comes with a 1-2-3 easy setup, it’s open source AND it comes with 16 starter design templates out of the box. Reason enough to go have a little chat with the creators of this experiment.
Codeplex Link for the MWPSK
The other interview was with Urs Muller and Kalle Vänskä about UniveRSS, the three dimensional RSS reader that has been built as a showcase for WPF. UniveRSS leverages the Windows Presentation Foundation and provides a stunning way of visualizing RSS feeds and their content. It introduces a full-screen 3D universe where galaxies represent the folders of your RSS feed directory, and the stars are represented by the spinning cubes that hold the feed information. Size and position of the feed cubes indicate how many unread items they contain.
This cool thingy just got upgraded and now plays Flash movies that are embedded in blog posts, so for instance when you subscribe to a blog that posts DailyMotion or YouTube clips, you can play the content right away without leaving the application. In the demo (also online soon, when the editing is done) there’s also a part where Kalle shows the real-time integration by means of an earthquake tracker. The RSS lists all recent posts, and when you click on a post a small application is loaded inside UniveRSS which shows a globe with a pinpointer where the event took place. Clicking that pinpointer will load Virtual Earth in the application so you can easily see the map of the region. A click on an icon opens up an browser window where you can see more Virtual Earth details and use the navigation better.
Link to UniveRSS
After the video interviews I went to the Microsoft headquarters in Zurich to meet up with Christian Frei, and we talked a little about a future project of which I can’t say much but it’s going to be really cool to help set it up. It’s not really my project, but I’m very excited about it and I’ll help out wherever I can.
Then I went back to the hotel. I managed to reschedule my flight to tonight so I don’t have to leave tomorrow at noon, because I really have to finish the laptop project I’m working on. Damn, I love this job.
February 5, 2007 at 1:52 am ·
Filed under PR, Buzz, Music
Cool news on the side, especially for music lovers and composers: it’s the first time that windows based keyboard workstation will be played live at the Super Bowl - until 30 minutes ago I didn’t even knew we made or sponsored research for instruments, but hey… :) - The Consumer ISV team successfully supported numerous consumer ISVs announcing integration/support for Windows Vista, helping to promote the release of Vista for the following scenarios: Music, TV & Movies, Memories and productivity. Of particular interest is the Open Labs announcement regarding the use of it’s keyboard workstations during Prince’s performance on the Pepsi Super Bowl XLI halftime show on Sunday, February 4th, at Dolphin Stadium in Miami. The event marks the first time that windows based keyboard workstation will be played live at the Super Bowl. Check out the press release for more information.
Prince NPG keyboardists Morris Hayes and Renato Neto will be playing Open Labs Gen3 MiKo and NeKo during the Pepsi Super Bowl XLI halftime performance; This first Windows-based Keyboard Workstation is the first musical instrument to use Intel Core 2 Duo processors.
Documents for more info about Vista and music and consumer ISV support for GA: We supported 9 Partners/10 Press Releases featured on the Windows Vista/2007 Microsoft Office System Virtual Pressroom including:
- Cakewalk SONAR 6.2 First Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) to offer native support for Windows Vista (.doc file, 34KB)
Cakewalk, the world’s leading developer of powerful and easy to use products for music creation and recording, announces native support for Windows Vista, new features, and refinements in the free SONAR 6.2 update.
- EASTWEST’S Virtual Libraries Gain More RAM with Windows Vista (.doc file, 28 KB)
EASTWEST (www.soundsonline.com), the industry leader in soundware development and distribution, today announced it is delivering five new additions to its Quantum Leap Virtual Instrument range: Gypsy, Pianos, Ministry of Rock, Stormdrum 2 and Voices of Passion, as well as the Fab Four Virtual Instrument.
- MaxxAudio Delivers Bigger Better Sound in Windows Vista (.doc file, 183 KB)
Waves announced today that it is delivering its MaxxAudio PC solution for evaluation and licensing to major PC manufacturers. MaxxAudio is a suite of psychoacoustic technologies that enable small loudspeakers, such as those found in notebook PCs, to sound dramatically larger, deeper and more powerful.
- MOTU Ships Windows Vista-Compatible Virtual Instruments and Hardware Drivers (.doc file, 48 KB)
MOTU, Inc. is now shipping Windows Vista-compatible drivers for all MOTU FireWire, PCI and USB hardware interface products.
