Immersive Workspaces(TM): Your Private Grid Awaits
When you think business in virtual worlds you think brands. The wave of polished yet mostly empty sims that followed the press infatuation with Anshe Chung’s mythic millions. And how the brands came and then slipped out into the night, the press flaks from Linden Lab and elsewhere calling the whole thing a brilliant experiment from which, heck, we learned a lot, that was the point really, this was never GOING to be the killer app of virtual worlds, keep your hat on folks, and by the way I have a sim for rent with a nice view.
Some of the narrative makes sense. Brands invest in cycles. They shift their money around from media to media, from Facebook widgets to viral campaigns, from guerrilla marketing back to the Superbowl where they all belong – all of that floating crap shoot of brand investment a desperate search for eyeballs and returns on investment and point of purchase buying decisions. Second Life got caught up in one or two cycles, it was an extra line item or two, and when the campaign for the quarter was over it was time to look at youTube again, because the audience had moved again and it’s important to hit them where they live.
Some of it I don’t buy. As much as the Electric Sheep Company claims that they met their return on investment targets for the CSI New York build, the press they (and NBC) gave ahead of time was breathlessly proclaiming the arrival of a new immersive entertainment era based in Second Life. Problem was, there was nothing particularly entertaining about it, and once you waded through all the Cisco signs and red arrows you weren’t quite sure where to go.
So some of it was cyclical, and some of it was the platform itself: Second Life wasn’t READY to scale to 50 million users, the orientation sucked, the platform wasn’t stable, the social tools didn’t let communities naturally form with friendly facilitation by Coke or whoever.
But let’s give credit to the brands for something: they put a fire under the Lindens, at the very least. They might not have been ready for them, but the holes in the platform put in stark relief some of the reasons why. And maybe they led to King Pip’s proclamation that stability was number one, the “missing image” t-shirt moment, hiring M to take care of that pesky first hour, and the arrival of education and business collaboration as the janitors who would come in and sweep up all the odds and ends and give the Grid a shiny new purpose.
A lot of work has gone into the Grid since those heady days: Havok, Mono, new viewers, tweaks and kicks at the asset servers, a policy change or two, and although you still get the occasional memory leak or crash, the Grid IS more stable, some stuff IS easier to do, and I don’t seem to fly off in random directions anymore when I cross from one sim to another.
The Return of the Corporation
Against this backdrop, Linden Lab has announced a partnership with Rivers Run Red and has launched Immersive Workspaces(TM). This product makes a promise: that the Grid on which Second Life runs is ready for business, or for ‘business collaboration’ anyways, which can mean different things to different people. Which isn’t to say that it wasn’t ready before, but there were a few things holding back investments in Second Life, which Immersive Workspaces is built to overcome:
- It is disassociated from the Second Life brand. Or, as Alley Insider said, it is um sex-free. Because no one wants to hold a business meeting in a virtual world and have some naked noob land on the conference table.
- It’s behind a firewall. Which means your data is safe. Your company secrets are guarded. And no one’s going to leak your PowerPoint file showing your earnings ratios to the world.
- It has a solid return on investment model. It can be proven to save you money.
(Read more below the fold)
Immersive Workspaces is positioned as an APPLICATION. It’s not really a “world for business”, at least in how it’s initially positioned. It serves a simple purpose: it gives companies an alternative meeting space, and opens the door to richer experiences, data display, and collaboration.
Personally I think that the power of virtual worlds goes beyond just meeting….and YET, some of the greatest value I’ve personally found in Second Life is the chance to go to, well, meetings – an in-world conference, say, or a Metanomics event, whatever – it’s a powerful way to connect with other people, use different communication modalities to do that (text, voice, visuals) and to have a sense of being there which adds a richness to interactions that you just don’t get on a Webex conference.
And if you think of an adoption curve for business in virtual worlds, Rivers Run Red has simplified the curve: orient users, get them together, build some tools to facilitate things, throw in a bit of data visualization to showcase the potential of 3D content, and we’ll get to the deeper change stuff later.
Justin Bovington, CEO of Rivers Run Red
With these things in mind, I spoke with Justin Bovington about Rivers Run Red, Immersive Workspaces, and their “bet” on Linden Lab.
BRAND VERSUS CORPORATE USE OF VIRTUAL WORLDS
And I started by asking him what the value proposition is for virtual worlds and business, especially in light of today’s economy:
Justin: I think there’s two things. One is that any early technology that’s out there tends to have a long adoption curve. There’s a split now, if you like, between virtual worlds for social fun and social virtual worlds for secondary income, which is really what Second Life’s HAS been about, to now, suddenly also being a virtual world for business. With that you’re going to see people using the technology and using it to reduce their travel costs. So we’re getting a large amount of people say to us look, they’ve had their travel budgets frozen or had their expenses frozen and they need to use other forms of technology to complement that.
And really what’s happening, and at a larger level, companies are investing in alternative technology to keep them more productive. So it’s not just virtual worlds, people are looking at better videoconferencing systems, better audio conferencing systems and virtual worlds is a part of that mix now. But as we keep saying, it’s not for everyone. You see it in the reports and in terms of what we see from our clients is they’re getting a good return on it.
So really it actually raises a question, why – why will we get a better adoption rates for business versus say previous investments in virtual worlds? And the answer is in the return on investment model.
Every client that we sit down with now, we can analyze their travel, look at their productivity time and the model of virtual worlds and actually give them a proper ROI. And in most cases we actually give people a payback. So it starts paying for itself normally after the 3rd or 4th meeting. If you can show people a return, then they’re going to actually grab hold of it.
