Manpower and More on Chinese Virtual Worlds

I'm getting worried... I am now spending most of my blogging efforts surfacing other people's news and views, and failing in my self-appointed mission to travel the less-frequented places of Second Life in search of new, tasty tidbits to present for your delectation. And this post is no exception.

First up, I have had a mail from text100 to advise me of a new sim opening this week. Since Text100 are experts in getting the message out, I shall not plagiarise but simply quote (pretty much) verbatim:

What does success look like in this emerging “World of Virtual Work?” What are the opportunities, what are the risks? And what are the rules of engagement for employers, employees, entrepreneurs, customers and job seekers?

In celebration of the launch of the company’s island in Second Life, Manpower, a world leader in employment services, will host a virtual panel discussion this Thursday to explore these important issues. Several prominent Second Life avatars who are active in the virtual business community will address the many open questions on the “World of Virtual Work.”

When: Thursday, July 12, at 3 pm Eastern/12 pm Pacific Time
Where: Manpower sim

There's a lot more - but that gives you the salient facts, I think.

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Now for more on Chinese Virtual Worlds. It's been a busy few weeks among the wheelers and dealers in the Chinese VW marketplace. Here's the straight poop, from the pages of Virtual Worlds Weekly:

• Shanda, an interactive media company in China, announced that it was acquiring Aurora Technology, a leading virtual world developer and operator in China. Aurora Technology currently operates two 3D virtual worlds, Feng Yun Online and Legend Online, and is recognized as one of the top ten MMORPG brands in China's domestic MMORPG market. Aurora brings an extensive network for online and offline multi-channel pre-paid game card distribution. "The acquisition will also help us establish a new R&D center in Chengdu," said Tianqiao Chen, Chairman and CEO of Shanda, "which is one of Western China's major cities, to make full use of local talents and technologies for game development."

• Network Game Interaction (NGI), a Beijing-based in-game advertising service provider founded in 2005, recently announced that it completed its series A funding of about $10 million from GSR Ventures.(via China Venture). NGI cooperates with about 50 top Chinese online games, including MMORPG and leisure games, to provide online ads inside games. NGI claims its partnered online games cover over 70% of Chinese game players.

• Beijing-based developer and operator of online games Perfect World has filed for an IPO on Nasdaq to sell up to $100 million in ADRs, reports PaidContent.org. For Q107, the company earned $5.18 million compared with a loss of $559k in the year-ago quarter. Its revenues increased to $11.3 million from $1.2 million. The company develops 3D multi-player online games, including role-playing games Perfect World, Legend of Martial Arts, Perfect World II, and Zhu Xian.

• Chinese company, Yilu is finishing production of its first virtual world. In English the name of the platform is MyLife, but in Chinese it's Di Er Ren Sheng, which translates as Second Life. Like Linden Lab's Second Life, the game will follow real-life settings, but it will not allow for user-created content and instead will rely on a heavier gameplay element.

Now I really must write something original - with pictures.

PS: I'm still wrestling with trying to get HiPiHi running! But I will get there eventually.