- Propellerhead Software Announces Full Compatibility with Windows Vista (.doc file, 144 KB)
After extensive testing, Propellerhead Software today announced that all Propellerhead software products are now fully compatible with Windows Vista. All applications comply to Microsoft’s Works with Windows Vista.
- Nero Announces Major Nero 7 Update as Microsoft Releases Highly-Anticipated OS (.doc file, 60 KB)
Nero, leaders in digital media technology, announces major updates to its premier Nero 7 digital media software suite, which is Windows Vista Ready.
- New Pinnacle PCTV Tuner Kits A Must-Have For Complete Media Center Experience on Windows Vista
Avid Technology inc. today announced that its consumer division, Pinnacle Systems, Inc., has expanded its Pinnacle PCTV product family to include the Pinnacle PCTV Tuner Kits for Windows Vista.
- Sonic Ships New Vista-Enabled OEM Products
Sonic Solutions, the leader in digital media software, today released a new line of Vista-compatible photo and video products developed specifically for PC OEM’s for inclusion in the first wave of Windows Vista Capable and Premium Ready PCs.
- UNIVERSAL AUDIO RELEASES UAD-1 V.4.5.1 64-BIT DRIVERS FOR MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP X64 & VISTA Sonic Ships New Vista-Enabled OEM Products
Universal Audio, a manufacturer of high-quality vintage audio hardware and DSP software plug-ins for digital audio workstations, today announced the release of v4.5.1 software which is a preview (public beta) release focused on 64-bit driver support for Microsoft Windows XP X64 and the forthcoming new Microsoft operating system, Windows Vista.
February 1, 2007 at 1:25 am ·
Filed under PR, Buzz, Video
It’s been a very long day yesterday, helping out at the launch event. Apparently the Belgian launch made such a big buzz that even the Japanese tv showed up at the press release. They thought it was the European launch event. Pretty cool. In the morning we met with the bloggers we had invited. Even though some bloggers aren’t pro-Microsoft at all, they were very glad we treated them as press VIPs with access-all-areas passes. Personally, I think it’s a very good move of Microsoft to not underestimate the power of bloggers and to place them on the same level as journalists. After the press conference, I went to the Atomium to help out a bit and to check on the stream that was supposed to go into Second Life. The guys from Rambla did a great job! Really! Thanks a million!
I met the Praga Khan / Lords Of Acid crew and we had a great talk about the virtual word and they were really enthusiastic about having the concert in there. Agreed, Second Life is still in an early phase, and it still has it flaws and unstabilities, but I do think it’s a wonderful channel to reach out to a specific audience, especially when you have something cool to offer as an experience like this concert. There’s still so much to discover and I don’t think we’ve seen the full potential of this medium yet.
I don’t think it was a wrong decision to go into Second Life with this initiative, even though some people seem to focus on the fact that some of the clubs were located on ‘mature land’. Second Life is for a great part a reflection of the real world, and that includes adult entertainment. One of the most popular and oldest clubs in Flanders, Cafe d’Anvers, is located in the heart of the Antwerp red light district, and I’ve never heard anyone complaining about that, even though a lot of official launches have been made there in the past years. Three quarters of Second Life is mature, or so it seems, popular clubs in this virtual world are very often located there, because that brings in a lot of traffic. Let’s not forget that Second Life has an age limit of 18 years, which obviously indicates that sometimes it happens that you encounter things that aren’t suitable for children, which implies you’re an adult if you play the game, and that you can deal with situations like these.
In the search for partnering clubs, I did try to select those that didn’t have explicit content on display, and that worked out very well. So what if there’s a dancing pole every here and there in some of the clubs? It’s just fun and entertainment. You’re still looking at game, at virtual characters. What do you expect from Second Life’s nightlife? Everyone in a tuxedo sitting on a chair, knodding their heads and tapping gently with their feet? I’m not going to stream a concert of a popular house/techno formation into a candy store or a car shop.
