At a Glance: Key Conference Facts

• The conference and expo—following up on a smaller spring session in New York that focused on marketing and branding in virtual worlds (VWs)—had more than 1000 people attending in the San Jose [California] Convention Center and had more than 30 virtual-platform and technology companies participating.
• The program of the conference was broader in scope than the one in New York, with more than 100 featured speakers, and had the following six tracks:
  • Entertainment and marketing
  • Virtual worlds for the enterprise
  • Business strategy and investment
  • Community and customer service
  • Design and development
  • Platform and technology.
• Anthony Zuiker, creater, CSI Television Program, and Christian Renaud, chief architect, Networked Virtual Environments, Cisco Technology Center, gave the keynotes.
• The full program is available at www.virtualworlds2007.com.

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Table of Contents

At a Glance: Key Conference Facts			2
Selected Observations			3
	Linking Virtual Worlds to Other Media and the Real World		3
	From Niche to Mass-Market and Mainstream Users		5
	Beyond North America: VW Developments in Asia		6
	Growing Diversity of VWs, Platforms, and Technologies		8
	Search for Business Models		13
	Building Communities through VWs		15
Selected Presentations Summaries			17
	Anthony Zuiker, Creator, Crime Scene Investigation (CSI)		17
	Cisco: Christian Renaud		20
	IBM's Ian Hughes—VW Evangelist and Blogger		24
Future Trends			25
	Conference Predictions and Implications		25
Appendix A: Current List of Virtual Worlds in Wiki of Federation of American Scientists			27
Appendix B: Virtual-Worlds List of VirtualWorldsreview.com			28

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