Name John III | ||
Born February 11, 1981 (age 43) ( 1981-02-11 ) York, Pennsylvania, USA Other names Johnny Ming, Nickname "Swords" Occupation Founder, Swords Labs LLC. Co-Founder, "TV Dinner". LLC Known for mobile marketing, virtual worlds, podcasting | ||
John Swords, III (born February 11, 1981) is an American entrepreneur, best known for his work in emerging, disruptive technology such as virtual worlds and social media. Within the Second Life virtual world, his avatar is known as Johnny Ming.
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Circus
Swords was co-founder of Circ.us, a New York technology-focused creative firm founded in 2007. Most notably, Swords lead creative and product development of award-winning augmented reality mobile applications for consumer brands including Red Bull and Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. Circ.us was purchased by Something Massive LLC in 2012.
Second Life
Swords is most known for his role at The Electric Sheep Company, a virtual worlds developer, where he served first as an Executive Producer and later as Director of Business Development from 2006 through 2009. While there, Swords produced the largest live event ever held in Second Life and is credited as creating the first employment agency to offer avatars living wage employment inside a virtual world. Within the Second Life virtual world, his avatar is known as Johnny Ming.
Podcasting
As an independent media producer, Swords has produced hundreds of hours of audio and video content ranging from podcasts to machinima on the topic of disruptive technology. He started SecondCast (2006–2008) as an entertainment podcast interviewing high profile users of Second Life including Robert Scoble and Philip Rosedale. He later created the Metaverse Sessions (2006–2008) podcast to cover broader topics such as augmented reality and online political protest, interviewing such luminaries as Douglas Engelbart and Ethan Zuckerman.
Background
Swords was born and raised in York, Pennsylvania and currently lives in Hoboken, New Jersey. He is a founding contributor to the Metaverse Roadmap Project and is a frequent speaker at technology conferences such as Virtual Worlds Expo.