But how do you convince brands or companies that this time it’s different? Brands have been in Second Life before and left, after all.
Justin: We first started doing this five years ago, and remember, we were the first company to kind of wake up and kind of get involved with Second Life.
And actually what happened was I found Second Life in October 2003 and myself and my business partner flew over to see Phillip Rosedale and to see Linden Labs and told them that we felt they had the future of a 3D internet, and they thought we were crazy. And again it’s quite funny because everything that we laid out then have, in a fashion, happened.
There’s this kind of popular belief that we left Second Life and we didn’t. We’ve actually been, if anything, doing more and more work in Second Life. It’s just that everything that we’ve been doing has been behind the scenes in terms of working with companies who want to use this as a collaboration space. And I think it’s mainly been a misconception, people saying oh the brands failed in Second Life. The difference is, I think arguably there are more brands in Second Life than there ever have been and in fact virtually daily we still see new companies coming in.
The funny thing is, it feels very much as if people are still talking about Second Life as if it was 2006 still. I think one of the problems is, there’s brand dispersion between Second Life the “public park”, if you like, which is very much the “go start a business buy some land and carry on” part. And then there’s the Second Life Grid, which is the more private work, and that’s 100% of our work on the Grid now. We hardly have anything actually left on the main grid.
The problem is that they take the temperature still as an overall temperature, not realizing the split. And I think you saw it from Mark Kingdon’s keynotes, you know, this thing about the second wave coming through. It has been for a while. I think the problem is that we still got hung up on the old stories. The pin-up girl of that era was Anshe Chung, and we don’t hear anything of her anymore.
THE VALUE PROPOSITION
So then what’s the ‘pitch’ to companies for Immersive Workspaces? What convinces them that they should come on board?
Justin: Many companies have a massive problem with disparate employees, where you may have a situation where people are working on the same problem across multiple different regions or multiple divisions. How can you get people to share and transfer knowledge? How do you get very large companies to talk to each other in a non-hierarchical fashion. And so that’s obviously one of the big, big benefits is that you can help solve this.
Another thing that we’ve picked up on is using Immersive Workspaces for pre and post events, where you can organize an innovation day in real life, for example, that lasts for 3 days. The main problem is that they’re very costly, very time consuming and how do you get people to continue that conversation. And we ran a conference where we had a pre-event inside one of our virtual spaces, and then we did a post event. So it took one day off the main conference day.
When people got to the real event, they had already broken down the social barriers. They were already talking because they met in world. So if you like, and it’s one of the lessons that we learned from running the earlier Second Life Community Conventions, which I’m not sure people are very aware of. But we used to help run that up until 2006 and we noticed that people were arriving, initially picking up the conversation from where they just left off in world. And so we’ve done that. So of course as a productivity tool that’s very, very powerful.
But what we found afterward, and which was quite a surprise to us, is people were logging back in again to the space, when they got back to their offices or homes, and were continuing the same conversations. So suddenly people’s desire to share ideas and share innovation was coming through very strong.
Another benefit is in helping to adjust life/work balance. One of the biggest problems that happens in HR is that people are complaining about having on a Sunday afternoon to get to a meeting on a Monday, and helping to address that is one of the main things that we’re doing.
It’s been about productivity.
And then there are things that we’re doing in terms of the kind of second wave products that we’re developing. You know, I kind of mentioned this to the Virtual Worlds Forum that virtual worlds themselves are more than just the space, they’re more than just collaboration and a great place to do a meeting. They have a secondary area which is beyond what we’re calling “beyond the avatar”, which actually is the environment itself as its own entity.
Like New York City is its own story, you know, exactly the same. And so what we’re trying to do at the moment is to tap into traditional back-end databases and creating visual metaphors in cyberspace. So what happens, the environment itself becomes a living embodiment of the company. And again we call those living landscapes. Pull your mouse out and you can see this wonderful tapestry of data. That’s changing people’s perception of their companies and ways to look at data together and that’s really quite exciting because we’ve only just tapped into that. And arguably that’s going to be a very, very powerful tool.
That’s fascinating. Can you give an example of that?
Justin: I mean I think we’re only just sampling that. In fact we can see a situation and we started to do it, where you can literally see cause and effect by – so for instance we created a Manhattan skyline and where we watched the oil price dropping. And you could see visually the effect that had on the transportation market. You could see a ripple effect which you wouldn’t necessarily see by looking at one’s and zeroes or just data spreadsheets. So I think there’s something there, there’s something intangible that’s going to happen. And actually one of the most popular requests that we’re getting from our clients is can they have a window on the world system, which basically means a plasma screen mounted on their wall where they can actually see the world.
FAITH IN THE LAB
Following the brand ‘experiments’ in Second Life, different metaverse agencies took different approaches to what services they sell. Why did you make the decision to stick with Linden Lab?
Justin: First, we had a lot invested in Second Life. I mean we were there right from the beginning, 2003. I remember at a 2005 conference meeting Sibley and Giff (from ESC), and we were doing a presentation of what this could be for brands, and they hadn’t even looked at it yet. And this predated Ruben even being at Linden Lab and leaving, and I think arguably based on seeing the business that we were all doing.
So what we haven’t done is run with the pack. And I can honestly say this to you, and this is why I’m so proud of my team, is that we’ve always pretty much led. We’ve never – I think a good example of that is that we didn’t jump on the Tweeny worlds because we suddenly realized that there was only room for a certain amount of those. And running after, I think running after the herd, if you like, is always going to be very, very difficult.
