Oct 6: Second Life Enterprise Usage
Back in early 2007 Second Life was the big thing for corporate marketing, and seemingly every company and marketing firm was rushing into SL in order to establish a presence. As we know, that mostly fizzled out as hype, but Second Life continued to develop and build. Fast forward to late 2009 and suddenly some positive media coverage and analyst reports are beginning to appear.Case in point today, GigaOM Pro, while it may not considered to be quite Gartner level quality by some, is research analysis, and does provide insight into this market space. They have the following to say:
Enterprise 3-D virtual world applications have proliferated during the past several years. What began as fun and games is becoming a serious business with a lot of upside.
Further, GigaOm's network site, WebWorkerDaily says the following:
According to the new GigaOM Pro report “Virtual Worlds for the Enterprise Market” by Kris Tuttle and Steve Waite of Research 2.0, business use of virtual worlds is a growing market — one that we shouldn’t ignore...
Develop a plan. Companies should develop a plan for use of enterprise, private 3-D virtual world environments for both internal and external use.
Technology continues to evolve. The “in world” experiences of these new virtual environments will be leaps and bounds ahead of that currently offered by Second Life.
* Don’t underestimate the market. The market for enterprise 3-D worlds may seem small today, but according to the report, it’s doubling year over year, with estimated annual revenues of $8-10 billion in 2015.
That last bullet point is vitally important. Those of us who are working in the 3d worlds market space need to be prepared for rapid growth because if the market doubles in size year over year, the next decade is poised to be a rocket ship ride in growth. Another important item to note is that Second Life is being used in the article as a jumping off point, rather than the end all be all of 3d worlds. But if we step away from the specific platform, and look at what the article notes as important areas in which to focus, we get the following list:
1. Maneuvering an avatar in a 3d space
2. Interacting with others in a 3d space
3. Communicating with others using voice and text chat
4. Presenting in a 3d space
5. Teaching and learning in a 3d space
6. Collaborating with others in real time
7. Branding via an avatar
8. Promoting and new methods of marketing
9. Building and design skills for 3d
That isn't a bad list, however I would revise the list and go for something like this:
1. Social networking using 3d
2. Integration of 3d space with enterprise data and the enterprise web
3. B2B using 3d spaces (collaboration, commerce)
4. Use of micro-commerce capabilities provided by 3d spaces
5. IP issues in 3d spaces (copyright, trademark, patent)
6. Technical skills required for 3d design and deployment
7. Use of 3d spaces for "green" initiatives
The point is that 3d immersion is far more than just learning how to communicate, rather it holds the possibility of radically altering the way in which enterprise processes operate, and if businesses simply view 3d spaces as just another marketing tool they are completely missing the point. In any event, I will be continuing my work in this area and look forward to seeing this market space develop and mature.
Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a wild ride.
The GigaOm article can be found by clicking here
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: Technology: Immersive Web
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We're going to try something new on this blog. Typically I post items of interest regarding the IT industry, with a focus towards the "immersive web" or what some prefer to call the "3d web" (although I don't care for that particular term). In any event, in addition to posting articles covering what Gartner and others have to say about this general topic area (which I admit is fairly broad on this blog), I'm going to take a look at some particular applications that are dealing with 3d design. To start, we'll look at Motion 4 from Apple. I've included a short tutorial from a domain expert on the Motion app, and it shows some interesting possibilities about what can be done in the application.
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Jun 26: EU Betting on "Virtual ...
By now you've probably heard about the Gartner quote that by 2011 80% of users will have a Second Life style avatar. There's much debate elsewhere on the web about what that means, whether it's accurate, and so on. What I feel it underscrores, however, is the recognition that despite the hype and deflation of expectations around Second Life the past few years, what it has started is a very real trend that is in the early stages, and will be the next revolutionary era of the web.This is not to say that Second Life will be Web 3.0, but rather, that deeply immersive 3d experience through personal avatars will be, complete with micro-economies, virtual currency, and a blending of the real and the virtual. Which brings up an interesting item that isn't getting a lot of press yet, but should taken seriously. The European Union (EU) has funded a project dubbed Virtual Life which aims to democratize the idea of social networks and virtual worlds via a P2P architecture.
