What are the best business strategies and opportunities in virtual worlds today and going forward? The Business Strategy track covers everything you need to know from the economics of virtual worlds to IP issues to discussion about China, Asia and beyond. Understand how the business models and technologies are changing and stay ahead of your competition.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Wednesday, 11:00am - 12:00pm
Economics of Virtual Worlds
As ever more billions of dollars of value get produced inside virtual worlds, huge policy decisions loom. Hard-headed social science predicts that the governments of the real world and the virtual world (the developers) will come into conflict. Who has jurisdiction over these economies? Should they be taxed? What about laws and regulations? Depending on how these questions get decided, revenue streams that seem huge today could evaporate, while entirely unexpected profit centers may emerge. In this session the speaker and the audience will use their joint expertise about business, media, and government to come up with sensible predictions about what policy in this area is going to look like. That policy awareness is the takeaway of the session.
- Edward Castronova, Associate Professor, Indiana University

Wednesday, 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Virtual Worlds in China
Virtual Worlds have attracted interest from Chinese entrepreneurs, the Chinese government, and players. Internationally, many are looking at the market, trying to understand it and how to address it. Hui Xu entrepreneur and Founder & CEO, of HiPiHi Co., Ltd, a virtual world startup in China will discuss the evolution of the Chinese market, the opportunity the market represents and the future of virtual worlds in China.
- Hui Xu, Founder & CEO, HiPiHi Co., Ltd

Wednesday, 2:30pm - 3:30pm
IP Wealth and Pitfalls of Synthetic Worlds
This lecture will examine the current state of copyright law in the US and internationally as it relates to virtual worlds and virtual property. It will discuss the various forms of works that may be subject to copyright protection as they relate to the relevant environments. The concept of copyright protection for expression of ideas, and not the actual ideas themselves, will be explained in some detail. The presentation will also discuss the copyright coverage of literary, musical, artistic and dramatic works, sound recordings and films as utilized in videogames and virtual worlds. The presentation will also answer questions about the potential liability for the use of real world buildings, automobiles, boats and other physical products within the digital realms. Many large scale developers or publishers tape affirmative steps to license the various real world buildings or other objects that they digitally represent in their games. However, many more small developers are of the assumption that there is no applicable restrictions on using representations of real items in videogames and the virtual world. Moreover, the lecture will discuss what are the rights and responsibilities of platform owners and operators, of players, and of citizens in these new online societies including as this relates to User Generated Content.
- Sean Kane, Attorney, Drakeford & Kane LLC

Wednesday, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Investing in Virtual Worlds
Investors are in the rare position to have a 30,000 foot view of the landscape. Looking at markets and trends and the entire ecology of the market leaders from the investment community come together in this session and discuss investing virtual worlds. What are the best investment plays in still emerging virtual worlds value chain: platform operators, tools and middleware providers, metaverse developers, pure virtual start up companies, service providers or some as of yet unseen operating company. Panelists will discuss today's business environment, the evolution of the marketplace and where the next growth opportunities are likely to materialize.
- Susan Wu, Partner, Charles River Ventures
- Scott Raney, Venture Capitalist, Redpoint Ventures
- Yesha Sivan, EIR - Metaverse, JVP Studio Ventures
- Sharon Weinbar, Managing Director, Scale Venture Partners
- Susan Lucas-Conwell, CEO, SDForum (moderator)

Wednesday, 5:15pm - 6:00pm
Fireside Chat in the Attendee Lounge in the Expo Hall.
- Paul Yanover, Executive Vice President & Managing Director, Disney Online

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Thursday, 11:00am - 12:00pm
Visionary Panel - Where the Platforms Are Going Next
The media has been largely dominated by one virtual worlds platform but innovation is coming fast and furious on multiple fronts from multiple vendors. This one-of-a-kind session brings together the visionaries of the major platform companies for an interactive discussion on the future of the virtual worlds platform.  Join us for a session you won't want to miss.
- Christopher Klaus, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Kaneva
- Raph Koster, President, Areae, Inc.
- Michael Wilson, CEO, Makena Technologies
- Hui Xu, Founder & CEO, HiPiHi Co., Ltd
- Stephen Lawler, General Manager of Virtual Earth, Microsoft
- Corey Bridges, Co-founder, Executive Producer, & Marketing Director, The Multiverse Network
- Mark Wallace, blogger , 3pointD.com (moderator)

Thursday, 1:30pm - 2:30pm
The Asian Market - What We Can Learn
Virtual worlds are not just for the occidental world. Chinese, Japanese, South Korean and a host of other Asian participants are already introducing new platforms and strategies for virtual worlds. Rapid economic and technological growth and innovation in Asia are driving this interest and the implications for the near future are staggering. What will and millions of new users and developers bring to the table? How involved should you be in engaging these growing markets, as a brand, as a developer, as a user? What options are available and what are the opportunities?
- Ken Brady, Director, International Strategies, Centric Agency of Change (moderator)
- Naoyoshi Shimaya, CEO, Metabirds
- Jeffrey Pope, Senior Manager, Far East Region, Project Darkstar, Sun Microsystems
- Yuki Saeki, International Coordinator, Centric - Agency of Change

Thursday, 3:00pm - 4:00pm
Virtual Goods: The Next Big Business Model
Virtual goods and currencies have become the driving economic force for a number of virtual world companies. What does it takes to build a successful company with a strong virtual goods business?  What types of items do consumer want to buy and in what context are they motivated to continually buy or upgrade their virtual items? How do you grow a virtual goods business and what are the pitfalls? In what cases does a virtual goods business model triumph over advertising or subscription models?
- Craig Sherman, CEO, Gaia Online
- Timo Soininen, Chief Executive Officer, Sulake Corporation
- Erik Bethke, CEO, GoPets
- Kyra E. Reppen, Senior Vice President & General Manager, NeoPets
- Susan Wu, Partner, Charles River Ventures (moderator)

Thursday, 4:30pm - 5:30pm
Virtual Currency / Virtual Business = Big Business
Money (Virtual currency) exchanges promise the opportunity to stimulate virtual economies not just throughout individual virtual worlds but across worlds.  Join us for a discussion on what the future will look like as these exchanges take off and how users will conduct commerce. What does it take to build and foster a thriving virtual economy?
- Guntram Graef, Co-Founder, Anshe Chung Studios, Ltd.,China
- John Bates, Evangelist, Entropia Universe
- John Zdanowski, Chief Financial Officer, Linden Lab
- Peter Phillips, Technical Director, Millions of Us
- Edward Castronova, Associate Professor, Indiana University (moderator)