The Otherland Group - Blog

The Ultimate Post on PlayStation Home vs Second Life – Part B

If you have read my first post on PlayStation Home you will have realized, how impressed I am with the theoretical potential of this platform and how disappointed I am with Sony's actual implementation and (probably) strategy.

No, I am NOT saying that “Home is doomed” because it seems to be a hangout reserved for testosterone-laden young males (that is the PS3’s main target group, after all) or because it does not offer all the features of Second Life. But the features that are missing clearly show, what makes SL so special and – Yes, I still dare to say this – "successful".

It's User Generated Content, Stupid!
Basically, we are talking about user generated content. Second Life makes it easy, to add content – and monetize it. In Home its is impossible to add ANY form of user generated content without an individually negotiated contract with Sony!

Does UGC (user generated content) make any difference for users not interested in creating their own stuff (because most users aren’t)? You bet!

It is other users who created 99% of the content, which makes up Second Life. The same is true for IMVU and (to a limited extent for There).If you want to know more, about the importance of UGC in gamespace and virtual worlds, please check out this excellent paper! Even the first three or four dozen sims in Second Life way back in 2004 offered more variety, more surprises, more innovation, more entertainment than Sony’s artfully crafted world.

No, I am not exaggerating. Home in its current state is utterly boring after 10 hours max – if you are not interested in harmless chat with fellow gamers; which is probably not a fault of the platform as this might be its intended purpose. If this is not Sony's only intention ... they should implement a few changes (namely: open it up for content creators) or put in a lot more effort into content creation themselves. The story of Google's failed Lively platform clearly shows that it takes more than just some cool 3D scenes and a friendslist to create a sustainable platform!

Technorati Tags: 3d web, advertising, metaverse, second life, web 3.d

The Ultimate Article on Playstation Home vs. Second Life – Part A

Santa brought me a PS3 for Christmas (OK, I admit, I forced him) because I was interested in Sony’s Home platform. It is a great Blue Ray player, too: sleek and very quiet. But back to Home. I finally found a little time to check it out after New Years Eve and spend some 10 or 12 hours inworld over the course of a few days. It was a mixed experience – and a little disappointing all in all.

Home is NOT “Sony’s Second Life” – much less, actually, than you might believe

Many publications (online and offline) could not refrain from comparing Home to Second Life – usually dissing Home with such comparisons, as it s still common wisdom in the journalistic crowd that SL was this huge hype and failure of 2007. Wasn’t it? ;-) Alas, while such a comparison is not without merit (both platforms constitute a virtual world), the conclusions drawn from it are utter bullshit.

The four most important facts in the context of such a comparison:

• Playstation Home has a lot less similarities with Second Life than a cursory first look (especially a look at static pictures) will reveal
• If Home succeeds this will not be a stamp of approval for virtual worlds or Second Life
• If Home succeeds this will be no indication that SL (or virtual worlds) are “doomed”
• What is missing from Home might actually be those features, which are most important to the success of Second Life – which leads to some of the most annoying disappointments with Home

More on that “below the fold”.

Technorati Tags: 3d web, advertising, marketing, metaverse, playstation home, second life, virtual worlds, web 3.d

Linden Lab revamps pricing for Openspaces, insults residents

Earlier this week, Linden Lab (in the person of Jack Linden) announced some "significant" - to phrase it politely - changes to the the pricing of Openspace regions in Second Life. For those, who don't know this product: Openspaces are regions (simulators or "sims") in Second Life which offer an area of some 65,000 sqm of virtual land. They come with a reduced performance compared to "standard" regions (only a quarter of the usual number of objects is allowed and the performance of scripted objects is lower, too). Correspondingly they have been sold at only 1/4 the cost of standard regions.

Prices raised by nearly 70%
Linden Lab now announced their intention to raise costs some 70% for this product. Not only the initial price but also the monthly running costs (so called tier). They announced their intention to implement those changes for ALL Openspace regions: for new ones and also for a few thousand regions sold in the last 4 months.  No wonder, many of their customers are crying "bait and switch". As I am of an older generation myself, I can only think of the infamous "Oil for the lamps of China" (also an cheesy novel by Pearl S. Buck).

