Here's a cool little news item that takes a look at the application of the "3D internet" for business conferencing, product demos and marketing. Virtual 3D Marketing, or V3M, is a Fishers, Indiana-based startup developing custom virtual business environments in which its clients can hold conferences, hold trade shows, and demo products online.

The startup is the brainchild of California-based software developer Expo3D Corp's marketing arm, and offers interactive exhibit areas with products on display, online automation, tech sessions and workshops using live, pre-recorded or archived learning tools. During virtual seminars, a "proximity chat" function even allows the presenting avatar to hear other participants' conversations if he's close enough in the virtual conference room.

The technology will be used for the webcast of next month's Leonardo Energy technology show webcast next month. "They never found a practical way to hold this show before in the physical world," said Tony Evans, vice president of marketing for Expo3D. "But the virtual world will allow them to do this." Pretty neat!

[Via Indystar.com]

Entropia Universe announced in recent weeks that it was teaming up with CRD, an offshoot of the Beijing municipality, to build a virtual universe able to handle 7 million users at any given time. At the time, David Liu, chief executive of CRD, estimated that virtual worlds could conceivably generate some 10,000 jobs in China.

Even Second Life, with its claimed userbase of 7 million, rarely has more than 40,000 users active at one time-- which means that the population of this Chinese venture, if successful, would rival the world's largest nations. Bill Ives of Social Computing Magazine recently took up coverage of the venture, pointing out that virtual economies allow residents to "keep the intellectual property rights to their own creations, and [allow] anyone qualified to create their own open source applications to work within the virtual world.These conditions offer great support [for] economic growth in the new world."

[Via Social Computing Magazine]

Mannea LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of online media and ad company Church & Crawford, announced the development of a new, soon-to-be-deployed technology that will allow users to navigate virtual worlds using existing web URLs.

Mannea feels that currently, users in virtual worlds face challenges finding preferred locations unless they appear in a built-in search function, or unless the user is able to create a "landmark" with in-world location info.

The company's new technology, so far unlaunched, claims to allow companies or individuals to tie their web-based URL to a virtual world location (providing Second Life as an example in their press release), so that users can find locations by simply typing in a web address.

An obvious payoff of this sort of technology is that companies that have considerable investments in their online marketing will not have to incur further expense to make users aware of new virtual locations, supporting the security of existing brands.

[Note: Linden Labs already provides the SLurl service to the same effect-- it's unclear how Mannea's plans are different, or if they plan to tackle other virtual worlds outside Second Life. ]

The Serious Games Institute announced its "first European conference on the practical application of virtual worlds," set to take place September 13th and 14th in Coventry (the SGI is an initiative out of Coventry University).

According to the announcement and draft program, this year's theme will be "The Reality of the Virtual World," and will focus on various ways businesses are using virtual worlds, promising an intro to the serious uses of virtual worlds for organizations considering jumping in.

A lot of the panels seem to be Second Life-oriented, though there are others like "The Economics of Virtual Worlds" and "Virtual Disaster Management." Still, the conference claims to be a "first," and invites corporate professionals, multimedia developers, and public sector organizations to attend-- for £395 per day (£295 for academics) not including dinner!

[Via 3pointD.com]

A new Tech Confidential blog makes note of the recent outpouring of adoration VCs have for the virtual worlds space, and rounds up some big numbers, too:

Virtual worlds have also been attracting plenty of real VC capital. The $700 million acquisition of Club Penguin by the Walt Disney Co. and all the money "World of Warcraft" is bringing in to Vivendi SA (nearly $287 million in the second quarter) has venture firms excited about investing in virtual worlds. Doppelganger Inc. announced an $11 million financing to support the recent launch of its online virtual world — vSide — which will be three times larger than its Music Lounge predecessor.

Other venture-backed virtual worlds include: Linden Research Inc., the San Francisco-based operator of Second Life with $30 million in funding; There.com with more than $33 million; Helsinki-based Sulake Corp. Oy with more than $26 million; and Multiverse Network Inc. with $4.75 million.

The blog also correctly observes that advertisers and media companies are now looking seriously beyond television into the online space, and "with immersive environments, virtual worlds could be one of their biggest opportunities on the Internet." Tech Confidential and The Deal plan to discuss these big-bucks movements in depth at their upcoming Convergence 2.0 conference on September 17th in New York City.

The Chicago Tribune's got an article up about a company called Simuality; they help small businesses set up shop in Second Life and other virtual worlds. It seems to be a slightly different tack than the one taken by Metaversatility, who recently talked to us about the work they do building brand outposts for companies advertising in online worlds.

