I have just come back from Showcommotion, the children’s media conference in Sheffield, UK. One session, which I moderated, (Welcome To My World) was devoted to virtual worlds for children; the hall was packed. On the 22nd May the preliminary research findings from the research project on Adventure Rock were presented at the Children in Virtual Worlds Conference jointly organised by the University of Westminster’s CAMRI research institute and BBC Children’s. 330 delegates attended the conference and the place was, again, buzzing. It seems the future is very bright for those who are getting into this virtual space, or is it?

Some companies, and some CEOs seems to be doing their research and continuing to keep abreast of market changes and how the market works, Michael Smith, the CEO of MindCandy (who have just launched Moshi Monsters) for example. I have been continually impressed by his grip on what’s going on; presenting very detailed analyses of the different functionality and business models coming on stream to support virtual worlds for children (there are over 150 presently in development). But this will not be true of many companies and the market won’t stand the amount of businesses who are launching virtual worlds for children. Adrian Woolard (now Head of Innovation Culture at the BBC) put this very succinctly in his closing address at the Children in Virtual Worlds Conference; “There can’t be a community that can cope with 220 of them.” At the moment many of these new ventures are backed by VC money, but going into a possible recession, how many VCs will stick with it? The revenue streams and business models are going to have to be robust.

The ever reliable and useful The Motley Fool began pumping out articles such as Five Ways to Prepare For A Recession back in September, 2007; they advised cutting back on household expenses by 30%. This means (as we all know) things like trips, holidays and outings as well as everything else.

One thing which came out of the research project I am just completing was how much children enjoyed exploring Adventure Rock and other virtual worlds which provide ‘outside’ virtual landscapes or stimulating and innovative places to visit online. This may be due to the reduction in how far children are allowed to explore the outside world, perhaps this is due to ‘paranoid parenting’ (See Frank Furedi’s Book of the same name) or the fact that children have less free time? If this is true, then the availability of virtual places to play and virtual worlds to explore may prove to be a recession-proof solution to entertaining children. Of course this happy scenario supposes these things:

1. The industry produces great virtual worlds for children with strong narratives and good management of the immersive space.

2. Tanya Byron’s recent report ‘Safer Children in a Digital World’ doesn’t alarm parents, but goes some way to reassure them that there are ways to look after children in virtual worlds.

3. The VCs stick with the producers working in this new industry, giving them time to sort out a robust range of revenue streams (which seems to be happening).

4. Everybody decides to quietly disagree with Professor Susan Greenfield (’Modern Technology is Changing The Ways our Brains Work, says neuroscientist’)

My Moshi Monster is called Mirepoix, if anyone wants to play?

I have been hugely busy (again…) There’s a lot going on, isn’t there, in this line of  work.

A conference then, titled Children In Virtual Worlds, for both those interested in virtual worlds for children and those interested in virtual worlds in toto. The aim is to encourage the development and understanding of virtual worlds for children, in the UK. A second aim is to draw together producers and researchers to share knowledge and experience on this subject. It’s important to have lots of age-suitable social media where children can learn digital social literacy (to coin a phrase) before they venture out from those specialist environments to the social networks for Teens.

Here’s the invitation:

Children in Virtual Worlds, Conference, May 2008

BBC Children’s and the University of Westminster invite you to the first conference in the UK to draw together producers and researchers working on virtual worlds and immersive gaming environments for children aged 7-11 online.
 
Keynote speakers include Richard Deverell, Controller, BBC Children’s and Dr Adrian Woolard, Head of Innovation, BBC Future Media and Technology. Other speakers include representatives from Club Penguin, Moshi Monsters, and Lego Universe; Prof David Gauntlett (University of Westminster), Lizzie Jackson (University of Westminster), Dr Diane Carr (Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media), Marc Goodchild (Head of Interactive and On Demand, BBC Children’s), Aleks Krotoski (Guardian Unlimited), Tamara Littleton (eModeration.com) and Paul Massey (K&L Gates). In addition to the panels and presentations there will be demonstrations of technology to do with virtual worlds and 3D media.
 
The conference will be of interest to academics, producers, online community managers, game creators, teachers, and technologists. It aims to facilitate the exchange of ideas between producers and academics on virtual and immersive media for children and to stimulate the production of high quality, creative, social media content for children in the UK.

When: Thursday 22nd May, 10.00am - 5.30pm

Where: The University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5LS

To register go to www.ChildrenInVirtualWorlds.org.uk

I hope you can come along.

Two people, in the last week, have asked me to roll off a list to say what I think social media is.  In the old days it was easy; there was stuff which was synchronous and stuff which you described as asynchronous. This reflected the fact that some things were slower than others and that was about it. The fast stuff (chatrooms, instant messaging)was perceived as ‘more dangerous’ than the slow stuff, so kids tended to use the fast stuff and the rest of us came to social media, usually, via the slow stuff (forums/message boards/bbs…call them what you will).

