We presented our businesses to our fellow classmates through Second Life this week. My team, The Awesome Group (name change pending) was able to overcome our lack technical skills to create a six-screen theater with multi-level seating.
The first pic shows Flo Quida during our presentation. Unfortunately, we were co-located during the presentation due to class scheduling preventing us from reaching more dispersed locations. I will have to say that talking to a computer screen was certainly a different experience. The presenter is unable to “read” the audience and loses the ability to dynamically adjust their topics. I did find myself still using gestures while I was speaking even though they were useless in the virtual setting.
Still, the experience was interesting. Each team created a unique presentation. The stores were recreated to reflect the directions of the businesses that each group had decided upon. The “dating service” group created an interesting avatar that would serve as the mascot. It’s interesting that they chose a female to be their representative. I would have thought that they would have a both male and female mascots. It is possible that they don’t need it depending on the gender makeup of Second Life.
Overall, I see that the businesses have promise. They have good plans and good analysis to follow. I am glad to see something interesting for once. The academic environment is blasé and full of boring subjects with little creativity. The out of the box ideas are so refreshing and the wondrous environments are a sight to see.
Second Life is definitely a world where real-life assumptions should not be automatically applied. I do think that many did struggle with that in the beginning and possibly resisted the appeal of Second Life—I am guilty of this. I had difficulty creating a vision for something I had so little knowledge of. I truly hope that I have been able to overcome such myopic vision as the others have done. It has been a great learning experience so far.
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We had a virtual meeting this week in Second Life. Overall, it turned out to be a unique experience. The presentation contained two screens, one was a backup for the slides and was unfortunately needed when the primary screen encountered errors. Professor Neil Hair intended for the students to be geographically dispersed and attend the lecture virtually.
As you can see from the picture, half the class showed up because they had just come from another class. It was amusing but the fact is that the other half were sitting comfortably (?) in their homes and communicating as intended.
I was here…
So what value did the features of Second Life add? I can think an alternative method of presenting through the use of Google Docs and Google Talk. Both require a higher degree of effort in inviting users to take part. For presentation purposes, I think that Google Docs could have provided crisper images coupled with reduced hardware requirements. The advantage of Second Life is that it helps to bridge the media richness gap between digital and real world communications.
Media richness is the amount of information that is capable of being conveyed in a communication medium. Email, for example, is one of the least media rich mediums. A person cannot always easily or successfully convey emotional elements or subtleties. That is why nuanced communications such as sarcasm, humor, and moroseness cannot be conveyed by email.
In person communication is the most media rich form of communication. The changes in pitch, volume, and speed of speech are combined with facial expressions, stances, and body movements to provide the receiver with a wealth of information.
Digital communication can provide voice, 2D video, and textual mediums. Second Life ups the ante with the third dimension. Now, you can present objects through an interface that is accessible to anyone at no cost. A presenter can use custom gestures to convey an added degree of media richness. They can manipulate and utilize objects for the audience to see. If created properly, the audience can examine such objects themselves virtually. It can save on equipment transport costs as well as setup costs if the real-life object is complex.
Will everyone be able to utilize Second Life to its full potential? Probably not. The interface is still not user friendly and requires some advanced knowledge to fully take advantage of. The hardware issues are difficult to address because they exist with both the provider and user. The continued development and improvement of Second Life can bring this virtual format closer to the mainstream.
The joke here is the efforts of commercial enterprises in Second Life. There was a rush several years ago to enter virtual worlds. Many so-called experts proclaimed it to be the wave of the future and claimed that companies must take advantage of this revolutionary platform before they are left behind.
Several companies did try…and they failed miserably. They failed to understand the complexity of this new world. The platforms are still immature and conventional wisdom cannot be applied to a world unrestricted by the confines of natural law.
A lecture provided by Neil Hair showcased the evolution of internet marketing, a field that is still raw because of the continuing development of the internet. Some companies have had success with the internet, but a clear cut model is still far from being complete.
Without a clear understanding of how to take advantage of the internet, several companies delved into the world of Second Life. They faced many difficulties. They didn’t understand the new world they were in. Some of its constituents were unhappy with the prospect of “evil” companies invading their space. Virtual worlds had technical and user issues abound with inadequate resources to address them.
Virtual worlds failed to retain any significant growth. Linden Labs, for example, uses suspicious statistics to describe its user base. Upon opening the viewer program for Second Life, I am greeted with an interesting statistic describing users online for 60 days! Why 60 days? They proudly proclaim the large number of residents in Second Life which happens to include anyone who had created an account regardless of whether they had stayed 60 seconds and never came back or returned every day.
I do admit that the allure of the virtual life can be strong. I am fascinated by the creations within and the ingenuity of its dedicated user base. A strong argument cannot be made for companies to fully engage with virtual worlds unless the core issues of virtual worlds are addressed from server-side hardware improvements to user interface improvements.
Why did the companies go all out when they entered Second Life? The Xerox site was once fully developed but is now a bare island with a billboard to let you know that they still own it. American Apparel exited after a “terrorist” attack left some of its constituents “dead.”
There are plenty of people in Second Life who have had commercial success. These “natives” have been able to parlay their talent into a viable commercial scheme because they understood their populations. The entrepreneurs even carry influence within Second Life.
If a company wanted to enter Second Life, I say that they must engage the entrepreneurs of Second Life. They should form partnerships or joint ventures within Second Life to leverage the expertise of the natives with the products of the companies. Yes, this does mean losing some degree of control but it reduces the barriers to entry significantly. Entering Second Life this way minimizes the exposure of the company due to a lack of understanding. As with any partnership/joint venture, the company can use this cooperative agreement to acquire the knowledge and insights that have escaped them.
They can make an agreement to host select items within certain stores in exchange for a cut of the profits or a sponsorship deal. Eventually, if the virtual words do take off into the mainstream, the companies can leverage their newfound knowledge into a proper standalone entry.
The execution of this suggestion is very dependent on several items. First and foremost is the legal status of virtual worlds. The application of the law is still murky. Individuals from all over the world use virtual worlds and the laws of their respective nations become unenforceable across borders without a real-life agreement between national governments.
Another item of concern is the willingness of the owners of virtual worlds to enforce necessary rules such as intellectual property protection. They would go a long way by enforcing rules protecting creators throughout the virtual world. To do this, they would have to expand their workforce to be able to settle such matters within a reasonable time.
It will be a while before real-life commercial entities are able to make virtual worlds viable for them. For now, the virtual world natives are the only ones who are most able to understand their fellow residents and have monetized it accordingly.
We presented our businesses to our fellow classmates through Second Life this week. My team, The Awesome Group (name change pending) was able to overcome our lack technical skills to create a six-screen theater with multi-level seating.
