Virtual worlds quietly tipped into mainstream acceptance and I missed the party celebrating the milestone. Or maybe we all did. Or maybe I’m just a slightly delusional “n” of 1 who’s picking up highly anecdotal feedback and believing that it represents a sea change.
See, I’ve been doing road trips which, on top of some personal stuff that threw a giant curve ball my way, has kept me in a kind of nether zone of airports and hotel rooms with crappy wireless and mainly out of touch. But I’ve been talking about virtual worlds and social media, and I figure over the past few months I’ve presented to a combined total of a few hundred people – some consumers but a lot of enterprise types, pulling in a range of large companies and small, not-for-profits and military, government and healthcare clients.
And something funny happened along the way: the part of my presentation where I talk about social media was greeted with a lot of nodding heads, but the part about virtual worlds is what consistently lit a fire.
Now, I’ve been flogging virtual worlds for a while. And I’m coming at this later than a lot of people which has ended up being a good thing – virtual worlds have moved beyond early adopter phase and are creeping into ever-widening use cases and I can sort of make the coy claim that “oh, yeah, we examined the technology in detail before we brought it to you”, as if I had been waiting in the wings while the tech matured when the reality is I just kind of stumbled on it like some people learn to program Flash one night when they’re bored.
And as you’d know if you follow this blog and the work we do, I put virtual worlds in a broader perspective that includes ‘traditional’ media, social media, and interactive. And where a year or so ago I was greeted by a lot of ‘huhs?’ when it got to the virtual part, the response has changed, and it has changed in a way that feels, to me at least, significant, because now what I get is “Oh, yeah, I’ve HEARD about that, how do I get started?”
In particular, what I DON’T get are:
- Cynical responses about avatars – “you want us to play cartooooon characters?”
- “It’s a game, right?”
- “Come back when you can prove it has an impact.”
- “It probably costs too much.”
What I get instead is a sort of open-mindedness that’s a wonderful change. It sure makes the discussion a lot easier when you don’t have to convince people to pay attention in the first place. And there’s something refreshing as well about the delight people seem to have in the very idea of the avatar. I mean, you still get the odd, um, curmudgeon or whatever, but more frequently I do a demo and my audience will ask questions about whether you can choose your own outfit, or customize your look, and, 100% guaranteed: “Wow! Look at that! Your guy can fly!”
The question becomes whether virtual worlds can deliver once you have their agreement that they’re worth considering.
Designing Solutions
So, again, this is just my experience. And maybe my audiences are self-selecting or something. But let’s take it as a given for a minute that there’s a higher level of receptivity to virtual worlds than before.
But one thing that’s missing is a simple “language” of case studies, examples and common design approaches that point people to specific solutions.
Solutions are few – Protosphere, definitely, along a fairly narrow bandwidth. A bunch of Flash-y virtual conference things which are, frankly, the bane of the industry. A few ideas poking around with Web.Alive, maybe, which is a product that should, well, die a quick death in my opinion – I mean, haven’t we moved past Unreal?
Now, I’m not saying that we need a shelf of out-of-the-box products. But think of it like Web sites: in the early days, customers needed metaphors as ways of thinking about what they wanted out of the Web – an online store, a brochure, a company report, a catalog. They then shifted into business-driven results: “I want to increase sales, or retention rates, or customer loyalty, or staff knowledge”. The last part of the curve was to then use the technology to transform business practice itself.
Virtual worlds, I’d propose, are still at the early Web site days, and if they don’t shift to higher levels of the value curve soon, they may miss the opportunity of a receptive market.
For myself, I’m lucky to have Metanomics and Immersive Workspaces as working examples: they both give a short-form way to “read” a virtual world project. There’s a language to how it’s put together that’s familiar and can be attached directly to a value proposition. But what are the similar examples for, say, training? We have some of our own, of course, but there isn’t yet a wider shared language of these experiences – a few simple ways to describe and display the idea of training in a virtual environment.
