The Coming of Virtual Worlds
The Coming of Virtual Worlds
The start of the 2008 Virtual Worlds Conference provides an excellent moment to consider the importance of Second Life and other environments beyond the hype of digital utopia or socially disconnected dystopia that often accompanies the topic.
Virtual Worlds are not just toys and games.
Perhaps the most important lesson about the future of virtual worlds — or immersive interactive multimedia channels — is that they are not merely computer games. Admittedly, Worlds of Warcraft, Webkinz, and Pirates of the Caribbean are examples of virtual worlds that earn their attendance because they are computer games or extend game brands. But despite the genre’s origins as a gaming platform, the attributes of the platform to inform, educate and change behavior are not limited to games.
Production centers, international maps, design processes and every other conceivable industrial process can be modeled and rendered in a virtual world space.
- Commercial developers can easily use virtual renderings of their properties to market space; allow customers to explore customization; and encourage investment.
- Multi-campus organizations can use virtual campuses for cross-team trainings.
- Security (and police) can use the visual tools to model risks and strategies for risk assessment.
- Math, physics, and engineering education and industrial modeling can incorporate three dimensional renderings of efforts and collaboration.
Virtual Worlds are Also toys and games.
So perhaps business executives unfamiliar with graphical renderings of models see these exploits merely as games and toys. Well, they are. As games and toys, they engage users far more than static reports and printed content. Just as Wikipedia has transformed the experience of encyclopedia users, making most print versions obsolete, toys that don’t do anything will fill an increasingly small portion of the toy shelves.
Toys build tremendous brand loyalty. Companies like Webkinz have tied the purchase of stuffed animals to the interactive social environment. Participants in Club Penguin will always expect social, online experiences. Bicycle companies, motorcycle companies, sporting equipment manufacturers and many others have the potential to build social communities around their products.
These social networks are not limited to consumer goods. Churches, nonprofits and NGOs, political organizations and many other environments will also benefit from the social networking aspects of the virtual worlds.
And these brave new worlds are already here.
And as the Internet decade gives way to the Wii generation, new consumers and employees raised in this immersive interactive content will respond best to this medium. It was not that long ago that the toll-free number was the primary method of customer service. Notions that the Internet or e-mail would supplant this service were ridiculed. But a customer sitting in front of a computer is slow to pick up a telephone. Soon, a consumer already in a virtual environment will not want to be forced to switch to e-mail or log into a new website.
How to participate.
My personal confession is that I find Second Life boring and uninspired. I like my son’s Wii a bit more, but I am an old-media lover of radio theatre and stage plays. In Own It, I describe a number of ways to identify opportunities for innovation.
So despite my personal preferences, this new media is critically important to business —
- Companies that can utilize social networks and graphical displays will benefit the most.
- Companies that can utilize either social networks or graphical displays should build a virtual world strategy or risk being left behind.
- Training and education (an industry utilizing social networks and graphical displays) applies to every company, so all companies should look to virtual worlds for their internal processes.
- Business that can support, simplify, or enhance virtual worlds will create dramatic new opportunities in the future (think Google and Yahoo, but also remember CompuServe).
And remember that everything I’ve said about virtual worlds is probably already out of date.