All in all, the virtual event didn’t go quite as planned. 4 clubs had difficulties to get the stream working and never got it fixed, which is weird because everyone received the same url. I wanted to travel there to help out but Second Life’s teleport service was down, so I kinda got stuck where I was. We’ve captured the concert though, and I’ll try to get it up for a rebroadcast to those clubs who’ve fallen out of the live event. So, with 6 partnering clubs in, we served 1125 stream requests to 375 IPs from over 17 countries. That’s not bad at all, but it could’ve been better, if everything would’ve gone as planned. I haven’t been able yet to check with the clubs that joined in too late to make it to the teleport billboards to get a status on the amount of people there, but I’m sure that those who’ve turned up enjoyed theirselves.
4 locations were maxed out and my sim owner came to the rescue and raised the limit of avatars allowed. On a certain moment, the Strawberry Estate had 70 avatars walking around, sitting in the spheres of the atomium or on the lawn in front of the big screens. My little chunk of land isn’t a well known club, but with a little help from Arnaut Sequent, who owns the Second Life Atomium and was kind enough to put a copy in my virtual garden, I was able to turn it into a temporary Atomium park. I didn’t think it would be necessarry to buy a strip of land to host just this event and then abandon it afterwards or leave it like a ghost area, like so many brands do. I wanted the event to be amidst the residents, and that worked out pretty well.
The feedback from those who were present in the game was great. Everybody really liked the fact that the singer (Maurice Engelen) kept greeting the people of Second Life through his entire set and the music was, as expected, awesome. A few people were protesting against Vista, sporting signs of ‘bad Vista’, ironically enough while watching a concert that was sponsored by Microsoft. I could’ve ejected them from the land, but hey, everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion.
The worst thing that could’ve happened that night, actually did happen, as the Lindens were having serious troubles maintaining stability on the grid. Throughout the event they’ve posted this message on their blog:
We’re seeing heavy load on the database servers, and the associated problems in-world with failed teleports and difficulty rezzing objects. We’re looking into the cause and will let you know as we get more information.
So it became quite impossible to travel around and help out those who couldn’t make the player work, and everything was loading really slow. Too bad. But still, it was a nice event, and quite big too. I learned quite a few things about setting up an event in the virtual world. Good things to keep in mind. Maybe there’ll be a next time, some day.
Thanks to One Agency for the professional approach. Bert, it was nice working with you. I had a great time :) Thanks for the ‘private’ internet connection too, I enjoyed that very much.
As for the event in real life, I had quite some fun, met A LOT of people and worked hard. I helped out everywhere I could. I’m not saying I made the difference, but all bits add to the total. I loved hanging around the streaming booth and I was very happy that the bloggers I knew showed up and had a great time. It was a very long day, with a lot of stairs and stress, but in the end it was so worth it. Here’s a video from Pieter that puts it all in context:
Here are some pictures from the Parioli Club at Virtual Italian Parks and Liquid Dreams, which both ran at maximum capacity during the entire event. I’ll update this post as soon as I get more images from the other club owners.
Buzz about the Second Life project and the event [good, bad and/or worse :) ]
Monuments.nu : 1 + 2 + 3 + 4
Mess.be (English)
Robin Wauters (English)
Blogologie (Dutch) 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5
Smetty (Dutch)
Het Pakket (Dutch)
SLForum.be (Dutch)
Asfaltkonijn (Dutch)
Clopin (Dutch)
Uberhaupt (Dutch)
Dominiek (Dutch)
Lichtgeraakt (Dutch)
Pietel + 2 (Dutch)
Past Is Prologue (Dutch)
eMich (French)
Denis Balencourt (French)
Bart De Waele (Dutch)
BVLG (Dutch)
Pics on Flickr: here | here
Cute stuff from elsewhere:
The Second Life Herald (English)
Notizen Aus Der Provinz (German)
Kitten Lulu (English)
Gamer News Wire (English)
Second Life Blog (Italian)
Hunterstrat (English)
The Register (English)
On a side note for The Register’s attempt to dramatize the choice of the Vista launch event in a club like Liquid Dreams, and make it look like it is a place where naked people can reside freely, the naked person in the picture they’ve posted with their article is the one that took the picture, and asked the club owner to pose in front of a billboard, which she refused. That person got booted from the club. Things you do for a story, no? Nice try.
But hey, at least I got bashed by The Register. Not many Belgians can say that. I’m flattered.