VirtualLife aims to provide an immersive and secure environment, combining a high quality 3D virtual experience with the trustiness of a secure communication infrastructure.
VirtualLife constitutes a new form of civil organization, finalized to the creation of secure and ruled places within the virtual world, where important transactions can occur. The aggregation in communities and the collaboration between users is encouraged in order to reach a management of common and private interests. This collaboration is achieved through the definition of common rules that take care of all the involved cultures. A standard collection of laws, the Virtual Constitution, finalized to the creation and regulation of a secure and trusted environment (Virtual Nation) will be studied.
In order to reach high quality 3D metaverses and provide a rich user-experience, the Virtual World will be based on a peer-to-peer network with nodes connected using a secure protocol. Thus the resulting Virtual World will not be hosted on a central server cluster but will be based on a network of Virtual Zone Servers (VZ Servers). This gives the end-user the full control on the fundamental components of the Virtual Zone Server and the protection of his sensible data.
The peer-to-peer architecture will enable easy and fast sharing of contents without third ruling partners: the only ruling entity will be the law in force, defined by the users’ community and accepted by those users who join the community afterwards.
Each VZ Server simulates all the entities in the zone and gives the users the possibility to create and share contents, media, and data in a very intuitive way.
This is a very interesting approach, and if successful will certainly threaten to tear down the walled garden approaches to the current social and virtual networks out there today in much the same way that HTML undercut the walled gardens such as AOL. It's a seriously funded effort (to the tune of $3 million euros, so it has a chance of actually getting off the ground.
Stay tuned.
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The video below is an excerpt from a presentation given by Philip Rosedale on the topic of virtual identity. In the excerpt he talks about how the customized avatar is actually more reflective of the "real" individual than our real life avatars portray, and that this is just starting to be understood by researchers. It's a fascinating discussion and if I can locate more of the talk I will post it later.Enjoy
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Apr 14: Ray Kurzweil and the Matrix
In April 2008 I blogged about an article from MIT in which researchers predict that Matrix-like virtual reality if only a few years away. Since we haven't visited the topic in a while, it's interesting to look at what noted futurists might be saying about the outlook of virtual reality, and as such, inventor and technologist Ray Kurzweil has some very interesting thoughts on the topic.In his view, there will be a convergence of nanotechnology and direct brain access, creating the ultimate in virtual reality, which sounds like the matrix:
By the late 2020s, nanobots in our brain (that will get there noninvasively, through the capillaries) will create full-immersion virtual-reality environments from within the nervous system. So if you want to go into virtual reality the nanobots shut down the signals coming from your real senses and replace them with the signals that your brain would be receiving if you were actually in the virtual environment. So this will provide full-immersion virtual reality incorporating all of the senses. You will have a body in these virtual-reality environments that you can control just like your real body, but it does not need to be the same body that you have in real reality. We’ll be able to interact with people in any way in these virtual-reality environments. That will replace most travel, but we’ll also have new travel technologies for our real bodies using nanotechnology.
This is fascinating stuff. You can read the entire article here.
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Apr 13: Video: BI and 3d Immersion
The video below is an example of business intelligence (BI) functionality merged with the immersive web, and is an example of where things are likely headed as we begin to fully make use of the possibilities of virtual worlds. The technology featured is called Glasshouse which takes data and represents it in the virtual world (which in the case of Glasshouse will use Wonderland from Sun Microsystems).It's important, however, to remember that we are still in the early stages of the immersive web, but this is a glimpse of what lies ahead.
