Yoick - Hightechwire

I was driving home the other evening listening to a series of podtech interviews from Supernova 2006. In and amongst the conference buzz comments Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Labs, the makers of MMOG Second Life, dropped a gem: Within the game, second lifers mimic the internet ecosystem (I nearly went retro and said internet economy: ) - interacting much like we do in other net activities …buying, selling, gifting and social networking. In fact much like you walk out of the subway in NY or London and query a fellow traveller about the exact whereabouts of a gallery, restaurant etc … so too on Second Life a gamer would locality query someone near them.

Yet when a gamer jumps back to reality and exits the MMOG, the most likely query mechanism they would use would be… one of the GYM (Google, Yahoo, MSN) search engines. In this sense search is a proxy for real or gamer life.

This is a great insight into how much more we can improve the whole search experience. The industry pitch is that we’ve only done 5% of search and there is much more innovation ahead.

My take to search-related innovators is to take heed of where MMOGs are heading — there is an inflection convergence point between immersive games, social networks and real life that’s coming up faster than you can say google (deer) in the headlights.

As a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Security Challenge, I’m pleased to let you know that NATO has decided to join Siemens Venture Capital and a host of other key players in the VC and government sectors in support of this initiative.

Organised through London Business School the Challenge’s mission is to “stimulate technological innovation to make us all safer without encroaching on civil liberties.” Hear, hear!

The algorithm is essentially a business plan competition peaking with a Grand Final and one day security conference on October 26th. A must attend event for anyone interested in the growing Homeland Security market ($57bn in 2006, $10bn in 2010).

The challenge was founded by Simon Schneider and his MBA colleagues at LBS on the belief that entrepreneurs, and private sector technology solutions, developed around the globe have a role to play in winning the war on terror and crime.

Assistant Secretary General of NATO, Marshall Billingslea, made a good point, “The inventiveness and creativity of our private sectors is one of the greatest assets NATO nations have in the fight against terrorism. We need to do a better job of tapping into that creativity.”