January 29, 2007 at 3:28 pm ·
Filed under PR, Buzz
It’s been a hell of a week and lots of things have happened. We’ve received a ton of press coverage already on national radio, in the newspapers and so on. It’s great to be part of something that spans such a wide audience. In this post, I’ll line up the final state as it is in Second Life for ‘our’ Vista/Office 2007 launch event.
Today, we are present on 10 official locations, where billboards and branded players have been put up to announce the event.
The Strawberry Estate is the first one. It’s my very own chunk of land in the game, with in the garden a miniature version of the Atomium, the monument where in real life the event is being organized. In every sphere of the monument, 10 people can reside. In every ball, a plasma screen has been put upon the walls. Normally all the balls will be colored as they will be lighted out in real life. In the Strawberry Estate Club, two giant screens have been put up next to a few sets of dancing balls, so people can enjoy the concert while dancing. Outside there are a few billboards to direct people to the right location, to other clubs in Second Life that have teamed up.
Next, and this is truly a top of the bill, is the Parioli Club, in the Virtual Italian Parks region. What they have done is beyond all imagination. They’ve created a themed location and it looks very very cool. These guys have done an amazing job! It’s been a pleasure working together with them.
Third, The Sanctuary Rock. One of the most popular locations, is also joining the event. They’ve also put up billboards to announce the concert. The club is an ancient looking castle on a hill, an hosts tons of events.
Next participant is Club Elements at the GoL (Goddess Of Love) region. Also a high-roller in Second Life, a top location club with an impressive reach. Very trendy design and highly popular.
Continuing the line is Crayonville Island, the home of marketing guru Jaffe Juice, very well known with all marketing bloggers and new marketing adepts. Crayon is the first virtual marketing agency that also has a real life department. They’ve opened up their events amphitheater for us, and are welcoming the event with open arms. That will lead to quite some blogposts, without any doubt, since Jaffe Juice (aka Joseph Jaffe) is one the web 2.0 marketing pioneers. Bert Van Wassenhove from ‘One Agency‘ arranged our presence here. Cool!
Next is the Isle Of Lesbos, an island made just like the real one, with ancient ruins of the old Roman and Greek buildings. We get the entire beach front with ocean view and waving palm trees.
Then we have the Mermaids Gentlemans Club. This club has a subwater level, with animated tropical plants and fish. The dancefloor is see-through and above the reef, and at night it has a very cool effect.
The 8thth partner club is ShowGirls, a casino and club that hosts a lot of events day in, day out. The video player is placed directly at the teleportation point and it’s outside on the terrace in the poker area. Looks very classy.
Closing the line is the Liquid Dreams club. An industrial strip joint with a load of Lords of Acid fans. They were amongst the first to literally beg to become a partner, and they’ve been arranging ad space with most of their partnering malls and clubs. These guys are overjoyed to be part of our little initiative.
Then last but not least there’s the Irie Vibes Club, one of Second Life’s most popular open air reggae clubs. I don’t know why they want to partner, but Bert from the ‘one-agency’ (our marketing agency) also set this up. They’ve also hung the billboards and screen and are advertising in their own network to get the word out. Looks good as well!
Here are examples of the billboards that have been distributed to appear on various locations in the game, mostly in malls and on crowded locations.
The last billboard is scripted, in the game, clicking on a name will give you a teleportation link to that location. Clicking the ‘experiencethewow.be’ link will open a browser and it will load the site of the event.
The branded player we handed out to all the club owner can be copied as many times as they want, and it lights up in the dark. Once we’ve enroled the streaming and the URL is known, we’ll hand out the right address and everyone will be able to connect. The player is 8 meters wide and 6 meters high, that should work out fine.
And so, that’s where we stand now. Let’s break it down into numbers for reach.
Second Life has a region limit (per land) of 50 avatars, to be sure, let’s count 45. That means that through the official partners, we reach out to 450 to maximum 500 people who can watch the event for free, at the same time.
But, there’s also about 8 other clubs who joined ‘too late for the marketing train’, and they too received a player and some billboards. If I count those in as well, we have a potential reach of between 800 and 900 avatars. (an avatar is a second life citizen)
As for ‘general reach’ I’ll list up the daily traffic of each event location, traffic for today:
Irie Vibes Club: 24,533
ShowGirls: 7,853
Mermaids: 3,600
Liquid Dreams: 4,723
Parioli Club: 22,759
Elements at GoL: 132,049
Sanctuary Rock: 59,984
Crayonville: 397
Strawberry Estate: 1,790
Isle Of Lesbos: 47,906
That totals a daily reach of: 305,594 avatars.
