Active-Worlds
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Power Up - educational game from IBM
It's hard to be sure how to file an article about Power Up - particularly since I can't actually play it, it's a windows only game. But, from what I can determine it seems to be a multi-player game, it's role-playing, and it's aimed at energy conservation and ecological education. There are sections available for teachers and parents as well as fun mission briefings and the promise of more to come during the year.In some ways this game strikes me as a retrograde step: rather than using something like Active Worlds or Second Life which many regard as Web 2.0 since there are tools for content creation and sharing, we have a very focussed programme that teaches one thing and only that one thing. All the content is provided in a Web 1.0 fashion: by IBM, TryScience and the NY Hall of Science rather than allowing the users to create for themselves. However, we wish it well and will try to keep an eye on it for you.[Via: Virtual Worlds News]
Without a clue - why there isn't more competition for Second Life
Actually there's quite a few reasons that there's little competition to Second Life in existance or planned - at least the sort of competition that a Second Life user would think of as a competitor to Second Life (hint: They don't think TSO is, or Kaneva, or Red Light Center, or Project Entropia or IMVU. Many don't count Active Worlds or There as competition either). One of those reasons is that even people who think they're in the same industry or who are pundits and commentators on the industry don't have any idea what Second Life is. They don't use it, so they don't know what people are getting out of it. So when they come to build a 'Second Life Killer', they build something that does not (as far as the average user of Second Life can see) have much of anything that competes.