Jack Linden was citing many different reasons for the price change. The most important one being, that residents were "abusing" those regions by actually building stuff there. He insists, that Linden Lab never intended this product to be used this way and points to an obscure page on the Second Life Wiki, where it is written that these regions are intended to be designed as open sea, forests etc.

Ladies and Gentleman ... this is just plain ridiculous.

There is no widespread "abuse" of Openspace regions. Most residents are using them in a fully responsible way and exactly as Linden Lab has promoted them: "light use" regions.There is a small minority of customers who are trying to implement clubs or malls on these regions - which is NOT always a good idea. But thats a small minority.

Adding insult to injury
If Linden Lab did not intend those regions to be used for building ... one might ask, why the company has doubled the "prim capacity" for these regions just a few months ago. You don't need 3750 prims if all you can do with such a region is to create a large area of open water. Linden Lab is not being honest. They are using Openspaces exactly like that (on the new Nautilus continent, for example.) And they are adding insult to injury, as their spin doctoring is so plump that no one can believe it for long.

In addition: raising prices will never fix the problems they are purportedly experiencing with these regions. The guys which are using Openspace land "intensively" will buy smaller areas and/or use their land MORE intensely now. That's how a market-driven economy works - which always seems to come as a big surprise to Linden Lab decision makers (Oh, we have this product here, which offers a better price performance ratio for a huge part of our target group than our alternative offerings. And now they really buy it in large quantities? How could that ever happen?)

When I read the announcement I was more than a little annoyed. Not because of the new pricing structure. Actually I think an Openspace region delivers more value than 1/4 of a full prim region and should command a higher price. What it tells about a monopolist service provider selling 1000s of them and THEN raising the running costs some 70% is another issue (and has been discussed elsewhere ... )

Incompetency at the Lab in the fields of IT and macroeconomics?
What I found downright hypocritical (please forgive me, Jack) was the fact, that Jack cited "abuse" as one of the main reasons for such an unprecedented price hike. If he had said "Oh, I am so sorry, we have f***ed up again. We did not take into consideration the amount of grid traffic caused by a large number of Openspaces compared to 1/4 of that number in full prim sims ..." that would have been honest. Calling this "abuse" is insulting and utterly unfair.

We at Otherland are renting out more than 100 Openspaces. We do that since 2006 when the first ones appeared on the market. It is the perfect material for our work. The number of problems or complaints about lag or generally low performance, we experienced on this type of region (and we still use some class 4 based ones) is actually LOWER. We get more complaints for our full prim regions. This is because nearly all of land is explicitely sold for RESIDENTIAL use and used like that. On the Openspaces you will rarely find more than 3 or 4 avatars at the same time. The total script time is around (or lower than) one millisecond on most of our Openspaces.

If this constitutes "abuse", I seem to have a totally different understanding of the Englisch language than Jack.

The simple fact is: it is a plain and obvious matter of overall systems architecture of the SL Grid, that 4 Openspace regions will always need more grid resources than 1 full prim sim under similar conditions. This is not surprising and should have been known to every qualified systems architect, when the product was first announced (and then changed to 3750 prims).

As I have said, a small minority of residents is overstressing the resources of this product. But that has been the case with full prims, too, as long as I can remember - especially on mainland. If this was the cause behind the new pricing, mainland prices should have been raised 3 years ago.

It is an insult to everyone in the IT profession with a little understanding of grid architecture, to say that this is a new problem or that this constitutes a surprising and unexpected "abusive" usage pattern.

Every responsible company interested in a partnership relation with their customers (and not in a monopolistic position) would attack this issue with constraining features in the software. Not by an unprecedented price hike.

