More Companies Go Virtual, Save Money

In this economy, more companies are searching for ways to cut spending without scrimping on valuable content. Holding virtual meetings, classes and/or conferences is just one way that many businesses are adapting to the new reality. Follow the story on cnbc here then contact Cranial Tap to see how you can take advantage of our expertise.

As Seen on SecondLife.com

Second Life® has recently redesigned their homepage and we at Cranial Tap are pleased to see one of our builds featured! CyberExtruder, the company that can put your (any) face on your avatar, hired us to bring their presence into Second Life®. Avatar Island, with it's active community, new technology and proven new user orientation has been so successful that we're thrilled to be recognized in this way.

CRANIAL TAP, Inc. Releases WeatherBug® Panel to residents of Second Life®

The line between online visual environments and real life blurred today as Cranial Tap releases the WeatherBug Panel to the Second Life® community. The fully interactive display provides real time weather data provided by the expansive WeatherBug network. Residents can place the displays in their virtual homes, businesses or social spaces.

The interactive panel provides a menu of features that leverage real world data in 3D virtual environments. Timely information provided includes current weather, high and low temperatures and an animated wind speed and direction gauge. The panel supports current or SL time, and temperature in Fahrenheit or Celsius.

The WeatherBug real time display is just one example of Cranial Tap’s growing list of technologies that serve to increase enterprise productivity. While fun and engaging, the panel’s core functionality is crucial in supporting today’s virtual world business applications. Other Cranial Tap technologies include data visualization tools, metrics analysis, environment and media management.

See it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qDILwBc15U
Try it for yourself: slurl.com/secondlife/Cortex/27/231/56

Obit: Google Lively

Google announced that they will be shuttering their Lively experiment after a few short months of life. This visual chat room offering went up against several existing competitors with established roots. While the 3D chat room market remains nascent, companies like IMVU have found some success here. They've attracted and retained users while managing to raise significant funding.

Lively offered little in the way of enhanced features over other similar products. While room editing was supported, it remained a platform where community building was left to users. This is especially difficult with an endless series of self contained rooms where few can gather. In my opinion, the 3D chat space requires community areas embellished with activities (e.g. gaming, lectures, learning).
















Google has an incredible array of solutions and content to help meet this need. The involvement of creative types from their Business Development team should have been able to marry relationships and help redefine this field. Lively's early demise was no surprise. However, community and content seeding could have delayed it's early passing.

The real opportunity for Google in the virtual world space lies with Google Earth. They are well positioned to lease virtual space to real life business. The opportunity lies in providing the ability to virtually stroll down any business district in the world and go shopping. Tie Google's other services into this type play and you have the makings of a highly compelling experience.

Innovative Strategies for PR Professionals

Dave spoke at the 2008 PRSA International Conference in Detroit. Public relation and communications professionals came for "four days of knowledge-packed workshops, sharing strategies and making new connections." His dynamic presentation on the benefits of public relations in 3D Virtual Worlds was informative and lively. Many thanks to toprankonlinemarketing for the above photo.

Go Green, Go Virtual

Many studies have been done lately on the benefits of teleworking and teleconferencing. The benefits include an increase in productivity, cost savings and positive environmental impact. Organizing a virtual conference can save up to 6-8 hours of travel time per employee. Work virtually and save the costs of hotel, travel and other expenses.

Adopting a teleworking plan can help save the environment. According to Tesla.com "teleworking saves an average of 242 kgs of carbon emissions per employee. That's the same as taking six cars of the road per 50 employees." Additionally, "a reduction in office space required by 75% of the teleworking population and reduces the co2 emissions of 1,200 kgs per teleworking employee."

Other examples include: by using Web Conferencing technology, Arizona's State government has saved 760,773 pounds of co2 and over $1 million dollars. Georgia's Journal of Extension did a study whereby they found that with only four workshop conferences, there was a savings of $6,000 in mileage reimbursement, 200 hours of employee time and 3,400 fewer pounds of carbon emissions.

See how working virtually can benefit your company. Contact Cranial Tap for more information.

The Latest from Cranial Tap

The Cranial Tap team has been hard at work creating innovative technologies and new environments for businesses to increase their productivity. See how we've been working with more companies to leverage the virtual world space for training, collaboration, research, simulation and more at http://cranialtap.blip.tv/#1273753

Happy Virtual Worlds Day!

According to The Times Union in Jacksonville, Florida, Chase's Calendar of Events has accepted an application to declare August 20th "Virtual Worlds Day." There are currently over 300 virtual worlds, and more coming every day. I, for one, think that a celebration of that fact is way overdue!

Philip Rosedale Interview

Fast Company magazine recently published an interview with Philip Rosedale, Linden Lab CEO (Second Life parent), until recently stepping down. We're pleased to hear that 15%-20% of daily use in Second Life is attributable to business and education, according to Philip. We've seen this trend at Cranial Tap and anticipate these numbers growing.

