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October 26, 2007
The many ways to Connect Your Life
How is your life connected? Would your experiences be richer if you could realize your vision of a connected life? Networked virtual environments provide a way for us to connect with each other, and these platforms provide a rich visual and social experience. Another aspect of being connected is the ability to access your media, your friends, and your real world environment from anywhere and anyplace.
To demonstrate the power of the Human Network, Cisco Systems earlier this year invited people to share their opinions on the future of the Connected Life. Cisco’s expert panel has evaluated and judged more than 600 contest entries and determined one grand prize (US$10k) and ten runner-up winners (US$1k), all of which will be announced on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at Noon SLT. Location: http://slurl.com/secondlife/cisco%20systems%201/71/36/22/
Cisco will also demo some concepts of winning ideas on Cisco Systems Sim 1 Stage. Using a networked virtual environment such as Second Life allows the creation of content to convey ideas for a connected life and share the vision in a medium where people can connect with other. Join us Tuesday at our Second Life campus to share in the event and network with other people around the concept of a connected life!
Posted by Randy Sisk at 09:56 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
October 25, 2007
Making Virtual Impressions
As we approach the virtual Cisco Channel Partner Career fair (Nov. 6th 9-11 AM PST; http://slurl.com/secondlife/cisco%20systems%203/120/152/23/), hosted on our Second Life campus, there are a couple of interesting options to ponder from both sides of the table: the employer and the prospective employee.
With the richness of customized content available in virtual environments, what is considered proper dress or attire? How will employers respond to candidates who may express themselves with a non-human form avatar? Will the Sci-Fi looking android appeal to a possible employer’s desire to hire employees who think creatively and outside the box, or will there be an expectation from some employers that candidates should dress “traditional”? Or how about expressing group affiliation with something like a furry avatar? On the technical side, how well will chat and voice chat work, and how many of the attendees will be able to leverage SL voice? We’re looking forward to learning and exploring the possible added dimensions of a career fair in a virtual world. It should be a fun, unconventional way to network and meet prospective employers. We would like to hear feedback from the users (prospects as well as employers) on what worked well and what didn’t work well in a virtual space. Also in the end how effective were the results?
Register your interest in Cisco's Channel Partner Second Life Career Fair here:
https://secure.partnertalentportal.com/europe/events/
Posted by Randy Sisk at 12:44 PM Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)
October 19, 2007
Ode to Interoperability
For those of you who were not at the Virtual Worlds 2007 Conference and Expo last week, there were a number of announcements by ourselves and others that were not product specific in nature, but rather more focused on overall industry development.
First among those was the launch of the Metaverse Market Index (MMI), which is an effort spearheaded by Nick Wilson at Metaversed and Prof. Robert Bloomfield at Cornell University. The MMI is an organization that was recently developed by and for the industry to track adoption, economies and use activity of virtual worlds. This is an important step in the maturation of the industry, as we move beyond early vendor-specific approaches to measuring the market to a more industry-common measure. This will clear up any ambiguity for people outside of the industry when trying to separate fact from hype, as well as allow people within the industry with a common yardstick (meter-stick for those not in the coalition of the metrically challenged) by which to monitor the growth of the industry.
Next, and possibly more contentious, is the notion of the Virtual World Interoperability Forum. This requires a bit more elaboration......
There have been discussions going on within the game-driven virtual world community for many many years to determine what level of interoperability, if any, these platforms need to share. Obviously, there is considerably less motivation for me to take my Halo soldier into WarHawk, or my World of Warcraft character into an Entropia Universe-based game, as it disrupts the narrative. Two of the critical elements of these games is suspension of disbelief and immersion, which is interrupted by the injection of non-narrative-consistent elements into the gameflow. This is a valid rationale to keep these environments as walled-gardens, and the business models around these worlds are about customer retention and subscriptions.
This is less true when you contrast non-game-driven platforms such as Second Life, Forterra, Proton Media and Kaneva, which are more general purpose and are being increasingly adopted as a shared workspace for social, B2C and B2B collaboration. In this case, you do not have a Tolkienesque world populated by Orcs and Elves disrupted by a Powerpoint presentation on next month's forecasts, but the ability for enterprises and individuals to choose their best-suited home domain and then seamlessly move from administrative-domain to administrative-domain based on the task at hand. I can't help but take a network -centric perspective and compare this to Intranets, Extranets and the Internet. Some times I transact business within my own administrative domain (M&A discussions come to mind), some times I need to include a trusted development partner, and sometimes the use case is a public forum.
