2009 could be a difficult year

I have!! And yea, them running SL is a long shot.

Nothing worse than replacing a part on a corporate laptop or desktop, starting it up to make sure it works, then waiting 5-10 minutes for Windows to finish loading everything in.

Even better when it has to connect to the corporate network thru a VPN to get all its start-up scripts.

Thank God I'm paid by the hour!!!!!!!

SL is already being used as a business tool.

To worry about looking foolish (while it is certainly a valid point) is a narrow minded view. One has to look at the larger implications of global virtual worlds. We're literally standing on the door step of what the future will become. Realistically....I could have a 20 or 30 avatars looking totally spiffed out in a single day. While an individual might feel the tutorial is tedius and perhaps be aprehensive about portraying his or herself as a 'cartoon'.....It is hardly a problematic hurdle in the grand scheme of things. (I could probably make a fortune just suiting people up in SL for the corporate virtual world lol)

It's being done........and it's being done by people in very high places who are surely more then a little aware of their image in the real and the virtual world. We have a long way to go before we are able to sit around in a holographic conference room with one another and enjoy real time gatherings.......but this IS the beginning of that reality. Those who embrace it are going to be way ahead of the curb......and sooner then later. The economy will ultimately come around.......and we might even have to experience a depression to see that happen. But.....technology wont sit still whilst we moan and groan about hard times. It WILL move forward and if LL plays their cards right.....SL can continue to progress and see a profit.

I'm speaking from a purely busines perspective.....and LL is, after all, a business. All business has two primary objectives.....to stay open, and to make money. As much as this is a social/fantasy venue for so many.....it is also a tool, a very very powerful tool if used properly. Those who recognize that, will be absolutely fine with utalizing it to their advantage. Those who don't......well......LL cannot worry about those who don't. It's the one's that DO, that matter. Just like it's all of us.....who saw something amazing in SL to begin with.....and joined. It doesn't stop there.......it wont stop there.

Reminds me of a great quote "He who says it cannot be done, should get out of the way of those doing it"

Geek.

speaking of 'geeks', edison used to electrocute elephants, y'know. ;0

either luddite or corporate.
no self respecting geek would be using a browser that hasnt been maintained since 2007 unless it was forced upon them by 'head office'.

I'm thrilled to imagine Des must be amongst my neighbors...

I'm sure WoW is also being used as a business tool...somewhere. Sorry chica, I don't buy it. You say you could have the avatars spiffed out -- no doubt -- but training someone to move, chat, talk, voice, sit, etc. without chewing up 1/2 your corporate training budget for the year is just flat out unrealistic.

Virtual worlds will always remain a hard sell for the business community of today who are only now grasping the web 2.0 concept (barely, with the exception of tech and media companies).

For SMB - small and medium business, that has the desire and know how to use virtual spaces it will lead to cost savings and innovation which are two key drivers for business.

Some people will become rich as larger business sees the benefits. As fresh young employees are picked out of college in the rat race , most will know how to use an avatar environment be it warcraft or club penguin. At this point the learning curve is non existent, virtual spaces for business will be commonplace.

I have a fair amount of time and money invested personally in virtual worlds, and am feeling very confident about the next 5 years.

-whyroc

Tell me in simple terms how going onto SL will save a business time, money or effort? Or improve sales? Let's make it basic. Say a chain of department stores like Kohl's or Target. Or restaurant chain? Or a manufacturer of things?

from a restaurant perspective it would be great for booking a table, noting the ambience, looking at a menu, even looking outside and seeing youre across the street from such and such. this sort of thing can already be done on the web, although its not as...sexy.
as far as an internalised use, i see nothing. i cant see training waitstaff in sl, god forbid trying to train a chef in sl. cant really hold a restaurant meeting in sl because... everyone is at the restaurant. i think the role of virtual worlds in business will be relating to customers rather than internal use.

This was said about the Web and the graphical desktop as well in the workplace. People quite good at learning stuff. Takes a bit of time True, But give it a few years and everyone will doing it 3D and wondering what all the fuss was about way back when.

M's interview in January (in which he states "business meetings will be the killer app", M's interview last week on the BBC, the various blogs about using SL for business meetings, the published report on using SL for a business conference (also refered to in the blog) etc.

There's a lot of promoting SL as a business meeting platform at the moment.

Matthew

When Blondin was asked how the new adult changes had been publicised to residents he said via blogs and a press release. Most of the techie netnews and blogs are quoting or summarising from that press release...

