Wednesday, December 21, 2005

View22 3D planner

http://www.view22.com/

Here are the clients

Check this 3D kitchen planner on Bob Villa.

Gladiator Garage Planner

Gladiator created a flash based planner called BluePrint

Garage Architect - planner software

A small company called Image21/Studio A created a software package to make it easy to build custom garages.

http://www.garagearchitect.com/

Clean up of Wikipedia?

Article from La Presse Affairs.com on a future model for Wikipedia with 2 on-line versions; stable and "live".  Also mentions the danger of false articles and compares the accuracy with Britannica with surprising results.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Great case study on why good ideas can fail!

"We had more money, more users, a five year head start, and some really, really smart people working on bookmarking in 1999. The bottom line is that we simply didn't get it right. Some simple innovations like using tags instead of folders, making public the default, building better discovery features, etc made the difference between being an also-ran and a hot acquisition target."
 

Sunday, December 18, 2005

IMVU is the world's greatest 3D instant messenger?

IMVU is where you can create your fastasy avatar. How does this compete with MVM?

MVM makes avatars with a different appeal. They are anatomically correct, realistic simulations of humans. This does not mean that your Virtual Model must look like you. It can be whatever you want to be like. The key difference between IMVU and MVM is that with MVM whatever you choose to simulate, the end result is a human, with a body that can fit real garments and even help you with weight loss and fitness.

I like to compare this to ancient history when the greeks developed a vision of their gods in human form. In contrast, older cultures before the Greeks (excluding Persian culture) had a vision of their gods as scary in-human creatures with multiple arms, heads, horns, etc. IMVU appears to fit the early form of avatars with a high level of customisation that pleases early adopters today, albeit with a high degree of fanstasy. There is surely a place for these unrealistic avatars in the future. However, this does not compete at the same level as My Virtual Model in quality nor in usage. The applications of MVM are far more numerous and potentially useful than just a 3D avatar chat. Nonetheless, Virtual Identity is defined as the combination of mutiple forms of your visualisation. So go ahead and create your IMVU, as long as you link it to you Virtual Identity.

 
 

Thursday, December 8, 2005

Ego Food: Edward Tufte is very neat.

Ego Food: Edward Tufte is very neat.

Online Market Surveys

DryRunner


Online surveys and market research. Build surveys online and get feedback from a pool of Internet users.

Wednesday, December 7, 2005

Cantoche avatars gain adoption by Mobile Phones

November Newsletter announces adoption by Mobile Phones!

Cantoche is the publisher of the Living Actor(tm) software suite that allows the creation, scripting and integration of 3D virtual animated characters within any multimedia application.

Cantoche is the world leader for the design of Microsoft Agent and Living Actor(tm) characters and offers solutions that revolutionize today's and tomorrow's interfaces.

 

 

Thursday, December 1, 2005