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Mozilla, the organization responsible for the Firefox web browser, is now taking aim at another component of the web: 3d. The organization is creating a 3d web project called Khronos which is seeking to create a standard that will allow developers to develop 3d solutions and for end users to easily use those solutions as part of the normal web experience.The problem with web 3d today is that it typically is very lame graphically or it requires a large client such as Second Life. It remains to be seen whether Mozilla will solve this bifurcation, but it sounds promising:
The development of the standard being proposed by Mozilla will create a mechanism to let JavaScript - the programming language used to write many web-based applications - tap into the widely used OpenGL graphics interface technology.
Browser-based games are beginning to take-off and, in February, classic game Quake III was re-released specifically for the browser.
A 3D-enabled web could provide a kickstart for virtual world games such as Second Life thinks Paul Jackson, an analyst with research firm Forrester.
This is definitely something to watch.
Source: Click here
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Mozilla, the organization responsible for the Firefox web browser, is now taking aim at another component of the web: 3d. The organization is creating a 3d web project called Khronos which is seeking to create a standard that will allow developers to develop 3d solutions and for end users to easily use those solutions as part of the normal web experience.The problem with web 3d today is that it typically is very lame graphically or it requires a large client such as Second Life. It remains to be seen whether Mozilla will solve this bifurcation, but it sounds promising:
The development of the standard being proposed by Mozilla will create a mechanism to let JavaScript - the programming language used to write many web-based applications - tap into the widely used OpenGL graphics interface technology.
Browser-based games are beginning to take-off and, in February, classic game Quake III was re-released specifically for the browser.
A 3D-enabled web could provide a kickstart for virtual world games such as Second Life thinks Paul Jackson, an analyst with research firm Forrester.
This is definitely something to watch.
Source: Click here
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Mozilla, the organization responsible for the Firefox web browser, is now taking aim at another component of the web: 3d. The organization is creating a 3d web project called Khronos which is seeking to create a standard that will allow developers to develop 3d solutions and for end users to easily use those solutions as part of the normal web experience.The problem with web 3d today is that it typically is very lame graphically or it requires a large client such as Second Life. It remains to be seen whether Mozilla will solve this bifurcation, but it sounds promising:
The development of the standard being proposed by Mozilla will create a mechanism to let JavaScript - the programming language used to write many web-based applications - tap into the widely used OpenGL graphics interface technology.
Browser-based games are beginning to take-off and, in February, classic game Quake III was re-released specifically for the browser.
A 3D-enabled web could provide a kickstart for virtual world games such as Second Life thinks Paul Jackson, an analyst with research firm Forrester.
This is definitely something to watch.
Source: Click here
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Jan 26: The Future of the Web
The following video is from 2007, and has some interesting thoughts about where things are heading in terms of media, the web, and communication. The ideas in this video are interesting and point to some of the battles currently happening between old media (the RIAA, the MPAA, TV networks, and so forth) and new media (blogs, wikis, social networks, p2p, and so forth).I don't expect everything to transpire exactly in the manner predicted in this video, and indeed some important tech companies are missing from this video (Apple, Facebook, MySpace, Adobe), nonetheless, I do think that the underlying idea they present, what I like to call the immersive web, is accurate, and that in the not too distant future the lines of distinction between the "real" and the "virtual" will be extremely blurred.
Let me know what you think the future will look like.
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The news lately around Second Life is mostly focused on this spreading story of the US taxing transactions in virtual worlds. Given that Second Life is a micro-ecommerce platform which can be converted to real world currencies, it should be clear cut, but apparently not so.The latest in this story is that the "taxpayer advocate" (who knew such a position existed?) has asked the IRS for "clarification" on the following:
Of the 20 "most serious problems encountered by taxpayers", number 13 is The IRS Should Proactively Address Emerging Issues Such as Those Arising From "Virtual Worlds".