Our original use of Second Life was as a collaboration tool. We actually were working at that stage on the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the movie. And I needed a way to mock up story boards and also to play with a model of Marvin. And using Second Life as an active prototyping tool made a lot of sense to us. And we started to realize its potential. So that if you like, the seeds for this were sown five years ago. What we did realize though and we thought we had something that was fair is that we realized by combining Web 2.0 with the 3D space, you have something quite compelling. And we kind of realized that that was the way forward. A lot of companies did jump on t the hype wagon if you like around Tween Worlds and other approaches.
But I still get a kick out of Second Life. I still enjoy meeting in there. I enjoy hanging out and seeing what’s going on. And I think Philip touched on this, and it’s this thing called, you know he called it magic. And I think you get it and I get what he means.
And I think what there is this thing that I call the joie de vivre effect. You can’t put your finger on it, but there’s something quite compelling about it. The big difference compared to other platforms is that Second Life has always been that fully immersive experience. It’s always felt to me very real.
Did you consider or have you considered OpenSim as a platform?
Justin: There’s no doubt that they’re doing a great job with OpenSim. The problem is that from what I can tell, it’s still very much an alpha product. It’s not really ready for mainstream use yet. And the problem with this stuff as well is it really falls down in accountability. Who’s responsible for the problems that may occur and for making changes?
We could have gone down the OpenSim path, but the problem is at this stage it’s not ready and we needed to pin our colours to a flag and we chose Linden Lab because of the belief of what we found in the last nine months, particularly working with clients, that they’re very happy with that, with that as a platform.
To be honest with you, clients are not really interested in what platform it’s on. What we’re trying to sell here is solutions. And that’s been a maturing of the market. We don’t have to talk about the code, we just talk about what it can do for you as a business.
Second Life is the incredibly successful platform that creates the SecondLife.com product and is the platform we’re using to bring this to market. And people are happy because they know it’s proven. Whereas other platforms they tell us that they’re giving us bread, but really what they’re giving us is flour and water. Those platforms want us to develop products rather than actually just jump in and create something for our clients to use.
(In my previous post, I talked about the fact that Immersive Workspaces are separate from the Second Life “world”. As Zha Ewry confirmed: “The distinction there for what it’s worth is the Rivers Run Red stuff is effectively disconnected from the Grid. It lets you get what people effectively describe as ‘Grid in a Box’ which is that you get your own little Grid and it doesn’t connect at ALL to the Second Life Grid.”)
I asked Justin to comment on the “cross-over benefits” of the private servers on which Immersive Workspaces runs and the “main Grid”:
Justin: We have consistently brought through talent from the, if you like, the consumer platform. We probably work on and off with about 25 different people from the Second Life consumer grid. So there’s always a crossover.
Now, there may be a massive bone of contention for what I’m saying. But I think there’s definitely a split between the consumer worlds and there’s certainly a split between the new second wave which is coming through and I think that’s obvious. But I don’t think it affects each other. The problem is how it’s communicated out there and it’s a situation of the fact that Second Life has been fantastic, you’ve got a fantastic economy at a million dollars a day but companies want to use this as their own collaboration solution and they can be separate from you and they don’t have to mix. But it doesn’t challenge you. It shouldn’t worry you because it’s the nature of any product that it has multiple uses and multiple propositions, and this is exactly what it’s about.
And when it comes to avatars moving between the business and consumer worlds, there are a couple of things that we advised our clients to do because there are big HR issues around virtual worlds and actually what your employees are exposed to that you’re responsible for.
So what we suggest happens is that our clients have a personal avatar so they can go in and enjoy the sumptuous designs that are in Second Life. And you know, to be honest with you, that’s how I started. You know, I’m still a massive fan of what goes on there.
But then you have your work avatar and that’s what you come to work with and you should separate them both out. After all, you wouldn’t go in a suit with your BlackBerry to a pop concert. You’d go home and change first of all.
What are some of the surprises, or the unexpected benefits to business?
Justin: One of the big surprises that they’re finding is they are starting to not differentiate between this and the real world. They’ve found that they are talking about the meeting rooms as if they’re real places. So they’re starting if you like to see
beyond the technology, see beyond barriers and they’re actually seeing this as a real part of their organization. A lot of them are saying that we never thought that would happen because they always saw the technology barrier as something they’d probably never get past.
There is also the sense of being able to tap into this wonderful amount of collective knowledge. So some of our clients have 300 people who are using the space, which is an ideal number. And we’re seeing people meet others that they might never have had a chance to meet.
And one of my classic stories is the guy who turned around and said I found out that I was going to be on the same problem as the guy was 3 floors below us, and by combining our efforts through the virtual space, by meeting there, we actually saved x amount of time and problems. You’ve actually facilitated a connection which is actually very powerful.
I might not fully understand how this works, but it sure seems like a crippling blow to all of the other ‘Solution Providers’ who have been pining for this feature from Linden Lab for years – toiling away on the “consumer platform” Justin refers to. Linden Lab finally offers a solution we’ve all waited so patiently for, but then they funnel every ounce of the new business through a single developer? Am I missing something?
He says, “We hardly have anything actually left on the main grid,” …. Must be nice! Does anyone else have it like that? Maybe I’m the only one still left on the regular grid?
He goes on to say “But I still get a kick out of Second Life.”
and later says “…to be honest with you, that’s how I started.” … referring, once again, to the regular Second Life grid.
