Weightloss video

Psychologist Dan Gilbert

Quote:  "Psychologist Dan Gilbert challenges the idea that we'll be miserable if we don't get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel real, enduring happiness, he says, even when things don't go as planned. He calls this kind of happiness "synthetic happiness," and he says it's "every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly what you were aiming for."

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/97

Video worth watching!

VIRTUAL ME - EA and Endemol

Press release on a partnership between a French TV company called Endemoi and the EA avatar technology called "Virtual Me".

<http://www.electronicarts.fr/news/12225/>

"Virtual Me combine la technologie de création d'avatar à la pointe de la technologie développée par EA aux formats télévisuels populaires d'Endemol afin d'offrir aux utilisateurs un système révolutionnaire leur permettant de se rencontrer, de s'affronter et de socialiser dans des mondes numériques en ligne. "

Video of Play Station 3 Virtual World

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBiOUp22NLs

 

Fitness game on sears.com

New Game on Sears.    All about Fitness!

Go to the bottom navigation on the sears.com site to play the game.  Have fun.

Fitness Magazine and Ladies Home Journal

Lots of traffic on this site generated with Virtual Models.  Fitness Magazine and Ladies Home Journal are using the Virtual Dressing Room with garments from Lands' End to see how they will look with 10 pounds less!

http://www.lhj.com

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com

 

 

3D avatars Meez and IMVU - March 30, 2006

Interesting blog article from Clickable Culture  March 30, 2006

Collaborate.com collaborator David Coleman reveals some interesting details about Meez.com, a newly-launched online service that allows users to download images of personalized avatars (I wrote an earlier report here). According to Coleman, "Meez has received over $4 million in venture funding. [Meez CEO Sean Ryan] got his idea from watching people in Korea (the number one connected country on the planet) interact with each other...Ryan plans to make money by offering users the chance to have their avatars wear licensed brands...and premium clothing designs for a fee." Four million bucks for a business plan based on branded, customized avatars. It's like 1999 all over again.

The closest competitor to Meez is IMVU, an already-established service that features truly 3D avatars, themed chatrooms, and user-created content. IMVU is, in my opinion, vastly superior to Meez in its presentation, usability, and creative opportunities. The differentiating factor between the two services at present is that IMVU does not (as far as I know) offer users the chance to download images of their avatars for use on online communities. It would be a trivial effort for IMVU to offer this functionality if it hasn't already done so. At this point, Meez would be playing some serious catch-up to the tune of four million dollars.

 

Comment from Meez, CEO.

I'd say that we just launched into beta this week so we still have a long way to go, but that we're quite different from IMVU. First is that we're entirely web-based, so there is no need to download a client and we can work across PC, Mac and Linux platforms. Second is that we offer licensed content such as MLB and NHL merchandise, in addition to the large set of items wse produce ourselves. Finally, our goal is not to have users come to yet another destination site - we focus on exporting the Meez so that they can work with services the user already is a member of, such as MySpace, blogs or IM services. IMVU does great stuff - it's just a different type of company.

Thx, Sean Ryan
CEO, Meez

Comment posted by Sean Ryan
on April 1, 2006 @ 6:24 pm
about the entry 'Meez' Handed $4M

Another comment:

It's impressive that Meez snagged licenses for official (virtual) MLB and NHL apparel--obviously you've done what IMVU and Second Life haven't (apparently) been able to achieve in terms of offering licensed content. However, there are other branded avatars available through other services (e.g. imstar). It will be interesting to see how Meez competes with a force the size of Yahoo (which has offered Chrysler-, Adidas-, and FCUK-branded avatars) in that department, for example.

As for Meez-created content, I think it's important to offer an initial batch of decent customization options from the outset (as Meez has done), but ultimately do you really want to be in the content-creation business? There, Second Life, IMVU, The Sims all seem to leverage user-created content effectively... while 90% of user-created content is crap, you still don't have to pay for that other 10%.

Comment posted by Tony Walsh
on April 2, 2006 @ 10:06 am
about the entry 'Meez' Handed $4M

OpenID Video

Great overview of openID and how it works.

Trysummer or Tryvertising?

Virtual Models are becoming trendy, and in particular My Virtual Model (disclosure: MVM is the company where I work).  To support this view, let me draw your attention to the new buzz words poping up all over the place. 

Take TRYSUMMER and TRYVERTISING  for example.

Here is an excerpt about TRYSUMMERS:

As all things digital and virtual are so much easier to sample, TRYSUMERS and the online space are a match made in heaven. Expect a renewed interest in lifelike avatars, which can try out and try on anything on behalf of their real world alter-egos.

The operative word here for MVM is "lifelike" avatars.

Follow the link  to read a recent publication by trendwatching.com explaining the new buzz word "TRYSUMERS".

If you scroll down past the middle, you will see the reference to My Virtual Model as well as some screen grabs.

trendwatching.com is an independent and opinionated trend firm, scanning the globe for the most promising consumer trends, insights and related hands-on business ideas. For the latest and greatest, we rely on our network of 8,000+ spotters in more than 70 countries worldwide

And how about TRYVERTISING

Here is another link about TRYVERTISING on Trendwatching.com.

Which word is better? Looks like its time for the community of users to speak out!  Update in a month.

HowManyIdentities

HowManyIdentities, originally uploaded by saumier.

Where is My Virtual Model in this maddess?

ecard - Sears / Kmart

ecard
Originally uploaded by saumier.

Holiday shopping and planning made easier on ReadySetHoliday.com

Send a free Holiday Ecard. Brought to you by http://www.mvm.com (the company I work for, in case you hadn't guessed :-).