Now the rollcall includes the aforementioned plus social networks, immersive multiplayer gaming, virtual worlds, Twittering, blogs, meet ups, UGC galleries and distribution services….the edges are blurring. Then there’s things that are partly online and partly offline, like Wii and games using augmented reality (not in general usage, yet, I do admit), and treasure hunts which start online and end up in the real world with you planting something significant for others to find via their GPS-enabled phones.

David Brake and I had a good conversation about this (he’s the second person) this lunchtime. David’s thought was that particular social groups or types of people are attracted to particular types of social media. You could imagine a life-journey which began on something like Club Penguin, moved on to Habbo Hotel > Bebo (f.) or World of Warcraft (m.) > graduated to Facebook > Linked In > Terry Wogan’s Togs online community > ?

To complicate things further, some social media is sometimes now embedded within brands as part of the drive towards 360 degree content (ex-known as Martini Media). See the BBC and, aparently, from an insider, as the tabloid’s say, Channel Four’s plans for the future, for two.

The upshot of this is…is social media becoming part of the furniture of our lives? In once sense this makes it part of the everyday, people will need to be able to manage social media as part of their skillset. Exciting to hear plans by London South Bank University to - possibly - run a degree course in Social Technology; this would be good news.

David Brake’s point, which was interesting was that if the different social medias attract specific socio-economic types, you begin to get colonies of people who talk about the same things in a sort of never-ending self-congratulatory or self-abusing churn.  You need radicals who come in and stir things up from time to time.

PS: The demo on augmented reality is truly fab. Turn your speakers up loud. Two Froggies doing their thing at a conference in 2004. Count me in for the next time round.

PPS: Three years later (March 2007) and the guys are back with another demo by the same company, Total Immersion; another conference. Forget PowerPoint, this is what you need. You can clearly see how things are moving on.

There is less research being produced on children’s use of media than adults, partly due to the fact that there are so many processes in place which protect the safety of children. In the news recently (14th January, 2007) it is widely reported the NSPCC will set up a new body to protect children who appear on reality TV.  Child protection is commendable, but it is also good business; see this course for teachers from Lighthouse, or webfilter software; and it is always good for generating column inches.

 I have been conducting research into children’s use of virtual worlds. In order to do this, it has been necessary for me to obtain an Enhanced Disclosure Certificate from the Criminal Records Bureau (which can take up to three months), to ask the schools, parents and children to all sign documents giving their permission for the research to take place, and to ensure children are not identifiable when presenting findings. I have also had to complete risk assessments for both organisations involved, to get the project passed by the University Ethics Committee, to ensure the ratio of adults to children is sufficient and to make sure the data collected is encrypted and kept on a secure server behind several firewalls in order to comply with the Data Protection Act. I would think 30-40% of the time allocated for me to do the research has been spent complying with the various child safety processes.

In an interview on the Channel 4 series ‘TV is Dead?’ (09.30, Wednesday 16th January, 2008), Ashley Highfield, Director of BBC New Media drew a line between the media consumption behaviours of adults and children commenting how they are completely different. He believes, and I agree, that teenagers and children show us how we will all be consuming media in the future.

If we want to study future media, we have to look closely at how children are engaging with content from many different sources (often at the same time).  It is sensible to assume the kind of project I am engage in is important, particularly as the amount of broadcast programming for children (television) being produced in the UK is being reduced and, at the same time, children ’s consumption of non-broadcast media is increasing.  An analysis of any ’other media’ being produced for children in Britain therefore becomes increasingly of interest.

I have been lucky, as the project I am involved with is being well supported by all concerned, the co-funders, the schools, parents, and the children themselves. What concerns me is the child protection industry which is increasing apace and, through its expansion, it could be argued, the promotion of the perceived risks to children. 

The UK is setting global standards for the protection of children on the Internet, and has opted for self-regulation and best practice by producers and internet service providers; in contrast to the USA where there is more regulation. We also need is to make sure there is as much, if not more, research funding on children and their use of media. At present, due to the amount of hoops researchers have to go through to undertake studies on or with children, there is far less in-depth, longitudinal, research going on than there ought to be.

The gap in this blog is due to being on the ‘research tour’ which has taken me to Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff and two workshops in London, with 7-11 year olds. The idea is to ask 80 children about virtual worlds and immersive environments. It’s been fascinating and totally exhausting; we will have some interesting things to say on the 22nd May 2008 at the conference at the Westminster University Regent Street campus which will be jointly organised by BBC Children’s and the University of Westminster.  Get in touch if you are interested in coming.

