The Industry Standard has a review of Rivers Run Red’s Immersive Workspaces application, and it gives a nice overview of the application itself. In my recent interview with Justin Bovington, we touched on the business use cases for the application, discussed the fact that it is hosted ’separate’ from the main Second Life, or public Grid, the concept of ‘living landscapes’, amongst other topics.
But the Standard fills out the other part of the story, which is the application itself:
“Companies using Immersive Workspaces don’t need to build anything — the default product comes with a private corporate sim that includes a lobby area, a conference hall with 60 seats, and several meeting rooms that can hold 20 avatars at a time. The meeting areas can display multimedia, PowerPoint presentations, video, and audio files. A workspace can be accessed through a Web portal, an emailed slurl, or an in-world invitation. Appointments can be set up on the website, and integrated with Outlook or iCal.
I was able to meet Browning in the private sim, view a presentation on one of the display screens, and carry on a long discussion in the auditorium and one of the meeting rooms (see screenshots below). Browning and I barely used text chat to communicate — Second Life’s live audio was fast and clear, and sounded much better than a telephone conference call. Even though we were on opposite sides of the country, it sounded like she was speaking in the same room.
For those of us used to SL, it will come as no surprise that “there were some glitches.” Whether those glitches are common behind the firewall, I have no idea - the demo version of IW is, I believe, on the Main Grid and isn’t hosted any differently than any other sim.
They didn’t comment on the recently launched Mobile Ripple application, which allows posting text (and in the future video and audio) notes to the Immersive Workspace environment.
Justin Bovington will be the guest on Metanomics this coming Monday. In addition to giving an overview of IW, it will be interesting to hear Justin’s thoughts on how he feels this contributes to the broader health of Second Life, and perhaps what other features he has in store.
Can’t any of this be done infinitely more effeciently and without any of the “metaverse” bells and whistles, with most of the current “virtual meeting”-type software that’s out there?
I don’t think most businesses that have a “virtual conferencing” need that needs to be filled will choose this product over others because it takes place over the “metaverse” or “virtual world”. They just want something that does the job.
With the best will in the world, I just don’t know that Second Life can support the levels of information display needed to make conferencing work. Notecards are not quite state of the art when it comes to textual information and the graphics engine does not churn out images with the resolution or speed that a business conference would require. It is just possible that there is some extraordinary implementation of Second Life running behind the firewall, but it is hard to come up with a business case for running heaven that side of the firewall and hell this side.
It’s inevitable that Linden Lab have to scale their solution to fit the technology they have, rather than to fit the needs of business, but it’s also their Achilles heel.
Two Worlds is right, none of this is compelling and little of it couldn’t be done outside SL. There could be really compelling reasons for business to implement virtual worlds - imagine hosting an annual shareholders meeting in a virtual environment. It would be open to all your shareholders irrespective of geography with no expensive or inconvenient travel and could allow real interaction - but of course SL can’t deliver that because it can’t cope with more than 40 avatars in one place at one time.
Turning SL, even partitioned annexes, into little more than virtual conference rooms is really a bit sad and desperate. Does the default version come with acrylic carpets and fluorescent lighting too?
I would love to see the conversation around enterprise adoption of virtual worlds shift away from expensive and isolating ‘corporate conferencing’ solutions, and instead emphasize features of virtual environments that aren’t already done better by existing conferencing applications, most of which you won’t find in an Immersive Workspace.
For new users, the hook most often sets when they realize they can meet, network and share their creations with people from anywhere in the world; especially when those people come from other professions, other organizations - even other countries. That’s what makes SL so powerful and liberating. Sure, there’s a learning curve - but those are the kinds of benefits that outweigh the challenges, and keep you coming back for more. I just don’t think you’ll achieve as many ‘aha!’ moments while watching powerpoints with co-workers inside a prefab corporate headquarters on an isolated private corporate sim, even if you can access it from the web, or use your outlook calender to schedule meetings, or whatever.
I think it should be made clear, for organizations who don’t know any better, that you don’t need the keys to an expensive Immersive Workspace to enjoy everything Second Life is already good for, because all of those things are free. The power of Second Life - even for enterprise, believe it or not - will always live on the regular grid. Once you get enough employees on-board who really ‘get it’ and if, for whatever reason, they start to feel like Second Life is useful for discussing trade secrets and private corporate information, then its time to invest in an Immersive Workspace (or, a free opensim…), but be careful not to put the cart before the horse.
