At least that’s the word Sony Online Entertainment’s John Smedley used when describing the business model behind their forthcoming free MMORPG (see this earlier post for additional info). There’s discussion of that and more in BusinessWeek’s replay of a GameDAILY BIZ article which you can find here.

There are some interesting comments that make this well worth the read. One example from the piece:

For us, we’re exploring the concept of a truly free game, a game without a retail component at all, that would have an executable small enough for people to literally email to each other.

Small enough to email. Sweet.

Ad Age has it’s 2005 Interactive Media & Marketing Awards announcements up for all to read (after the free registration, that is). The Big Winners are:

There’s an article for each of them on the Ad Age website. I’ve only read the first one on Chrysler, but plan on at least getting around to reading about Avenue A/Razorfish. From the Chrysler write-up though, I thought this bit was worth note:

Jeff Bell, VP-Jeep and Chrysler brands, says the marketer dialed up its interactivity early for three reasons: the splintering of media, relative affordability and more measurable return on investment.

“We get 40,000 [sales] leads per month from our sites and third-party sites� that are forwarded to dealers, says Mr. Bell. He became an online video game believer after tinkering with them in early 2002 as VP-marketing for Jeep. More than 1,000 people who opted in for the free 4X4 Evo2 Wrangler Rubicon game bought the SUV. “We just really think about experimenting with new ideas,� he says. “If they don’t work, we’re not embarrassed.�

I wonder when we’ll see a line item for “Best Virtual World Marketing Campaign”? I’m waiting.

There’s an interesting entry over on the Core77 site discussing a presentation at Parson given by retail researcher Paco Underhill. Nice read with some interesting statistics at the end. Check it out at this link (but know that Core is switching blog engines so this link might lead nowhere in the near future).

Just wanted to post a follow-up to an earlier couple of entries on the “rocket launcher” (first mention of this is here along with a recent update on some additional effort). After shipping the 3D files off to another Second Life resident, programming whiz Jeffrey Gomez, I watched from inside the virtual world as he imported the object triangle-by-triangle using his import scripts. Although I’ve been aware of his scripts for some time, I’ve not used them, so watching the object slowly and methodically reconstitute itself inside SL was a treat (pic). It actually reminded me of the original (potential) destination for this file – a rapid prototyping machine, as this felt a little like that animation of the nanofactory concept I linked to some months back (find the animation for that here), except I was there inside the machine. For a better sense of scale, here’s a screencap of my avatar next to the final output (the new standard in BFG’s) and another image with me standing amongst the pieces. Cool stuff. Imagine all the possibilities.

Picking up where I left off with my previous post, there’s a nice read over on Wired today called “Imagine, Make It Real in Fab Lab“. Nothing terribly new here but this part got my attention:

“I’m not worried about being out of a job, but I think there would be new uses for this technology that people can’t even imagine,” said Gianfranco Zaccai, president and chief executive of Design Continuum, a Boston design and development firm. “It might be a harbinger for the return of the village craftsman in a world of high technology.”

Sounds very much like how I explained this on the Core77 forum over a year ago:

There’s an argument for two kinds of IDer: those that exist in big corp product machines, pumping out cell phone give-aways to entice people to sign service contracts; and those that address the more fickle and competitive niche markets too small for the corporations to care about. Corp job will be safer (at least in appearance – anyone can get fired). The indy IDer will have to be more scrappy and agile. Maybe form a small community and probably exist more like the underground film industry (an interesting community, for sure).

I’m describing something more like the evolution of craftsmen (“person” for the pc). A ceramicist has tools like a wheel and a kiln. But as RP drops in price, an IDers tools may be a PC and SLA machine (or just access to the service)

Now the question on my mind is, does Zaccai lurk over on Core?