Second Life

Monday, August 25, 2008

Despite diminished interest, Second Life keeps attracting business

You don’t read too much any more about Second Life in the communications corner of the blogosphere. Early clumsy efforts by companies to market real-world products in Second Life mostly bit the dust, leading pundits to dismiss it—and other virtual worlds—as a venue for gamers and the socially inept not worth investment or attention. The dismal failure (so far) of Google’s Lively hasn’t helped boost the profile of virtual worlds.

Many of those who used to participate in and even organize in-world events haven’t entered Second Life in months. I haven’t spent 90 minutes there myself this entire year.

At the same time, though, a growing number of organizations continue to find practical uses for Second Life. The most recent evidence came in the print edition of Business Week’s Small Biz magazine, which profiled several organizations that have tapped into attributes of the virtual world that can’t be duplicated through other channels:

• A toy designer created a 3D model of his proposed windup toy and showed it in-world to an engineer from a factory that might manufacture it. The engineer “rotated it, and took it apart piece by piece.”
• A husband-and-wife architecture team that designs senvironmentally friendly homes now creates its models in Second LIfe. Clients can see the model in real, not scale, size, and walk inside. “Moving a kitchen to gain a southern exposure or putting a stairwell in amore convenient location can be accomplished in just a few minutes.” (An example of Crescendo Designs is in the video below.)
• A company is working to sell its idea for video displays in high-traffic areas like airports and malls. Setting up demos in actual airports would be expensive and, in most cases, simply impossible. Now, the company’s founder is able to demonstrate how the system works in a number of locations.
• Another company is developing a people mover, doing much of its work in Second Life. Says the company’s founder, “Here’s a tool inb cyberspace where we can simulate an engineered system and see if it works.”

There were more examples in Forrester’s report, “Getting Real Work Done in Virtual Worlds.” And even marketing efforts—smart ones that leverage Second Life’s characteristics and honor its culture and economy—are working.

I remain convinced that the Web in general will become largely a 3D experience by about 2013, once key obstacles are overcome (such as portability of avatars and ease of creating objects). It makes perfect sense. Right now, no matter how many other people are at Amazon.com the same time you are, you’re there alone. Trying to find a book the title and author of which you don’t remember? Good luck. Now imagine a 3D representation of the world’s biggest bookstore. You teleport to the mystery section and ask others who are browsing the shelves if they know the book you’re seeking. If none of them are able to help, you can mosey on over to the information desk where you can interact with an Amazon customer service representative. Later, you can return to participate in a mystery book club gathering instead of a book club discussion forum.

But the intuitive experience of a familiar 3D world is less exciting than the uses to which people like those profiled in the SmallBiz article are putting Second Life. Don’t ignore virtual worlds; you’ll be living in one soon enough. Buying into the shrug-off so many others have given Second Life will keep you from helping your company prepare for the inevitable 3D web.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Communicators, prepare: 3D communication is coming

In Chicago a week or so ago I got together with a friend; we both live in the Bay Area, but it’s one of those quirks of travel that we could only get together when we were in another city at the same time). Gabe is working for a company that is developing a new virtual world. The company hasn’t announced the nature of its venture and I’m under what Scott Monty calls a “frieNDA,” so I can’t go into any details. But imagine using Second Life-like technology to build a replica of a city as it existed during, say, colonial American times, the reign of Elizabeth I, or ancient Rome. Some people could open shops in these cities, others could take up residence. Then, teachers could bring classes to the city to help them experience what life was like in pre-eruption Pompeii or imperial China.

It’s certainly a long distance traveled from early 3D experiments like VRML.

The uses to which virtual worlds are being put is impressive. The initial push to market products in Second Life were mostly ill-fated, but forward-thinking organizations have realized that there are other, better ways to tap into virtual worlds for business purposes. Some organizations, like Gabe’s, are thinking about commercial uses while other companies see the value of transfering some real-world activities to virtual worlds.

All this is happening relatively quietly, without the hoopla of those early marketing experiments. They’re based on the notion that virtual worlds are really nothing more than three-dimensional social networks. Think about it: If Facebook were 3D, you wouldn’t form groups on pages, but let everyone know that the group will be meeting at Pavilion B on Island X on Thursday at 2 p.m. And rather than post messages to forums and walls, people would engage in virtual face-to-face conversations.