So I spend a lot of time trying to create short cuts that can help people get past that “hey that’s cool” phase into the “Oh! I could use it for Project A”…and yet our shared database of experiences, our case studies and samples and language are scattered.
I’m convinced that virtual worlds have moved past skepticism and have shifted into wary acceptance. The challenge now is to simplify the entry path not just for users, but for enterprise too.
Are you saying that web.alive should die a quick death because it is based on UNREAL? If we are witnessing the early “Precambrian species explosion” of virtual worlds then cannot we at least allow for equal opportunity dvelopment of all fledgling platforms and see what they have to offer?
The latest features of the Web.alive 2.0 beta fea include :
· drag and drop documents and images into web.alive to make presentations, collaboration, and training easy
· voice just works (even better!) – noise suppression & echo cancellation allows for a great experience with your built-in laptop speakers and microphone
· web rendering – we can render virtual any web content in world. This powerful feature allows access to all kinds of media (e.g. stream video from YouTube), applications (e.g. collaborate using Google docs), and data (e.g. Wikipedia).
· firewall traversal – users behind virtually any firewalls (including http proxies) can now get access to web.alive
· presenter powers – presenters are automatically granted additional capabilities to help communicate with and manage their audience
· greatly improved avatar customization and personalization
· file sharing, URL sharing, text chat, and file drop boxes
· idle & away states with nudging
· secure areas with an invitation feature that lets you vouch for other users
· telephony integration – call into web.alive from your regular phone
· internationalization support, starting with the French language
· support for the latest browsers and Microsoft Windows 7
· self administration features (customize your environment with your floor plan, colors and images, embed web.alive on your page, manage users, etc)
· analytics – dive deep into what users are doing in your environment
· and tons more…
Is there any mention of UNREAL? Lets just see where the chips may fall and “Faites vos jeux”
Well, I’m always willing to have another look at anything, and if these things are now live I’ll look again. You say they are features of the 2.0 beta – what does that mean as to their status of deployment and testing?
But look – I’m of the opinion that we’re facing a shake-out of the technologies underpinning virtual worlds. There are too many look-alike technologies and so far web.alive is one of them. Unfortunately, I’m also of the opinion that openSim is as well – it had a window to do some deep innovation but it’s kind of stalled somehow.
The platforms that offer multiple platforms for clients, deep integration with Web-side content, and readily deployed social media connections will be the ones that win in this next phase of development in the industry. The phase after that, or concurrent maybe, will be able to port in augmented reality data and take 3D in the browser for a serious spin.
There’s a slew of platforms out there, most of which look fairly alike. Web.alive still sounds like the junior cousin of Protosphere or Forterra but without the critical mass (although Forterra by all accounts is losing mass, but that’s another story).
My point about Web.alive isn’t Unreal itself, it’s that it mostly replicates functionalities that exist elsewhere, repeating the “unreal”-type architecture and approach, one which isn’t scalable into these new realities . But again I’m always happy to hear of specific use cases and you do a good job letting everyone know about what’s happening with W.A….but there’s an absence of good examples and case studies.
I was looking to Web.alive for prototyping, it seemed to have a potential niche there based on the work you were doing, but I’m not sure it’s at the same level as just pulling models in and out of Unity, say.
(Unity, by the way, is the REAL platform to watch IMHO. If there was an “SL-killer” lurking around out there, it’s Unity).
The ‘next generation’ of VW platforms will be the ones that offer variable immersion, easy-to-execute data visualization, and the ability to embed modular content on the Web. But that’s just my opinion.
How much time have you spent investigating the web.alive instances? You should contact Jack Mason of IBM I know he would be thrilled to give you a tour of the new IBM Analytics Virtual Center: http://bit.ly/ibmavc which is fully functional with all the web.alive beta 2.0 features. Or you could contact Erica Driver or Sam Driver for a guided wander round the ThinkBalm Virtual Office. You know how much I hate self-promotion but if you wouldn’t mind you could also check out the REZZABLE post for the latest info on the MellaniuM/Web.alive collaboration at the Dome http://tiny.cc/R48R0
Not sure what happened there with the tiny URL at the end. It’s really messed up. Try this for the ThinkBalm Virtual Office http://thinkbalm.projectchainsaw.com and for the REZZABLE post http://rezzable.com/blog/joe-rigby/mellanium-brings-unreal-engine-power-browser-nortels-webalive-virtual-world
I feel sorry for Joe. He’s like the guy who cried “But Betamax is better!” while everyone adopted VHS. It didn’t matter that Betamax was better.
