is the virtual world going too far?

Big Brother maker Endemol is set to make a virtual world where people are able to take part in familiar tv shows like Deal or no Deal, Fame Academy and Big Brother.

"Bosses at the two firms said it was a concept that bridged the divide between traditional TV and video games."

The new virtual game is said to be called Virtual Me and should be available in the coming months.

VirtualMe

Will Britain be ready for the next wave of net use??

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6552823.stm

Time is running out to get the UK in shape to cope with the next wave of net use, says a report.

Big decisions need to be made to encourage telecom firms to build faster networks must be made within the next two years for the uk to have a chance of keeping up.

YouTube's soon to be rival???

Just weeks after YouTube had a $1bn lawsuit battle on their hands, they now have another challenge from yet another media industry, last time it was Viacom, this time it is NBC Universal and News Corp. The two are joining forces in order to distribute full length tv programmes with the help of advertising. Over time these two instituitions hope to allow viewers to save the progrmames onto their computers so they may watch them when they want, but for now they are just showing streams of hit shows plus ads.

After the trouble with unauthorized content being available on YouTube, NBC Universal and News Corp. hope that their new idea will prove more popular and successful than YouTube.

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Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds are becoming more and more popular and millions of people are flocking to join them.

Massively Multiplayer Online Games, or MMOG's, are rapidly developing and making a significant appearance in the converged media world.

The market for MMOG's is now worth more than $1bn (£511m). Revenues from subscriptions for these games are said to hit $1.5bn by 2011.

However the increase of MMOG's is small compared to the growth of video on demand, which is said to be worth $11.4bn in four years time!

One of the most succesful MMOG's is World of Warcraft, this game has over 8million subscribers worldwide including 3million in the West, where it has over 50% share of the market.

Top 5 MMOG's

• World of Warcraft
• RuneScape
• Final Fantasy Online
• Everquest
• City of Heroes/Villains

There are a number of new MMOG's genres emerging, including:

• Virtual world building games e.g. second life
• Virtual pet rearing games e.g. Neo pets
• More casual MMO puzzle games
• Sports games where you have to buy items and build up your character

Article on virtual worlds

Viacom are throwing their toys out the pram!

Viacom want to sue Google and YouTube for $1bn (£517m) because Viacom is saying that YouTube is using their shows illegally.

Viacom has made allegations that around 160,000 of its programmes have been loaded on to YouTube and been viewed over 1.5bn times.

As these two large institutions battle it out, meanwhile Google's shares have fallen by 2.6%.

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Orange

Orange is hoping to launch a broadband television service in Britain later this year. This is an example of convergence, the combining of technologies. If this goes ahead it will allow orange user to transfer media content between their, mobile, tv and computer.

http://informitv.com/articles/2007/02/20/orangewilloffer/

information Superhighway

Technology is constantly revolutionalising

here is a short article on interactive tv and how far Bill Gates thinks interactive tv will go. Click here