Microsoft® Launches Visual Studio 2008 Pro in SL

I was at the well-attended launch of Microsoft's Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 in Second Life today. It was an interactive presentation of the new features from the latest version of the popular Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Following two main paths, both framework and Visual Studio, VS 2008 touts more options for .NET users and many improvements over older versions.

If you'd like to see the features for yourself, visit http://slurl.com/secondlife/Microsoft%20Island/188/75/21. But put on your peg leg and eye patch, it's all done in a pirate's theme!

The Cranial Tap WeatherBug® Panel

When WeatherBug® announced their API contest in June we knew it was a good opportunity for us to demonstrate the breadth of our skill set for creating data driven objects within virtual worlds. The fact that the WeatherBug® API is so well thought out and simple to use just made our job that much easier.

Our entry for the contest, aptly titled The Cranial Tap WeatherBug® Panel, relies on design and functionality that is core to all virtual world business applications, including: remote data access, meaningful data visualization, and simple, but effective, user interface design. The panel is not just a static data display - it is fully interactive, engaging, and fun. We think it will be a big hit when we release it to the Second Life® population.

WeatherBug® has a more detailed post about our panel and how it works on their blog, Inside WeatherBug, but if you've got Second Life installed you can see it in action right now by visiting our new virtual headquarters on the island of Cortex: slurl.com/secondlife/Cortex/27/231/56.

Google's Lively World

Google made it's first foray into virtual worlds today with the announcement of Lively. The above screen shot shows my character, CranialDave, hanging out in a coffee shop environment. While it was slow loading over my wireless data card, it finally offered a rich space resembling There.com. Users can create their own rooms using provided templates and fill them with common furnishings.

It's a nifty beginning for the search giant, though Orkut was less than a success. They are also competing with established mini-worlds like Meez and IMVU. Now if they link Google Earth to this, they can support users strolling down virtual streets and visit shops at corresponding actual addresses. We'll be keeping a close eye on this.

New Cranial Tap HQ

Cranial Tap is designing a new virtual headquarters, located on the island of Cortex. It will open in the next couple of weeks. Featured above the forest is a stylized building in the shape of our brain mascot. Visitors can learn about our latest business solutions that support global collaboration, training, presentations and spacial data displays.

Federal Virtual Worlds Expo

Cranial Tap will be displaying at the Federal Virtual Worlds Expo on April 24 and 25, 2008 in Washington, DC. Stop by the booth and introduce yourself if you plan to attend. More info on the show can be found here: www.ndu.edu/IRMC/fedconsortium.html.

We will be announcing new clients and exciting projects soon, stay tuned....

Mitch Kapor discussion in SL

Mitch Kapor, an early Second Life investor and luminary, spoke yesterday at a CMP event. He talked about future technologies that will be responsible for making virtual worlds more appealing to users and business alike.

He talked about photo-to-face services that allow users to look more like themselves inside of virtual worlds. He was obviously not aware of Cranial Tap's Avatar Island build which has offered this service since June of 2007. He also discussed 3D camera's that can be used to drive character gestures using body movements. He may want to be aware of the efforts of LightGlove who offer much more functionality over a camera. Mitch...call me and we'll do prim lattes and talk.














Close up of Mitch's character sporting his real face.

Cranial Tap distributes face service

Cranial Tap has become the distributor of CyberExtruder's photo-to-face service in Second Life. Extending the Avatar Island project, we programmed this service to operate anywhere in the grid under the brand name; AutoFace. Anyone who wishes to apply their own photo to their avatar can now do so within minutes. This service has become popular with business users. The service can be tried here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cortex/146/173/40.

Media Grid Meeting

Cranial Tap attended a meeting of the Media Grid organization last week. Aaron Walsh hosted the event where educators learned more about this evolving platform effort. The goal is to provide immersive training in ways not possible in the real world. Open standards and easy access are parts of the over all goals behind this effort. To learn more about Media Grid, visit this link: mediagrid.org.

How to build a company mascot

Building a company mascot can be an involved process. This post addresses the steps that Cranial Tap took to design and build our recognizable brain icon.

A strong design is initially required. This step involves creating an image that properly reflects the message you want to convey. A brain seemed to be an appropriate place to start for us. Because we have many years of experience in developing online consumer media, we wanted to convey this fact visually; we tap into the brains of virtual world users to deliver compelling experiences.

Blueprint Design


















This blueprint shows the final design chosen for our mascot. Now the challenge in building the design...

Top of Mascot - Workbench















A special work bench was constructed to securely hold the top part of brain mascot. Many special materials were fabricated and tested with this particular part of the brain holder.