I am worried, very worried. This move shows not only that Linden Lab does not care about relations to current business partners. The idea behind this move is probably that new customers will be much more important for the company in the long run, so it doesn't matter to much to alienate their current customers. This idea might even be true, unfortunately, but it shows a business ethic, which is more than a little questionable, IMHO. This move also shows an utter lack of understanding about how a market-driven economy works with some of the most important decision makers at Linden Lab. (The "unexpected" success of the Openspace product has been no surprise to anyone in the real estate market). This show of incompetency is scary, more than a little scary.

What can be done?
I do not expect Linden Lab to get through with their intentions. In the nearly 4 years I have spend in Second Life I have never seen such a huge protest of residents. This is no storm in a tea pot. This is a revolution. Alternate solutions to the issue at hand have been discussed on the forums and on many blogs. Linden Lab could implement more severe performance limits for Openspace regions, they could add a third kind of low performance product. They could adjust pricing to actual usage patterns etc. Contrary to the statements in LL's official communication this is no rocket science. The correspending changes to the server code could easily be implemented in the 2 or 3 months until the proposed changes go into effect.

The alternative?
If Linden Lab does not listen to the customers which are filling their coffins (estate land is MUCH larger these days than Linden Lab's own main land), they might have to realize that they are doing themselves a great disservice. All that will happen is, that they drive those customers away to alternate platforms or to alternate grids based on the OpenSim technology. This could be the beginning of the end of Second Lifs's dominant position in the open Metaverse.

I hope that this will not happen, as I still believe in the value of a large connected virtual world as the Second Life Grid delivers today. Let's just hope, that someone at Linden Lab will see the light in the next few weeks. I have not given up hope.

A Brief Tour of WebFlock

It's certainly "interesting times" in the Metaverse. As the anti-hype (mostly against Second Life) ends, a flood of tools is appearing on the market, most of them trying to "avoid the mistakes Second Life made" in the opinion of their developers. Three or four weeks ago, with only a few days between the announcements, Vivaty, Lively and WebFlock hit the market, for example, three platforms which all try to integrate a virtual 3D environment into web pages.

Maybe the most interesting of the three newcomers is WebFlock. (More about the reasons below. ) But WebFlock isn't openly available. So I pestered an old friend at the Electric Sheep from SL days long enough, that he felt obliged to give me a short test drive. After that session, I have to say: yes, WebFlock actually is a very interesting competitor in this market.

First, because it was developed by the Electric Sheep, the largest virtual worlds agency of them all. Second, because WebFlock promises to create 3D rooms into web pages without an (additional) plugin. WebFlock is based on Flash, which comes pre-installed with most web browsers these days, while Vivaty and Lively (as well as most other competitors) need an additional PlugIn, which must be installed - something that many users are very reluctant to do. Using Flash places some severe limits on what can be achieved in a 3D world, though. Thats, why I was so eager to explore WebFlock myself.

Technorati Tags: 3d web, metaverse, webflock, second life, virtual worlds, web 3.d

Second Life at a Cross Roads?

For many people outside of the "virtual worlds industry" the terms "virtual world" and "Second Life" are still more or less synonyms. This is especially funny, as many people in the industry seem to have written off Second Life because of many disappointing developments in 2007 and the big negative hype in the press. It is much more en vogue currently, to place your bets on the new kids on the block: Vivaty, WebFlock and especially Lively (by Google!).

It is not a secret, though, that Linden Lab's management and investors still believe that the Second Life technology will be the (or a least "a") corner stone of the future Web3D. Is this totally unrealistic? And would would Linden Lab have to do, to make this come true if it isn't? Making the platform more stable is a simple answer - and certainly a pre-requesite. But what about other decisions? More control? Or less? More openness? Or a tightly controlled product? And a product for which target groups? Based on what business model?

Actually - and for some of my readers maybe surprisingly - I think that Linden Lab has a strategy for the coming years and Second Life's place in the Metaverse.