For the impatient, who just want the sound-bite, it boils down to the position that the existing US Tax Code already covers much of what takes place in virtual environments, with respect to assets, virtual currencies and transactions. Indeed most of the Code already deals with many things that are no less virtual and no more corporeal than are virtual environments. The only real issue the IRS seems to have with it is a lack of information on the part of the taxpayer about if, when and how to report and pay their taxes relating to virtual environment activities, and the lack of any uniform positional advice.
This is one of the most pressing issues facing taxpayers? Okay, but if you thought that it was as easy as just "reporting when you convert to US currency" think again:
Many countries (such as Australia and the USA) can and do tax barter transactions (the exchange of one type of goods and/or services for another type), but usually no reporting of such transactions is required if they are assessable in value at less than one dollar.
In some cases, however, many sub-threshold transactions may take place, or a non-corporeal item may appreciate significantly in value (virtual land, for example, or shares in a company, or simply the steady accumulation of game-currency that could be exchanged for US dollars). In those cases, Capital Gains Tax kicks in, and the difference in value of corporeal and incorporeal assets are assessed over a period of time, and tax is applied to the difference.
Barter is taxable. I'm speechless. So if I write this blog, you read it, somehow we are supposed to pay the IRS for that. Okay, maybe that is a ridiculous example, but taxing barter in virtual worlds seems totally stupid. What happens if both parties are dirt poor and help each other with skills?
As for taxing virtual land and accumulated Linden dollars, unless one is a land baron or a mega-business, why bother? This whole thing seems extremely intrusive and complex, but then again, perhaps that is how accountants ensure job security.
In a semi-related story, we find that Linden Lab may or may not have a land glut problem (but hey, the IRS will tax you for owning virtual land!):
Starting late last month, the published statistic that showed an unprecedented ongoing reduction in Second Life land area was disabled (perhaps permanently, the Lab hints). The raw data is still available, however, and the decline continues.
...
The Lab claims that the figures misreport, which is technically true. All of the statistical systems give incorrect information at least several times each month, but according to Jack Linden, the numbers are actually sort of correct, and indeed even skewed slightly in the Lab's favor (the reported losses have been far smaller than expected) -- but just misunderstood.
There's not much here to comment on other than this may be much ado about nothing. However, given that the taxpayer advocate wants to have the IRS look at taxing virtual land, this story shows how ridiculous that idea might be in practice.
Finally, we have the news that OpenLife, is close to having a virtual currency:
The OpenLife grid is going to adopt a virtual currency system, so users can buy and sell items freely. The new virtual currency system is currently scheduled to go live at the end of February 2009. OpenLife is currently the largest grid running on the OpenSimulator 3D application server program. OpenSimulator essentially allows individual users to create their own virtual world "grids" on their own servers that look and function much like Linden Labs' Second Life. In fact, the technologies involved are so similar that it is possible to use a Second Life client to connect to any OpenSim grid.
This is definitely interesting, however, there is one small catch:
The OpenLife currency, credits, will be available for purchase by all OpenLife users via PayPal and major credit cards. Only owners of regions in OpenLife will be able to cash out their credits.
“We found the general consensus amongst users is they didn’t want the implementation of credits to affect the goodwill amongst the grid. One of the mechanisms in place to keep the balance will be the exchange of credits for real dollars only being available to region owners,” says Sima.
However, maybe, just maybe we will all end up with something better:
Second Life's standardized economy gave it a significant boost for anyone looking to do business in the virtual world. However, Linden Lab has suggested that it may look to work more closely with the OpenSim platform in the future, potentially offering its economic expertise or even currency as a value add to other platforms. With the groundwork being laid by OpenSim developers, that removes some options.
Then again, maybe not:
Adding in a virtual currency brings a host of new options to OpenSim's table, but also challenges. Managing the economy, beyond simply implementing the technology, will put members and users of the open-source virtual worlds platform in the spotlight for both existing issues, like safety and fraud, but also future concerns like increased government regulation.
Stay tuned, it will be interesting.