I think it’s too early to judge OpenSim. For educators it will work in some areas but not others. More importantly, it validates activity in SL by offering the possibility of continuity if anything did happen to LL (and yes, I know that’s unlikely and the process is not that simple).
Sounds like people have heavily invested in losers in the long run; and are getting the shakes.
The winner will be chosen by the people like VHS; and maybe different for different applications.
@ Troy Thanks for the sympathy and the rather pithy and sagacious rejoinder. Does that mean in some very small and obviously irrelevant way that web.alive is the modern equivalent of Betamax and, thus, is better than the other platforms out there presently?
The interesting thing we’re finding the shift from a technology discussion to business focused application usage. Less ports and avatars; more ideas and applications usage.
Let me give you a real example.
We recently ran a day long session with a few none-competitive clients; who came together for the purpose of collaboration, knowledge transfer and intelligence gathering.
What I found interesting about the session, wasn’t the talk of PLATFORMS. It was the total lack of the need to directly discuss platforms. It was a session dominated by solutions, results and business applications.
A few of our videos directly show how this is happening, traditionally all virtual world videos felt they had to set up the scene with a sell in of ‘avatars and virtual worlds’, subsequently the reason for using it was lost; it turned the video into a justification.
http://immersivespaces.com/medias/videos/
This is a mainstream shift.
I’m hoping in 2010, we will see a decline of the ‘please look at my/this platform’ type of marketing and forum discussion. What we should be seeing in 2010, is people talking about how their platform is being used as a relevant and accountable foundation for developers to create solutions.
The bottom line: We need to stop selling functionality and the platform, move our thoughts into applications, solutions and relevant content. Developers need to start showing their work in context of business usage, not being an extended marketing team for the platform.
Dusan, have you thought about doing an end of year list of REAL projects of 2009 and their results?
Justin Bovington
CEO
Rivers Run Red – Immersive Workspaces
Interfacing to the CRM is a major requirement from our customers and the ability to syncronize the presentations with high concurrency. All this SV Mumbo Jumbo is yesterdays news; get real!
More on Unity! So, is it a SL-killer? I spent last night and this morning researching Unity. Downloaded the free version (with its 30-day full trial). Nice community. Very useful resources. Followed links to the open-source Blender community (for 3D solid creation). Another nice community.
And agree that SLCC should have a LL-sponsored conference like Unity09. Unity is impressive! But is it a SL-killer? In what way?
Graham – OpenSim is here to stay. It’s a great technology and it comes at a great price point. There are also executions of openSim that are extremely well managed and that took advantage of the opportunity to deploy different policy structures (Reaction Grid, for sure, SpotOn 3D MAYBE).
But I’m not seeing it as ‘next gen’.
Justin – nods nods nods.
Shigeru Chigusa
Founder, NewGame Solutions Limited
I like both web.alive and Unity 3D for different reasons. web.alive gives more of virtual world in a package and I find navigations are easy and useful, where I like Unity 3D for its multi-platform (Win, Mac, iPhone, Wii) support and no back-end royalty licensing (just like there is no back-end royalty using Maya or Photoshop). They are both well made engines and tools for client side, but both lacking full-blown server system that supports hardcore games (server for web.alive is more for VW and not exactly for games?). I like both because they can be embedded into browser. But I agree with Ken, they are not apple to apple.