Suppose only 10% of them looks at the billboards, then we still reach 30,000 people a day, with simple brand awareness. I know for sure more people look at the billboards, but I’m trying to be negative, just to not overestimate it.
Most of the clubs and locations have their billboards up for a few days already, so you can at least multiply by two (or three), and then we do not count the billboards in the 8 clubs that aren’t on the partner list, and we don’t count the effect of the billboards that have been put in several malls and other crowded locations. And we can’t measure the word of mouth effect either. But at least you can say: we’re making a point, and it’s being heard.
The guys from One Agency also made a ‘road show’ t-shirt which will be distributed for free, and they’re taking care of the technical part, the streaming and convertion. If all goes well, we’ll be able to feed a live Praga Khan concert to 2000 citizens of Second Life. That would be awesome!
I’ve had a lot of discussions with people in Second Life about brands and marketing, but I do know that everyone is really ‘pro’, because at least we didn’t just buy our way in. We come in with something that has never been done before, on an unseen scale. And we don’t take from the community, we give. That’s the best place to be for a brand.
Now the only thing I hope for is that Second Life will not be down at the time of the event. I’ve noticed the Linden Labs (the creators) through their support channel a week ago, but they haven’t got back to me (yet). Fingers crossed, and let’s have some fun!
All of you have the opportunity to follow the exclusive Praga Khan concert tomorrow, organised for the Belgian GA Launch, via streaming. Tune in at 11 PM CET! Check out http://www.experiencethewow.be/streaming and Experience the “Wow”!
As Pascal kindly pointed out in the comments, the shortcuts to the Second Life locations can be found at the SLForum.
Thanks!
January 22, 2007 at 11:35 pm ·
Filed under PR, Buzz
After a long day running from one meeting to another and conference calling half of the world, I got a lift to the airport to get on the afternoon flight to Munich. I’m tired. I’ve been overclocking the entire weekend to get things done in Second Life for the launch of Vista, talking to club owners, building the branded player, making sure everyone could operate it and looking for locations where the club owners could put it on their land. I had a lot of help from my friends in Second Life, networking for me and guiding me to the right people to talk to. The power of an online community is simply amazing.
I met a nice guy named Arnout Saedt, and he’s the owner of the Second Life version of the Atomium. Since he has no media rights on the land where he’s currently living, we decided it would be best to rebuild the Atomium on the Strawberry Estate. And so, now we have our own virtual version of the event location in real life. I cleaned out all the spheres and I’ve placed plasma screens inside them. Each sphere can host 10 people. The entire Belgian online community is welcome there to participate in the event. (just look up ‘Coolz0r Courier’ or ‘Strawberry Estate’ in the search, and you’ll get there). Arnout did a wonderful job. This is so very cool!
Then I also had a great and thorough conversation with Bruno Cerboni, who is the Founder and CEO of Virtual Italian Parks S.r.l. (the first Italian company in Italy offering SL services), a company formally incorporated in Italy. He is also one of the Founders of the European Consortium VRParks: http://www.vrparks.eu | http://vrparks.eu/?About:Virtual_Italian_Parks - The company is supported by the E2Blab incubator at the Tor Vergata University in Rome.
Bruno is an engineer (degree at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”). He had a 30 years career as a Manager in the field of Information Technology and created the first Italian SIM in Second Life: Parioli , which consistently ranks in 2 of SL’s Top 10 (non-adult) Most Popular Places and reaches from 20,000 to 30.000 daily traffic; Bruno has developed the unique 2L holographic environment using an immersive approach. The entire Italian SIM (region) is cooperating with the Vista Project. Visit Rome in virtual life, and experience the Vista launch near the Colosseum. It’s as impressive as it sounds.
The Mermaids Gentlemans Club is also participating. The club’s dance floor is directly above the water surface, and if you look down, they’ve created the illusion of a subtropical coral reef. It lights up in the dark and it’s taken quite some work to make it look so special. A wonderful location to check out, filled with very nice people.
