Voda...Gone?

I dunno... my posts are like Mancunian buses: you wait ages for one, then three come along at once.

While ferreting around the sims near Sick and Dante's Inferno, I noticed a couple with a distinctive and familiar shape:



Mean anything to you? Perhaps this might ring a bell. These sims, constructed by RiversRunRed, once housed Vodafone's presence in Second Life. I wrote about the site in February last year.

But now? Well I can't access them, but as I hope you can see, they are now labelled Innovation Centre. A little digging reveals a Second Life group of that name, created by UK company Second Places. So what gives? A search for Vodafone sims now draws a blank - but instead we appear to have a couple of sims that may have been ceded from one British company to another. I dunno... you tell me what's going on?

Of course, the biggest "news" in all of this is the apparent disappearance of yet another corporate presence from Second Life. Something that Linden Lab may wish to ponder on further.

What's in a Job Title?

I have recently been pondering the question: "What's in a job title?"

I've been prompted into this line of pondering by the role of Chris Collins. I am not referring to the well-known virtual worlds educationalist, whose avatar name reminds me of Nip/Tuck. I am actually thinking of the one who works for Linden Lab.

If you do some choice Googling you will most likely encounter Chris being described as "the Technical Assistant to the CEO at Linden Lab". While this may conjure up images of a geek whose role in life is to switch on the CEO's PC and make sure he knows when Outlook has a message for him, I suspect the role may be larger than that. For example, most techie button-pushers are unlikely to be interviewed by Tech Crunch. The article, dating from November last year, gives us more insight: "recently he took up the Technical Assistant to the CEO role, an interesting position in that it’s essentially an executive in training position. Collins shadows Linden Lab CEO Phillip Rosedale at all meetings and functions, and is also directly responsible for Lindex Exchange, the Linden Dollar to US Dollar currency service for Second Life. At the end of the position (6-9mths) he will then take up an executive role with Linden Lab."

In more recent articles (such as this from Reuters) it is clear that he has now taken up that executive role, as Director of Enterprise Business Systems. To residents of Second Life who have no interest whatsoever in the enterprise use of the environment, this job title might sound as vacuous as Homer Simpson's classic 'Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence'. However, for me, given that the thrust of this blog - and indeed much of what I do in Second Life - is directed to the business use of virtual worlds, this job role resonates strongly.

I would therefore be very interested to know what the heck this role entails. I can see that there is a recurring piece of blurb that appears in recent articles: "For more information about the Second Life Grid visit www.secondlifegrid.net/, or contact Chris Collins, Director of Enterprise Business Systems at business@lindenlab.com." But frankly, that tells me sweet F.A.

Is this job title as meaningless and confusing as his earlier "Technical Assistant" role? Or does it mean that Linden Lab are really going to provide some proper focus on enterprises wanting to use the environment. While some residents whinge and moan about the arrival of enterprises, there is no reason to believe that this needs to be to their detriment. Indeed, the size and strength of enterprises should be better at applying pressure to obtain the necessary improvements in grid performance, stability and capacity.

Right now I am not getting a strong sense of "Enterprise Business Systems" forming part of the Second Life ecosystem. I would therefore be interested to know how the new CEO (with or without someone to switch on his PC) and the Director of Enterprise Business Systems are going to address the shortcomings of their company's engagement with the business world.

Are You Going to ExitReality?

Naming a product must be hellishly difficult, mustn't it? So many factors to take into account. Consider, for example, those infamous automobiles where the name sounded fine in one language but meant things like "tiny male member" or "fecal matter" in others. I occasionally wonder whether Young Mr Rosedale and the Gang down at Linden Lab ever wake up sweating when they recall the naming of 'Second Life'. It must have seemed so simple and innocent at the time, little realising the millstone they were placing around their collective neck.

There must be scarcely any resident of Second Life who has not, at some time or another - and probably much more frequently than that - been confronted with the same sad litany of witticisms by non-believers, revolving around the name of the virtual world. The witticism usually hinges on the word "Second", contrasting it with "First" (or, for the less witty, "Real") Life. Thus, with depressing frequency, you encounter such rib-ticklers as: "You should get yourself a First Life" and "I'm too busy having a Real Life". Meanwhile Linden Lab, bless 'em, have staunchly refused to kowtow to this perpetual torrent of piss-taking, and have instead had the sheer brass neck to create a branding centre that actually celebrates this misbegotten name.