The Tribune piece tells the story of Simuality founder Anthony Van Zyl and how he helped Evanston attorney Omar Khuri build his immigration law business in Second Life, with the help of live support. From the article:

It takes more than a presence to make money on Second Life, van Zyl said. Too many companies have offices or storefronts on Second Life but don't staff them, he said. "When you walk into this virtual reality there should be a person who greets you and directs you where you need to go," he said. "It's absolutely vital that there is human interaction."

But van Zyl knows that having someone available 24 hours a day to greet residents on Second Life is a tall order for many small firms. That's why Simuality, together with a Netherlands company, provides trained avatar receptionists for clients. In the case of Khuri's law practice, van Zyl expects to provide an avatar who can answer questions about the type of legal work provided and understand the preliminary paperwork clients need to complete.

One interesting fact is that neither van Zyl nor his client, Mr. Khuri, use their real names in their virtual business work; van Zyl goes by "Hendry Goldkey" (avatar shown), and Khuri calls himself "Ettorney Stapleton." If the idea is to build a business presence that can translate to the real world, doesn't this seem a bit counter-productive?

A new post on Cisco Systems' Virtual Worlds blog identifies the key motivations for online gaming behavior in order to highlight how they can be used for collaborative professional environments. It's a slightly different approach than Shufflebrain's Amy Jo Kim took when she laid out her "Five Commandments of Gaming" (Collecting, Points, Feedback, Exchanges and Customizations). Cisco's list, and comments, are in this following excerpt:

1) Achievement - provides goals, challenge, reward, analysis of complex problems, and status
2) Competition - provides challenge, success, reputation, ego and status
3) Socialization - provides a way to help others, create friendships/relationships, collaboration, group-wide enthusiasm for a task, communication channels
4) Exploration - allows discovery of new information/ideas, distraction and escapism
5) Immersion - allows customization of the user or environment, allows personalized style

When we look at most corporate collaboration environments, they often lack many of these elements. The problem is that adding many of these elements are often deemed to potentially invade privacy or require too much input from end-users that may not feel properly motivated to participate.

So the challenge is finding creative ways to incorporate motivational factors into our Collaborative Environments such that users feel a need to engage with them and clearly understand the benefit they get (and the company gets) from their participation.

[Via Clickable Culture]

Jonas Karlsson, blogger at Xerox's Really blog, fills us in regarding Qwaq, whose Qwaq Forums is a business-oriented virtual world platform. Karlsson explains that OpenCroquet, on which Qwaq Forums is based, is "mostly the back-end of the system", with Qwaq adding in their own features, including interface and asset management.

In his detailed hands-on with Qwaq Forums, Karlsson says:

Rather than being peer-to-peer (as Croquet), Qwaq Forums is a hosted service which provides a virtual world where users can create rooms for different purposes. The system comes with a set of built-in templates for different styles of meeting rooms and project areas, for example. There are some limited tools for creating 3D content in the environment, but the philosophy is to not replicate functionality that is available in other tools, so the expectation is that users will import 3D models created with tools like Maya and SketchUp(!).

Other neat features are application sharing, integrated voice, and communication via https on port 80. The network part of it was actually one of the things that impressed me most, given the trouble I have connecting with Second Life through our client. When I started up Qwaq, it tried a couple of protocols and ports, figured out my proxy settings, and then connected to the server, without any intervention on my part.

Karlsson notes one drawback -- minimal avatar support, without much customization and personalization, which he correctly notes is an essential component of the virtual worlds experience, even if it's for strictly professional uses. "With too primitive avatars, I find myself feeling like I’m looking in on the world rather than being part of it," he says, adding, "Also, while the reliance on outside tools for content creation makes sense, I think it will limit the amount of creation done by users to those who whose job it is, as opposed to something everyone can do."

Another drawback: isolation, which is an issue all stand-alone worlds deal with, and Karlsson concurs that this will be a problem for all such "business-oriented" virtual worlds. "By setting up private environments that are not connected to a larger world, you are limiting users to the content and interactions that they bring in only. There is no way to cross-fertilize with ideas discovered during random explorations of the world. I can’t bring in new presentation tools or fun animations created by some random resident. I can’t hold a post-meeting networking/sky-diving session (unless I build it myself)."

Still, he notes that Qwaq has plenty of potential (and, obviously, ultra-chic hard consonant assonance), being "one of the most usable" of these kinds of worlds he's tried. Let's keep it on our radar, shall we?

[Via Really]

Yesterday, as we reviewed Aleks Krotoski's discussion with the Coventry Serious Games Institute (SGI)'s David Wortley noted that the SGI had been "developing a relationship" with Forterra Systems and its OLIVE (On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment) software platform, in addition to its Second Life work. Now, the official announcement -- the SGI has bought a license to use OLIVE to support the development and application of virtual world applications, game-based learning and interactive digital media resources.

