Virtual Worlds Forum

Meez has been around for a while now: it styles itself as a 'social entertainment community', which means more than seven million people creating 3D avatars, playing casual games, and generally interacting with each other. Earlier this month, the company launched a dedicated virtual world, Meez Nation, with several virtual neighbourhoods for users to explore, while customising their own 'Roomz'. We put some questions to VP of marketing Michael Lehman to find out more.

Israeli firm Comverse grabbed headlines earlier this year when it demonstrated a client running Second Life on mobile handsets, including the iPhone. The company isn't alone in this aim - Vollee is working on a similar idea - but the latter company was first to actually get its technology into the hands of consumers, albeit via a beta test. Anyway, I was keen to catch up with Comverse to find out more about its platform, and whether there's really a demand for the mobilisation of virtual worlds like Second Life. Daphna Steinmetz, head of Comverse Innovation Labs, fielded my questions.

Last week, I wrote about how US casual games firm Blockdot has launched a 'gaming center' in Second Life, partnering with Asahi Advertising to offer a series of games from its Kewlbox website within the virtual world, targeting Japanese users. It was certainly intriguing, so I contacted Dan Ferguson, director of game development and founder of Blockdot, to find out more. Read on for the details.