Tricia Duryee in Commerce on November 1, 2011 at 5:02 am PT
Coffee & Power, started by the founder of Second Life, launches an online marketplace that allows people to buy and sell small tasks — or to meet in person at a company-owned cafe in San Francisco.
Voices
Justin Scheck, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in Social on August 1, 2011 at 12:21 pm PT
A palomino mare named Star grazes on Debbie DeLouise’s clover meadow, hanging out at a salt lick there and frolicking with her foal Holly.
But a legal dispute may imperil their pastoral bliss: It threatens to close the only store where Ms. DeLouise can buy food for Star and Holly.
Tricia Duryee in Commerce on June 24, 2011 at 6:00 am PT
With Zynga’s IPO filing likely to hit any day now, the question is: What will it tell us? The Facebook game developer will be the first major U.S. company supported primarily by the sale of virtual goods to go public. Just how might that work? Hard to say.
Voices
Don Clark, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on October 15, 2010 at 11:21 am PT
Technology is helpful at work. But sometimes the best thing is to just stand up and peer over your cubicle to see who’s at their desk, who’s on the phone and who’s in a meeting. Sococo tries to simulate that experience–even for people who aren’t in the same office.
Voices
Ben Worthen, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on July 21, 2010 at 5:00 am PT
Sales of digital goods such as virtual objects and currency used in online games are taking off with consumers. Unfortunately for their vendors, they are increasingly popular with cyber criminals, too.
Merchants that sell digital goods lost 1.9 percent of all revenue to fraud in 2009, compared with a 1.1 percent fraud rate for companies that sell physical goods online, according to CyberSource Corp., which processes credit cards for online merchants.
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Don Clark, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on June 25, 2010 at 5:00 am PT
Earlier this month, the San Francisco company that manages the online community Second Life announced a restructuring that trimmed 30 percent of its workforce. Linden Lab Chief Executive Mark Kingdon, however, said things were going well. Now he is out.
Voices
Alice Truong, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on May 4, 2010 at 9:00 am PT
Students of Ulrike Schultze might know her better by her Second Life avatar, Uskla. That’s because the Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business professor utilizes the online game to connect to her students in an unusual way.
Drake Martinet in Social on January 6, 2010 at 12:05 am PT
Google has big plans to reinvent the mobile business, introducing its Nexus One smartphone yesterday. But the search giant has shaken up other industries before (ask any newspaper publisher).
The flip side: While Google does launch lots of stuff, many of its products are now on the shelf with other dusty tech curios.
Our latest slideshow illustrates this topic.
Voices
Don Clark, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal, Digits in News on January 21, 2009 at 9:14 am PT
Virtual worlds have had some real problems. Google, for instance, recently shut down an animated environment called Lively only five months after it was announced. And Linden Lab, whose Second Life online community was once front-page news, has neither reached many mainstream consumers nor created an important meeting place for corporate users.