SGI says OLIVE will enable it to generate 3D Internet solutions for "training, planning, rehearsing and collaborating" in the gaming industry. Forterra adds that SGI will also use OLIVE's open platform to create virtual world content with plug-in functionality to meet a range of simulation needs, including simulation environments.

“We selected Forterra’s OLIVE platform given their market leadership in providing private, secure virtual worlds used for solving real problems such as group collaboration,” said David Wortley, Director of the SGI. “OLIVE provides the opportunity to apply game technologies for all kinds of non-gaming enterprises in the corporate, healthcare, government, and entertainment industries. Virtual worlds, with their online, multiplayer environments, offer unique opportunities to take traditional models of learning, simulation and entertainment to a whole new level of innovation.”

The Napa Valley Register is reporting the results of a survey conducted by the Pew Center for the People and Press' continuing Internet Project, which asked a panel of "experts" -- those who lead in the industry or have a major stake therein -- to predict the future of the Internet in 2020.

Among other Web predictions, the respondents said that virtual worlds will gain in prevalence, which seems a solid forecast. Interestingly, though, the respondents said users will become "increasingly engaged" with them, indicating they feel virtual worlds will play a stronger role in people's lives than they currently do. Though the survey seems to indicate that some of the panelists felt that virtual world connectivity will have a positive impact on workflow and socialization, others felt that "much productivity will be lost" to a growing epidemic of virtual world addiction.

Lately there have been many reports on virtual worlds being developed specifically for business purposes, to enable interaction and connectivity within the professional workplace. IBM is a major pioneer in these kinds of efforts, as their "code of conduct" for employees in virtual worlds indicated that they see the potential in the space for business uses.

Virtual worlds and online games are developed specifically with encouraging high levels of user engagement in mind -- high average-time-spent numbers are a measure of an online world's success. It seems that even the experts are concerned, though, that these coveted high engagement levels might translate to social or professional problems.

[Via Napa Valley Register]

Great write-up over at Computerworld about Tip Slater of Analysis Modeling Simulation Experimentation, part of The Boeing Company's Integrated Defense Systems group of which he's director. From the article:

Can you describe what your job entails?

I belong to an organization called Analysis Modeling Simulation Experimentation. Our job is to create an environment in which we can test out concepts and ideas for our customers, the majority of which are military. If a customer wants to try a wartime scenario, he can't afford to fly or move all the military [equipment] that he wants, and you can't afford to blow it up either. So, we provide an environment where we bring in live, simulated and computer-generated entities.

Our job is to pull together this synthetic environment so that we can test out a concept or a hypothesis. For example, we can actually take an F-16 flying over the desert in southern California, and the pilot will see on his radar scope all of the virtual and computer-generated entities that we have in the environment. So, we've got a real plane that gets the signatures in his cockpit that state that there are other entities working around him, when in fact those entities are digital [creations]. And that allows us to put the assets into an environment and test them out. So it gets to be a very complicated environment.

It's an in-depth story about the advanced application of virtual models for test scenarios, and very worth reading!

[Via Computerworld]

Recently, we discussed the merger of social networks with virtual worlds, amid some buzz generated by ActiveWorlds' embeddable Facebook app. Now we look at the enterprise side of the issue, as eWeek has an in-depth article on the phenomenon, discussing some ways that big players are getting on the train.

One example is IBM's work integrating virtual reality tech into its Lotus Connections social computing software, a combination that might allow avatars to pull info from the user's Lotus Connections profile, like their professional background, skills, interests and recent projects, or even showing user info, opinion or expressions on in-world billboards where that avatar is present. In another example cited by the article, an avatar might enter a virtual library and be able to access their social bookmarks through a card catalog.

IBM VP of social computing Jeff Schick told eWeek the company's been wondering what a bookmarking service like del.icio.us might look like in 3D. IBM's not yet announced any official launch dates for concrete products along these lines, though.

The article notes another company, Unisfair, who is also working to incorporate social networking features into virtual conferences, to help skip the often-awkward process whereby avatars exchange contact info by typing it; instead, the contact info from a user's social networking profile could be automatically integrated with the virtual world.

The article also covers non-enterprise approaches to this issue, such as Second Life Link, the recently-launched Facebook app that lets users network with their Second Life friends, and says that these kinds of mergers are the key to making virtual worlds a mainstream phenomenon.

[The Mashing of Virtual Reality, Social Computing - eWeek]

Forterra Systems, whose OLIVE platform is used to develop business and academic virtual worlds, has launched developer programs designed to enable consultants, system integrators, resellers, independent partners and education and business organizations to work with its platform, including a price-adjusted model aimed at production deployments for a smaller user group.