Now here's a little tale that may be enlightening. As a Brit, I am theoretically ruled by Queen Elizabeth II, of the royal House of Windsor. But the House has not always been so named. It started out as the distinctly Germanic House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. However, with the outbreak of World War 1, anything German (not surprisingly) became somewhat suspect. Even so it took until 1917 (for my American readers WW1 began in 1914, not 1917 - when the USA joined in) before the royals twigged that maybe their household name sounded a tad foreign. So in July 1917 George V officially declared that "all descendents in the male line of Queen Victoria, who are subjects of these realms, other than female descendents who marry or who have married, shall bear the name Windsor." And the British royals have been Windsors ever since. The Queen's hubby is Greek, but his Mum was Princess Alice of Battenberg. In order to sound neither Greek nor German, but perhaps exotically English, he adopted the name Mountbatten.

So the British royal family, in effect, rebranded themselves, and largely removed the stigma of their old names.

While I don't expect the agile, business-savvy brains at Linden Lab to follow this example, it is something they might wish to consider if they want to be the powerhouse for web 3D. OpenSim does not have this baggage to contend with, although those Tribal Net folks really ought to re-think their brand position too.

But actually, all of the above is just a rambling preamble to this:

Yesterday, after reading this post at Virtual Worlds News ("all the virtual worlds news that is fit to print"), I signed up for a new, browser-based virtual world service called ExitReality. I ask you! 'Exit Reality'!!

I'm sorry... but to me this makes Linden's selection of 'Second Life' seem like a work of marketing genius. Perhaps it's just me... but the first impression that crossed my mind was 'assisted suicide'. I recall a lot of fuss some years ago about a pressure group called Exit, and while researching this post I encountered the Final Exit website. Even without this connotation, why would I wish to be 'exiting reality'? And why would I be using a website to do so, rather than chemicals??

What are the people behind ExitReality trying to tell me about their product? Apparently they are trying to tell me it "is an exciting new social media platform that aims to improve your online experience with an enhanced 3D, multi-user, immersive messaging environment. Photo albums that become virtual galleries where you can walk through, admire and even comment on the photos that decorate the wall. Video clips that transform into 3D flat-screen TVs that you can enjoy watching with friends... hey, even fight over the remote. Immersive Messaging where you are able to see and interact with all your friends while chatting with them at millions of locations online." And it "works with leading global social media sites Facebook, Myspace, Friendster, Hi5, Orkut and Bebo and is launching soon." Sounds great - but sorry chaps, your product name sucks - and as with Second Life before it, if it has any success it will be mercilessly teased.

I like the idea though! Oh.. and when I tried it, it seemed happiest on Firefox 2.

PS: Linden Lab might want to consider adding their new CEO on this page.

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

I think it was my pal, Xantherus Halberd, who brought this to my attention the other day. Since then I've been mulling it over - though I hasten to point out, not obsessively. By way of an aside, I like to have an array of things to mull; it's healthier and less boring than a single mulling object.

Aaaaanyway... the object of this particular mull is the timezone in S~~~~d L~~~e. Rivetting, huh? Well it is often the little details that help illuminate the big picture. For as long as I have been in this virtual world it has used its own timezone, known as "SLT". It was merely a trick of Fate that this happened to coincide with the timezone in California, home of Linden Lab. The inworld timezone appears at the top of the viewer window, and has been used by meeting and events organisers since the earliest days of the environment (or so I assume).

OK, so what? Well if you look now, it doesn't say "SLT" - it says, "PDT" (Pacific Daylight Time). The change may be simply a calendrical consideration, perhaps introduced in early March, when the clock leapt forward into Summertime. Alternatively, you might see it as an another little detail in the repositioning of this virtual world - moving it away from being the plaything of a small clique of fans, freaks and the technosavvy (choose which categories apply to you).