So it’s no surprise to see Forrester Research proclaiming that virtual worlds will dominate the Web within the next five to seven years. That, at least, is the projection Erica Driver makes in the Forrester white paper, “Web3D: The Next Major Internet Wave (24 pages, $279):”

Web3D will deliver an interactive, immersive experience much richer than the static, text-oriented or even interactive graphical interfaces of today’s Web. In the new rold of work that Web3d will enable, people will be represented visually by avatars that can move in space, communicate with others, and interact with objects and information—making the digital world seem more like the real world. Yet Web3D won’t leave the old world behind; it will integrate with the Web technologies we use today as well as existing and not yet invented business applications. Workers will use Web3D to teach and learn, innovate collaboratively, communicate and network, interact with and present information, and manage real-world systems.

Driver and her team of co-authors are not alone; several business publications—BusinessWeek, the Financial Times, and others—have also foretold the inevitable integration of virtual worlds into the online experience. The Forrester report, though, offers plenty of evidence to back up the prediction. Driving the march toward the 3D experience, according to the report, are…

• A focus on innovation.
• The trend toward workers employing tools that work, whether they’re offered by the company or not. “A confluence of forces—including ubiquitous broadband, a growing technology-native workforce, wide availability of cheap or even free Social Computing tools, and increased mobility—drives this trend.”
• The evolving nature of the workforce.
• Activity among investors, vendors, and early adopters, with some $1.5 billion invested in virtual world companies between Q3 2006 and Q4 2007. Since then, hundreds of millions have been invested in startups and companies that support virtual worlds.

Much has to happen between now and the Web3D world Forrester and others envision. The standards need to evolve that will let you move your avatar from one 3D world to another—from Second Life, for example, to a private, secure company environment and then from there to a historical city before winding up in a shopping mall. The ability to create objects and other content must be easier than it is today. But these are initiatives that are underway. The only question really is which developer will create the standards that gain widespread adoption.

Ultimately, though, the engagement that a 3D web will produce is the next logical step beyond the social networks that are set to become an integral part of the web thanks to initiatives like data portability and Google’s recently announced Friend Connect. Rather than simply interact with someone’s profile on a site, you’ll be able to interact with that individual directly; you’ll see other people visiting the site the same time you’re there, and interaction will be more natural and intuitive.

The Forrester report outlines the business potential for a 3D web:

• Training and education will be more effective.
• Business process rehearsal will be cheaper and more realistic. The report points to BP, which is already experimenting with virtual worlds and sees the value of “practicing the management of events that can’t easily be practiced in real life…from practicing hands-on personal skills in standalone learning environments to group interactive teaming skills in unstructured scenarios.”
• Meetings in virtual workspaces.
• Virtual conferences and trade shows.
• Face-to-face customer service and support.
• The use of digital 3D models, not unlike Boeing’s use of a 3D virtual environment in the design and manufacturing of its new 787 Dreamliner.
• A replacement for PowerPoint, as 3D tours do a better job of grabbing attention.

Driver’s report isn’t all optimistic. She and her team present a detailed timeline, identifying the “gating factors,” the issues that must be overcome in order to arrive at a fully integrated 3D environment. They identify the technology advances that are required (such as a next-generation browser, which Forrester has dubbed an “engager” because it’s not passive like a web browser). They even explore alternative scenarios should certain milestones not be met.

Under any scenario, though, the 3D online experience is coming. Its inevitability is the reason I encourage people to try out Second Life now: Learn the ins and outs of 3D social networks while most people aren’t watching. It’s far better to have developed your 3D chops now than to wait until it has become the de facto nature of the Web and everybody can see you make your organization make its newbie mistakes.

Communicators shouldn’t sit on the sidelines and wait for the fulfillment of the prediction, either. As Driver notes in the report, Web3D will lead to new ways to representat and communicate of information. “In Web3D, people will create avatars and build objects and worlds that inform, persuade, explain, and represent important concepts in highly visual and interactive ways.” You can chuckle and chortle all you like at the idea that the company’s media center might someday exist in a highly stylized 3D room in a virtual environment. But trust me: If you’re not ready to create that virtual media center when the time comes, your company will find someone who can.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

FIR Interview: Forrester Principal Analyst Erica Driver on Virtual Worlds - January 16, 2008

Virtual worlds such as Second Life are often dismissed as venues for business, but a recent study by Forrester—“Getting Real Work Done in Virtual Worlds”—paints a different picture. Instead of focusing on the marketing efforts that have occupied most media coverage of virtual worlds, the report delves into the role these three-dimensional environments can play in workplace collaboration, simulations, and other day-to-day business activities that generally require face-to-face engagement. Principal Analyst Erica Driver, the lead author of the study, joined Shel Holtz for a 30-minute discussion about the report’s findings.