Sasha Frieze and I are talking about doing ‘back to back’ conference days on the 21st and 22nd May, one on the production of virtual worlds and one on the production of virtual worlds for children.  I’ve approached Amy Jo Kim, who created the social architecture of The Sims to come and speak. She moved over from the online community world towards gaming several years ago and now hops between consultancy and academia. Amy lives in San Francisco and it would be great to get her over to the UK again to speak about her work. She calls herself a Social Architect, which I think is a very good title.  Michael Smith, from MindCandy will also speak about the production of MoshiMonsters.

I still firmly believe that it’s important to get professionals to craft, organise, curate shared space environments (immersive environments); that there’s a place to move over all the expertise from linear media into participatory and immersive media. Those who were formerly known as the audience want professional content and also to be facilitated by professionals as well as having space for citizen media activities. This is not a popular strategy as it’s expensive and has staffing implications, but everything I read points to the need for production. Here’s yet another recent article which supports my thinking, this time from iMedia.

I’d like to tell you about joint BBC Children’s/University of Westminster research  on virtual worlds for children. Over the last two years the BBC Children’s production department has been working with the Belgian Public Service Broadcaster, VRT, on an immersive online 3D space which includes games and creative studios, for children. In January this year Richard Deverell, (Controller, BBC Children’s) had this to say about what was then called ‘CBBC World’:

“CBBC World is a good example of the way we need to go. The thing that interests me is that children are at the vanguard. And that is where we are taking Children’s BBC.”

Adventure Rock, as the service is now called, will launch in February 2008 and it is presently being trialled by children in a closed Beta Test. The children are sending through their comments to the CBBC message boards.

This is a year-long joint research project funded by BBC Future Media and Technology and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which began in July 2007, looking at how children engage with virtual worlds and studying  Adventure Rock from both an audience and producer’s point of view. The research will find out…

• How children create imaginary places and spaces in the real world
• How children want Adventure Rock to develop
• How producers should adapt the way they engage with children around the Adventure Rock ‘brand’ (service, website, message board, and so on)
• What parents think of Adventure Rock and whether the service changes their perception of Adventure Rock and/or virtual worlds

This ‘two-sided’ approach (audience/producers) has not been applied to research on virtual worlds before, and it is also the first time the BBC has run a structured commissioning round calling for research in partnership with academia. 

CONFERENCE ON VIRTUAL WORLDS FOR CHILDREN, MAY 2008: I will be presenting the findings from that research alongside presentations from producers and academics working in this area. The conference will be on Friday 23rd May, 2008, at the University of Westminster’s Regent Street campus in Central London. If you would like to find out more, email me at: Lizzie.jackson@bbc.co.uk As dissemination of the findings is a condition of the research grant, entry to the conference is likely to be either low or no cost. As immersive envronments/virtual worlds for children is a specialised area of interest the quality of speakers indicating they would like to attend is high.

Joi Podgorny is Vice President of Interactive Development at Ludorum.  She specialises in online communities for children aged between 8 to 12 years of age and has been working in this area for the last eight years.

Lizzie: What do you think draws children towards immersive environments and virtual worlds?

Joi: I think role playing, that playset, that play house thing and that play pattern has always been there. And I think what’s happening now is that technology is just allowing that experience to be played out in a different way…Allowing them to go into those virtual worlds and actually be that character, be the doll, be whoever they were going to be as opposed to just holding the dolls and playing so….

Lizzie: This is a natural extension?

Joi: I would say so…I think virtual worlds are very much at the beginning and of course kids are always right there in all the stuff. Kids are always right there, right at the beginning when something comes out. I don’t think the virtual worlds that are out right now have really figured it out. I think there’s a lot of room for improvement.

Lizzie: What needs to be there to get children going?

Joi: I definitely think games…I think the video games right now, especially the first person, real time, strategy type of things? Those ones are really hitting it…If you need that complete immersion you definitely have to have game play, you definitely have to have interaction between the users, they have to communicate with each other and not be hindered by a specific list of words or pre-defined chat.

Lizzie: Should businesses launch their own virtual worlds?

Joi: Is your audience, you know, screaming they want to get to that next level or is it just because it’s in the news right now? I think there’s a lot of those really basic questions that people have skipped over. Do you need a virtual world? How are you going to justify the costs? These are questions…I don’t see people having those kinds of conversations. I think the hype is making people skip some basic strategy questions.

Interviewed in London, 24th September, 2007

The ‘Thunder Run’ in Elizabethan theatres must have been a great thing to experience; sitting watching ‘The Tempest’ as cannonballs were rolled down a chute above the heads of the audience by stagehands to simulate the storm. The Freak Shows of Victorian Britain, early photographs of men and women spewing ectoplasm and the recent spate of haunted house programmes in the UK all show how we like to exercise our imagination. There is a long and noble tradition of presenting something as real which we know isn’t ‘there’, and we have a great appetite for it.

The Metaverse Roadmap usefully segments virtual worlds from mirror worlds; one being an opportunity for us to augment our existing world with other more fantastical worlds, and the other representing our world as we know it. But what happens at that point or place where the real and virtual meet?