As with the introduction of the S~~~~d L~~e Grid website, and maybe the much-despised (and misunderstood?) branding thing, this tiny detail moves Linden Lab towards a more generic virtual world metaverse, with themselves as the 3D version of an ISP.

Well, it's a thought. Maybe that's what comes of too much mulling.

By the way - curiously(?) "SLT" seemed to be one of those common terms that does not appear to have fallen into the path of the mighty trademark juggernaut.

Second Life and 3D Intranet

One of my predictions for 2008 was that we would see IBM, Sun and others launching "virtual world behind the firewall" products. I thought then, and think now, that this is inevitable - and I daresay you may feel the same way. While such worlds might do little or nothing to tickle the fancy of out-and-out Immersionists, they offer powerful tools for corporate use. So it was with more than a little interest that I learned, last week, that IBM would be partnering with Linden Lab to bring a chunk of the Second Life grid within the IBM firewalls - a 3D intranet.

Why would I want a 3D intranet?
At its most basic, the cost savings coming from the reduction in travel, made possible by 3D intranets, offer a simple, direct return on investment. The calculations are elementary, and rely on very few assumptions (all of which are easily verified). Incidentally, this is in contrast to the complexity of proving a ROI based on revenue generation in virtual environments, but that is not germane to the 3D intranet business case.

Although this can be achieved with an externally hosted service, such as Second Life, there are concerns over security and manageability. The fact that systems administration is outside one's control, and that chat logs and other commercial content are being hosted externally is not acceptable when you want a totally secure, wholly owned environment. Hence the 3D intranet.

But there are further benefits. As I learned from the IBMers a long time ago, 3D spaces provide places for informal groupings to develop - where new relationships form, extending one's own personal network. The external view of a large company is that it operates as a single unit, that it probably has all manner of clever systems to keep people in touch, and that it makes sure that it knows the skills and capabilities of its employees. In fact, this is (almost universally) far from the truth; rather than a single enterprise, most large companies comprise a number of fiefdoms, and each of these is subdivided into further, smaller fiefdoms. Knowledge is precious, and poorly maintained across this motley array of business units, skill centres, CoEs, "tiger teams" and so on. The 3D spaces don't drive knowledge or business cohesion - but they can help, by providing a social network that operates outside of the fiefdoms, allowing people from across the corporation to meet, socialise and share knowledge.

Finally, there is the formal collaborative working environment. The 3D intranet allows people from diverse locations around the country and, indeed, the world to work together in a common shared (virtual) location, reducing costs and improving team cohesion.

That's causes enough for a 3D intranet.

So what about this news?
In my view, Linden Lab have a habit of letting good news get away from them and generally fumbling their marketing. However, for once, I think this is a masterstroke - a real gem of a move that could end up, not only saving their asses, but propelling them into the heart of web 3D - which is where they want to be. Why do I say this?

Well, for one thing - IBM, while clearly the biggest corporate presence in Second Life, are known to have their fingers in many virtual pies. Indeed, Roo Reynolds (well-known luminary in the Eightbar crowd [and all-round good egg, so I'm told]) gave a neat synoposis of IBM's virtual state of play on Eightbar only last month. If IBM were to ditch Second Life - and that was by no means impossible - then the impact on Linden Lab could be catastrophic. On the other hand, to have their product at the heart of IBM's 3D intranet should allow Linden Lab to see off the opposition, such as multiverse or OpenSim.

It comes as no surprise, then, that no money is changing hands; both sides should win through this synergy. IBM get a relatively mature, content-flexible platform on which to build their 3D intranet. Linden get to develop a product that (with IBM?) they can sell to businesses and universities, while also putting some clear space between themselves and their competitors. Finally, the ability for an avatar to move between internal and external grids brings the prospect of web 3D much closer. This is, I am told, still a technically complex task - what system resources are located where? and how do they tie together? - but one that is now being tackled.

Rosedale to Step Down, Step Up, Whatever

The twitter servers must be under heavy load at the moment as hordes of virtual worlders leap in to speculate about today's announcement that Phil Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab, will be stepping down from his role.