While I am not sure, that the company's management and shareholders has answers ready for all of the questions mentioned above, it is interesting to read the speech of Mitch Kapor (creator or the first successful spreadsheet software and a major Investor in LL) and the latest blog post of Linden Lab's new CEO, Mark Kingdon. (Check here, too.) Both will tell you, that Linden Lab indeed has a rather profitable business model, is expecting significant growth and is targeting markets way outside the current user base (actually alienating large groups in the current user base). In parallel, it is interesting to see, that Linden Lab created a "Department of Public Works" earlier this year, which is responsible for "beautifying Second Life" - after a long long time, where the company just flooded the market with more and more "land" (servers) which quickly were converted into huge trailer parks.

These activities seem to lead into different directions ... but I believe, that they are all part of a unified strategy to position Second Life as a standard tool for creating and accessing the future Web 3D as well as to position Linden Lab as one - but not the only - important service provider.

Technorati Tags: 3d web, metaverse, second life, v-commerce, virtual worlds, web 3.d

Google's Virtual World Lively, the Second Life Killer

Today, Google released the long awaited (and rumored) "Google Virtual World": Lively. Lively can be described best as a kind of IMVU in a web page. You can create yourself an avatar and can create and decorate your "room" (which does not have to be a "room" but can be an outdoor scene, too), where you meet with other avatars. The avatars kind of look like a cross breed of THERE and IMVU avatars and the visual quality is rather good. A plugin is needed, to integrate your room into a web page (which is only available for the Windows platform).

And of course, the web is already overflowing with head lines saying "The Second Life Killer is finally here!"

Hmmm...

While you ALWAYS have to take Google's project seriously ... is hard to see a Second Life "Killer" here.

Lively reminds me of IMVU, Vivaty and the early Kaneva. It is not a virtual "world" but a network of loosely connected scenes. This is a quite popular model for many platforms calling themselves "virtual worlds", which appeared on the market in the last 3 years. I am uncertain, if this model will be too successful in the long run. Many of the projects, which were based on "rooms" alone in the past, have added additional spatial constructs lately. For many applications besides "hey, look at my cool appartment" and "let's spend the night (an hour) together" a room or scene is a very limited surrounding.

This does not mean, that this could not reach a huge target audience. But the competition is already there. And some of the products already on the market do not look too bad. Vivaty, which has a very similar approach (as far as one can judge it now), has the big advantage of being tightly integrated with Facebook and AIM. I consider this a very valuable feature for this type of platform - because, the way Lively is now, it is basically a nice add on for a profile page on Facebook, MySpace or a blog. And for this purpose, a good integration with Facebook, MySpace or a blogging platform is important. Google certainly has these platforms available and the technological abilities to add such an integration.

Lets see what happens in the next months.

Technorati Tags: 3d web, google, googlewatching, metaverse, lively, second life, twinity, virtual worlds, web 3.d

Why use Intraworlds (Corporate Virtual Worlds)?

When I first wrote about Corporate Virtual Worlds last week, I forgot the most important side of the topic: The 'Why question'? Or in a little more words: "Why use a relatively demanding technology like virtual worlds for the typical tasks for which an intranet usually is applied to? Ain't this just another new play toy, costing a lot more but with little or no advantages beyond traditional 2D applications - besides a certain sexy-ness?"

Certainly not. The MPK20 team at Sun Microsystems came up with a good justification a few months ago when they published some info about their project. MPK20 is an intraworld, a corporate virtual world, that was launched in 2007. It is based on Sun's virtual worlds toolkit Project Wonderland, and it is extremely interesting, to see, how the team is "selling" the idea of an intraworld (which Sun calls Virtual Workplace).

While it might be possible to build a 2D tool with functionality similar to MPK20, the spacial layout of the 3D world [...] provides strong cognitive cues that enhance collaboration. [...] the juxtapostion of avatars in the world [...] allows people to intuit who they can talk to at any given time. The 3D space provides a natural way to organize multiple, simultaneous conversations. [...] the arrangement of the objects within the space provides conversational context. If other avatars are gathering near the entrance to a virtual conference room, it is a good guess that they are about to attend a meeting in that space. It is then natural to talk to those people about the content or timing of the meeting, just as you would if attending a physical meeting. In terms of data sharing, looking at objects together is a natural activity. With the 3D spacial cues, each person can get an immediate sense of what the other collaborators can and cannot see.

