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Sep 24, 2003, 4:24pm

This might be a one time business opportunity.

MSN will be closing its chat room service on October 14th in 28 countries (MSN is
retaining unsupervised chat room services in the US, Canada and Japan, but for subscribers
only). That will mean one hellavalot of people will be looking for new places to hang out
in cyber-space.

If AW Inc. can squeeze some advertising budget out of its coffers... now might be a good
time :)

As MSN are claiming that the major reason for this is that un-moderated chat cannot be
made completely safe for children it will probably be best not to mention the gor thing ;)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32992.html

--
CC

Sep 24, 2003, 4:43pm

hehe....

'We are gonna ride on people being paranoid and stupid about child abuse...'
or... it could be a very bad PR thing...

- Mark

[View Quote]

Sep 24, 2003, 10:07pm

[View Quote] Yet world owners here are generally quite honest and responsible for their
actions. Gor worlds are rated as needed and children cannot access them if
their world rating settings are set properly.

I know, this'll start the script kiddy conversation again about any 9 year
old kid able to change the settings.

--
Anduin
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(http://www.goreanscribe.com)
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(http://www.gorhost.com)

Sep 25, 2003, 12:38am

If AW Sacrifices some cash just to adv. on the MSN thing or work out a deal,
i'm sure they will be happy to see like thousands of people come in, but
what might be a hazard is more n00b hackers that would destroy AW.

Sep 25, 2003, 1:30am

Who cares, if AW does talk with MSN they could be sponsored by MSN and maybe
development money for AW. ENZO talk to MSN.

[View Quote]

Sep 25, 2003, 1:44am

That ludicrous idea has the same chances of me getting a bazillion dollars..
Now, since a "bazillion" dollars isn't real, its not going to happen.

-Joe
Ah, if I were as naive as a child...

[View Quote]

Sep 25, 2003, 8:50am

I'm a hacker tho :-o

~John

[View Quote]

Sep 25, 2003, 2:51pm

"citizen cane" <CitizenCane at nowhere.invalid> wrote in
news:4in3nvc12frlqeid0g8u6j4nhdves4720t at 4ax.com:

> MSN will be closing its chat room service on October 14th in 28
> countries (MSN is retaining unsupervised chat room services in the US,
> Canada and Japan, but for subscribers only). That will mean one
> hellavalot of people will be looking for new places to hang out in
> cyber-space.
>
> If AW Inc. can squeeze some advertising budget out of its coffers...
> now might be a good time :)
>
> As MSN are claiming that the major reason for this is that
> un-moderated chat cannot be made completely safe for children it will
> probably be best not to mention the gor thing ;)
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32992.html

From that article:

"John Carr of the National Children's Homes (NCH) hailed the decision.

In a statement he said: "Here we have the world’s leading Internet service
acknowledging that open free un-moderated chat cannot be made completely
safe for consumers and children."

That just cracked me up :-)) Especially the "world's leading Internet
service" part. Are these charities too stupid to realise they're doing it
purely for financial reasons?

KAH

Sep 25, 2003, 5:17pm

MS is just doing it for money, but they tag the blame on a public enemy
(spammers and pervs), so it's like a win win situation on the surface. As
if it'll really stop anything bad. There's a zillion free chat rooms
throughout the internet left =P

Sep 25, 2003, 5:33pm

[View Quote] [View Quote] >Yet world owners here are generally quite honest and responsible for their
>actions. Gor worlds are rated as needed and children cannot access them if
>their world rating settings are set properly.

Imagine, if you will, that you lived in an alternate universe... or may be just on another
earth-like planet ;) On this world AW is owned and run, by Microsoft. As such, it enjoys
the hysterical scrutiny of that world's news media. Basically, they would have a
field-day. I can picture the headlines now:

FBI Investigates Microsoft's Gory Slave Trade

Now imagine what may be an equally unlikely scenario, where AW (in its present
incarnation) managed to raise its profile (and its customer base) sufficiently for our own
world's news media to even notice its existence. I suspect the gor community would soon
find itself in an alternate universe for real :)

To be fair, this separation might also properly be applied to other sections of a really
large AW community. However, what I was implying was that in seeking a higher profile, AW
shouldn't underestimate the seriously bad publicity gor could attract.

