Joey Seilers new Blog: Virtual Goods News

Joey Seiler, the author of Virtual Worlds News recently started a new Blog: Virtual Goods News. Just to keep you updated.

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T-Online Venture Fund invests in weblin

The T-Online Venture Fund is investing in the Hamburg company zweitgeist. Weblin, the Web 2.0 application developed by zweitgeist, makes a completely new, entertaining form of contact and interaction possible. With the aid of a virtual character, Internet users are able to communicate with one another quickly and easily on any website. The start-up founded in 2006 is thus further expanding its cooperation with the Deutsche Telekom group which had already got off to a successful start when weblin entered into a cooperation with Gamesload, Germany’s leading online portal for PC game downloads.

Weblin not only benefits from the worldwide connections of the global player but also from the many interesting cooperation partners belonging to the Deutsche Telekom network.

“With Web 2.0, communities, blogging and personalised services, the consumer is playing an increasingly stronger role in an interactive Internet world,” says Christian Schmahl, member of the Investment Committee of the T-Online Venture Fund and Member of the Segment Board, Products & Innovations Deutsche Telekom AG. “In this connection, weblin is a highly innovative and unique communication product making it possible for the user to build his own personal social network. Apart from the fantastic team, we were particularly impressed by the combination of individualisation with a personal avatar companion and the advantage of having a high-performance browsing tool. Our investment in zweitgeist is an innovative contribution by the T-Online Venture Fund to this dynamic market.”

For further information please read the press release:Press Release: T-Online Venture Fund invests in zweitgeist

weblin points now activated - get update now

(like one of the two above). Just wait and see!

Weblin is getting better and better, the weblin world is growing from week to week. And a lot has happened in the last three weeks since the last fat update version. There are new functions and new avatars, check out weblin now!

It is great to see every day how active you all are in weblin. We would like to give you something back and reward you with weblin points. There are points for many different activities such as, for example, chatting, surfing, sending webositions and web pages. But also for inviting friends to try out weblin and thus supporting the growth of the weblin community. So, whoever chats a great deal or visits a particularly large number of web pages can look forward to being awarded weblin points. This is how it looks: the points are shown under the name of your weblin.
But that is not all; you will soon be able to do more with the points. One of the many bonuses will be that, as of a certain number of points, you can choose an exclusive avatar

Screenshots from the weblin Flashmob on Live Earth Concert in Hamburg

Have a look on the screenshots on flickr and sevenload we made from the flashmob today on live earth event right on the website streaming the concerts from hamburg.

Lancia Online Press Conference with weblin Avatars

Things were ablaze on Thursday morning on the web page of the Lancia Momo Design Project . At 11.30, the Italian motor makers Lancia (FIAT Group Automobiles S.p.A.) held the world’s first on-line press conference with avatars on its own web page. Participants were real journalists and press representatives from Italy, the conference language was Italian. Together with the presenter, the Lancia hostess Angel presented the web page and the advertising campaign for the Lancia Momo Design Project. It is all about heaven and hell, about angels and the devilishly passionate characteristics of Lancia’s new Ypsilon model. The press representatives had installed the weblin software before the conference and then went on-line with their own avatars. The avatars designed by Lancia especially for the on-line campaign all have a Lancia Ypsilon logo on their t-shirts. Communication is quite simple; you write in your own speech balloon. The web page is, in a manner of speaking, the press conference room. Everyone who enters the web page with a weblin avatar can see and chat to all the others. Weblin connects the virtual world of avatars with real life, with people and with the real content of web pages. I do not wish to predict the worse but who needs an island in Second Life when much more is possible in the real Internet so much more easily?

Brand new: Lancia cooperates with weblin!

A few hours ago the cooperation with Lancia (FIAT Group Automobiles S.p.A.) went live. This is an outlook how future online marketing and advertisement could look like.

Lancia offers the download of four weblins branded with the Lancia logo. The website mentioned above has a hostess with wings who welcomes new weblins. The weblin download will be promoted by an integrated banner. Just have a look.

Lancia is a testclient for the advertising agency Testawebedv (Armando Testa Group). They will extend the collaboration with other Italian brands if this cooperation goes well.