Makes sense, doesn't it?

In other words: once you get used to the new metaphor (or have un-learned the implausibe 2D ones), intraworlds offer a much more intuitive environment to meet people and to collaborate and cooperate with them. It is certainly not "better" to watch a Powerpoint presentation in a virtual world. But, if I want to present these slides to a bunch of people, discuss them with these people, rework the ideas etc. a virtual world it definitely preferable to a conference call, a video or web conference. Our brain is deeply wired to recognize and act on spatial clues - especially when interacting with other people. It is about proximity and distance. It is relevant where someone else is located, if we are standing close or apart, if we are moving nearer or farther away.

Additionally, a 3D world lends itself very naturally to the spatial display of quantitative information or of complex systems and their relationships. This can be done in a web page, too, of course. But, again, a 3D world is a much more intuitive environment to display such a 3D visualization, to view it from different angles - and, to discuss it with others, of course.

Technorati Tags: 3d web, intraworld, metaverse, second life, virtual worlds, web 3.d

Wozu sind Intrawelten (Corporate Virtual Worlds) gut?

Als ich letzte Woche das erste Mal kurz über Intrawelten (Corporate Virtual Worlds) schrieb, habe ich einen wichtigen Punkt ganz vergessen: "Warum?" Oder, mit etwas mehr Worten: "Warum überhauot eine relativ aufwendige Technologie wie diese für die typischen Aufgaben eines Intranets einsetzen? Ist das nicht nur ein neues Spielzeug, teure aber mit wenig tatsächlichem Zusatznutzen gegenüber den bewährten 2D-Lösungen?"

Sicherlich nicht! Für eine gute Begründung der Vorteile muss ich gar nicht einmal lange grübeln. Da MPK20-Team bei Sun Microsystems hat eine recht schöne Vorteilsargumentation anläßlich der Vorstellung ihres Projekts ins Web gestellt. MPK20 ist eine Intrawelt, die schon in 2007 gelaunchet wurde. Sie basiert auf Suns Toolkit für virtuelle Welten, Project Wonderland (auch mit Weblog) und es ist interessant zu sehen, wie das MPK20-Team die zugrundeliegenden Prinzipien einer Intrawelt verkauft (wobei Sun diese Plattform "Virtual Workplace" nennt).

While it might be possible to build a 2D tool with functionality similar to MPK20, the spacial layout of the 3D world [...] provides strong cognitive cues that enhance collaboration. [...] the juxtapostion of avatars in the world [...] allows people to intuit who they can talk to at any given time. The 3D space provides a natural way to organize multiple, simultaneous conversations. [...] the arrangement of the objects within the space provides conversational context. If other avatars are gathering near the entrance to a virtual conference room, it is a good guess that they are about to attend a meeting in that space. It is then natural to talk to those people about the content or timing of the meeting, just as you would if attending a physical meeting. In terms of data sharing, looking at objects together is a natural activity. With the 3D spacial cues, each person can get an immediate sense of what the other collaborators can and cannot see.

Klingt plausibel, oder?

In anderen Worten: wenn man sich einmal an die neue Metapher gewöhnt hat (bzw. die umständlichen 2D-Metaphern verlernt hat), bieten Intrawelten eine viel intuitivere Umgebung für das Online-Arbeiten und speziell für die Zusammenarbeit und Austausch über Distanz.

Natürlich ist es erst einmal nicht 'besser', eine Powerpoint Präsentation in einer virtuellen Welt zu betrachten. Aber, wenn ich diese Präsentation einer Gruppe von Leuten zeigen, mit ihnen diskutieren und eventuell bearbeiten will ... bietet eine virtuelle 3D-Umgebung mit Avataren klare Vorteile gegenüber einer Telefon-, Video-, oder Web-Konferenz. Unser Gehirn ist einfach so verdrahtet, Informationen über räumliche Anordnungen sehr intuitiv zu nutzen - speziell, wenn es um die Interaktion mit Menschen geht. Es geht um Näher und Distanz im direkten und übertragenen Sinne. Es ist relevant, wer wo steht, ob mir jemand nah oder fern ist, wir uns annähren oder entfernen, wo sich Gruppen bilden.