According to Reuters: "Rosedale will become chairman of the Linden Lab board when his successor is found, replacing Mitch Kapor, who will remain a board member and the company’s largest investor. Rosedale said he will also keep a full-time role at the company working on product development and strategy."

There doesn't seem to be any air of panic, just the recognition that a big, grown-up company (which Linden Lab has now become) requires an entirely different sort of leadership from a hip, young start-up. I made this point (as many others did) when Cory Ondrejka left Linden Lab at the tail end of last year: "once you have a large (and largely successful) implementation on your hands, your focus shifts from rapid innovation and heads more towards Quality of Service and effective service delivery. "

Provided they get the right person - and that's a big proviso - then this should be a good thing for consumers of Linden Lab's services - that's us residents, both private and corporate. Hopefully, we will continue to see innovation and creativity from the Lab, after all Mr Rosedale is only moving within the outfit, but tempered with the skills needed to deliver a customer-centric, high quality service. Well... I can hope, can't I?

Incidentally, I hope that his replacement does NOT succumb to the temptation to pimp his/her avatar - and sticks resolutely to the no-prim hair etc.

UPDATE: Or indeed no-hair hair.

For a far better read than this - check out Mitch Wagner's post at Information Week.

UPDATE 2: Mr Rosedale's statement and resident responses on the Second Life blog.

A Tale of Orders and Invoices

Taking a break from my more usual blogging activities, I wanted to get down my experiences of corporate virtual land purchase so that I could find out from you where I went wrong, and how I can make things better next time. If, by some chance, I did not go wrong, then let this stand as a salutary lesson for us all – and poke in the direction of Linden Lab to sort out their B2B procedures.

My story starts with a successful business case, which led to the allocation of a small(!) sum for an initial presence in Second Life and the creation of an internal project code against which this money could be allocated. Hurrah!

So what to do? The first thing is for the company to order the island, right? How does that work? This sounds like a job for our global purchasing system. I went into this huge web-based system, created a shopping basket and added "1 virtual island + 6 months' tier", along with as much information as I could.

Wrong move. The order recipient must be set up as a supplier before creating the basket. Our Purchasing Team cancelled the basket, even though it had been through the full approval process, and waited while I started again.

There then followed an exchange of mails with the folks at Linden Lab that led to them being approved as a supplier. Oh Joy... I was able to re-create the order and get it approved. Success! A bit glitchy – but we got there.

So that's one thread of the tale - the raising of the corporate PO. While this was going on, there was also another thread in play - raising the order with Linden Lab.

+++

I had already discovered that corporate users (and others, no doubt) do not have to wade through the nonsense that is the Second Life website land purchase. Instead I was able to use the "Special Estate Purchase" option of the second life grid website. This "special" option exists "if you require an invoice (payments by wire transfer, check or credit card). This form is specifically for business entities requiring a formal invoice/receipt or PO# type process; all orders placed through this form require 6 or 12 months payment for maintenance in advance." Sounds like a corporate user to me. [ Little tip: despite what it says on the SL website, you don’t need a premium account for this. ]

Now I must confess that the term "wire transfer" worried me. It produces in my mind images of the Wild West, with telegraph operators desperately tapping out messages warning of impending disasters - natural or man-made. In terms of modern Business-to-Business (B2B) commerce it seems to be particularly archaic terminology - and so it proved in practice too. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I used the excellent, easy-to-use special orders website to specify the type, name and location of the island, and also supplied any extra information required (I can't recall the detail now) that enabled Linden Lab to set up my company as a valid customer, with 30 days' payment terms. Marvellous, at the end of this thread I had an invoice number for a new island and my company was set up as a customer. It was all coming together...

Or was it? There were a couple of worrying signs. First, I did not see a mechanism for recording my company's PO# in the order I raised with Linden Lab, so any invoice I then printed off would also be devoid of this information. In effect, I couldn't force the connection between the invoice and the PO - not something to delight auditors.