At least he has roots in the regular grid the rest of us are stuck using… to be fair, I guess I still get a kick out of Second Life too.
As regular developers, architects, artists, scripters, etc. working in Second Life, we operate under the faith that, even though Second Life has its bugs and challenges, we trust that Linden Lab will continue working on building a transparent, stable and secure platform upon which the community of resident evangelists, entrepreneurs, and developers can build and innovate. At least that’s the dream that keeps me coming back; the promise that we’re all empowered and privileged to be working on a relatively even playing field. But now there’s a special grid for Rivers Run Red enterprise clients, and the regular grid the rest of us use. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope so.
Moreover, it reads as though this special grid, with their enterprise clients, he says, “…can be separate from you and they don’t have to mix. But it doesn’t challenge you.”
Really? That kind of makes me sick, honestly. The power of Second Life is in that very mix you seek to inhibit, imho. Time will tell. There are lessons learned about this from real life we can draw upon if we want to dig deeper.
We all know there are companies, large and small, circling around Second Life, watching, learning, reading, attending in-world presentations and expos, talking to residents, learning the ropes. It is also no secret that business collaboration is among the lowest hanging fruits for the developer community. Yet these circling companies remain understandably cautious, awaiting the same fixes and solutions the rest of the developer community awaits. Clearly this is one of the biggest reasons OpenSim is so attractive. If it can become stable anytime soon, there are many who predict a mass exodus, simply because it can be hosted secure, and private.
But then there are the die-hard residents who stick to Second Life, myself included. We’re the hundreds-strong bullpen of solution providers who continue pitching and evangelizing Second Life at every turn because we believe it is the future of the web. A place, not an application (it took me a while to truly understand that distinction). We keep spending more time, more money, more energy, believing that the next big thing is yet to come, and when it arrives, we want to be ready.
Then one day, one of the ‘next big things’ arrives. The holy grail of business collaboration and enterprise applications is here! Linden Lab unveils a safe, secure application that could be hosted behind corporate firewalls. Maybe now I can dust off this pile of business cards and contacts I’ve collected over the years, and tell them they can finally have that private and secure Second Life application hosted behind their firewalls they’ve been asking about. Imagine the architecture and design they’ll need to support their new virtual headquarters! =) I can hardly wait. All of that patience and faith has finally paid off, because the next generation of virtual workplace has finally arrived.
But wait a minute… only one company gets to offer it? Or, I have to go through this other content creator to bring it to my clients? At extraordinary expense, I would assume… So much for an even playing field. As such, every bit of circling new-biz out there clamoring for a solution like this will be funneled to just one developer? Is that innovation?
If they offer a special grid, why can’t we all build our own special grids? If they’re only offering ‘solutions’ then why can’t they duke it out with every other developer working on offering solutions without official endorsement from Linden Lab?
I still have faith in Second Life. But my faith is gradually (necessarily, and unfortunately) shifting from Linden Lab to the Second Life community itself – the former of which I now fully realize is only a bi-product of the latter. Nothing I read here is new, or innovative – though I snarkily trust that when business collaboration goes mainstream, we will be reminded that Justin came up with the whole concept ‘back in ’08′ when nobody else was aware of it. lol! From what I can tell, they just get special privileges that nobody else has access to without big bucks. That’s all.
If you’re in an organization considering a move into virtual worlds, look to the Second Life community itself… the tinkerers and countless residents and solution providers out there brainstorming the next big thing. Because that’s where the next big thing will come from. That’s where it already is… It is so much more than a place for meetings, and the cross-disciplinary innovation you’ll discover in serendipitous encounters with some of the highest caliber individuals you’ll ever meet (who hang out on the regular grid…at least for now…) will trump a boring corporate grid any day. Even if they switch to plain clothes after work and eventually teleport back and forth…pfft! C’mon…
If Second Life has taught us anything in these past few years, its that rarely does anything great – in a user-generated environment – come from the top down. The future of Second Life will be generated from the bottom up. I sincerely believe that, and that’s where I hang my virtual cowboy hat. Alas, Second Life is still an undiscovered frontier.
Please correct me where I’m wrong.
Keystone:
There are a few things that strike me, I suppose, about both Immersive Workspaces and more generally Linden Lab’s approach to “product development”. And let me get a little pitch in here because some of this will be covered at Metanomics tomorrow.
But first, I should clarify the “separate grid” and firewall piece and make absolutely clear that my understanding of this comes from a) reading between the lines of the interview and b) comments by Zha Ewry (quoted above) at an Orange Island session this past week.
When I asked Justin specifically about whether Immersive Workspaces sims were “deployed differently” his response was as follows:
“I can tell you that we are very much on a level playing field with anyone else who’s out there in terms of developing things. You obviously know that we are part of the bigger picture, as you know. I think the thing is, is that what the difference is, is we developed our own API to allow us to have a much more seamless way of integrating Web and the 3D specs together. Beyond that, I can’t really go into it because it would be giving away too much of the secrets of what we’re doing to really differentiate us.
But you know obviously you know, you can look at what’s happening, you know what’s happening with Second Life without me having to say anything to you. Mark obviously spoke about it at the Virtual Worlds conference but really that needs to come from Linden to talk to you.”
And really, it’s the last words that hit the heart of the matter. Because our ability as content developers, solution providers, or consultants rests on making plans, placing bets, and investing resources in our understanding of the current market, trends, and future developments. And frankly I’m tired of trying to read the Wikis and forums and attending office hours where not much is really said but a lot is implied.