It is unrealistic to assume that the entire industry will fit cleanly into one business model (Web based vs. Thick-client) or that one world platform has both the physics necessary for medical or meteorological simulations and is also the optimal business virtual shared workspace platform simultaneously. There will be, as there is for the Web ecosystem as well as social networking sites specifically, different tools for different jobs.
What I am most interested in is interoperability between these different tools, knowing that we will have them. If I have an optimized public environment where we have an active conversation with our customers and partners, it would be best to have that interface cleanly and transparently with my enterprise collaboration platform that I use for engineering collaborative development so I can seamlessly shift between the two as I do today with my web browser.
To anticipate the next point, which is 'why dont you use the former exclusively for your internal collaboration?', the answer is that in some cases you legally cannot. If you have logging of IM and possibly voice as well, as is the case with Second Life, then I am violating Non-Disclosure agreements if I discuss a partner development effort with another Cisco employee within Second Life, as I just disclosed it to the Linden Labs chat logs. If they access those is irrelevant, I have disclosed the information to a third party. If they didn't log that information, then we have secondary questions about datacenter security to discuss. This is where WebEx has an advantage, as they are able to securely compartmentalize customer interactions within each company's administrative domain.
To bring this back to the WIIFY ("What's in it for you?"), the benefit to business of interoperability is that you have freedom of choice to pick a provider of the environment that best suits your use case (simulation, training, collaboration, etc.) without it being segregated from the benefits of the network-effect of the Internet and the many tens of thousands of active users of other virtual worlds. It doesn't have to be an 'either-or' decision, with all of the risk of sunk development costs shouldered by the customer, but rather 'and also' as the platform you choose can interact with other virtual world platforms.
This is probably a good a time as any to point out the elephant in the room, which is outside data. When we talk about these virtual worlds, we discuss them as some other place distinct and separate from The Great Conversation (to appropriate a great Clifton Fadiman phrase) we call the Internet. This is an error of reasoning in my opinion, as it assumes that the platform is what is central to the conversation versus the content. Where is the value derived, in the platform itself and how it handles the physics of wind and tree leaves, or in the content you are receiving in the form of collaboration with other individuals and the contextually relevant data you are discussing? Obviously, the latter.
So why today is it so highly lauded when a virtual world succeeds in importing existing data from outside their world? Why wasn't this permeability between virtual worlds and useful data planned from day one? I think this is an artifact from the gaming side of the VW family tree, as you were disincented to disrupt the Middle Earth narrative and business model by interfacing with Amazon or Netflix or Credit Suisse. This is the opposite when you talk about a general purpose virtual shared workspace, as you can only talk with another human for so long before you want to point or reference something pertinent to the conversation.
This is a key component of interoperability, which is interoperability with the rest of the world. Virtual Worlds should not be some 'otherplace' which requires immigration of outside datastores one shipload at a time, but rather an overlay collaboration environment that leverages the vast corpus of the Internet.
The rest of the minutiae of interoperability, be it in avatars or polygons, is important but not the big WIIFY. I am only partially concerned that the appearance of my avatar be the same in the public and private domains, but I am concerned that whichever representation of me that is best suited for the environment inherits the entitlements and policy/privileges that my identity allows me. That can even include, as is explicit in the OpenID model, anonymity with entitlements.
One other carry-over from the entertainment domain is the concept of virtual currencies. If we have just painstakingly killed a dragon, we are not going to want to denominate the booty in Euros or Swiss Francs, but in the gold pieces consistent with the game narrative. Conversely, If we are consummating a multi-year consulting agreement, we wont want to denominate the contract in Lindens or There-bucks. By continuing to perpetuate virtual currencies in general-purpose worlds used for business, we are adding a layer of complexity (and distraction) that is unnecessary.
The WIIFY of virtual currencies is whatever is easiest for your transaction. If that means you have to pay VAT on negligible in-world transactions because sovereigns have not yet determined the proper taxation regime for virtual worlds, it is going to discourage serious commerce and marginalize virtual worlds as a serious platform for widespread adoption. Lets leverage the elaborate and proven interoperability of world currency markets and avoid the potential for confusion, added complexity and extra risk inherent in walled-virtual currencies.