The second worrying sign was the difficulty in pinning down Linden Lab's bank account information. My company (in common with every other one I have ever known) expects a purchase to work something like this:
1. Supplier is approved
2. PO is created
3. PO is sent - nowadays electronically - to Supplier
4. Supplier supplies the goods (assuming company is a valid customer)
5. Supplier sends invoice to company, referencing PO
6. Company accounts payable validates the invoice against PO
7. Company accounts payable authorises bank to make inter-bank transfer to pay it

We had done 1 and 2... We'd kludged 3... Linden Lab did 4 and 5 (but missing the PO#)... we did 6. So we weren't far off.

Now, how to pay? The Special Estate Purchase surprisingly, given its use for corporate customers, only supports the concept of an individual, identified by email address, paying by credit card. This is not of much use to a company, where an Accounts Department wants to pay by inter-bank transfer.

What about this "wire transfer" then - the only other remote payment option that appeared to be open? The problem here is that to pay by wire transfer, one first needs to login in the Second Life website. Actually, this is 2 problems: first, access to the Second Life website is barred by our networks people (it is classed as a games site) and second, our Accounts Department, consisting of several hundred people, does not have an avatar and hence does not have an account in Second Life. And it seems a ridiculous farce to have to create one. Even if they could login, they would then have to go through some excessive rigmarole - involving the unplanned expenditure of a further 25 US$ - to actually make the payment. This is just... not... going... to... happen.

So there we were: stymied. We had the PO; we had the island; we had the invoice; we had the money. We just had no way of working with Linden's processes, which seem incredibly unfriendly to business. With only days now left before our 30 days' grace ran out, and no prospect of finding a method whereby my Accounts Depart could actually pay Linden Lab, I had no option but to pay the invoice myself and claim it back. And trust me... you don't want to have to claim back that amount of money, for the purchase of something you can't even touch or put away in a safe. That saga is still in progress.

And… ladies and gentlemen... that's the whole sorry tale. Given that this trauma will repeat itself every 6 months, as tier falls due, I am more than a little curious to know what I did wrong and what I should do next time.

Centric Virtual - plus the Cory Story

It seems like ages since I last blogged about a Dutch site in Second Life, yet once upon a time I couldn't move without stumbling across a new one. Tonight, however, it is time to redress the balance, with a trip to Centric Virtual. Many folks will associate the word "Centric" with the American marketing agency that specialises in social media and virtual worlds. However, this particular Centric is a Dutch IT firm.

In fact, the company employs around 8,500 in a number of European countries: The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Norway and Switzerland. It offers a comprehensive range of services: consultancy; IT solutions; software engineering; e-business; systems integration; managed ICT services and training. The main feature of their Second Life presence, however, is their Centric Melodies offering. I will need to rely on my pal, VeeJay, to tell me what this is all about, but from what I can make of it, it seems to be a middleware solution, connecting web user and other clients with back-office systems. If you are a Dutch speaker you can find out more in this brochure (pdf).

The Centric Virtual island looks to be under construction. In fact it only has 2 major structures - a Centric Melodies stage and an R&D building, where there appears to be some building experimentation going on. A rudimentary network of paths connects the 2 structures. If your Dutch is up to it, there appears to be a Centric Melodies test system you can try out. A couple of loungers in the stage area will accept chat input and (I'm joining the dots furiously here, you understand!) convey this to a back-office help system.

I took a few snaps:



As you can see, the island is quite bare at the moment, but I assume Centric thought it had enough content to make it worthwhile making it available to the general public. If so, I'm not sure they are right. There is too little to really get much from the site, although I suppose it did introduce me to an IT company I did not know previously... and resulted in this blog post. Hmmm...

+++

The Cory Story

Since every blogger and his/her dog seems to be blogging about the departure of Cory Ondrejka from his post as CTO for Linden Lab I thought I'd add my tuppence-worth. Cory was the 4th employee of Linden Lab, joining back in November, 2000. Prior to this, according to the Linden Lab website, he'd "served as Project Leader and Lead Programmer for Pacific Coast Power and Light. At PCP&L, he brought the 'Road Rash' franchise to the Nintendo for the first time with 'Road Rash 64' and built the core technology teams that completed multiple products for Nintendo and Sony console."