Why is it that I feel like I always have to try to GUESS where the Lab is going? If, as they say, they are not in the content business, and the Grid needs content, and we’re content developers – why does it feel like you need to be a Kremlinologist to try to understand what’s next for Second Life and the Grid so that I can actually coordinate my investments with my strategic plan (something that looks out beyond the next month or the next viewer deploy) with the efforts of the Lab?
Can’t they publish a fricking newsletter, an update, keep “The Grid” Web site up-to-date, hold solution-oriented information sessions, or ANSWER MY E-MAILS???????????
My second comment is related to the broader idea of the benefits of virtual worlds for business. And frankly I think RRR has it right if you think of it as an adoption path for businesses: the primary investment they’ve made is on the Web side. The “build” doesn’t have anything particularly special about it: it uses PowerPoint feeds, calendars, a bit of data visualization, etc….all things that we’ve seen before, which isn’t to say there isn’t more hidden behind the firewall when they do custom deploys for clients.
So their strategy seems to be build a step-by-step adoption curve: convince customers on ROI, use it for meetings, add a bit of data visualization, and maybe some day you can get people to rez prims and participate in richer experiences.
But what is missing from this model, in my opinion, is the ability for companies to leverage the existing talents and communities of the Main Grid. It isn’t to say that they won’t, but there are problems if you have to create a second account, log in as a different avatar.
As I understood IBM’s approach to the firewall, the content stayed behind the firewall but the avatars were free to leave. Whether RRR also allows this is unclear – maybe you have a choice of installation.
You said it best:
“It is so much more than a place for meetings, and the cross-disciplinary innovation you’ll discover in serendipitous encounters with some of the highest caliber individuals you’ll ever meet (who hang out on the regular grid…at least for now…) will trump a boring corporate grid any day.”
[...] miss out on, yeah, the sex, but also on all the good things Second Life has to offer. So go read, including the [...]
So, they’re “very much on a level playing field” with other developers,” but they enjoy an exclusive relationship with Linden Lab, and “hardly have anything actually left on the main grid.” That doesn’t add up.
I think its important to remember that this isn’t about their business strategy, or bringing companies into Second Life, or trade secrets, or adoption-rate issues, or ROI challenges, etc. This is about a special, exclusive business partnership, and special privileges nobody else has access to. It feels like they get to play the game out of bounds, and I don’t think its fair.
A company like Rivers Run Red, who ‘knew it all along’ is strong enough to deliver innovation without leaning on Linden Lab (or is it the other way around?). No matter how you look at it, every single client they gain through this special arrangement is one less available for the pool of solution providers at work on the regular grid – where clients are hard earned. In the meantime, Rivers Run Red enjoys more work than they know what to do with.
when asked again, why didnt web3d for enterprise business catch on in 1996, 1999, 2001, and in 2003–lol when RRR “invented it”.. I consistantly turn to the answer that until the “tech/vc/funded” companies break away from the “we will be the tools/service/content “google/MS like kings” of something” that drives them all and prevents any multilayer industry to be formed,we will always see this bubble effect occuring over and over.
keystone asks for an “Industry”, but didnt we have this conversation over 3 years ago over pizza.”Industries” require multiple players in multiple positions offering multiple solutions- all being rewarded in some sort of fair method.
The current “VR tech conference sponsors;)” only ask for businesses for themselves and this, like Yoda says, Is why they will fail.;)
Before 2003 btw- i can name a half dozen companies, some much more well funded than LL or RRR that failed to make Web3d for Corporate Inhouse use work…and it had so little to do with the technology offered.
Linden Labs operates the same as it has since day one.It’s named “laboratories, not “industries” btw– for those not listening closely.;)
anyhow.;)
c3
Discussion of Immersive Workspaces and Interview with Rivers Run Red…
Dusan Writer has published a lengthy and informative piece on the emergence of business collaboration as VW application showing real ……
All looks nice enuff, but seems very flakey on details. I really struggle to imagine how a serious enterprise could use SL for mission critical business collaboration. I think this is also too pricey for SME’s. So really I am very curious to see if anyone is going to sign-up for this.
My feeling is that the stiff avatars actually make a business meeting seem these professional. And really this is more useful to people that are working inside SL to begin with–and there isn’t anyone doing that right now.
Nonetheless, Justin has a good view on the future–and I think ultimately he is right. But I don’t think SL will be the supplier of choice no matter how it is packaged. Look at Sun Wonderland, look at IBM, look at Catia and PLM, look at Cisco for serious collaboration and simulation services.
righasrain, I agree. The details are flaky, and the value proposition is questionable. But I’m more confident about Second Life as a platform for business collaboration.
I think most of it is off the big-dollar developer radar, because its happening organically. It is built upon user generated content, from the bottom-up, not top-down – just like the rest of the community. These are skunk works projects, initiated by a few renegade internal evangelists who (often at their own expense) gradually prove to their colleagues that they can be more efficient, or effective using Second Life as a collaboration tool. Organizations are wise to crystallize around the way their employees, students or customers are already using Second Life – rather than trying to hand it down to them.
Tethered to this platform, we’re all sharing the risk when they tie us all to a single “best of breed winner” (in their own words) that could ultimately fail, like so many have before them. We share the risk, but will we really see any benefit if it succeeds, when all of the work is being given to a single content creator?
Hello,
Having read your comments, I wanted to address a few issues that I feel need a direct answer.