There is much more to be said on the topic of interoperability, however I will save it for future blogposts.
In the interim, the 'call to arms' for this space is that I would encourage anyone interested in the long-term benefits and viability of virtual shared (work)spaces to focus on breaking down the early barriers to interoperability and encourage widespread standards and adoption so we can reap the benefit of the network effect of user adoption.
Posted by Christian Renaud at 07:38 AM Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
October 15, 2007
Virtual Career Fair- Cisco Channel Partners
Speaking of hosting meet-ups in virtual places, and reducing carbon footprint, our public presence in virtual worlds is about providing a place for our customers, stakeholders, partners, and others, our ‘worldwide virtual family’, to meet for different purposes. Cisco will be hosting our first Cisco Channel Partner career fair at our Second Life campus, between the Channel Partner pavilion and the Technology Center building on Cisco Systems 3. Why have a Second Life career fair?
Innovative tools such as networked virtual environments attract innovation-minded employers and candidates, increasing the possibilities for a well placed match of employee and employer. It allows for a low cost, “low friction” way for possible job candidates to meet prospective employers and for employers to meet candidates in a rich multi-modal environment. The cost of providing a space and for staffing and attending is minimal. Candidates will be able to use chat, IM, and SL voice to interview possible employers, and employers to better connect with candidates. If you are job seeking in the networking and IT arena, you will have an opportunity to meet our partners and have access to a wide range of Partner IT/Networking career opportunities within the European geography. The event will be held November 6th from 9-11 AM Pacific Standard Time, for our European Channel Partner participants and their prospects. Register at:
https://secure.partnertalentportal.com/europe/events/
Posted by Randy Sisk at 05:38 PM Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)
E-Meetings and the Environment
I had written previously about the opportunities to reduce air travel by substituting virtual meetings for physical meetings, however reading through the excellent work already being done for Blog Action day has really got me motivated to make a change today.
I'd like to make a bargain with you......http://blogs.webex.com/webex_interactions/2007/10/cost-benefits-o.html
For the remainder of the year, don't fly. Neither will I. Instead, we will use the amazing array of tools at our disposal, from Telepresence to WebEx to avatar-mediated communications, to approximate the magic of physical proximity.
What's the bargain? I promise to pay $1000 out of my own pocket per airline trip that I take between now and the end of the year. Where does that $1000 go?
The Nature Conservancy. So the result is a win-win, either I fund the Nature Conservancy to look into solutions for combating rising emissions, or I reduce my share of airline-related emissions. I don't drive to work or else I'd suggest the same for cars. If you are game, then publicly promise to do the same.
There are a number of us in the virtual world space that travel from virtual world event to virtual world event to speak and do business, and the question always arises 'why cant we do this virtually?'. Well, if 30 or more speakers were looking at $1000 fines each for flying, I bet you'd see a really big virtual world event conducted in the virtual world.
Feel free to track me on Dopplr to confirm I am keeping my side of the bargain. How do I reach you again?
Postscript: Excellent post by Michael in our WebEx team here.
Posted by Christian Renaud at 12:24 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
October 14, 2007
Virtual Worlds Conference 2007 in San Jose, Calif.
Check out what attendees at the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo think about the future of virtual worlds.
Posted by Dannette Veale at 05:02 PM Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
October 11, 2007
Keynote Shorthand
With each presentation I hear at a conference, there is always a moment when you are scribbling what the presenter is saying and you feel like an undergraduate in your first astronomy class furiously taking verbatim notes because you don't know what will be on the test. Then you realize that you missed 50% or more of the point of the presentation.
Two good things about the keynote today at Virtual Worlds 2007....(1) There's no test, and (2) we can do simple things like list the references used in the slides on a blog, like this one!
One of the first references (of a non-demographic nature) used in the presentation was the reference to the Industry Solutions Partner Network, which Cisco announced on September 14th, 2007. This is an environment specifically built for Cisco channel partners (systems integrators, resellers, etc.) to interact and learn about the excellent offerings by our application service provider community. It is a hybrid of a trade show and a matchmaking service, in that channel partners can not only browse, but also converse with representatives of our ASP partners.
The second reference on that same slide was of our Cisco Virtual Campus in Second Life. Here is a SLURL to the campus for those of you who use Second Life.
On a later slide, I mentioned OpenID. For those of you who are not aware of OpenID, a nicely balanced Wikipedia entry is here, and I encourage everyone interested to support and implement OpenID in their own environments.