Posted 19 days ago | Reply Privately
How about the ongoing REAL PROJECT “Coaches’ Center” which is a web.alive training centre produced by the ICCE International Council for Coach Education at http://www.icce.ws where they are expecting to train ethics to 4,000-5,000 coaches in a period of 120 days using 3 courses a day. Give it a go at http://tcc.projectchainsaw.com
The moral is: Don’t criticize what you don’t understand; the times they are a’changin.
A lot more bubbles will burst before the VW ride settles down. Hold on tight; it’s a white knuckle ride.
Let’s at least get one single fact on the table: SL is not burgeoning or stressed with an increasing volume of hordes of happy avatars, it’s not in a healthy, sustainable growth stage or even inhabited with a stable group of fanatical denizens it is in an inexorable decline at the moment with no foreseeable stimulus package on the horizon. Please consider this one single unalloyed truth and may the scales fall from your eyes.
http://taterunino.net/statcharts/median_conc_by_day400.png
As assistant director of the Online Leadership Program at Global Kids, I also have spoken with a wide variety of institutions and practitioners over the past few months, from museum curators to middle-school teachers to nonprofits. Most of these folks are the early adopters among their colleagues, so it’s a particular subset of professionals.
That said, I’ve found a lot of receptivity to thinking about virtual worlds, amidst the larger package of social media, and a good bit of enthusiasm. In particular, it’s the combination of gameplay, synchronous communication and integration of other social media / networks that really excited them.
I agree that there is no killer platform that we’ve found. Second Life, with all its flaws, is the one environment that meets most of our educational needs. But we’re going to be experimenting over the next months with other web-based platforms which have differing advantages over SL.
We’d love to explore OpenSim or other more immersive platforms that supported a reasonable amount of USG and customization, with greater accessibility and usability than SL.
Any recommendations are appreciated.
Just a few:
http://thinkbalm.projectchainsaw.com/112/html/index.html
http://ec3v3.projectchainsaw.com
http://apex.projectchainsaw.com
http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/avc/
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/special-offers.workflow:ShowPromo?LandingPage=/All/US/Sitelets/eLounge/launch
http://rmh.projectchainsaw.com/102/html//index.html?
I add some references to the discussion even if they’re probably well-known things:
Linden Lab publishes reports on real projects at
https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/workinginworld?view=all (personally I’m not fascinated by them)
Talking about / selling solutions vs. platforms is also one of the themes of the 3DTLC conference – see “To cross the chasm, we must close the language gap”
http://www.thinkbalm.com/2009/09/28/to-cross-the-chasm-we-must-close-the-language-gap
Well, sorry, but I disagree with Joe Rigby on the state of health of SL. With every passing day the content, and therefor the rich diversity, of what SL has to offer, just increases.
No-one will be able to talk-down SL and it seems that even LL shooting themselves in the foot regularly will do little to decrease its strength. The personal investment that the bulk of people have in SL is monumental.
Favorite Quotes:
“All truth passes through three stages:
First, it is ridiculed;
Second, it is violently opposed; and
Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
“With great power comes great responsibility.” Amazing Fantasy #15 Stan Lee
“For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.” Gospel of Luke, chapter 12, verse 48.
Just a few URLs to try:
http://thinkbalm.projectchainsaw.com/112/html/index.html
http://ec3v3.projectchainsaw.com
http://apex.projectchainsaw.com
http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/avc/
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/special-offers.workflow:ShowPromo?LandingPage=/All/US/Sitelets/eLounge/launch
http://rmh.projectchainsaw.com/102/html//index.html?
Try
http://mellanium.co.uk/application-areas.php
http://thinkbalm.projectchainsaw.com/112/html/index.html
ec3v3.projectchainsaw.com
apex.projectchainsaw.com
www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/avc/
shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/special-offers.workflow:ShowPromo?LandingPage=/All/US/Sitelets/eLounge/launch
rmh.projectchainsaw.com/102/html//index.html?
Ken and Joe,
Sorry, you’re both sounding desperate. Especially when you’re resorting to the use of cliché random quotes! Dreadful.
The quotes you missed:
Action speaks louder than words.
Standing on the shoulders of giants.