As it is, searching http://news.google.com would suggest ActiveWorlds don't actually exist
at all:

Your search - activeworlds - did not match any documents.
No pages were found containing "activeworlds".

Suggestions:
- Make sure not to miss the MSN opportunity.
- Try different advertising.
- Try more general advertising.

Also, you can browse today's headlines on the Google News homepage.

--
CC

Sep 25, 2003, 5:33pm

[View Quote] >MS is just doing it for money, but they tag the blame on a public enemy
>(spammers and pervs), so it's like a win win situation on the surface. As
>if it'll really stop anything bad. There's a zillion free chat rooms
>throughout the internet left =P
>

....and an opinion not lost on some commentators:

"And what about the kiddies?

Well, the facts about child abuse are scary. Most children who are abused, sexually, are
abused by close family, however, not by strangers who "groom" them in chat rooms. Closing
chat rooms may be a great idea if it stops children being abused - so will it?"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33032.html

--
CC

Sep 25, 2003, 6:42pm

aaaaaaaaaahahahahahaahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahah
ahahaha...........................
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaha....

No.

-Joe

[View Quote]

Sep 25, 2003, 7:09pm

Yes... a person who programs as a hobby.

~John

[View Quote]

Sep 25, 2003, 7:17pm

bleh.. lets just spam the chatrooms since we know aw wont spend money on
advertizing

[View Quote]

Sep 25, 2003, 7:43pm

Actually, a hacker is more of an elite programmer either generally, or in a
specific topic.... just being a bit of a hobbiest doesn't qualify you as
such...

- Mark

[View Quote]

Sep 25, 2003, 9:01pm

Then the book lies!

BURN
BURN
BURN

ARSEN!

~john

[View Quote]

Sep 25, 2003, 9:27pm

[View Quote] It depends which definition you follow. Do you follow the everyday term
for a hacker -- anyone who does anything to a system or program that
shouldn't be done? Or, do you follow the book, or do you follow the
perfect definition. To cause the least confusion you should use the first.

--
--Bowen--
http://bowen.homelinux.com/sys/
Yeah, it's that good.
(Maybe an AW section in the near future?)

Sep 25, 2003, 10:45pm

Actually, its not a bad idea at all. There would be a larger development
team, so the software would be much better and safer, and AW could make a
TON of money.

--
-.Duo. (342836)
[View Quote]

Sep 25, 2003, 11:55pm

Yes, why would Microsoft give money to another company just to grow their
software? Well, there is no reason. Microsoft could develop a technology
on par, or better than AW in months.

-Joe

[View Quote]

Sep 26, 2003, 12:02am

True, lol.

--
-.Duo. (342836)
[View Quote]

Sep 26, 2003, 8:19am

But it is my intent to cause confusion!

~John

[View Quote]

Sep 26, 2003, 4:48pm

You're not too good at it... Perhaps you should get another intent, or go to
intent school?

-Joe

[View Quote]

Sep 28, 2003, 2:17pm

*cough* weeks *cough*

-SWE

[View Quote]

Sep 28, 2003, 9:53pm

On 28 Sep 2003 12:17:03 -0400, "swe" <swe at swe-e.com> attempted to scribe the following words:

>*cough* weeks *cough*

<cough> V-Chat <cough> V-Chat - Although it wasn't exactly the best of 3D Chatting programs, it was 3D but the avatars 2D. They did have something like that before but gave it the thumbs down. Same thing they did with their fun Comic Chat for IRC, now gone.

--
Anduin (317281)
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- Professional hosting and POP3 emails also available. Check links above!

Sep 29, 2003, 1:02pm

[View Quote] Sniff, I used both before AW. Comic Chat was quite fun actually. I wish AW had IRC interface ;)

--
Mauz
http://mauz.info

Sep 29, 2003, 11:20pm

On 29 Sep 2003 11:02:10 -0400, "mauz" <mauz at my.activeworlds.com> attempted to scribe the following words:

>Sniff, I used both before AW. Comic Chat was quite fun actually. I wish AW had IRC interface ;)

Yes, Comic Chat was 'the' #1 for IRC chatting. Use to be on there all the time before AW also.

--
Anduin (317281)
- 5mb FREE Webhosting at http://www.awnewbie.com/freehosting.html
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