When discussing presence, I mentioned two specific examples that I consider noteworthy of the many I have found. First is the work of David Wortley at the Serious Games Institute in Coventry. David's excellent team, Giunti Labs and Cisco are working together on tying physical location to virtual location, either 1:1 (in an exact replica of a physical building) or logically based on context. Second was the work in development by Benjamin Waber at the MIT Media Lab, one of Professor Sandy Pentland's team on the Sensible Organizations research program.
When discussing augmentation, I referenced two additional efforts. First was the work of Drew Harry, also at the MIT Media Lab, who works with Professor Judith Donath's Sociable Media group. He is doing explicit augmented meeting areas. (be sure to check out Prof. Donath's most recent Science paper on trustworthy avatars linked from the SM page) Next is the work being done by Oliver Goh at Implenia in Second Life under the aegis of Eolus One, a multi-vendor effort around instrumentation of real world structures represented and controlled in the virtual world. We are pleased to be joining this effort moving forward.
A key announcement during the presentation concerned the Metaverse Market Index, or MMI. This is the not-for-profit group that is being formed currently to rationalize the numbers and metrics used in the virtual world space so the industry can communicate a common metric to future users, content creators, and advertisers. It will also allow better analysis of commerce and economies, as well as future prediction market opportunities. Contact info for Nick Wilson of Metaversed and Prof. Bloomfield at Cornell are on the MMI page.
The next announcement is a work in progress, which is the Virtual Worlds Interoperability council (or Forum, as I stated in my talk). This is a nascent effort of a number of vendors to start the interoperability dialogue sooner rather than later, with the hopes of identifying the key use cases where virtual worlds should be able to communicate with the broader Internet and world wide web, as well as each other. More detail will be posted here about the VWIF as the infrastructure comes online for broader participation. A special thanks to our friends at IBM for helping get the unilateral conversations already underway on the subject organized into a much-more-functional multilateral conversation.
Last, I mentioned the excellent work being done by Professor Tom Malone and his team at the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT. They are beginning a potentially-multi-year study on the dynamics of electronically-mediated (read 'virtual') interactions when compared to live interactions. This will include group dynamics and decision making, collective intelligence, and aspects of a 'Collaboration Quotient' of teams. Our hope is that this study identifies the empirical benefits and drawbacks of this form of collaboration so we can, as an industry, attempt to address any current deficiencies with technology instrumentation, and soberly acknowledge the areas where this will always be less effective than an in-person meeting.
If there are any other references I used in my talk that I missed, please feel free to comment below and I'll be happy to append this post.
Posted by Christian Renaud at 10:25 AM Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)
October 10, 2007
Community in a virtual environment
So today I was at the virtual worlds conference in San Jose. Tomorrow our very own Christian Renaud is the keynote speaker!
One of the topics that kept popping up during the various sessions I attended was community in networked virtual environments and the idea that 2D, 2 1/2 D, and 3D spaces help foster community.
Cisco believes this to be true. Since our inception in Second Life we have created a Cisco News Group which is now well over 200 strong. There are also many non-Cisco created yet Cisco related groups in Second Life for example: Cisco User Group, CCIE Group, Cisco Italy Group, Cisco French Group, etc.
I couldn't tell you the number of times I have helped out newbs in Second Life; Cisco fellows as well as non-Cisco fellows. It can be intimidating when you are born in a virtual world; I remember it all to well. You have this awful skin, bad hair, and not so great clothing...and as a recent NY Times article stated even in a virtual world stuff matters when it comes to status and acceptance in the community.
It is truly groovy that people do help each other in these virtual worlds and more importantly they want to help each other. After all isn't that what community is all about?
To that end Cisco is using virtual worlds like Second Life to extend our community. We want to help our community learn about us, each other and how we can collaborate with one another. One of the ways we foster this is to hold virtual events on subjects that we understand to be top of mind for our community. Tomorrow we will hold a TechChat in Second Life at noon PDT on Application Intelligence on Your Router: A Technical Discussion of Performance Routing.
During one of the panels today a speaker said, "We are a community looking out for each other." Another panel speaker said, "These communities makes us more compassionate for one another."
I couldn't agree more. If community exists, then freedom and security are enabled. This enables the community to morph, because members of the community feel free enough to share and secure enough to get along. The best avatar first name I have seen to date is, ivgoturback :-)
As Cicero said, "We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race." He might not have been talking about a second birth but it applies none the less. Don't you think?