About our Conversation Partner

Erica Driver (formerly Rugullies) primarily contributes to Forrester’s offerings for the Information and Knowledge Management professional. She is a leading expert on enterprise collaboration strategies and platforms and Information Workplace strategies and platforms. In the past, Erica has covered information rights management, message archiving, product information management, idea management, product life-cycle management, commerce servers, eProcurement, business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces, and electronic bill presentment and payment.

Erica came to Forrester through its acquisition of Giga Information Group. She covered a wide range of trends and technologies in her more than six years with Giga. Prior to joining Giga, Erica was a research analyst at Hurwitz Group, where she covered electronic commerce and information security. She has experience with Lotus Notes/Domino application development and administration, network administration, and project management. She has also served on the board of trustees of the Massachusetts Electronic Commerce Association.

Download the 30-minute conversation here (MP3, 14MB), or sign up for the Interviews RSS feed to get it and future interviews automatically. For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a such as the free Juice, DopplerRadio or iTunes, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon.

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This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

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Friday, November 16, 2007

Alcatel-Lucent turns to Second Life competition for crowdsourcing effort

Marketers have been piling on Second Life, decrying its uselessness as a marketing channel. In general, they’re responding to their own efforts, or those of others that have generated some attention, usually characterized by the purchase of an island on which a building is constructed that nobody occupies and where nothing happens. When the investment fails to produce huge results, the marketers proclaim the 3D virtual world a barren venue.

(Related: Joe Jaffe has listed 10 reasons why marketers hate Second Life.)

While these marketers and their allies in the media dismiss Second Life, some companies have figured out that the virtual world can produce value. The trick is not to build a virtual edifice to the company’s greatness, but to figure out how to interact with Second Life residents in a way they’d want to be interacted with.

The latest company to take this step is Alcatel-Lucent, a provider of mobile voice, data, and video communication solutions. The company recently launched a contest in Second Life, inviting residents to dream up wireless devices and applications they foresee working in 2017. That’s when Alcatel-Lucent thinks access access to “virtually unlimited capacity” will be available on always-on networks. The bit in quotes comes from the press release, which also says…

Participants are encouraged to unleash their creativity and join Alcatel-Lucent on an exploration of the future of user-friendly devices and multi-media applications that deliver content and communications to people whenever, wherever and however they want to receive them.

Alcatel-Lucent has made a “sandbox” area available to residents, repete with application development tools and user interfaces residents can use to shape their ideas for the upcoming 4G services standard. Entrants are encouraged to submit one or more design prototypes for use in Second Life, such as gadtets, heads-up displays, wearable communications devices, and so on. The deadline for entries is December 1 and must be submitted at the submissions display at the Main Plaza of Alcatel-Lucent’s SL site. (The competition has been going on since late October, but I just learned about it.)

Yes, Alcatel-Lucent does have an island, but they’re using it for events and activities that some residents may actually want to attend. In fact, when I dropped by to grab a screen shot of the competition, an employee was there to answer my questions and offered to get someone to email an image to me. Smart!

Some may scoff at the competition as a way to get someone else to do Alcatel-Lucent’s development for them. In fact, co-creation and crowdsourcing are concepts that make a lot of sense for this kind of product development effort. Entrants, after all, would be showing Alcatel-Lucent what they want, giving the company a clear sense of what kinds of products might succeed in the 4G marketplace. And there’s something in it for the winner, too, although the prize of 50,000 Lindens strikes me as a bit light, especially compared to the 500,000 Linden prize Coca-Cola awarded in its Virtual Thirst design competition.

Still, it’s a far better approach to tapping into the virtual world’s potential than erecting a structure and waiting for people to visit. It also affords Alcatel-Lucent the opportunity to experiment now, while fewer people are watching, then five or six years from now when much of the World Wide Web will likely have evolved into a SL-like virtual world environment.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Cancer Society blows away goal in Second Life fundraiser

Don’t you dare tell me that marketing cannot be effective in Second Life.

The American Cancer Society raised $115,000, which eclipsed the organization’s event goal of $75,000. The July 28-29 event attracted nearly 1,700 participants (that is, 1,700 avatars) who pledged money and walked a virtual track. According to a press release, volunteer organizers interacted with in-world residents and had already raised $90,000 before the event even began.

“It is only through our extraordinary volunteers, who dedicated months to raising funds and awareness in Second Life, were we able to have such a successful event,” said Randal Moss, the Society’s manager of futuring and innovation-based strategies.