The gentleman from IBM, doesn’t have any insight into RRR, our plans or products. He is purely speculating, we’re actually at a loss to know why he felt he could offer insight into our company? He has no connection to Immersive Workspaces, we as a company, have no professional relationship with IBM.
The firewall issue: We’re under an NDA, both in terms of our dealings with our clients, also our partnership with Linden Lab. We cannot directly talk about road maps, development plans or what other companies are working on. We can only talk about what has been announced.
We’re not telling people to ‘not hang out’ in Second Life. We are though saying, a lot of corporates could have an issue, so we’ve also developed various ways to set up the experience. This still could include being part and parcel of the main grid, or not, as the case maybe. There does though, need to be a solution for Enterprise who are looking for full privacy, Immersive Workspaces offers them that option. This is especially true for the financial sector and Enterprise who need to keep business secured.
Immersive Workspaces is built on the Second Life Grid, the vast majority of our clients, have a mixture of both semi-private and private sims. Immersive Workspaces has been in the market since April 08, with clients ranging from the financial sector, research, technology and consumer brands. We started developing our Immersive Spaces solutions in August 2007. In October, we launched Version 2.0, coupled with the reported strategic agreement between RRR and LL. [press release: http://riversrunred.com/news/ ]
Also, both RRR and LL are keen for solution providers to become affiliates for Immersive Workspaces, plus the products we’re developing. Linden Lab will be hosting events for Solution Providers, this will be an opportunity for you to get involved and ask questions about Immersive Workspaces. Our products will not be sold via a single developer, it will be available to companies who have the capabilities to support clients in the Enterprise sector.
In the meantime, I’m always happy to answer your questions directly: justin@riversrunred.com avatar: justin riversrunred (or Fizik Baskerville)
best
Justin
lol, wow.
I rest my case.
@ Justin–stills sounds quite vague. It would be very interesting to have more details about how the public/private grid solution actually works. I am very sceptical that there is in fact a secure enterprise solution that is still part of the SL grid.
I appreciate that you have NDAs, but sure seems like a new product needs some kind of technical info to be credible.
Mark Kingdon said that details would be forthcoming when LL announces their “behind the firewall” solution for Q1 2009. I suppose that might also compete with immersive workspaces??
I think the IBM FRI type solution could work, but then what is the benefit for the association with LL?
Usually happy customers are willing to give references and be used in case studies.
Immersive Workspaces is part of Linden Lab, they have an exclusive license for our products and services. They can adopt and use it for any purposes, Grid or any future Firewall releases.
References on request, as I mentioned before, if you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
Rightasrain, please feel free to contact me. I can talk you through your questions, giving answer to security and the roll out plans.
Thanks
Justin,
Very brave move – whilst my fellow bankers read Information Week, and perhaps even the broadsheets on how sex, divorce, porn is still alive in Second Life – we sit here thinking, well ok chaps now for an *immersive* (and that word is hugely overused) meeting on our behind firewall version of……Second Life.
Educators are far down the road with offerings from Sun’s Wonderland, and Princeton sure will demo the IWS and more will buy your product.
However, Linden Lab is not a company I would strategically brand tie to UNLESS it’s a short-term approach. PItch the product in, garner market interest – sell signiciant volume. Close out and walk away.
Even developing the platform further with mobile / added on services – I still fail to see why this would compete with more cost effective already embedded technologies other than the hype of that short term approach mentioned.
Rivers, don’t have a strong reputation in the web technology market and certainly suffered damage from their developments in Second Life so I wonder if this is the last ditched attempt for this company to create a successful product.
I wish you well with it.
Speaking as a business owner who came onto SL earlier in the year to examine the potential for using it for collaboration / customer service…
There are a fundamental problems not being addressed in general by SL / LL regarding the business community. They were dealbreakers for bringing my business into SL.
For starters, the TOS makes abundantly clear that you essentially do not own your account, your property, or anything you do in SL. Sorry, but businesses just don’t tolerate a situation where they don’t truly own or licence their assets in a legally meaningful way.
Next, privacy. I have yet to see a clear discussion of who logs what, when and where, and how those logs are kept and regulated. By discussing my business in SL, I am leaving myself open to having my content and privacy exposed without any clear idea of how anything is regulated legally. Again, this is in no way acceptable.
Service issues: the site goes down frequently, it crashes, there seems to be no way to subscribe easily to maintenance notices or service interruptions, and sometimes you can be blocked out of logging in for literally an hour while a problem is being solved. Fine for personal… not fine for business.
Lastly, the inability to back up your own content to a third-party source, which is especially significant considering the issues with SL’s system and inventory loss. Not only do I not truly own my content in a meaningful way, but I can’t even back it up. Again, dealbreaker.
I don’t know if the above is being dealt with any significant way with this ‘separate’ and vague system being discussed above, but I can say that no serious business implementation is really going to occur until issues like the above are solved. I’m a big fan of SL and it has huge potential, but I have no serious intention of pissing my content / time / privacy down a well into LL’s obscurity. Businesses need ownership, consistency, reliability, and legal rights, in order to seriously adopt any platform. Right now SL is light years from that.
Keystone, if I ever had my doubts that you were a collectivist, they were utterly removed with your post here.
This all falls into place for me a little better, by what Justin just said here: “Immersive Workspaces is part of Linden Lab, they have an exclusive license for our products and services.”
