We define a virtual world as:
"a shared, 3D electronically generated visually-rich environment in which users, represented by avatars, can meet, talk, interact, act, create and communicate at will, retain ownership of what they create and can exchange assets, information and currency with each other (and ideally the outside world), whilst subject to no more onerous restrictions than they could expect in the real world."We, and many other commentators, are convinced that virtual worlds represent a new medium. As such they bring their own strengths and weaknesses, their own langauge and formats - and their own stars and turkeys. Indeed virtual worlds may actually be a meta-media, since you can have all the traditional media within a virtual worlds. Virtual worlds themselves form part of a larger group of "synthetic environments". It is important that any organisation venturing into this medium understands the differences, and identify the right virtual world (or worlds) for their activity. What makes virtual worlds unique as a medium is social interaction. More than TV, or even the web, virtual worlds are about real people talking to and working with other real people - whether in a business or leisure context. View a list of the key virtual worlds |  |
Benefits of Virtual Worlds
The benefits case for virtual worlds varies depending upon application - but there are some benefits which seem to be common to most, if not all. They are:
- The savings in time, cost and carbon from reduced travel
- Improved understanding and retention from "doing" things virtually, rather than passively receiving them physically
- Getting a "subjective" view - by being inside data or a building that's yet to be built
- Building stronger and more varied relationships, through greater social interaction and the reduction in social barriers that many find accompany the use of an avatar
Worlds versus Platforms
It's also important to separate out virtual worlds as social platforms and virtual worlds as development environments. Most entertainment virtual worlds are purely social platforms. Most enterprise virtual worlds (eg Olive, Protosphere) are purely development environments - you build your own world. Only Second Life and Active Worlds are both - offering a social or bespoke experience depending on how you access them.
Where is this going?
For enterprise users US virtual worlds consultancy ThinkBalm identified three use cases where there is clear potential to use virtual worlds - Learning, Training and Meetings/Conferences, with Collaboration and Visualisation (of both structures/processes and data) as the next likely focus area. Another consultancy, GigaOM, predicted that the global virtual worlds market would be worth $8-10Bn by 2014. Bringing these together what we believe is emerging is a model where virtual worlds become the common 3D interface/architecture for immersive applications of widely differing types (meetings, training, visualisations etc) in the same way that HTML and the web is becoming the common 2D interface/architecture for most transactional applications. The upshot - virtual worlds (as single platforms but supporting multiple applications) will replace today's bespoke applications in these areas - simplifying training, deployment and support and lowering costs.
If you would like to understand more about virtual worlds before you take the plunge then please download and read any of our publications, or ask us to come over for a chat.
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