Forterra will offer three different programs focused on training, product development, testing, demo, prototype and pilot for stakeholders ahead of production deployment -- the Basic, Standard and Premium programs also include a non-production developer license of OLIVE that works over a LAN, WAN, and the Internet. Additionally, each package includes various 3D content assets from existing packs. Forterra can also host the development server.

The Forterra Developer Programs are tiered to adjust the support services and benefits according to the company's investment and relationship with Forterra. Tools and resources available through the Developer Programs include: education, developer services, technical support, hosting, account management, and marketing. Forterra adds it has invested heavily in support, training, and documentation services to assist its customers and partners. Learning technology company Vcom3D is one of Forterra's early development partners, and is using OLIVE to develop multi-lingual, culture-specific, virtual communicator characters for situation-based learning.

“The 3D Internet is a disruptive force of change that is transforming how businesses, the public sector, and educational institutions train, research, practice, and collaborate,” said Dave Rolston, Forterra’s CEO. “Our Developer Programs and new pricing allow our customers and partners to participate in this powerful market trend more easily through the creation, delivery, and marketing of 3D content, value-add plug-ins, and complete applications based on the OLIVE platform. The Developer Programs are designed to provide cost effective means to develop and pilot a 3D application, and to accelerate time-to-production. Our goal is to create a vibrant partner ecosystem and marketplace of industry specific, serious virtual world solutions that benefit our customers, and provide new revenue and profit streams for our partners.”

Forrester Research is bullish on business virtual worlds, predicting a time when 3D virtual environments will become essential workplace tools. Although the analysts note that it might take some time, and cultivation of appropriate resources, the lead set by early adopters like IBM and Intel means that other organizations will be looking at ways they can follow suit.

"Information and knowledge management professionals should begin to investigate and experiment with virtual worlds," says the report. "Use them to try to replicate the experience of working physically alongside others; allow people to work with and share digital 3-D models of physical or theoretical objects; and make remote training and counseling more realistic by incorporating nonverbal communication into same-time, different-place interactions."

CIO got hold of the complete report, and gleaned a few key reasons why business virtual worlds can be expected to advance: Travel is expensive -- both for finances and the environment, and carbon footprint-conscious execs may find it easier to meet in a collaborative virtual place than to make frequent plane trips.

Another factor is the cost of equipment in real-world training environments -- if that material can be made available persistently and virtually, costs can be reduced. CIO cites Virtual Heroes' military training simulations as one example of how virtual worlds can provide an alternate way to do certain types of training and education more safely and for less cost.

The report also points out that a virtual experience of working alongside others can help colleagues brainstorm more naturally, whereas they might feel more intimidated or face other conversational challenges speaking up in person. Finally, virtual world environments help create planning exercises -- like letting participants role-play to experiment with various scenarios.

[Via CIO]

A recent ECT Tech News piece talks with Louis Vong, VP of strategy for recruitment firm TMP Worldwide, about the efforts of enterprise in and outside the tech sector to enter virtual worlds for their recruitment activities.

Several recruitment agencies have held recruitment events in Second Life, or opened offices there, and TMP also consults with such agencies to help employers get up to speed on networking with potential new hires in virtual spaces. This is important, says Vong, because of future generations' steadily-increasing engagement with these kids of worlds.

At the same time, it's not necessarily entirely new ground, as the article explains:

Despite the press these high-profile recruiting events receive, though, the move to virtual worlds for workforce activities is part of an evolution, not necessarily a revolution. Employers have used social networking sites like MySpace Latest News about MySpace and Facebook Latest News about Facebook to meet and learn about prospective employees for years, Vong explained. "Some enterprise recruiters are looking at social networking sites as part of their research on potential job candidates," he said. Then, he added the admonition almost everyone will make about those sites: "Job candidates have to be very cognizant of what they post online, as a potential employer could be reviewing it."

What is making a difference today, Vong noted, is the fact that several major social networking sites have opened their APIs (application programming interfaces). This allows third-party developers -- such as those working for recruiting firms or large employers -- to create applications built to be used on a specific sites. "Within Facebook," Vong noted, "there are quite a few applications created specifically for employment-related content. TMP recently launched an application for Facebook called 'Work with Me,' which is an employee referral program tool that employees can attach to their profile."

The article's overall message is that development in this direction, as regards staffing, will be more "evolution" than "revolution," and other experts note that how quickly enterprise focus will shift from using virtual worlds for consumers to using virtual worlds for employees remains to be seen.

[ECT Technology News: Virtual World Workforce, Part 1]