For the IRS story click here.
For the Second Life land story click here.
For the OpenLife story click here.
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Dec 10: Sony Home vs. Second Life
Sony Home open beta is getting a lot of press coverage today, and much of it is comparing Home to Second Life. While there are some loose similarities, the two offerings are completely different animals. Sony is using Home as a basis to sell more of its content and services, whereas Second Life is more of an open ended development platform. While the two are virtual 3d immersive spaces, Sony views the PS3 as the platform, whereas Linden Research views SL as the platform.Matt Peckham at PC World is one who seems to understand the difference between the two platform, and does a good job at identifying some of the differences:
Some see this as resembling Second Life, except the truth is, there's only a vague correlation. Both are virtual communities where vendors can hawk their wares and you have an avatar through which you channel rudimentary social posturing, but that's where the similarities end. Second Life has its own currency exchangeable for real-world money. It's also awash in adult interaction of the sort you'll never see in Sony's PlayStation Home, where the idea's mostly just to get people socializing, clubbing, playing mini-games, and of course, buying stuff. Also: Second Life is open form, PlayStation Home is really just a series of smallish nodes you travel between, loading into each as you go. If things get overcrowded in a specific area, for instance, Sony loads a new "instance," sort of like Turbine's D&D Online.
What's more, PlayStation Home is expressly designed to dovetail with PS3 game grouping and multiplayer. Position yourself near friends in Home and you can launch PS3 games directly, the idea presumably being that eventually you'll want to dive into Home first and see what's up instead of bypassing Home and thinking of it as merely another discrete application or alternative hangout.
However before we decide to declare Home the next big global thing, there is this bit of news which seems like a really stupid idea:
One thing that could frustrate gamers: Though PlayStation Network lets gamers compete against anyone around the world, Home users who log on in the U.S. won’t be able to interact with users in Japan, other parts of Asia or Europe. Sony did that to avoid the cross-border legal issues, says Junji Shoda, who is in charge of Home's business strategy.
This sounds exactly like the sort of short sided strategy one would expect from movie studios instead of tech companies, but therein lies the problem with Sony itself. Its business model is self-limiting. However, Sony has big plans:
Sony officials are already considering new features that will make Home more like social networks like Facebook and MySpace.
That I will believe when I see it. Not that they won't try, but having it succeed is an entirely different matter. I don't think Sony understands Web 2.0, and from this quote it appears that Sony never bothered to find out how well hardcore advertising worked in Second Life:
There's also a significant sponsorship angle. When the service launches tomorrow, you'll be able to fly Red Bull planes in a themed area, buy Ligne Roset furniture for your home, or wear the finest in Diesel clothing. More sponsorships, mixed with items you buy with real-world money, will be added as time goes on.
Sometimes it is the forums that have the most interesting insight, so I'll leave the last word to a commenter over at the ARS forums:
Coming to a PS3 near you. Real World: The Game.
Play a game were creditors hound you, night and day. Cars, homes, all your worldly possessions get either repossessed or sold to pay for over-priced necessities. Were jobs are few and far apart. Were you live on the edge wondering "am I next"? Or you're on the bread line being served. NEXT! Yeah, I can see why people would want to play that game.
For the PC World quotes click here.
Business Week quotes click here.
ARS Technica quotes click here.
ARS forum quotes click here.
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One of the possible scenarios that might transpire as a result of the weakening is an influx of businesses using virtual worlds as a means of cost containment. Up until now I didn't have much data other than a hunch to support this idea, but at least one new report suggests that the idea may indeed have some legs. There are a couple of caveats about this data. First, the data is for the UK only, so it doesn't tell us anything definitive about the US, Asia, or Europe other than extrapolating the results and assuming they will be reasonably similar.