Also, resorting to a graph for justification of your own conjectured opinion is cowardly. Especially as that graph is not the real story. What ever we think about Second Life, all the other platforms would like “their problems” and “revenues”. It’s still growing, it’s the 800lb Gorilla. I don’t see anyone else really competing at this stage. The trouble seems to be, with LL releasing an Enterprise solution, people like yourselves, seem to be overly sensitive to your position in the market. Which is crazy, as there should be room enough for multiple platforms.
As Justin said, I would also like to see less navel gazing and developers discussing the platform. The trouble seems to be, a few developers are moving on. As with anything, a lot of people will be left behind arguing over the lost crumbs.
A couple of projects does not a platform make! Joe, perhaps you can share with us some winning stories of Web.Alive? That would help convince me.
Also, correct me if I am wrong here? Didn’t Nortel sell off Web.Alive as a part of a package of solutions? With the Web.Alive not really the main focus of the acquisition? If so, it doesn’t fill me with confidence, it may not be a priority in terms of financial investment and a development priority for the new owner?
David Peters
Bosch
Mellanium (joe and ken),
I like to do research back on people who represent the company. As I feel words are cheap in forums, also people tend to say anything, but deliver nothing. Having looked at your company web site, I’m at a loss to actually see any real projects, other than sand box type experiments?
Also, you were appointed a developers by Nortel. Who don’t own Web.Alive anymore? Has that changed your business?
Perhaps if you’re such an expert, thought leader and Mellanium a market leading force. Why is there no commercial or clients listed?
Why is your web site so out of date? It doesn’t feel like it’s been updated in quite some time? Even your own copyright notices are coming up to two years out of date! Way to go! © Mellanium 2008. All rights reserved
LOL
new web-page
http://www.mellanium.co.uk
dusan stopping urls
Just a few URLs to try:
thinkbalm.projectchainsaw.com/112/html/index.html
ec3v3.projectchainsaw.com
apex.projectchainsaw.com
www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/avc/
shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/special-offers.workflow:ShowPromo?LandingPage=/All/US/Sitelets/eLounge/launch
rmh.projectchainsaw.com/102/html//index.html?
http://www.mellanium.co.uk/application-areas.php
show applications
Ken,
That was the page I saw. Is this the “new-page”?!
Sorry Ken, it’s not filling me with much confidence. No clients, No projects (other than sand box ?), No updates since Jan of this year… My English is not very good, maybe I have missed something?
Also, Ken did you guys create the Web.Alive project for IBM? I thought from the release, this was done internally by IBM.
Ian
IBM goes Web.alive
A quick-to-enter and easy-to-use 3D environment, the Analytics Virtual Center is the digital hub
See;
www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/avc
Same as the thinkbalm world
I thought it was a Nortel sub
Thinkbalm world I saw, this was done as a loss leader for the exposure, correct? They told us that at the time, companies were giving them space as a way to highlight platforms. Which is great.
The videos are also great showcases.
I’m not actually seeing any real client work though? Just mock ups of ‘what could be’?
Again, am I missing something?
The point is what is missing. Dusan makes a statement without understanding the difference! in the initial blog.
IBM goes Web.alive
A quick-to-enter and easy-to-use 3D environment, the Analytics Virtual Center is the digital hub
See;
Give us some urls to compare differences.
No Ken, you seem to have jumped in with both feet, this is in danger of now making you look rather foolish and shouting-off. Dusan, made a very interesting point and post, you jumped in with a wild follow up. Please don’t blame Dusan for your strange posts.
Also you’re using this as a blatant sales plug for your company. The interesting thing to me, you seem to be overstating your own importance. Now if this was someone from IBM doing this? It would have resonances and meaning. You don’t even seem to have any real projects, real clients and real work?! What you’re saying then is a moot point. It’s theory, not action and hot air.
I can see the potential of Web.Alive, it’s a long way off though proving it’s position in the market. I would put a lot of others in the lead: Proton Media, Teleplace, Inxpo etc.
