(Originally published at SLNN.COM)

There were many high points to Virtual Worlds 2008; new ideas, new worlds, and new tools.

New York - Last week people attended the Virtual Worlds 2008 conference for many different reasons, great keynotes, great networking, as well as chances to see new virtual worlds and promising new products.

Two keynote addresses particularly stood out. “Chief Barbie Girl”, Rosie O’Neill and Senior Vice President and General Manager of Neopets, Kyra E. Reppen. They both spoke about the importance of making sure that residents are engaged in the virtual worlds in a manner that many residents of Second Life wish that Linden Lab would promote community engagement.

Ms. O’Neill spoke of Barbie Girl’s goal to educate, empower and engage girls, and their families. People may question the type of engagement and empowerment the folks from Barbie are interested in. There didn’t seem to be much of a focus on political or other types of activist empowerment. Yet encouraging people to hold on to their dreams and work together in a community, is core to any sort of successful activism. Barbie, and MTV also both focused on how this engagement related to their corporate brands.

Ms. Reppen had a similar message. Virtual worlds have already passed the tipping point, and it is kids that have pushed them past the tipping point. Last month, more than 6.5 million kids spent time in Neopets averaging an hour per visit. The younger digital natives are members of the avatar generation. Knowing the audience is the secret sauce to the success of NeoPets related virtual worlds.

What the audience wants is a fun experience that they can control. They want to safely connect with others and be able to socialize. She spoke about making the world even more stick by listening to the audience. As residents grow from sites like Neopets into Second Life, there will be more and more demand for grid operators that listen closely to the residents. Perhaps Linden Lab would be wise to see if they can steal someone from Barbie or MTV to become their new CEO.

The best swag of the show was a pillow from Habbo. It was different from all the pens, t-shirts and coffee cups that everyone always has. It was large and stood out, and it clearly pointed back to Habbo’s virtual world. Yet the most interesting product that Habbo has might not be its world, but the annual results of its survey of Habbo residents. If you want to know what the digital natives are thinking about, which technology is hot, which brands are best known, there survey is an important starting point.

Habbo has been around for eight years and serves a target audience of ages 13 to 18. This means that more and more people are moving on from Habbo to other worlds. Unfortunately, this year’s survey doesn’t give a good indication of where people go after Habbo. The same question needs to be asked about what happens with members of the avatar generation aging out of Club Barbie or Nicktropolis. Inevitably, some will send up coming into Second Life. Will Linden Lab as well as companies in Second Life be ready?

If not, there are other virtual worlds that will soon be on the scene ready to welcome them. Three such worlds particularly stood out at Virtual Worlds 2008. During the Metaverse Meetup that happened Thursday evening, after the first day of the conference, Bruce Joy, CEO of VastPark spoke about architectural aspects of their platform. VastPark is currently based on Windows servers, and are seeking to be an Apache like platform, where anyone can easily set up their own world. In world objects are expected to be able to inherit properties from parent objects. Interworld teleportation should be supported, as well as the ability to import objects from Maia.

Another virtual receiving a lot of attention as another entry into the virtual worlds experience was QWAQ. Consultants have found QWAQ to be an effective platform for introducing business people that might be put off by the Second Life experience into virtual worlds. The ability to share documents in QWAQ with a group attracts the attention of business people in a way that non humanoid avatars just can’t.

A third virtual world platform that sounded especially interesting is Wyndstorm. Wyndstorm builds white labeled virtual worlds. They are base on Flash and Joomla and will be Open Social compliant. They contain a robust ad management system and carefully gather information about resident activity.

As such, they were chosen by Seed Corn Advertising to build RipLounge, a virtual world that Seed Corn will use as an advertising platform and potentially a source of market intelligence.

Yet the most interesting platform was Mycosm. They are still a few months away from a private beta. Mycosm will include Voice over IP. Each person will have their own world, and users can teleport between worlds. It will require a small downloaded client and is focusing on very high fidelity in the visual experience.

The initial client starts off looking a lot like a typical IM client, yet you are quickly drawn into the virtual worlds with an integrated web browser. They are seeking to follow a design path that will enable a vast array of clients, including gaming consoles, iPhones, and devices like three-dimensional mice and neural impulse activators. They are hoping that the high fidelity will be particularly attractive to 3D artists.

Yet as the 3D capabilities of virtual worlds increases, so much the tools for users. Mitch Kapor talks a lot about 3D cameras. Others speak about neural impulse activators. At Virtual Worlds 2008, there was one product that looked especially promising. 3DConnexion’s SpaceNavigator was the best device at the show. 3DConnexion has been selling their 3D mouse for quite a while to professional 3D designers. With Personal Edition, it becomes something the casual Second Life enthusiast can afford.

The next update to the Second Life client, due out in mid April is expected to include support for the SpaceNavigator. Over time, SpaceNavigator is also expected to become available in other 3D virtual worlds, like Mycosm.

The Virtual Worlds 2008 conference provided insight into many exciting developments in the virtual worlds community. As these worlds come out of beta, new peripherals like the SpaceNavigator become available for these worlds, and the ideas that were shared at Virtual Worlds 2008 take firmer hold in companies strategies, we can expect interest in virtual worlds to grow and the next Virtual Worlds conference to be even more exciting than the one in New York.