Not to beat a dead horse, but you can’t just build a structure, slap your logo on it, and then proclaim Second Life worthless when residents don’t flock to your edifice. It takes work to interact with people, but the results can be gratifying. I’ll link to the press release as soon as it shows up online; I got my copy via email.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

For some Second Life critics, conclusion is based on faulty assumption

I’ve just gotten around to reading some of the many blog posts that gleefully point to Frank Rose’s Wired piece about real-world businesses failing in Second Life and proclaiming, “I told you so.”

A lot of what Rose writes is true; companies are, indeed, blowing it in Second Life. I have long maintained that the goal of getting into Second Life is to figure out how a company can engage with avatar communities since it’ll only be a few more years before the World Wide Web is pretty much one big avatar community. Plenty of mainstream business publications and analysts have agreed over the last several months that the Web is destined to go 3D, and it just makes sense for companies to make their mistakes now when the consequences are so much lighter than five or seven years from now when the entire online population will witness your screw-ups.

That means that raking in big bucks shouldn’t be a key objective for any company’s Second Life activities (even if the American Cancer Society can raise real money in a virtual fundraiser).

But there’s another part of the story that bugs me. It’s characterized by statements like this, from a blog called Team Spirit:

I think spending valuable budget on Second Life is a huge mistake. Finally, here’s the proof: Coca-Cola’s ‘Virtual Thirst’ pavilion receiving just 27 visits on “a random day in June…” Just so you know, there are now over 7 million avatars in Second Life.

and this, from The Brand Wiki:

The story goes on to detail how Michael Donnelly, Coke’s head of interactive marketing, went through all the steps to create a Second Life avatar and set up a Virtual Thirst pavillion only to find that “you can long linger without encountering another avatar.”

Don’t you just love it when people reach conclusions based on assumptions that are profoundly incorrect? I was with crayon when we were working on the Virtual Thirst project, so I’m well aware that the Coca Cola Pavilion was not built in hopes that avatars would drop on by for a visit whenever the hell the felt like it. Rather, it was built as a venue for special, scheduled, promoted events. These included the project launch and a series of dance parties, all of which were perfectly well attended, thank you very much.

In fact, the Pavilion was built on crayon’s island in Second Life specifically so Coca Cola would not have to invest in an island, a terrible mistake many companies have made. crayon’s advice (led by the brilliant C.C. Chapman, was for Coca Cola not to construct an edifice to itself, but rather to engage the population as part of an effort to learn how to market in virtual worlds. That’s why the Virtual Thirst effort wound up as a design competition with information in a variety of places, including MySpace and YouTube.

It’s not just the bloggers who have made the mistake of equating low random traffic to the Pavilion with failure. Rose did, too:

On a random day in June, the most popular location was Money Island (where Linden dollars, the official currency, are given away gratis), with a score of 136,000. Sexy Beach, one of several regions that offer virtual sex shops, dancing, and no-strings hookups, came in at 133,000. The Sears store on IBM’s Innovation Island had a traffic score of 281; Coke’s Virtual Thirst pavilion, a mere 27.

Well, um, yeah. There was nothing scheduled and promoted at the Pavilion on that “random day in June.”

Journalists and bloggers alike would be well served to make sure they’re drawing conclusions from facts and not assumptions.

(By way of disclosure, I should note that I’m not a huge Second Life user or booster. I’m just a realist about where things are headed.)

Thursday, July 26, 2007

IBM sets rules for employees in virtual worlds

IBM’s guidelines for employee bloggers are fairly well known among people who pay attention to such things. Now, IBM has become (as far as I know) the first company to establish a policy for employees who venture into Second Life and other virtual words.

According to an AP article, some critics are blasting the move, suggesting that avatars can’t be controlled by policies. For its part, IBM asserts that “having a code of conduct is akin to a corporate stamp of approval, encouraging workers to explore more than 100 worlds IBM collectively calls the ‘3D Internet.’”

IBM already has several islands in Second Life, many for strictly internal purposes. The company is also looking at building its own proprietary 3D world for training and other internal activities.

IBM’s rules fit the “common sense” mold, including…

• Don’t discuss intellectual property with unauthorized people.
• Don’t discriminate or harass.
• Be a good 3D Netizen.
• (Be) especially sensitive to the appropriateness of your avatar or persona’s appearance when you are meeting with IBM clients or conducting IBM business.

The guidelines state…

Building a reputation of trust within a virtual world represents a commitment to be truthful and accountable with fellow digital citizens. Dramatically altering, splitting or abandoning your digital persona may be a violation of that trust. ... In the case of a digital persona used for IBM business purposes, it may violate your obligations to IBM.

I wonder which company will be next to establish guidelines for employee involvement in virtual worlds?

Hat tip to Michael Zimet.