Give us some URLs
or come in IBM AVC and say that!
Ken, are you okay? As you’re making no sense now.
What do your follow ups mean, I cannot follow?
LOL
Ken, you’re not IBM. Stop overplaying it. If you’re doing that, please note IBM are all over Linden Lab, Forterra, Inxpo etc. As they will be with other future platforms.
I’m signing off from this discussion. I will come back when Ken can show this thread proof of the following:
Your own work, with real clients. Not mouthing off about IBM’s great work. You’re not IBM. IBM, as I said, is working across multiple platforms.
Please share with us commercial work you’ve done with real clients, work developed in Web.Alive and under your company Mellanium. This will help us understand that this is a real opinion. If not, it’s pure hot air. Not a reflection of what real clients want and are asking for. To achieve this, you need to have delivered real projects. Sorry Ken, but I have been around long enough in VWs to know another consultant playing up to the thread.
Ian Green
Who are you anyway?
Just ‘Silicone Valley’ Mumbo Jumbo as usual.
Is it you Dusan?
After the banker techs cant make technology that anyone wants,the “invested” 3rd party developers eat each other alive….
so vr 1999. again.
No ecosystems, no real business, it’s embarassing to have to listen to all this again.
Once again 3dVR media has become 2d flash animal cartoons/minigames.
Sharks Circle! the new virtual world for tweens.!
We are in the process of determining what is real and what is imaginary. Vapourware everywhere from the Silicon Valley factory; no wonder the “Shark Circle” exists to pick off the VR dreamers’ money. A lot of shark’s in sheeps clothing methinks!
@ David I do not understand what is cowardly about using SL median concurrency data from http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/sl-statistical-charts/ which is presently the only source of data available about the atatus of SL. It also shows the waning user-to-user transactions data for the last few months of this year http://taterunino.net/statcharts/transactions365days.png and the last 60 day logins http://taterunino.net/statcharts/last60days400.png
which show a gradual decline. If you have evidence to show the growth of SL I will tout your bravery. You are indeed correct in stating the fact that SL is the only platform in town, I do not dispute that. I would be the first to admit that I am seriously biased towards web.alive since we are creators of content for this platform. Hopefully we can eke out a small niche for ouselves in some esoteric spot in the 3D WEB. We can only live in hope.
Hey – sorry that my spam filter keeps catching comments – it’s an automated thing which puts anything with multiple links into either moderation or the spam folder. Will try to keep an eye on that, sorry, no way to change the way it handles it without turning the filter off, and I get 2,000 spam comments a day so I can’t do that I’m afraid.
SL won’t die for a long time. It has it’s good points. However, it is probably not fit for purpose for some applications, e.g., security, high resolution, high concurrency, reliability, safety, etc. SL will be remembered for its pioneering initial VR introductions and hype.
So maybe this whole discussion between you guys make true & valid the title of this great post Virtual Worlds Gone Mainstream. I think the fact to have many platforms and not yet a standard is a caracteristic of an active new market mature enough to cross the chasm.
I will really be happy when companies here in Europe will be at the stage where you are now in the US, which means in the situation to chose between a platform or another. Right now, we spend half of our time showing examples to demonstrate VW are not a gadget !
But I join Justin in his point about developers talks, I hope clients wont enter into this and will concentrate on what type of solutions they want to reach with immersive internet.
@Opensource, I really like your references and especially the 3D3C I heard Yesha talked about 2 years ago
Re: the web page linked to the last comment;
Only essential journeys should be undertaken to save the planet (period) . 25,000 people to discuss the topic and be present is anathema to the whole objective as well as a total farce to reduce global warming. The technology to perform all the discussions, etc. is available and working. Wake up and get real or unreal.
If global warming was serious you would send 25,000 delegates to discuss what has been said over and over again. It is a total mockery and a piss take of the situation. Why is this being allowed? Some kind of class warfare?
This isn’t actually a post about web.alive or technologies. It was more about sociology and psychology. It’s about this:
“Wow! Look at that! Your guy can fly!”