Another cool region that participates is the ‘Isle Of Lesbos’, named after the famous Mediterranean island. It’s a huge region with a load of traffic to take your hat off for and bow gracefully. The paradise beach is at our disposal and has the most romantic sunset I’ve seen so far. It’s a huge waterfront with close to it a city that looks like it’s the remains of ancient ruins, but crowded with people. You just have to check it out. Too bad they don’t sell vacations to the virtual world and teleport your ‘real life you’ to this fabulous location. It’s close to heaven.
The Sanctuary Rock is also pleased to host our live concert. According to my contactman Schinoa, the Gothic/Medieval castle with a huge crowd of Lords Of Acid lovers (the international name of Praga Khan) is eager to join in. The Second Life stats indicate this place pulls over 50.000 avatars a day, and it ranks in the top 10 of most visited/popular locations. It’s a very special place that looks like it’s been ripped out of some lord of the rings scene, but this too is a perfect location to set up the streams.
Closing the ranks, but not being less attractive, are the ShowGirls Gentlemen’s Club and Liquid Dreams. Both clubs have a special style of decoration and attract their typical crowd of regulars. Time and again, these two places are jammed with avatars that want to be part of the events that are being hosted. This is the perfect time to pay these clubs a visit. Explore them, you won’t be sorry !
So. Right now I’m setting up the billboards. I think I’m going to upload them tomorrow and start placing them everywhere I can to get as much visibility as possible. Last time I checked, the stream we’re sending into the virtual world should be able to manage 2000 requests. I know we’re aiming below that with this selective list of clubs, but you have to have a limit somewhere. Especially when you have 3 huge regions participating where multiple players can be placed to serve the audience. We’ll see where we end up. The important part is that we can reach out to those who really want to be part of the event, and that we can offer them a nice atmosphere “to experience the wow”.
January 17, 2007 at 3:34 pm ·
Filed under PR, Buzz, MicroLife
I’m helping out the marcom team for the launch of the Vista on the 30th of January and it’s going to be one frigging huge event. I’m going to take care of the virtual part of the launch, together with One Agency, trying to get a dozen of club owners in Second Life to place huge movie screens at their club, and find a bunch of other places as well, to stream a live concert of Praga Khan that will be simultaneously broadcasted on the MSN.be website, 3G (mobile streaming) and then of course also in the virtual world. The real life event will be at the famous Atomium, a national monument that looks like a gigantic molecular structure. It’s a prestigious location, and every sphere of the construction will have its own theme.
Active balls of the Atomium will feature:
- Music Sphere
Unique digital concert, relaxing atmosphere,… Highlights: Vista Music and surrounding features
- Digital Memories
A Unique picture-editing workshop, where the Photo-Touch-Up from Vista will be explained. Michiel Hendryckx, one of the better Belgian press photographers will give tips there as well.
- Innovation Made In Belgium
Innovative cases by Belgian companies. Highlights: Vista’s productivity environment.
- Personal Productivity
Classroom of the future, Office 2007 Quiz,… Highlights: the Vista PC with Office 2007 suite.
- Gaming
Challenge ‘enfant terrible’ Frank Molnar on the gigantic plasma screens. Highlights: Vista Games Explorer.
- Tv & Movies
HD imaging with director Wim Robberechts, learn to create your own movies and pictures in HD. Create your own personalized DVD of ‘Belgium, The Movie’ (and take it home with you afterwards). Highlights: the HD revolution, supported by Vista.
- Top sphere: VIP lounge, surprizes and stuff I can’t talk about yet.
I’ll tell you more as soon as I can. Belgian launch site: (Dutch/French) ExperienceTheWow.be
In the meanwhile I’ve also finished some more trainings here at the New Hire Readiness Academy of Microsoft. The last one I did was the Standards of Business Conduct 2006 training course. I know it’s 2007, but they insisted on me taking it because it’s very important that you know how Microsoft thinks its employees should act. The training I took consisted of several case studies which can be completed in any order, as long as you complete them all. This training is obligated for all employees, every year, to illustrate how important ethically correct behavior is. It was the first course with an intro of Steve Ballmer. Impressive. I caught myself checking out the course twice, just to see the clip again.
« Previous entries ·
Next entries »