Bingo! It’s like RRR then becomes a subsidiary of the Lab, or in a joint venture. Of course you have to go through the Lab! Because development costs money, programmers and staff have to be paid with money, and this folly of opensource carrying the day, and freebies carrying the day, doesn’t cut it. You can’t earn income in that fashion. Killer apps don’t come from opensource; they come from proprietary software and services that are developed in secret with FIC. That’s the way of the world. We can only hope they pick *good* FIC.
Sure, it would be better if they had open bids, taking 3 proposals after an open and transparent RFP, just like a government or big contracting company. But they’re a little software company and they do what they want. It’s a free market. That’s how freedom works. They are not required to hand over all their software to you.
You have — ridiculously — placed your entire faith in all this wikitecture opensource dreck. And no, it doesn’t deliver. You don’t do complex things like develop spaces behind firewalls unless you are already IBM and already pay IBM to have Zha fly around, or you are a company with an NDA that has an exclusive contract.
If you think opensource provides business solutions, um, go get the Clever Zebra business-in-a-box package. The Lordfly stadium is free, and there’s a lot of other free stuff.
Honestly, I seriously don’t get what you all are whining about. You didn’t get the deal? When you were featured on the website for the SL Grid; when you are selected for Showplaces; when you are given acres of press steered by the Lab, Keystone, we never hear a complaint from you about the unfair system. We never hear the sorts of complaints *we* make here in the cheap seats on the mainland about a rigged FIC system. You benefit from it, but the minute it doesn’t really deliver, you go all opensource on it, chastizing the Lab for being a capitalist instead of a communist. It’s hilarious.
I don’t know why the mainland or the open grid isn’t very compelling these days to Justin or his clients, but he’s been around since the dawn of time and he’s worked every angle and tried every conceivable model on it, and I simply fail to see why we all have to be together in one big unhappy collective farm on one grid. This is the constant complaint of course of Khamon Fate. Why can’t there be more than one grid?
Why can’t there? It’s only ideology, and this silly “connect us all to a world [just one] that can improve the human condition”. Hey, what if a business doesn’t want to be all connected, and just wants to sell, oh, I don’t know, cars and cigarettes? Maybe they don’t want to be *forced* to “better the human condition”. And why should they? It’s a free market!
All this happy bullshit about the commmuuuunity and all its viiiibrancy is a shill.
Basically, Keystone, your beef is summed up in this way: “Why didn’t you pick me?” Had they picked you, we wouldn’t be hearing about any “community” I assure you.
Who said anything about open source?
Getting a feature or two from Linden Lab, next to dozens of others, is a far cry from an exclusive business relationship.
It does seem though, in light of this new direction for the Lab, “pick me” might become a necessarily new business model for work in SL. Who’s next?
Great interview and great to hear more about Immersive Workspaces. RRR has placed an enormous investment in the Second Life platform and everyone who participates in its internal economy. Justin’s dedication over time is moving. I’m a believer that a “rising tide lifts all boats” for the platform. Email was not fit for business either, in the bad old days.
Keystone, if you cannot see what is happening here I question your credentials in dealing with RL business situations. Rivers Run Red is doing the right thing here, he is not in a position to talk about LL’s plan for their firewall solution. This is the basis of an NDA, he is not allowed to talk about it. Why you feel the need to continue raising this moot point? This is not about YOU, this is about Linden Lab waiting for the right time to address this issue. They need to have it all in place, not for the sake of your feelings, they need to steal a march on their competitors and secure their market position. If you’re a professional content developer, act like one.
RightasRain, I have read a lot of your blog posts relating to these points. I have to say what you’ve been speculating is bordering on scandalous accusations. Utterly unprofessional.
Your posts are deliberate attempts to stir and create further speculation.
I attended an inworld session with RRR/LL talking about the potential of Solution Providers getting involved with this new commercial project. I also noticed both your absences. Shame, as I walked away informed and excited about the potential of business collaboration. This was open to all Solution Providers, it was well attended and all questions met with solid answers.
As Orange also said, ‘rising ride lifts all boats’. If you cannot rise with this, then maybe you’re not rising to the challenge of the Mark Kingdom’s coined term Second Wave.
If you think blindly investing your work, your money, and your time in a platform without keeping a close and critical eye on its sudden, uncharted and potentially questionable moves, then I question your judgment just the same.
Nothing about this discussion is trivial, scandalous or unprofessional, and we’re simply reviewing specific points he describes in a public interview regarding a project in which we all have vested interest. Nobody asked him to reveal terms hidden in the NDA, nor would we expect as much!
[...] Life There is a fascinating interview over at Dusan Writer’s metaverse with Justin Bovington of Rivers Run Red regarding immersive [...]
Keystone,
My point here, is why are you questioning it, are you even interested in this area, are you capable of supporting and delivering Enterprise based work?
I had a look at your web site, there is no evidence of integration work? Your architecture work is excellent, does that though mean you could support this kind of product offering, or would want to?
Enterprise, which from experience, requires a different set of skills, is very different to creating great looking builds in Second Life.
IMHO I think we will see a lot more professional services companies coming into our space. Don’t fear the solution, be worried about the solution that gives the BIG agencies a turnkey opportunity without the need for costly project management and origination.
Things have of course happened since you wrote your reply.
This is what I have found out:
I know from discussion with others Solution Providers, they’re pitching this right now, they want to get ahead of the curve. Doesn’t that also tell you something? I for one have also started showing the Immersive Workspaces video to my clients.
Get involved now, or be left behind. Evolve, the nature of any business/market is change. Blaming others for ‘your lack of business’ is a bad sign, maybe you need to readdress your business model?
