Linden Lab’s slow-but-steady march to improve its Web presence continues, and by the looks of it the Grid is dead. Well, not the Grid Grid, but that Web site which was supposed to present a more “professional” face to virtual worlds, but which only managed really to make them look dull, drab and disorganized.
The new “Work” sub-domain brings the design sensibility of the newer sections of the main site and (thankfully) seems to avoid that hopeless Flickr stream thing of images, or post cards, or whatever those things are that greets the potential new user.
For those of us working with enterprise clients, the new page is a welcome relief from what came before – highlighting the cross-reality utility of virtual worlds, and focusing on benefits that people can understand. My primary complaint is with the photos – they really need to get someone who can take better in-world photography. And as someone who works in design, you can spot stock photography a mile away – and those happy smiley culturally diverse arms-crossed (meaning, they’re serious but in a happily productive way) people are, well, stock.
But that’s a quibble.
On a sub-page, Linden Lab calls 2009 a break-out year for virtual collaboration. And I couldn’t agree more – we’re having an incredible response from companies who, a year ago, would have snickered at an avatar picture. Now, the response is more typically “wow, yes, I want that”.
Nice to see the Web strategy at the Lab unfolding – now, if they back that up with the kind of marketing and advertising campaign that Second Life deserves, maybe we’ll see growth on both the enterprise and the more general use of the Grid.
[...] Dusan Writer’s Metaverse » Linden Lab’s Grid for Business: It’s All Work [...]
[...] Linden Lab’s Grid for Business: It’s All Work [...]
[...] Dusan Writer’s Metaverse » Linden Lab’s Grid for Business: It’s All Work – Virtual worlds and creativity, business, collaboration, and identity. [...]
Again, Linden Labs, along with the 3DTLC are positioning virtual worlds as a means for cost-savings within companies rather than as a competitive advantage and revenue generator. Well, this is a striking argument, but fundamentally flawed to date I believe. I’m still not convinced that there are cost savings to organizations to using virtual worlds for dispersed team meetings, or other uses as a learning tool. No one has addressed the level of effort it would take to install a secure “simulator”, configure it, maintain it, training programs for employees, hardware upgrades for workstations and redundant servers for hosting, and additional vertical real-estate in server racks, additional power consumption, etc.
What do they do once all this is up and there are no in-world stores to upgrade your hair or clothing? Everyone walks around without the ability to have their own unique identities in these “secure” environments. Well, the company could pay a bunch of developers in real US dollars to supply them, ring the cash register again.
I do believe however that all these concerns can and will be addressed. But real economic growth comes not from spending less money and finding ways to cut costs (like job losses). Technology should continue to allow us to be more efficient, better producers, and use technology for competitive advantage to build our top line. While I am an interested bystander in LL’s pursuit of SL in the workspace, I think they are missing the better strategic alternative; to create the SL platform into a competitive collaboration tool. Right now, Cisco and WebEx have LL beat hands down on collaboration and virtual meeting spaces in a package requiring lower-end workstations.
[...] utility of virtual worlds, and focusing on benefits that people can understand,” said Doug Thompson, CEO of Remedy Communications Ltd. and owner of Metanomics, a weekly show which is broadcast before [...]