Please check the following reference

Nikolai Roth is new Business Development Manager at zweitgeist GmbH

zweitgeist GmbH is putting their money on Nikolai Roth as new Business Development Manager. Roth, born in Göttingen, has been supporting the social software weblin team since the beginning of May. (more…)

Award: zweitgeist is awarded special prize by Baden-Württemberg for the most innovative founder concept

zweitgeist GmbH from Karlsruhe has been awarded the CyberOne Award 2007. At the ninth award ceremony, the original weblin software company received the special prize for the most innovative founder concept from Minister-President Günther Oettinger in the name of the technology network Baden-Württemberg: Connected (bwcon). “The jury was especially impressed by the new entertainment and advertising format for the Internet. The software works on any web page without the involvement of the web page operator”, was the comment of the jury members when awarding the prize to zweitgeist GmbH.

Cool action hero or powerful magic elf? The new weblin models show everyone what you are playing at!

Showing your own alter ego in the virtual gaming world to other Web users - this is now possible with the brand new, fully animated weblin avatars. Fans of action, role playing or sports games can thus recognise one another immediately and can see at first glance whether the other weblin prefers the same genres. (more…)

weblins conquer Windows Live Messenger! Windows Live starts cooperation with zweitgeist GmbH

zweitgeist GmbH and Windows Live Messenger, one of the most popular fast communication tools for young people, announced the start of their cooperation today. With 7 million users in Germany alone, the new Instant Messenger, with features such as contact list, emoticons and immediate contact with friends, is one of the most popular forms of communication. Exclusive avatars and completely branded clients are just two of the many possibilities Windows Live Messenger provides its community.

Find out more http://messenger.weblin.com and download the Windows Live Messenger version of weblins for free.

Beta phase successfully completed; zweitgeist becomes weblin

zweitgeist GmbH has completed the successful Beta phase of its social software zweitgeist and now announces that the software has been renamed “weblin”. In view of the international alignment of the company’s strategy and the user groups targeted in future, the change of name is an important step to make the consumer software also known to non German-speaking users worldwide.

Federal Ministry of Economics awards prize to zweitgeist

Outstanding award for zweitgeist GmbH: on the occasion of the Founder Congress Multimedia 2007 in Berlin on 6th March, the start-up company received the prize for the lighthouse project of the High-Tech Gründerfonds (Founder Fund) in the category multimedia from parliamentary state secretary Dagmar Wöhrl. Following the “Innovation Prize Web 2.0″ from the State of Baden-Wurttemberg in the category “Digital Life”, this was already the second award for zweitgeist in the last six months.

High-Tech Gründerfonds invests in zweitgeist GmbH

The High-Tech Gründerfonds has invested in zweitgeist GmbH to support the development of the company. zweitgeist develops and markets a social software of the same name which makes people visible on web pages and context-related communication possible.

zweitgeist aims to make the use of the Internet more personal and emotional for private users. The software brings together people with similar interests: Modelled on the real world, zweitgeist users can see each other whenever they are in the same room at the same time. In the Internet, the room is the web page. zweitgeist users are visible to one another as avatars. With the new social software users can create their own individual virtual character. The users can either select their virtual figure from an avatar palette or upload their own photo. The avatar palette also includes animated figures. These figures can run, show emotions, wave and clap.

Jan Andresen new CEO of zweitgeist GmbH

Jan Andresen is the new CEO of zweitgeist GmbH. The 30-year-old has been supporting the two founders Dr. Heiner Wolf and Christine Stumpf since December. The zweitgeist idea of making people visible on web pages convinced the entrepreneur and business angel to become involved in the company, with full responsibility.

zweitgeist wins Innovation Prize Web 2.0 in the category Digital Life

zweitgeist wins the Innovation Prize Web 2.0 in category 2: “Digital Life - new forms of social interaction in the second generation Web”. The prize was awarded on the occasion of the doIT Congress on 16th November in Freiburg.

The “Innovation Prize Web 2.0 is awarded by the MFG for successful second generation Internet applications. In the category “Digital Life”, focus was on new forms of interaction, individual participation possibilities and the degree of innovation. The MFG Baden-Wurttemberg held the competition for the first time in the course of the project “Innovation Programme Web 2.0″. The award is given to innovative, next generation Internet applications from Baden-Wurttemberg. zweitgeist, the alter ego which is visible on every web page, succeeded in convincing the jury in category 2: Digital Life - new forms of social interaction in the second generation Web. The zweitgeist software provides a new method of communication across all web pages.