Google Sky has few limits
Fans of Google Earth can have a star-field day testing out the new add-on called Google Sky.
It’s an adaptation of the highly popular 3-D tool that Google Earth uses to explore the planet. Sky gives you a view of the heavens from within Google Earth. You get to explore galaxies and the solar system in 3-D.
Carl Sagan would have loved it.
The sky imagery is stitched together from more than one million images, with contributions from the Hubble Space Telescope. That shouldn’t be surprising because Google and NASA have already worked together on images that show the earth from space.
Selling name to highest bidder
California Web developer Stan Oleynick has a Web site with an auction and an unusual marketing concept. Instead of taking money to develop his own business, Oleynick is offering to change his legal name to the name of the company that wins his auction. We hope the winner isn’t a porn company.
The auction ends Oct. 1 and so far the high bid is at $1,100 (at HoldMyRecord.com).
He’s offering to use the name as effectively as possible for marketing value. Sounds like it’s right up the alley of “Good Morning America?”
There’s also a buy-it-now price of $250,000.
The closest similar, well-known ad stunt was Milliondollar homepage.com, the site developed by a U.K. student who sold advertising space by the pixel.
Virtual assistants to help Second Life?
A Chicago Web service firm said it’s got the kind of virtual manpower that can help other firms succeed in virtual worlds such as Second Life.
The reason some corporations don’t do well in Second Life is because they didn’t personalize the experience, according to Antony Van Zyl, cofounder of Chicago-based Second Life marketing firm Simuality.
“When you walk into this virtual reality there should be a person who greets you and directs you where you need to go,” said Van Zyl in an online post explaining his company’s goal and business plan.
He added, “It’s absolutely vital that there is human interaction,” and Van Zyl’s company, which already offers various Second Life services, is starting its own staffing service.
Small firms that don’t have a large enough staff to deploy them in Second Life can now order virtual receptionists to act as their Second Life avatars and temp workers.