A friend of mine, Spencer Kelly, who presents the BBC technology programme ‘Click’, went to interview makers of avatars for a feature for the programme. He was told by Ruth Aylett, Professor of intelligent virtual environments at the University of Salford that a Japanese researcher had “discovered that people’s reactions to [avatars] improved quite nicely until they were almost naturalistic, and then there was a really sudden drop…the explanation for this was that you develop expectations about the character, that it is actually human, that it is actually real. Then suddenly those expectations are violated by something thats slightly wrong in the voice, or the face, or the way it moves, and it gives you a horrible feeling that is not real.”

Ruth Aylett went on to say how her colleagues expressed this moment when an avatar becomes too real as being the moment when they entered ‘the zombie zone’. These ‘too real’ avatars were rejected by users, why?

I remember going to see the film ‘Earthquake’ in sensurround in the 70’s, the seats of my local cinema were wired up to shake during the scene where Los Angeles is destroyed. I loved it because I knew it wasn’t real. When I was a kid I used to watch the TV series ‘Dr Who’ through my fingers believing my hands would protect me in some way from the Daleks. One Chistmas, in a toy shop, a ‘life size’ Dalek poked me in the back. For a split second I believed that Dalek was real, and it scared the life out of me.

Ralph Koster says in his book ‘Theory of Fun for Games Design’  games are “limited formal systems. If you keep playing them, you’ll eventually grok them, In that sense, games are disposable, and boredom is inevitable.” Often it’s the dressing of games that is worked on by companies; lush graphics, better back stories, music, plots.  The stronger storyline something has, the more likely we are to guess the probable ending or structure, therefore the less likely we are to return to play the game a third or fourth time. This is particularly true as we learn the format and style of something. We can parody a popular TV show because it has become predictable. 

Games or virtual environments which involve creativity, mass involvement, or online community are likely to have more longevity. They can also help us ‘model’ or rehearse social behaviours or situations. An online persona or Avatar can be used to project a characteristic which someone feels they would like to have ‘in real life’.

Koster feels games should also aim to tell us something about the human condition; in this way contribute something to society by helping us imagine other ways of doing things. Virtual worlds offer a space to experiment and to try out different ways of engaging with each other; with time, distance and physicality being no barrier. 

Children use game play to rehearse real life; they can flip in and out of ‘virtuality’ or imaginary play within a matter of seconds. In group creative play they often use recognised trigger words to signal when to begin and end an imaginary scenario; ‘Let’s pretend…..”  Adam Joinson writes in his book ‘Understanding the Psychology of Internet Behaviour: Virtual Worlds, Real Lives’  how “social support and intimate, empathic communication on-line can have a number of benefits for an individual.” There is evidence (Pew study of American teenagers) to show that those who socialise online socialise better offline too (Lenhart et al, 2001); 60% of frequent users felt the Internet had improved their friendships ’some’ or ‘a lot’.

Marshall McLuhan, the influential ‘thinker’ of the 1960’s, thought  new technology might lead us to a time where a global village or simultaneous ‘happening’ could begin to take place. He felt writing, printing and a few centuries of literacy had placed too much importance on the visual, obscuring the importance of things which were more spontaneous, oral, or ‘acoustic’. It’s important to have something to do in virtual space, and for there to be a common purpose and social structure; too much structure or facilitation and the shared space loses its spontaneity. On the other hand, if there is nothing to do, no common purpose or shared activity; or if the narrative is too predictable, too ‘locked down’, then boredom may result.

Howard Rheingold wrote in his book Smart Mobs how computer technologies are starting to invade the real world, “Shards of sentient silicon” will be embedded within everyday objects and that “Odd things become possible. Shirt labels gain the power to disclose what airplanes, trucks, and ships carried it.”

In the same way, over the next few years, the division between the real and the virtual is likely to break down further.

The first time I experienced this was when I ‘went bowling’ with Nintendo’s Wii, secondly when I went to last year’s Internet World Conference in London and talked to 3B, the British company whose browser can create a 3D environment into which you can place the ‘2D Web’ i.e. web pages or blogs…whatever your fancy.

Last, but not least, I had a massive epiphany evening when Michela Ledwidge CEO of www.modfilms.com demonstrated how she could manipulate elements of the feature film ‘Sanctuary’ she had made not only through a TV handset, but via EyeToy, a keyboard AND her mobile phone. The movie is a movie (yes), but is also a game and an invitation to mash and mod the film in new ways.

What might 3.5D be like? Haptic user-interfaces offer the ability to touch; would the addition of haptic interfaces to Second Life, alongside sound, give 3.5D? A small selection of research projects are listed below, if you are interested to look further:

The University of Reading

The University of Bristol

The University of Glasgow

Haptics Symposium

Filed under: Virtual worlds