Brain Cage






















The brain cage construction required scaffolding. A special ceiling mount was erected to hold the cage in place during construction. The high tensile wires held everything in place during the build.

Brain Growth






Perhaps the most difficult part of construction was formulating the brain itself. The cell division process took several months to develop under polygonal microscopes.

Assembly








Assembly of the mascot was a satisfying part of this whole experience. Spending many months on construction all lead up to this moment. User laser guided restraining forms, we gently slid each part together.












Fin
















The final design! The fully assembled and functional mascot now serves to carry the message of the Cranial Tap team. We're here to tap for you!

Happy Holidays!

Melty's Misadventures Contest

Say hello to Melty the Snowman. This quirky but adorable fellow wants to travel with you in Second Life and have his picture taken. Doing so could earn you $5000 Linden dollars and a month's lease in a Costa del Sol beach house.

This event is managed by Cranial Tap's sophisticated contest technology. Users can submit photos to a kiosk in an automated fashion. A voting system allows the community to choose which entry is their favorite. Complete metrics are provided in terms of rules / snowmen taken, entries began and those completed. The system ensures one vote per user and the results are emailed to contest managers.

The contest runs from December 14 through January 4. Stop by Costa del Sol, located in Montserrat sim for more details: slurl.com/secondlife/montserrat/173/159/22

Robert Freedman's SL Book

Robert Freedman's long awaited book on Second Life will be available on December 16, 2007. Featured on the cover and inside are photos of selected Cranial Tap builds. We may even have a few quotes, though we've not seen a pre-release copy. To buy your own copy, visit this Amazon link. Congrats Rob!!

Congrats to the 1-800 Flowers Contest Winner!

Congratulations to Second Life user, Kurston Brody, who is the grand prize winner of the 1-800 Flowers Fields of the Virtual World contest. Her video interview will be shown on a fifteen foot screen in real life Times Square in November and December. Watch this space for the video in the near future.

SLNN coverage of this event: www.slnn.com/article/flowers-dot-com-contest-winner/

Virtual World Conference

Cranial Tap shared booth space with CyberExtruder at the Virtual World Conference held in San Jose last week. The event reportedly had 1000 registered visitors who participated in industry sessions and the exhibition hall. The place was buzzing with high hopes and opportunity related to the potential explosion of this field. It will be interesting to look back at this particular show five years from now and gauge the diminutive size relative to where it's likely going.

Producers of an upcoming episode of The Office, airing October 26, used our Avatar Island build to obtain an avatar face for the Dwight character. This episode will show Dwight using Second Life.

Costa del Sol to be on book cover

The virtual resort of Costa del Sol will be featured on the cover of an upcoming book. This resort was built roughly a year ago and serves as an example of a highly successful community center supporting commercial, residential and event based interests. More book details to follow...

Cranial Tap Orientation Effectiveness Stats

Cranial Tap is pleased to announce that our innovative new user orientation design, located on Avatar Island, tops the metrics charts in terms of effectiveness. Of the 13 non-Second Life training centers, our metrics are near the top in most categories. This unique design was launched just a week and a half ago. Congrats team!

Philip visits Avatar Island

Adding to the growing list of celebrity visitors to Avatar Island, Philip Linden paid a visit last week. This build has enjoyed visits from professors, writers, CEO's, entertainment agents, Playboy bunnies, our competitors and thousands of users. I anticipate more real life technology firms entering Second Life, much like CyberExtruder has done here, as a way to expand their reach and impact.

Huge Head

Part of the research mentioned below (flower) resulted in what you see here. This massive 40 meter head rezzes above Avatar Island every sunrise, only to explode at sunset into hundreds of flying shards. At a mere 931 imported prims, the entire model is fully textured. The system we've build randomly rezzes a new head everyday and allows CyberExtruder (our client) to load new ones at will. There are currently a dozen celebrity heads loaded. For a sense of scale, see my tiny character just to the right. To our knowledge, we are the only Second Life developer with this capability.

Successful Opening day for Avatar Island

The launch of Cranial Tap's latest build, Avatar Island, saw a couple hundred visitors with two hours. Our client, CyberExtruder, asked that I host a tour group consisting of reporters, bloggers and professionals within Second Life. We received tremendous feedback on the design and animation found at this location. The entire Cranial Tap crew worked hard to bring this to fruition, on time, while creating several "firsts" within Second Life. Stop by and have a look: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Avatar%20Island/92/130/23

Imported Flowers

Cranial Tap has been busy writing code that imports 3D objects into Second Life. This massive flower was in the process of rendering when the picture was taken. For a sense of scale, look for the two tiny avatars perched upon the model. Chris has further perfected this process and now can scale, rotate and texture imported 3D objects. I was busy looking out for the massive bees that would surely be attracted by such a sight.

Safety First

Remember, when remodeling, to always disconnect the electricity, or this could happen to you!