It has long been a matter of considerable debate among virtual-environment pundits about what constitutes an 'active user'. In some ways, subscription MMOGs have it a lot easier than many other kinds of virtual environment. You can always count paying subscribers, and that's all that matters.

In a general-purpose virtual environment, free-to-play or 'freemium' model, though, counting active users is important. Trends in active users measure the health of your user communities, as well as allowing you to credibly measure your virtual-world's e-peen compared to that of the competition.

Continue reading The Virtual Whirl: Is one hour enough to be considered an active user?

The Virtual Whirl: Is one hour enough to be considered an active user? originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 05 Jun 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

With the pending closure of virtual environment, There.com, it's only natural for a number of other virtual environments to make themselves attractive to the outgoing Thereians, as many of them are going to be selecting another virtual environment to participate in anyway.

Simon Newstead, co-founder and CEO of fashion environment Frenzoo contacted us today to let us know of a surprisingly generous offer that he's extending to the displaced Thereians.

Continue reading Frenzoo offers a new home for displaced Thereians

Frenzoo offers a new home for displaced Thereians originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Welcome to The Virtual Whirl, a new weekly Massively column covering virtual environments generally. The term 'virtual world' is slowly seeing less use, being supplanted by the more general 'virtual environment', but the world term still has a fair bit of life left in it.

Virtual environments covers a whole lot of ground. From William Crowther's original efforts in 1976 that based a game in a virtual version of the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, virtual environments have been a part of gaming, artificial intelligence and behavioral research, modeling, telemetry and process control and more.

Nowadays we're seeing Second Life, Blue Mars, There.com, IMVU and others trying to find places in non-game contexts, like content-development and prototyping, publishing and performance, entertainment and social, education and business; efforts that are met with varying amounts of success.

Continue reading The Virtual Whirl: Community guide to Virtual Worlds

The Virtual Whirl: Community guide to Virtual Worlds originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.