According to a leaked internal email from CEO Phil Rosedale: "As it grows, the needs of our company are changing, and the role of CTO, or technical lead, has also evolved. Therefore, Cory and I are in agreement that our paths, at this point in time at least, lie in different directions. During Cory's tenure the engineering team has grown tremendously, and given the breadth and depth of our technical expertise, we do not foresee any impact on our development plans. Together, we've produced great things in the development of Second Life, and I know Cory will go on to achieve excellence in his chosen field."

While here's a snippet of an internal email that Moo Money posted: "Cory and I have differences in how we think Linden should be run, differences that in the past few months have become irreconcilable... as we change and grow as a company, I feel that we need a different set of strengths in engineering leadership." The full text is here.

As a friend of mine put it, small companies need uber-hackers - they ignite the process, build innovative solutions and get you up and running quickly. I may be doing Cory a disservice, but it seems to me he fits into this category. However, once you have a large (and largely successful) implementation on your hands, your focus shifts from rapid innovation and heads more towards Quality of Service and effective service delivery. The skills for this sort of role are quite different, and this may be where Rosedale has identified a key weakness. God knows, most of us are aware that this has been a key weakness!

Whether this is the role of a CTO is another matter, but if I were in Rosedale's shoes I would be looking to achieve a stable environment (after implementing Windlight and Havok 4!). Next year is going to be tough going for virtual world companies - mainly due to the sheer number that will be available. Second Life needs to get itself fit to fight its corner - and getting a consistent QoS level is a vital part of this. Sharing a common vision is, of course, another.

Virtual Worlds in the Far East

2007 has been a busy year for virtual world announcements in the Far East, so I thought I would take this opportunity to give you a quick roundup of some of the more recent ones that nearly managed to slip through my net. As usual, big thanks to Virtual World News for putting me on their trail. I don't pretend that this is, in any way, a complete list - but it is a start.

Second Life in Korea
First, let's step back a month, to October, during which Linden Lab announced that, as part of their Global Provider programme, T-Entertainment would be providing Second Life services in Korea. I can't find out much about this, but I assume that the large cluster of "sera Korea" sims in Second Life, which depict a map of Korea, are being constructed to tie in with this. According to Noneget Barnes, head of Korean Second Life build company Acid Crebiz, "sera" translates as "sl", so these sims therefore come out as "SL Korea." Y'see? It all seems to fit!

If you are not familiar with it, "the Second Life Grid Global Provider program is designed to assist international online communities in creating their own presence on the Second Life Grid. This program has significant requirements, obligations, and programme fees. It is only available to operators of existing online communities outside the United States. The Second Life Grid offers many international experiences outside of the Global Provider program, which anyone can support or join... The Global Provider program assembles custom resources, support lines, and localizable content for these operators to help them establish a unique presence on the Second Life Grid." I don't have a clear view of how many such providers already exist, but I did post some months ago about Kaizen Games in Brazil, which I believe was the first.

Incidentally, whether this is a coincidence or not, Cyworld have announded that they will be going 3D in 2008. An amusing volte face following their recent dissing of 3D virtual worlds as requiring too much computer grunt and bandwidth. Now, showing a somewhat remarkable absence of comprehension, SK Communications CEO,Shin Cho, has added: "The key difference between Cyworld 3D and Second Life is that... Second Life mostly provides ready-made content, while Cyworld 3D will focus on providing user-created content."

Second Life in China
You may recall there was some concern in SL circles earlier in the year, when Linden Lab failed to secure the Chinese state-sponsored contract to deliver a massive virtual world. The contract went to Mindark and their Entropia Universe, instead. However, during November, Virtual World News revealed that Linden Lab are, nevertheless, actively engaged in China, through the services of RTMAsia, a firm specialising in "Asian business acceleration to global technology companies." After a little digging I found that the announcement of this relationship dates back to August 2nd. Under the terms of the agreement, RTMAsia will act as direct representatives for Linden Lab in China, responsible for the development of business partnerships, management of business operations and liaison with media and industry bodies. On this basis, it seems that RTMAsia are acting more like local agents than a full-blown global provider partner. Several people have tried (and failed) to get Linden Lab to come clean about a possible office in China. However, given the nature of the relationship with RTMAsia I can see that such a step may not be necessary at this time. As Redline China put it: "Linden Lab is likely to face various difficulties in China such as government regulation, low user awareness and lack of marketing and distribution channels." It strikes me that RTMAsia is the company they have chosen to help steer a safe route through the pitfalls of working in China.