David
David – I’ll just chime in here briefly to stand in Keystone’s defense a bit: I honestly believe that Wikitecture was one of the first, and is still one of the best real world use cases for virtual worlds. It includes deep integration with Web-side services and databases, offers a deeper purpose than meeting (not that meeting isn’t a deep purpose, it’s just that whereas meetings have multiple venues, Wikitecture is the best example of actually using the tools of a 3D collaborative platform to its fullest), has had proven results including acknowledgment outside the virtual world industry, awards, evangelism to a wide audience, and transparent sharing of the case studies and results. (I look forward to specific examples and case studies from the RRR work being shared so that we can all continue to enhance our best practices).
All of which is to say I think Keystone has actually been ahead of the curve and in fact REMAINS ahead of the curve. There are others who I consider in-world architects, whereas what Keystone has struck upon is using a 3D environment for cross-platform collaboration work. Architecture is, in a sense, not at all what Keystone’s work strives to explore and ACHIEVES – it’s just a nice short hand in a sense, meant to embody not buildings but rather information space, user interaction with archetypes, collaboration, and meaning.
So, I’m not entirely sure that his issue is with evolving business models. His problem has been similar to my own: change is good, creative renewal is good, but it’s nice to be able to place a marker somewhere and plan business activities based on an understanding of the evolving road map of a technology and to leverage the advantages of whatever technology path you choose, for whatever strategic reasons.
I was under the impression, and still believe, that one of the platform advantages of Linden Lab’s products (the “Grid” and Second Life) is the opportunity for serendipity, collaboration, and access to a community of creative, talented people. This move has lacked a road map that’s visible to the wider community (until very very recently), and doesn’t explicitly encourage what I also believe are a few of the main value propositions of the Grid as a whole.
In many ways I think everyone’s on the same page here: let’s advance the platform, let’s keep the doors of collaboration open, let’s understand what the future holds and where we’re going. I don’t see any of what has been said as at cross-purposes (although I, like Keystone, don’t understand what open source has to do with anything).
And I’d like to hear how your business model is changing David: what are you now considering that you weren’t before? What worked before that will now work because of Immersive Spaces and other applications like it? Where do you get information on the road map? And do you believe that access to the innovation community of SL is an important platform advantage for the Lab’s products? Can you point us to the awards and wider press/publications you’ve had of your work so we can understand your perspective a bit more (and seriously, I mean this in an honest way, I don’t mean to be snarky, I’m just curious).
Overall though, and again, I think everyone has shared the belief that the future is arising, it’s the means by which we can grab hold of it that are perhaps muddled a bit.
This decision has the potential to affect everyone, so I struggle with the assertion that I shouldn’t concern myself with this just because I’m only a design consultant.
I do sincerely hope this really is what’s best for business, and all of the other people using Second Life. I also hope it addresses each of BizOwner’s concerns (the same concerns we all have, even on the regular grid), because I really do want to see SL succeed. I’ll admit I’m probably being overly skeptical, and could have this all wrong. But its just that – down here below the high level enterprise business stratum, we can still see the wreckage from other decisions and investments that didn’t go according to plan. Since this is one we’re all tied to, I think it only makes sense to examine it, and ask questions.
as for one with over 20 years “ahead of the web3d curve” i can only suggest that the real problem being expressed is the same one that has caused 2 “past” web3d bubbles to fizzle into “who- wheness”?.
A successful “media” Industry needs set’s of tool makers, end service providers, and platform providers that all provide COMPLIMENTARY componants to a ” projects” success.
If Linden, like MANY of the web3d “companies” before it, wont allow itself to be a “part” of a ecosystem for business, but only “THE” business…, then my “ahead of the curve” experience tells me youll all be selling flash based visuals again in a year.:)
Adobe walked foolishly into the “service-tools” arena last year and was slapped hard by the creative media industries… Google/you tube is just about ready for a rude wake up call from the media makers for NOT understanding that ALL must eat for any sort of industry to take place.
We wont even go into the current auto industry and its banker woes as a slow example of the obvious loss of industrial organizational thinking in the us and the corporate world in general.
anyhow.
RRR wont be providing those blogged hyped “cutting edge platform” avalon workspaces for Lively it seems:) and except for the cross grid IP violations i worry about, they can work with Linden fine:) and offer any products they agree too….
But lets not fool ourselves into any thoughts that this is a good thing for a wider web3d/ vr industry. Its not. In fact i havent seen almost any activity in the last 2 years of SL mania, that has been truly targeted at any real professional organizations and industry. My NYVRMSIG and SFWEB3D orgs from 96 and 2001 with none of the resources of the “current” VR pundits backers was truer to an “industry birth organization” than any of the web3d “ning sites” collecting mailing list names for pr announcement day after day.
anyhow enjoy your show.
c3
[...] do you see this as a benefit to other Second Life/Grid users besides enterprise? (Note: I recently interviewed Justin Bovington of Rivers Run [...]
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[...] Landscapes I continue to carry with me a comment that Justin Bovington made when talking about Immersive Workspaces and what he sees as part of the future enterprise use of [...]
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[...] to my recent posts on the launch of Immersive Workspaces (IW) by Rivers Run Red and Linden Lab (my interview with Justin, the launch of Mobile Ripple, and the Industry Standard’s review of the application). The [...]
Great quality stuff.
[...] or customers. Knowledge Transfer and Productivity Back before I knew the team at Rivers Run Red I conducted an interview with CEO Justin Bovington. In his discussion of the value proposition for IWS, he talked about cost [...]