In any case most of the opposition against the adult policy (once you get past the usual hyperbole and godwinisms), is not against what LL is trying to do (which is really all the press release says) but the way LL is planning to do it. For instance, there is a in world creator of birds such as blue tits who may be forced to move to the adult region just to advertise his wares given how LL is currently planning on filtering search results.

Matthew

Milla you made some good points.

I think that it would be much too early for LL to abandon the teleconferencing market.
If you were on the executive level of a company that happened to have the latest comps and network gear and you had all your far flung office outlets networked with the SL "behind the firewall" version optimized for speed and stability it would be pretty sweet.

Especially if your company did alot of 3d visualization. Being able to walk around and inside
of your products with people thousands of miles away from you is a pretty cool trick.

If LL does capture a good size market for 3d virtual teleconferencing for private networks
I would think that many people could get jobs doing the prep work for regions and avs on those
networks. Individual employees would not have to spend a bunch of time figuring out their av
they could just choose from a preconfigured catalog of character types.
Instead of the virtual dev that has gone on inworld add to that all the virtual development needs on private grids as well. If the option is there for the company to hire experts to prep
their grids to their specs you know they will take it, after all it would be a business expense.

Tell me how it will save time, money or effort? I'm talking about SL. The web is a bigger concept than SL. How has Facebook saved any business time, money or effort? Sure some use it to market to people but it hasn't worked as a corporate platform for anyone. Facebook itself doesn't even make money. Don't say 5 years away. The world is littered with companies like that.

Companies already do this and they can do it far more realistically in other 3D platforms that actually allow them to render their buildings and concepts accurately. SL pales in comparison to what architects and modelers already do from a business perspective. SL has a lot of great things about it. Being business 3.0 is not one of them. IMHO.

My sources are not quoting / summarizing. They are reporting.

There is a difference.

I can se it now..


A helmet modelled as a top hat.


A selection of walking sticks on a cane-rack fixed to the frame.


Skin-tight latex "leathers"



Sensible shoes.

Positive press only pays the bills if you can pay them with stock certificates.

Not in the early days the Web wasnt. Mr Bill Gates himself is on record as saying that he didnt see any benefit for his company or for another company at that time. He does now though.Facebook like just about every other 2D social network is based on "Free Content", as is much of the Web. People and companies have learned from this. The Grid while having Free Access and Free Content in some parts of it, is based on Paid Content. This the defining difference between the Web and the Grid.

LL (and us) have shown with SL that a creator-driven paid content economy is feasible and workable on a large scale on the Internet. And every other Grid provider is working on monetarizing their inworlds if they havent already. And companies go where the money is.

Also, on top of this I fully expect that I will be able to take my avatar onto the Grid, visit my RL bank inworld and transact my business. I do this now online in 2D. I do it also in 2D to book flights, buy books, send flowers and all kinds other stuff. Is no reason why any of these real-world things that companies provide will not be available to us in 3D.

The Grid is in its infancy and is a long way to go yet True. Lots of companies missed the start of the Web. Not as many of them are going to miss out on the Grid. Specially when they can see already a working inworld monetarized economy convertible into real-world currencies. As I mention, people learn.

And if Facebook and other 2D nets like them (EDIT: as 2D nets) are still here in 5 years from now then I cant see it, but good on them if they are.

Hey you know what your probably right. The advantages that SL as a business platform offer
may be in certain respects neglible especially when viewed in its current state.

I am curious now though, what programs are those companies using to experience their immersive 3D visualization far more realistically in a shared collaborative space?

Most companies will survive without the immediate need for a 3D interactive medium.
When the PC was first proposed for businesses many people complained that they were not
convinced that it would have any positive effect on productivity. There were expensive training
programs, technical people had to be hired to keep the things running. Most often whatever
productivity gains that were realized were counterweighted by all the associated costs.

When the Internet was just beginning to become popular with companies like Compuserve and AOL helping to attract the initial masses. Companies had great difficulty imagining how it
would be of any use to their businesses. Keep in mind in the late eighties and early nineties
most companies had desktop PC's around but many were not even networked. Then after
Mosaic appeared onto the scene the Internet caught fire. Within a couple of years everybody
and their neighbors cousin's dog were buying the necessary equipment to hook up to the internet. At least it seemed that way during the mid nineties. By the end of the 20th century
even most of the die hard Luddites had hooked up to the internet. Once people realized that
their comments could potentially have a global audience even the most cynical anti tech types
had to get a blog so they could convince even more people of the uselessness of computers.