Sears - Home Entertainment

Entertainment
Originally uploaded by saumier.

View televisions, DVD players, electronics, home audio, computers and furniture for your Home Entertainment room. Brought to you by http://www.mvm.com.

http://searsmve.mvm.com/sears_mve_ctx/jsp/handlers/main/mvmvdrhandler.jsp?roc=sears_mve&pop=GEN

Lowes - Creative Laundry Spaces

TechRoom_12x10
Originally uploaded by saumier.

Creative Laundry Spaces - An interactive planner and workbook for the restless renovator in 3D! Brought to you by http://www.mvm.com.

http://www.restlessrenovator.com/

Try-on garments with semacodes!

A very interesting development in the barcode space. 

 

Imagine a user walks into a clothing store, walks up at a garment, and with a simple click on their phone visualises the garment on their Virtual Model.  The user then clicks clicks their phone again to purchase the garment - and walks out of the store using their existing "recycled" shopping bag to carry their legally purchased products home.

 

Introducing the "semacode"!  Place a semacode printed label on each garment and all the user has to do is take a picture with their camera phone.  Phones equiped with a small software to interpret the semacode will open up the phone's web browser and display the garment on the screen of the phone.  "Semacode works by embedding a URL (web address) into a sort of two-dimensional barcode which looks like a dense crossword puzzle (pictured) — called the tag. The SDK software contains the capability to detect and decode the tag very rapidly with the camera on your phone. It extracts the URL and sends you to that address using the phone's built-in browser. "

Here is an example:

 

I actually tried this with my phone (Nokia 60 series) and it worked like a charm.  Now the question remains, what URL link will retailers place on their garments?  Of course the right answer is a link to try-on the garment using My Virtual Model technology.

 

Read more about it here:

http://semacode.org/

My Virtual Model's new Badge!

Men are not yet available, so I created the Virtual Model of my wife Sylvie. Here she is sporting her autumn look!

www.mvm.com

Weight Loss Community

My Virtual Model has a grass roots community of people seeking to loose weight.  I am putting together a photo gallery of people's blogs to help us understand what this community is all about.

 

From my observations so far, it is clear that people in this community want to go shopping, and do go shopping using My Virtual Model's virtual dressing rooms.  Not only do they want to shop for plus size garments, but they also want to start shopping for smaller sizes based on progress towards their goal figure.  This quote is from a blog that illustrates how people distinguish between plus size VDRs that offer clothing for Plus sizes, and regular VDRs that only offer smaller size garments.  This shows how a "long term" relationship is valuable with these shoppers, and how MVM can develop a relationship and even help people return to shop as they approach their goal weight!

 

From blog http://blog.designedlykristi.com/?p=166

"The pics I pasted together from a site call My Virtual Model. These images came from the Prevention Magazine one, though I have played with all three of the "All Sizes" variety. I'm not quite [clear if all] of them would work for me, though once I hit my goal weight I'm home free and can use any of them. Thanks for all the kudos too! I really helps keep yourself motivated!"

In the quote above, the "All Sizes" reffers to how we categorize our VDR sites on our home site.  Today, most of the VDRs are not under "All Sizes" but under "Regular sizes".  The quote above illustrates the excitement about returning some time in the future to shop of all of the "Regular sizes" stores.  If MVM could help people track their goal weight and remind them to return to MVM for shopping by developing a personal relationship with them, a significant and loyal community could be built.  On the other hand, it looks like this community is so motivated that they will come back to go shopping even without any reminders from MVM! 

Visual Search - using a camera and Google?

Here is a quote from the "Cool Hunter":

 

"Designed by a young UK designer, Pei Kang Ng, Google3D is meant as a viable business proposal for Google, five to ten years from now. With Google3D, the idea is literally, to bring the conveniences of the search engine to your fingertips.  Now, you can find out things on the move - wherever and whenever you want to - just by taking a picture. You don't even have to type!"

 

This is Pei Kang Ng site.

http://www.ngpeikang.com/

 

In my opinion, this device will first appear in the notoriously popular iPod equiped with a camera and wireless link.

 

Note that this concept of visual search is not the same approach as our MVM Visual Search.  Our notion is that you build a model (in 3D or 2D) of what you are looking for to drive your search.  Your model is then translated based on the model's attributes and specific domain knowledge enabling products that don't even have a photo to be found.   The trouble with a photo is that the software has no idea what is important to the user.  Unless you are looking for an exact match.  The other difference is that our approach in feasible today, and not only in 5 to 10 years from now!

 

Day of the Longtail

Excellent and comical look that puts the hype around the Long Tail into perspective! This is really worth 5 minutes of your time.

Articles on the MVM-Higgins-BestBuy Demo

Artices on the MVM-Higgins-BestBuy demo at the Identity Mash-up Conference in June. This conference was organised by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School in Boston. Also a good explanation of Parity Inc.

The prompt of doom (or is that despair?) by ZDNet's David Berlind -- Having recently switched computers because of a hard drive failure, I can completely relate to Tim Bray's angst over what I'll call the prompt of despair (he calls it the prompt of doom): the one where your browser asks you if you want it to remember the password your putting into some site for you. [...]

Passion, common vision drove Higgins to success. Not big vendor agendas. by ZDNet's David Berlind -- There's something special about witnessing innovation as it happens right in front of you. To a large extent, that's what this week's Identity Mashup Conference at Harvard University was about. Sure, there were a lot of interesting panel discussions that dove deep into all sorts of thought-provoking issues that were relevant to identity. But, [...]

MVM's new game - create your dorm room at Sears

Sure I may be a bit old to go back to school, but I am proud to show you my dorm room decorated with real products from Sears. Have fun here!