Recently, while discussing Google’s latest moves into the realms of free wireless internet service, I mentioned that I expected the “free” business model would increasingly become the norm. After all, Google has shown that seemingly insignificant ads can bring in a ton of revenue. And only yesterday I posted that the virtual world There has also made their basic account free of charge (similar to Second Life, Project Entropia, and others). And now it appears Sony is joining the freedom movement.

Blue’s News has posted notice that Sony intends to release a free MMORPG next Fall. From the Dow Jones Newswire story to which they link:

Sony Online Entertainment, a division of consumer electronics giant Sony Corp., expects to more than make up for the lost subscription revenue by selling optional add-ons, such as extra weapons or game levels.

Earlier this year, Sony Online introduced a Web site, called Station Exchange, where players of some of its games can auction off characters or game items to other players for real money.

The move was designed to give Sony Online a cut of an activity already happening on unauthorized sites.

Smedley said Thursday that Station Exchange is paying off.

“It’s a real business,” he said. “It has a very meaningful revenue stream, and it’s growing.”

Do I even need to link back to posts where I’ve discussed how big the virtual market is going to become?

Via an SL Future Salon entry comes this interesting link to a Next Generation article where Sun Microsystems basically comes out and boldly announces what so many people have been saying for some time (perhaps years). Here’s a quote from Sun’s chief gaming officer, Chris Melissinos:

I argue that we’ve been the principle architect of the largest massively multiplayer online game in the world. It’s Wall Street. If you took a look at all of the mechanics that go in to building an online trading system, they’re almost one-for-one, the same functions needed to build an MMOG.

The article’s author goes on to say

But there’s more to this vision than just simple middleware. Nothing less than rewriting the underlying economics of the MMOG space is at stake.

This is where someone gets off the clue-train. This isn’t about Massive Multiplayer Online Games. This is about the convergence of work and games. This is about the blurring distinction between them. So instead I’d say this is about nothing less than reforming the occupational landscape on a different societal foundation. In fact, much of my commentary here (and elsewhere 1, 2, 3) is directly related to this shift.

Desktop Engineering has posted word that UGS (the big CAD/PLM software company) is joining with Adobe (you know who they are) to get 3D files out and about via their PDF format. From the UGS press release:

PLANO, Texas and SAN JOSE, Calif. – UGS Corp., a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services, and Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced a technology partnership to enable manufacturing organizations worldwide to tap into the industry’s vast reservoir of 3D digital product models – stored in the widely adopted JT data format – and publish them as Adobe® PDF files.

“Widely adopted JT data format”? Maybe in some industries, but I don’t often hear of it. Guess I need to investigate this a little more, because I know how often people use the .pdf format to communicate long distance. Interesting development.

Would I ever have loved to have seen the presentation Bruce Sterling mentions in his latest blog entry. The wizards working within the Tangible Media Group apparently expanded a few minds at the current Art Futura 2005 exhibition showing off their latest efforts to redefine human-machine interfaces. Considering some of the stuff they were doing earlier (you can see/read about some of those things here), I can hardly wait to see more coverage of what they’ve just shown.

The above “reThink/reDesign/reCycle” competition entry may have received second place, but it’s my favorite. Check out the write-ups on inhabitat, archrecord2, and the competition site itself (future versions of which will undoubtedly have “/reBang” in that list somewhere!).

via inhabitat

{Image Source: AIA Chicago}