GridPod Zazzle

Saturday, May 12, 2012

The Zazzle Francogrid Boutique Now Open

The Francogrid Boutique is now open on Zazzle. The store on Zazzle strengthens links between the virtual world and reality by offering a range of real world products, such as T Shirts, that are associated with Francogrid projects inworld.

Although designed for the mainly French speaking residents of the grid, the stores can be accessed from anywhere in the world, as well as from inworld. The store is mirrored on Zazzle's 17 international web sites, including francophone Canada, Switzerland, Belgium and France.

The store has opened with a range of products for two designs. The first set of products is based on a project on Francogrid that demonstrates the benefits of providing social services to residents of towns and cities in France using virtual town halls that citizens can visit. Dialogue with officials through Ma Mairie (My Town Hall) in 3D will add value to the town and city services that already exist on the internet for residents.

The second set of products is based on the Francogrid logo, the Zazzle Francogrid store having permission to use the logo on real world products. These are intended to promote the grid in everyday life.

Wearing a Francogrid T Shirt will not only spread the message about the grid's existence; it will help give it a strong sense of identity and the real world projects it works with. In addition all products are fully customizable so buyers can express their own creativity in the products they wear and use.

Association Francogrid is a non-profit making venture, relying on donations and subscriptions from its primarily francophone residents and partners. Part of the proceeds of sales at the store will be donated back to the association to support its development.

Ma Mairie 3D Town Hall Project

francogrid opensim virtual world Ma Mairie Town Hall

A preview of the town hall design on products

All of the Ma Mairie products are available at the boutique on the main Zazzle Francogrid web site.

Most are also available at Zazzle Francogrid France and all other International Zazzle portals.

Francogrid Logo Products and Gifts

The store officially launched with 4 styles of T Shirt that are easy to customize and personalize.

Light T Shirt by American Apparel (Mens/Women)

View and Buy at the Main Store

View and Buy at Zazzle France

Ladies Petite T-Shirt by Bella

View and Buy at the Main Store

View and Buy at Zazzle France

Dark T Shirt (Mens/Womens)

View and Buy at the Main Store

View and Buy at Zazzle France

Low Cost Value T Shirt (Mens/Women)
in white Only

View and Buy at the Main Store

View and Buy at Zazzle France

All products are manufactured on demand when you place your order and shipped and delivered from the USA. Your shopping experience is backed by Zazzle's Safe Shopping Guarantee of full refund if you are not 100% satisfied with your purchase.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

The Ties That Bind - Zazzle 3D On Francogrid Opensim

In this post we summarize our 3D visualization project progress with two additional Zazzle product lines - ties and necklaces. Though the products in the virtual world of Francogrid aren't yet 3D objects we have been experimenting with applying the images of the products as textures onto 2D surfaces. For the ties the images are projected onto a 'virtual tie' against the backdrop of an image of an avatar wearing a shirt with the tie linked to it.

The virtual tie is programmed so that any avatar inworld who clicks on the model with their mouse results in the product page for the tie currently being displayed in their web browser. There the customer can customize and personalize the tie further and place their order.

The video below shows what a visitor to the virtual store would see when viewing the ties, necklaces and iPhone cases on display and accessible as products for customization at the click of a mouse. At the moment the interaction with the virtual world has to take place through a viewer, software that is separate from a web browser. At some stage in the future though we can expect to find web browsers more easily capable of displaying and interacting with content of a virtual world than they can do now.