The second caveat is that this is a study done on behalf of a vendor who would ostensibly benefit from the findings, and while it doesn't invalidate the results, I'll wait to see if Gartner, IDC, and others come up with similar data before being willing to declare that we have a trend emerging. Nonetheless, the data that is coming out of this study is really encouraging for virtual collaboration in general:
As the credit crunch continues to bite across the world, a new survey by OnePoll has revealed that 43% of UK small and medium sized enterprises would consider abandoning their office space to operate entirely online.
...
It found that 72% of companies are already planning to make cutbacks to help them survive during the recession. Giving up expensive office space and the associated overheads would be one way of reducing costs, the survey said.
...
Other areas that companies are earmarking for cutbacks include unnecessary travel, which 38% said they wanted to reduce. This can include travel to and from meetings that could in fact be carried out online.
40% of SMBs said they believed that half of their meetings could be conducted remotely, and 29% were already using virtual meetings, where team members communicate via web conferences.
This could portend some great things for Second Life if it does become a trend.
For full article click here.
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Nov 23: realXtend: Nokia Onboard
Source Article Click Here
However, the main concern with Second Life is the Linden Lab walled-garden model. While comparisons of the SL model to the AOL model are apt, it isn't yet clear whether or not the walled-garden model is necessary for 3d extensions on the web, or whether the open model works better. The reason is that we are still in the early stages of robust 3d models, and the open source models are making progress, but they still have ground to gain on SL before we can make serious comparisons.
That said, Nokia has announced that it will adopt realXtend:
The realXtend open source virtual reality platform adoption is accelerating, extending the support of an interconnected network of 3D virtual worlds with multi-user experiences. Nokia and the City of Oulu, Finland have joined the supporters of the realXtend project aimed at developing the world's best virtual world platform on an open source basis. The key developers are LudoCraft Ltd, a games studio, and Admino Technologies Ltd, specialised in scalable server technologies.
The plans for realXtend sound very similar to the plans for Second Life:
"Nokia supports the realXtend project and objective of creating an open platform and interoperability for virtual worlds," said Jari Alvinen, director, compatibility and industry collaboration, Nokia. "realXtend has gained remarkable co-operation and adoption with other virtual world developers and solution providers. The large scale strategic development of this technology will spearhead virtual worlds for everyone."
...
"Our strategy in Oulu is to support companies that combine technological expertise with cultural and artistic skills," said Matti Pennanen, mayor, City of Oulu, Finland. "Interactive content and creative industries are a part of our future mission. The City of Oulu already provides free wireless Internet access to citizens and visitors. With the creation of realXtend in Oulu, our region steps in the exciting frontier of virtual world technology."
One additional thing I should note is that realXtend has been part of the OpenSim project for several months. So the obvious next question is where will the Nokia announcement take things? One of the trends I would recommend watching for is any movement towards large ISP's creating OpenSim grid servers or, conversely, announcing that they are licensing server side technology from Linden Lab which will be interoperable with the SL main grid. That would signify that the race for the server side model has accelerated and is getting serious. The Nokia announcement might be an early indicator of the shape of things to come.
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Nov 20: Google: Lively is Dead
Source
This should come as no surprise. As implemented, Lively was limited, and didn't come close to being a true competitor to Second Life. The real comparison is closer to IMVU, and even at that Lively didn't come close to blowing IMVU out of the water. The IMVU folks should be happy over this one. Google has the following to say yesterday on their blog:
In July we launched Lively in Google Labs because we wanted users to be able to interact with their friends and express themselves online in new ways. Google has always been supportive of this kind of experimentation because we believe it's the best way to create groundbreaking products that make a difference to people's lives. But we've also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off.
That's why, despite all the virtual high fives and creative rooms everyone has enjoyed in the last four and a half months, we've decided to shut Lively down at the end of the year. It has been a tough decision, but we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business. Lively.com will be discontinued at the end of December, and everyone who has worked on the project will then move on to other teams.
We'd encourage all Lively users to capture your hard work by taking videos and screenshots of your rooms.
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