Keystone,
Nice idea, but with the amount of porn and filth in the public areas of Second Life, corporates are not going to be happy unleashing this on their employees. HR issues and litigation!
Also you’re being naive, corporations are interested in these spaces for their own employees.
Creating an employee virtual network is of real benefit to today’s organizations. Virtual worlds give them something more than is offered by conference calls, 2D file sharing and the horror of video conference calls. I’m surprised you can’t see this? Surely this is why you’re advocating Second Life in the first place?
Mark Kingdom has set the stall out on this issue, we’re going to have Consumer Worlds, Corporate Worlds and Education Worlds. You’re still thinking Second Life, we’re moving beyond that.
Also, the nature of business is discussion, there is a real need for security and encryption. Something, as you know, is lacking on the consumer version of Second Life.
I do though think corporates will miss out if they don’t engage with the residents of Second Life.
Therefore, why not do both, have a secure place for business, also if you want to engage, open a public sim.
This will mean you can have the best of both worlds.
As much as I know the market needs to explore this, and there are probably some sincerely interested in it, I believe the whole ‘workspaces’ (in its current incarnation) concept is an utter red herring.
By trying to replicate the weakest parts of the Real World workspace, these early (mis-) interpretations of what ‘work in the metaverse’ are discarding (without a second thought) the unique advantages of the virtual world.
The result, of course, is something like a car retrofitted for marine use - even if it works…you’re left wondering “why”.
Which finally ends up as “so what?”
But it’s still early…there is much much more to come, friends.
Just some guy,
Yes, like a letter is better than email? Why bother with email, hell I can write it on paper and give it to you. While we’re at it, why don’t we just go back to rotary telephones, get rid of all our cellphones?
Virtual Worlds, are part of our world now. This is not a “so what?” moment, the uses and possibilities are endless. They do though need some basic functionality, like document sharing and conference facilities. This give companies a good starting point.
Keystone,
You mean shift the spot light back to your Second Life development company, Crescendo Design company? Or back to your architecture project? So you can offer companies your own expensive solutions, in other words so you can build them a house or office in Second Life? This is surely what this is all about, you’re unhappy that the Linden Lab have created this product?
We have a saying in Holland, the seagull follows the fisherman looking to steal his food.
We’re looking forward to this solution. We have already pitched this in to our clients. Seems a shame you feel the need to continually bash it in the blogs. It slaps of jealousy.
@ david crespo
Your suggestion that ‘corporates’ will be able to ‘unleash’ Second Life on their employees is a whole lot more naive than suggesting that they gain a better understanding of the full spectrum Second Life offers before investing in an Immsersive Workspace that most employees will ignore. The only success stories I hear start with a few evangelists who build internal support by proving value over time. The technology is so young, and the learning curve so steep (as cited by the Standard) that SL isn’t something that can just be handed down from above as a matter of corporate deployment. It sets up failed expectations, and eventually another reason for people (and the media) to reject SL. I would much rather focus on the truly unique features SL is already good at.
Game-changing and unprecedented innovation lies at every turn in SL, yet the best we can do is frame it as a better conferencing tool?
Its like going to the jungle and being amazed by its complex diversity and splendor, then isolating one plant in a vacuum-sealed petri dish and taking it back to the office. Granting one company the rights to call that petri-dish ‘jungle’ and sell private access to it for top dollar is what concerns me.
It’s not just one company, that ONE company is Linden Lab, they surely have the right to sell their products as they see fit? They have, from what I can tell, purchased the rights to sell the product. This is not Rivers Run Red selling it, Linden Lab are selling it. The jungle is still owned by Linden Lab.
From what I understand, Linden Lab is creating an affiliate system for this solution. Surely those who are interested can now sell it? Why are you always missing this vital bit of information off your rants?
how can i subscribe the immersive workspace 2.0.
can some body suggest me the link…….
Puneet: I’m not entirely sure what you’re looking for. You can contact I.W. through their Web site:
http://riversrunred.com/
If you have other questions, please e-mail me. (My address is the top right corner of this page).