Virtual Worlds News

Article One Scores Startup2009 Win

In the news yesterday for its role in challenging the Worlds.com patent infringement lawsuit brought against NCsoft, activist organization Article One Partners has secured even more ink. It was just named the winner of the Startup2009 competition this afternoon in New York City. Startup2009 pitted the six-month-old company against nine other start-ups, each vying for a $25,000 cash prize ponied up by sponsors Silicon Alley Insider, New York University's Stern School of Business, and founding sponsor General Catalyst Partners. Article One's crowdsourcing model is a unique approach that rewards volunteer researchers who ferret through data looking for prior art that might influence a federal court to invalidate a claim of patent infringement.

Stealth Startup C3L3B Inc. Targeting Sex and the City 25-45 y/o Females

A little more has been revealed about C3L3B Inc., the stealth startup that raised $3 million of a $4 million Series A round in January.  The company just posted three job listings (below the fold) on VirtualWorldsNews' job site VirtualWorldsJobs.com.  The listings describe the company as follows: "A Silicon Valley VC funded, Los Angeles based start-up is building a casual MMO targeting the mini-game and entertainment news hungry 25-45 y/o female. C3L3B has developed a unique model for integrating social networking, casual game play, news, entertainment, fashion and style."  The C3L3B Inc., web site remains unlaunched but just how important is fashion and style? The placeholder web site is simply a woman's shoe with the words "coming soon."  With the Sex and the City movie due out May 30, 2008 targeting the demographic and a name like C3L3B (sounds like celeb as in celebrity) one might wonder if the company will launch in support of the movie/former HBO franchise. 

Perceived Lack of Interaction is Barrier to Webinars; What about Virtual Worlds?

A recent study conducted by MarketVision Research for KRM Information Services, Inc., which, to be clear, provides webinar solutions, points to webinars as an under-used answer to the logistical and cost-effective problems of real-world meetings and events. 52 percent of respondents liked the efficiency of webinars, and 34 percent cited cost effectiveness as an advantage, but only 4.5 percent of associations held their most recent seminars via the Web. The primary barrier to adoption is a lack of satisfying interaction between users. KRM explains that might be more perception than reality, but anyone promoting virtual worlds for seminars or events knows that's one of the big reasons to look at alternatives to webinars.