And the reality is, more and more people are coming to that experience and there are just a lot more people exposed to this concept of VWs and they don’t immediately fall into two categories:
o cynical hardened geeks who hate Web 3.0/VWs and crank about them endlessly as indicative of having “no life” etc. etc.
o other cyncial hardened geeks who see their commercial value but argue endlessly about which platform will win
They are in a third category of wonder, and that category just ignores geeks who don’t run things really and don’t care that much about the platform as long as it delivers the flying experience.
I will have to respectfully disagree with Dusan here and say that, no, virtual worlds & immersive environments have not made it into the mainstream. They have not reached their tipping point.
Many people know about, many people have tried it, many people have created an avatar, but in my opinion, no, virtual worlds are not mainstream… yet.
Doubledown – my argument isn’t that they’ve reached a tipping point, it’s that they’ve reached acceptance.
“The question becomes whether virtual worlds can deliver once you have their agreement that they’re worth considering.”
The problem we have is people are willing to give it a try but don’t know how to start and don’t really know ‘why’….but they DO accept that it’s a technology worth paying attention to.
Joe Rigby: Not everything *has* to grow. Not everything *should* grow.
Dusan: Depends on how you define ‘mainstream’. There’s four or five working definitions, but the one that fits the most cases, I believe, suggests when the idea *stops* lighting a fire under people, you’ve hit the mainstream.
The mainstream is when people stop thinking about something as novel or weird or exciting and treat it as a matter-of-fact. Matter-of-fact things don’t in and of themselves require a lot of thought. It’s like getting excited about paper, or chairs, or running water (running water is still not mainstream in some parts of the world – and where it isn’t, some levels of excitement about it are quite appropriate).
Excellent point Tateru. Although, again, my point wasn’t that virtual worlds have achieved mainstream use, but that they’ve achieved mainstream acceptance. Similar to your water analogy – in ALL parts of the world it’s accepted that having clean water is a good thing, and in some parts of the world where there isn’t ‘mainstream adoption’ it’s still something to be excited about.
My “slice” of the mainstream, even under the definition of acceptance rather than use is, however, decidedly narrow as I hope I made clear in my post.
The thing about OpenSim is that anyone can have one–it is big and clunky, but free, and useful for a lot of different things.
I could build my own little world, here in my living room, with just a few hundred dollars worth of equipment, and other people could come play in it with me. It has that cobbled-together early-web anything-can-happen kind of possibility.
There are a couple of other opensource (read: free) platforms out there. It will be interesting to see if one of them rises up to become what OpenSim/SL is.
Joe/Ken—you are misinterpreting statistics deliberately to support your personal opinions. You are also making very, very little sense. Whatever it is you are trying to do, it isn’t working.
It has worked; see next blog.
The world has moved on; try to keep up!
@Dusan … I’m not quite sure they’re even at the “acceptance” level yet either. I would certainly say in the technology industry, and the computer/internet industry, yes.
But, it really depends on the circles of people you’re asking. To me, and this is just my perspective along with a gut feeling…. I still feel like the majority of the common folk think either “its a game” or “its creepy” or “its nerdy” or “why would anyone want to waste time doing that unless you’re a nerdy creepy gamer”
For example: Out of every single person in my real life including friends and family and acquaintances, 3 people have tried Second Life, and 1 person has continued to use it. That’s like less than 1 in 2000. I feel like it’s about the circles of people that you ask. Gamers, college students, educators, historians, intellectuals, computer IT types, sophisticatos… they understand, or accept…
But to see that I live in a city, Atlantic City, and to find that I am the only ONE person out of 40,000 residents to use Second Life, it’s telling.
I’m just using Second Life as an example, because to me Second Life seems like the most practical and useful virtual world….
but if I were to take a poll of people using farmville, or have created a character in yoville, or some lame version of an immersive environment, they would say they use it, use it for fun, and use it to waste time. IE, they don’t see the purpose in it.