Posted by Dannette Veale at 11:56 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
October 09, 2007
A geek in a virtual world
Hi all. My name is Dannette Veale and I work in Corporate Events here at Cisco. Let me start by stipulating I am not super-technical like my fellow virtual worlds bloggers, who should have capes and related insignia to indicate their super hero status :-)
However I am a geek, always have been and always will be I am proud to say. Specifically I am a science fiction/cyberpunk/anime/gaming geek; so virtual worlds are right up my alley of interests.
At Cisco, I am tasked with programming virtual events in networked virtual environments…so virtual events for all you readers to learn from and enjoy, hopefully. Much of my work time is spent on Cisco’s islands in Second Life as Dannette CiscoSystems.
I get these types of questions/comments a lot:
1) Why does Cisco pay me to play?
2) Why would I participate in a virtual event instead of a webcast or forum?
3) Why would I use this virtual thing? You got to be kidding me…maybe my kids but not me!
My responses are usually something like:
1) Why does Cisco pay me to play?
1a) Second Life (and most virtual worlds for that matter) is not necessarily a game. I game a lot: MMORPG (Wow), Console (Lego Star Wars is my current addiction, all though Resident Evil for the Wii is a serious contender) and PC (Pyschonauts being one my favs right now) so I now of what I speak. The key difference with games is they have clear objective you are supposed to accomplish where as most virtual worlds are open ended user driven experiences. Sure you can game in them but that is up to you, not part of the system. Cisco pays me to program virtual events because we believe that networked virtual environments offer an exciting and rich collaboration experience.
2) Why would I participate in a virtual event instead of a webcast or forum?
2a) In this day and age do we really do one thing instead of another? I know I for one use all types of communication methods for learning as well as disseminating information out. However, there are intrinsic differences between the live webcasts, forums, and virtual events Cisco offers.
-- Live webcasts allow immediate Cisco to you/you to Cisco but ‘walls’ exist between you and your fellow peer attendees. However they are very easily accessed anytime, anywhere.
-- Forums allow for peer to peer but not in real time. However the discussion can be on going and have hundreds of contributors to a single entry.
-- Virtual events combine the best of both; real time Cisco to you/you to Cisco as well as peer to peer. Also, virtual events enable you to do things you may not be able to do in real life events. For example I can provide a heads up display (HUD) to virtual event attendees, which when worn enables them to have text based chat translated on the fly into their native language. However, virtual events usually require an application download, some amount of ramp up for the user to get comfortable with the UI and usually have to limit the number of attendees to the event.
3) Why would I use this virtual thing? You got to be kidding me…maybe my kids but not me!
3a) This is the same rhetoric folks gave me about webcasts back in the day but we all know that isn’t true today don’t we? So why use virtual now…I am not sure how to explain it scientifically but there is something about interacting with an avatar in a graphically rich environment that acts as a catalyst for creative thinking. “Thinking outside of the box” just happens more naturally it seems. I know this sounds a bit cliché and maybe nuts but I have confidence that there are smart people out there doing research right now on this very subject.
To quote a character from Rudy Rucker’s novel Mathematicians in Love: "Crazy means illogical. I'm logical. Therefore I'm not crazy. Note that a system can be at the same time logical and unpredictable."
Looking for feedback from all you logical yet unpredictable readers. Comments, critique, general assessment, virtual event requests, or whatever strikes your fancy!
Posted by Dannette Veale at 06:55 PM Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
October 08, 2007
The Virtual Trust Spectrum
Last Friday, I had the privilege of speaking to several groups of college seniors on the Cisco campus. They came to get a better understanding of Cisco and some of our technologies, and we get the chance to speak with them about their role in potentially changing the world. As the "speaker", I approached it as a wonderful opportunity to be a student of this captive audience of soon-to-be colleagues or future customers.
My talk centered around the work that Cisco is doing on Networked Virtual Environments (NVEs) and how it has the potential to change how we interact with people and content, especially in a business context. The hyped and dreaded collaboration word. As would be expected of this age-group, at least 50-60% of each sessions claimed to be "gamers", and most of them said they didn't think twice about associating the avatars on the screen with the actual people driving them. This was in stark contrast to the professors that accompanied them to campus.
