The ARCH

Cross post from the Studio Wikitecture blog:

A Big Congratulations goes out to the following contributors to the University of Alabama’s Virtual Classroom Project.  After two rounds of voting the following spreadsheet illustrates the breakdown down in winnings.  As mentioned earlier, as not to present any conflict of interest, Keystone and Theory bowed out of the winning proceeds.

Community Assessment

We also have some exciting news to share!  As many of you know, the ‘Wiki-Tree’ or 3D-Wiki tool we used during the last 2 Wikitecture projects was designed to serve as a temporary prototype, or proof-of-concept.  It served its purpose well, and gave us a chance to test some ideas, observe what works, and what doesn’t work, and listen to the Wikitecture community’s concerns and ideas for improving this technology.

We have spent the past several months carefully weighing several options for carrying this idea forward, and improving both the technology and the methodology at work behind the Wikitecture concept.  We assembled a long list of improvements we want to make, and have consulted with some key players in the virtual world industry to solicit their input and advice about how best to achieve these goals.

In the end, it was clear that our best chance of successfully improving these tools in the most time and cost-effective manner, was to formalize our partnership with i3D, the team we have been working with since the beginning.  Toward that end, we have entered into a joint development agreement with them, and will be working together in the months ahead to develop ‘version 2’ of the Wiki-Tree.

Not only have we have been working together on this project successfully for almost 2 years now, but each team brings a complimentary skill-set.  Anyone who joined us in these projects knows how central the Wiki-tree is to organizing these collaborative design projects.  Without it, the Wikitecture concept simply would not work.  Since i3D is in the business of developing internet and virtual world based services and products, their skills are exactly what we need in order to successfully implement the next phase of development on the Wiki-tree.

We will keep you posted on our progress in the weeks and months ahead, and look forward to launching our next project!