But hey, maybe it just has to do with location, and not with the types of people you’re asking, maybe it has to do with the types of people I’m asking.
@ Tateru & Dusan…. I remember being out at a bar, and people would say, “hey, are you on myspace” … “yeah? I know, isn’t it great!”
That felt like mainstream.
Same goes for Facebook and Twitter now….
You can assume most people are on facebook, twitter, or some social network. That’s mainstream. Most people have a mobile device. that’s mainstream.
At a bar, or out on the street, you can’t talk to someone and randomly in the conversation say “what virtual world are you in?” and expect them to not look at you weird. .. it’s not mainstream yet.
DD – as I say, my experience is within a fairly narrow band-width. Having said that, I suppose I’m also defining virtual worlds fairly broadly. If you include games like Farmville, kid’s games like Habbo, World of Warcraft, etc….then I’d say there is mainstream acceptance that ‘worlds with avatars’ are here to stay, are something worth checking out, etc.
However, as I say, the problem isn’t that virtual worlds are being scoffed at any more, the problem is the entry points are too complicated…”OK, that’s fine, but where do I turn and what do I do?”
mainstream industries are not about a dozen or so service companies offering work for hire projects requireing one suppliers technology.
The “one for one” replacement of “top service providers” on a singular list that cycles those top service providers within a 2 year period is not a “virtual worlds media” industry.
I suggest a little websurfing to see how my comments are as current as one can get.- specifically in the Linden’s Biz World.;)
“Games” – chess, checkers, jumble, have always been mainstream pursuits. Engaging;) or not- they are not immmerisive 3d media just as all dogs arent poodles.. etc.
Text, then Audio(radio) then Video(TV) became mainstream medias for humans to act/communicate with. This is the direction for 3d digital media.
Immersive 3D, networked for many, is a growing medium that will -due to its ability- swallow up the previous media. and then well all be reading papers, watching shared movies, while being digital avatars;)
its this which defines the overal vr media, and in that, we have a while to go. And truly havent gone much furher than the efforts of those from a decade ago, although the current actors refuse/or wont believe that it was possible.
i coined this as “media induced psychosis” decades ago. like VR worlds, one day itll be ” the wisdom of the masses”..lol
maybe i should reneame it more specifically, “immersed media induced psychosis” for the SL bloggos…
yes, dusan, you are slightly delusional;) but i commend youre recognition of it.;)
too late though i fear.
VR has been the next ‘big thing’ for 20 years; and it still is, and will be until adoption by the masses, then it will becomes mainstream. I suspect development will follow the Darwinian evolution path; with the survival of the one’s most ‘fit for purpose’ for the application.
It’s never to late!
Darwin dont work for human media…:)
Digital TV as mandated from the 1980s in the US should be a clear indication that human negotiated media for the masses follow no such methods.
Immerssive 3d media for entertainment has been the mass market for 10 years. Its usage as a “wrapper” media to sell “newer boxes” and “chips” beyond that vertical market is the issue i believe these posts are trying to examine.
I only, since having been involved in this area for 18 years or so, can suggest that “that usage” has not changed in “numbers” or “get it” factor in any major way. For every ” vr movie 2009″ there was a “vr movie 1994″
The VPs of (10 years ago) of the top 500 corporations that this group would like to target, were no less “interested and smiling” toward the 3dvr media as the current VPs are today.
And from what i can see, the same money was spent in total “investigations” then(96-99) as was spent “now” (2006-9)
The major differnce was that -then- the 2d high production value web- had yet to be monetized– and FLASH as a platform- provided that for the commericial communications industry.
Video-via flash btw- – “you tube” etc. has again become the “other media” to spend on, during this bubble lead by many who did not articulate nor create plausable products based on the 3d platforms offered, but then again, much of that had to do with (again) the lack of business plans that partnered as offered by those same platform developers…
All one needs to do is learn about the distribution and marketing of a media changer online like “Flash- via macromedia-1996-2006″
and compare that to 3d immersive media biz/media models from the same period.
and one will see the truth of why this gets boring;)
c4