After about an hour of discussing all sorts of interesting possibilities, I had one student sheepishly raise his hand and ask a simple but important question, "If we do all this communication in virtual worlds, do you think we'll eventually struggle to communicate with people face-to-face?".
My gut reaction was to say, "No, because Virtual Worlds or NVEs are just one aspect of communications in the overall spectrum of building trust with others.". I've even drawn pictures of this spectrum and struggled with where to put Virtual Worlds.
.
But over the weekend, I thought about this a little more, using a couple of interesting examples I heard recently.
The first example was talking to my neighbor, who has a 12yr old daughter that is eager to get a cell-phone and use IM with her friends. One of her friends has already decided that she won't accept voice calls, but rather will only communicate "virtually" via IM. I'm not sure if she's sponsored by a social network yet, but this is definitely one end of the spectrum.
The second example came from a Cisco banking customer that told us they doubted whether they'd ever be able to have a remote meeting with a high net-worth client within a virtual world. While they hadn't tried it yet, their bankers intuition was telling them that people liked to look other people in the eye when exchanging checks with lots of zeros. Maybe Philip Rosedale or others might be able to test this intuition sometime soon, but it captures the other end of the spectrum.
So I'm left to wonder, where do you see virtual world communication fitting into the communications Trust Spectrum? I don't know the answer, but I suspect it will vary depending on the situation and the users. But the question still remains.....will virtual communication change our inherent need for face-to-face communication?
Posted by Brian Gracely at 06:28 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
October 01, 2007
Mass Extinctions and the New Math
465,003,915
That is how many aggregate subscribers are claimed by 44 of the top self-proclaimed virtual worlds.
443,230,979
That is the entire population of Mexico, the United States and Canada.
We are all accustomed to the early stages of any technology when individual companies attempt to set the rules and language that will be used for the ensuing battles. There have been expensive fights over simple things like rather to call the aggregation of ISDN B-channels 'MLPP' or 'Bonding', IP telephony vs IP-PBXs, and so on. There are very tangible benefits to defining the market you are going to compete in. This is Law 5, the Law of Focus, in the classic marketing work The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout, "The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect's mind."
This is still going on in the virtual world sector, as every platform with an avatar calls themselves a 'virtual world', and attempts to define the rest of the market around their paradigm. What typically follows this Cambrian explosion of platforms and competing technologies (and semantics) is that there is a 'great rationalization' (a 'KT Period', to mix my periods/eras/eons/epochs). This space is rapidly becoming ripe for it's own.
When I was adding up the numbers of virtual world subscribers, one thing that was immediately evident was that there is no common denominator for how platforms reported their users, or traffic, or economies. Since this is still an early market without a common language, each company is reporting whatever statistics make their platform look more attractive to potential end-users and content companies. As the old saw goes....'Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics'.
The next step in the maturation of this market, if it wants to grow beyond it's current size, is for the industry to agree on two things:
1) There needs to be an agreed common taxonomy of virtual worlds. You can slice and dice the market by 2D vs. 3D, web-based vs. client software, apples vs. oranges, but we need to find a common set of language by which to differentiate the QQ and Cyworlds from the ActiveWorlds and Kanevas from the Metaplaces and Toontowns. Until then, you have emoticon-on-steroids avatar chat in IM and Social Networking sites being compared apples to apples with narrative driven virtual worlds like World of Warcraft or Runescape. It's not apples and apples at that point, it's apples and orangutans.
2) There needs to be a common market index. There are some very good starts at databases to track the virtual world platforms, but where they are currently deficient is in capturing and analyzing the key metrics for this industry, as Gartner Group and others do for the networking industry. Until we get to a common set of metrics by which we measure these platforms, we can't accurately compare them or determine their real measures of success. This is a critical piece as we see more traditional advertisers step into the virtual arena, as you can rest assured that they will want rigorous statistics as to the degree of impact of their advertising message. Go ask the advergaming companies if you don't believe me.
Once we get to the common semantic understanding and a common denominator for metricizing these platforms, then we can get down to the real business of rationalizing them against one another with the goal being heterosis, resulting in fewer platforms of the best possible offspring with the best attributes of each.
When we have fewer platforms with better attributes, then non-early-adopter individuals and companies can evaluate which platform(s) is best for the application, without the present concern of investing large amounts of time and money on one of the many virtual world species that doesn't make the evolutionary cut.
Posted by Christian Renaud at 08:21 AM Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