The point I am making is that in terms of historical technology milestones those were huge
steps forward. Whether the whole process was worth it in terms of actual total business efficiency is still a mystery. But we can do some really cool stuff with it now that people were not even imagining 20 years ago.

And the immersive 3D interactive environment is yet another Very Big step in terms of how cool it is as well as the historical significance. Another point is that people like really cool
stuff. And if they can incorporate the really cool stuff into their businesses, they will.
Both the PC and the Internet started out as mostly business novelties. In the 3 years that
I have been in SL there are mass more things you can do now that you could not do back then. In technology things change quickly. In regards to what we will be able to do as newer techology becomes more affordable, the possibilites are truly astonishing.

Agreed. Even when I bailed out of corporate America over 3 years ago there were collaboration tools there that far surpassed SL for virtual meetings. I'm sure things have improved since then. Jackie

Unless something totally unexpected happens, I think SL will remain in good health.

LL won't abandon their core 'enthusiast' clientele because people who are hooked on SL are unlikely to leave. People who come here with the expectation of making a quick buck, however, are unlikely to do so and likely to leave when they realise they're not doing so.

None of the competition I've seen poses a serious threat to SL. Blue Mars looks great in the original publicity video but not so good in later ones of shops and wandering avatars.

I actually think the two biggest threats to SL are:

1) Governments making laws that restrict internet content or access that unwittingly affects SL.
2) A catastrophic data loss, either by accident or by sophisticated malicious griefing.

LMAO unless, you happen to work for the company I worked for up in CT a few years ago.....training? LOL An hour, maybe a hair over, of CE course and you were considered well informed on a miriad of topics!! Hell it even got ya points toward a raise!

I realize it wouldn't be easy for everyone to grasp.....but I've sat in front of a computer many times, with someone at my side, and taught them previously unmastered skills. It's not rocket science.....anyone with any computer know how, can (and does) pick it up. Sure it's an expense to train people......but that isn't even going to come close to travel expenses (have ya ever seen a travel expense report by a major corp? Transportation, hotel, rental vehicle, food...entertainment even....it gets out of hand.)

The only reason I am arguing this point is because I've been in that world. I've seen the money spent.....on both travel, and in house continuing ed. There's no comparison. If one person in a company can learn the basics of SL.......and hold a few training sessions to prepare the rest for a virtual conference.......it wouldn't even touch what it would cost to send that same bunch off a wandering.

And yes, it IS being used as a business tool. Take a look around you.....go exploring....check out the plethera of videos readily available on youtube.....read some of the blogs over the past few months. SL is absolutely being utilized for business. I'm not saying every business is using it for the same purposes.....but most definitely is being weilded as a marketing tool. Take a look at the Live music venue in SL.......baby THAT'S business.......that's a genius marketing strategy that gets performers a world audience, at the click of a mouse.

All I'm pointing out here....is SL is a powerful too when used properly....and that is going to grow in hard times.....because it's a hell of a lot cheaper then footing it.

My own situation is also an example.......had I opted to do this gallery of my mom's art work in the real world....it would have taken me weeks, if not months of planning......it would have cost me probably 1000s of USD to get the work matted and framed because most of what I have in my SL gallery is stuff that came out of a closet, stuff she didn't like or didn't finish. The time spent, the energy spent.......and then, the tiny pocket of people that would ever even be exposed to her work.......it doesn't even come close to what I was able to do in SL in one afternoon. And, people from every corner of the globe are seeing her paintings.....and learning about a disease they may never have known existed.
ONE DAY. Powerful tool.

This is precisely one of the directions I do believe VR will go in, and will benefit most by both the savvy business owner and the consumer.

We've barely scratched the surface of the benefits and applications of VR. SL is a wonderful opportunity to start testing theories and for the truly progressive to cut their teeth.

Edus are creating remarkable learning tools. I wish I had had some of these (genetics, chemistry) back in high school to aid and enforce the learning process.

And while this may seem an odd statement to make, I do believe that VRs can be very helpful for those wishing to explore alternative sexualities and play such as BDSM who are unable to do so in RL due to physical and geographical limitations.

The benefits of VR are sweeping, and the tech is in its infancy. SL is just the start, and while they may not be IT a few years from now (I'm hoping not, at any rate), they are here now and a good testing ground.

As for the future, it's my hope that VR evolves the way of the Internet and that the core tech is not owned by any single individual or organization, and we can all be connected with similar paramaters.