HiPiHi Partnerships
HiPiHi have announced that Intel will be launching an island in their virtual world today, 22nd November. Apparently the HiPiHi grid runs on systems powered by Intel Xeon processors. In addition, Worlds in Motion informs us of two more partnerships for the Chinese virtual world: Centric, an agency specialising in social media and virtual worlds, and 3Di, a Japanese virtual world content and service provider. The successful virtual worlds build and consultancy company MillionsofUs announced their partnership with HiPiHi back in October. Both MOU and Centric are expected to pull their impressive client lists into the virtual world, while 3Di will be offering building services. Incidentally, you may recognise 3Di as the authors of the Movable Life browser-based, text interface for Second Life.

That's enough for this post... but I know I've barely scratched the surface. Updates on the plethora of Chinese virtual worlds will need to wait for another day, as will consideration of what is happening in Japan. Roll on, 2008!

Another Giant Leap Towards web3.D

They'll be dancing in the streets of Second Life tonight. Nothing new in that perhaps - but maybe there will be a few extra revellers celebrating what many in the web3.D (3pointD) community see as a major milestone in the progress toward the 3D internet. Personally, I have been hoping and half-expecting the following announcement for over 6 months:

IBM and Linden Lab Launch Collaboration to Further Advance the 3D Internet.

Here is a link to today's press release - though Linden need to get their act together, since it doesn't seem to appear on their website as yet. To quote from the press release:

IBM and Linden Lab plan to collaborate on:

• "Universal" Avatars: Exploring technology and standards for users of the 3D Internet to seamlessly travel between different virtual worlds. Users could maintain the same “avatar” name, appearance and other important attributes (digital assets, identity certificates, and more) for multiple worlds. The adoption of a universal “avatar” and associated services are a possible first step toward the creation of a truly interoperable 3D Internet.
• Security-rich Transactions: Collaborating on the requirements for standards-based software designed to enable the security-rich exchange of assets in and across virtual worlds. This could allow users to perform purchases or sales with other people in virtual worlds for digital assets including 3D models, music, and media, in an environment with robust security and reliability features.
• Platform stability: Making interfaces easier to use in order to accelerate user adoption, deliver faster response times for real-world interactions and provide for high-volume business use.
• Integration with existing Web and business processes: Allowing current business applications and data repositories – regardless of their source – to function in virtual worlds is anticipated to help enable widespread adoption and rapid dissemination of business capabilities for the 3D Internet.
• Open standards for interoperability with the current Web: Open source development of interoperable formats and protocols. Open standards in this area are expected to allow virtual worlds to connect together so that users can cross from one world to another, just like they can go from one web page to another on the Internet today.
  

These are viewed as the key levers needed to deliver the next generation of the internet. Also, as reported at Virtual Worlds News, "last night IBM hosted a meeting of companies and researchers in San Jose (site of the Virtual Worlds '07 Conference) to discuss open standards for transporting avatars across virtual worlds. With representatives from Cisco, Google, Linden Lab, Sony, Intel, Multiverse, Microsoft, Motorola, and Philips, among others, they discussed plans to establish an organization to promote a truly interoperable 3D Internet."

Don't lose sleep over this in your excitement, boys and girls. It will take a little while to arrive. The point is that this is now out in the open, following months of speculation - and the parties involved go beyond just IBM and Linden Lab. I understand that at least 20 companies were represented at last night's meeting. Furthermore, I, for one, am curious to know how this fits with the statements about interoperability and standards between virtual worlds that have been coming out of China recently, particularly with respect to HiPiHi.

...

Or maybe it's all just a game, played by lonely saddoes - and I've just dreamt all of this.