Disputes Growing In Virtual Worlds
|
From Colin Rule's blog. |
The Business Shrink, October 10th, 2007: "With virtual world’s forming into the next big thing on the horizon, the real world is starting to play catch up. Traffic stats are increasing and the money pouring into virtual worlds is starting to translate into real world money that cannot be ignored. Just recently a report was released by Screencast.com, a business research and intelligence gathering company, that listed subscription sales for online virtual worlds rising to $526,000,000 in the US market in 2006 alone.
With all this money pouring into the virtual worlds and attention being given to these markets, entrepreneurs and business minds come alive. Just as if it were in the 1800’s and dreamers were running into the California gold rush, people are now running to virtual worlds for entertainment and business.
With business savvy and genius creations comes the bad side of the virtual world progression of litigation, scams and regulations. Lawsuits and discussions are rising in the area of virtual worlds and if real world laws and government regulations apply to these new worlds."
This is definitely a growing meme: the ugliness of the real world intruding on the utopia of virtual worlds. It builds on some of the press a few years ago about Second Life land deals going sour. I think people secretly like these stories, because they confirm their skepticism about these new environments. Interesting to see how this discussion evolves. I'd love to see Second Life grabbing the bull by the horns and introducing a wide-ranging dispute resolution approach! We'll see...
Biography
Colin Rule is currently director of dispute resolution for ebay.com.
Previously, Colin co-founded Online Resolution, an online dispute resolution (ODR) provider, in 1999 and served as its CEO (2000) and President (2001). Before this, Colin was General Manager of Mediate.com, the largest online resource for the dispute resolution field. Colin also worked for several years with the National Institute for Dispute Resolution in Washington, D.C. and the Consensus Building Institute in Cambridge, MA.
Colin has presented and trained throughout Europe and North America for organizations including the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the Department of State, the International Chamber of Commerce, and the Center for Public Resources. He has also lectured and taught at UMass-Amherst, Bentley College, MIT, Southern Methodist University, the University of Ottawa, Lasell College, and Brandeis University.
Colin is the author of Online Dispute Resolution for Business, due for publication by Jossey-Bass in the second half of 2002. He has contributed more than 30 articles to prestigious ADR publications such as Consensus, The Fourth R, ACR News, and Peace Review. He authors the online conflict resolution column in ACResolution Magazine and serves as editor of ODRNews.com, a daily news resource chronicling developments in the ODR field. He holds a Master's degree from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in conflict resolution and technology, a B.A. in Peace Studies from Haverford College, and has completed advanced coursework in dispute resolution at the University of Massachusetts- Boston.
The views expressed by authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Resourceful Internet Solutions, Inc., Mediate.com or of reviewing editors.