Zudem bietet sich eine 3D-Welt auch "natürlich" für die 3D-Darstellung von Daten und komplexen Systemen an. Auch das kann man selbstverständlich auf einer Webseite machen - und macht das schon. Aber auch hier wieder ist eine 3D-Welt eine viel intuitivere Umgebung zur Darstellung, zur Betrachtung aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln (einfach herumgehen) und natürlich zur Diskussion der Darstellung zusammen mit Anderen.

Technorati Tags: 3d web, intraworld, metaverse, second life, virtual worlds, web 3.d

The Intraworlds are Coming!

In the first wave of the big virtual worlds hype (which was a Second Life hype, actually) the canonical application for this new technology was "marketing" - maybe because marketeers are the ones, which just love new ways to reach the minds of customers (and the costs for some experiments in Second Life did not mean much in relationship to typical marketing budgets). They were disappointed after a while, when they discovered the size of their target groups, which they could reach through Second Life ... and the anti-hype began.

At the same time, quietly and steadily, another group of people began to discover virtual worlds. And actually, it seems as if at least in the "corporate world" there is a lot more immediate potential for a real ROI with applications in the context of intranets and education/training. The big advantage of virtual worlds, immersion, the feeling of being together with other people, no matter, where they are in the physical world, is extremely interesting for these application areas, too. That is not just a virtual worlds fanboy's opinion. IBM,  Gartner, Forrester or McKinsey do agree.

So, while we might have to wait a few years until the global Metaverse appears, there will certainly quite a few Intraworlds around in the near future. I would like to define an Intraworld as follows:

Intraworlds are to virtual worlds what intranets are to the web. An Intraworld is a virtual world, which is accessible to the employees of one company. The server side of such a platform usually runs in the company’s own data center and the users access the world with PCs connected to these server(s) through the company’s LAN (or through a VPN connection). Additionally, an Intraworld is optimized for similar purposes as an intranet: communication, information sharing and general collaboration. Typical applications are meetings, conferences, presentations and sometimes training.

In a similar way you can define 'Extraworlds', too, of course.

The first products, which are optimized for this market, are Sun's Project Wonderland and Qwaq by a company of the same name. Both are intended to help companies set up their own Intraworlds. Qwaq is more of a packaged service offering (see here), while Project Wonderland is a real "tool kit" in a more technical sense. You can build a virtual world with it, but you can not simply "log in to" Project Wonderland. Sun has used Project Wonderland to create their own demo intraworld, already, which it calls MPK20.

I will be looking into both products in some detail in the coming weeks.

Technorati Tags: 3d web, second life, virtual training, virtual worlds, web 3.d, intraworld

Die Intrawelten kommen!

In der ersten Phase des "Virtuelle-Welten-Hypes" (der eigentlich ein Second Life Hype war) nahmen Viele an, dass das Hauptanwendungsgebiet "Marketing" wäre, vermutlich, weil Marketeers immer nach neuen Wegen suchen, ihre Kunden zu erreichen (und die typischen Kosten für ein Second Life Experiment in Relation zu typischen Kampagnen-Kosten nicht besonders hoch erschienen. Diese Leute waren sehr enttäuscht, als sie feststellten, welche Reichweite ihre Kampagnen in Second Life hatten (was keinen Experten verwunderte), und der Anti-Hype begann.

Zur gleichen Zeit entdeckte eine ganz andere Gruppe von Anwendern heimlich still und leise die virtuellen Welten. Und tatsächlich sieht es aus, als gäbe es zumindest in der "Corporate World" ein großes Potential für Projekte mit virtuellen Welten im Umfeld von Intranets, Aus-/Weiterbildung sowie Training. DER große Vorteil virtueller Welten, Immersion, das Gefühl - unabhängig von räumlicher Distanz - mit anderen Leuten zusammen zu sein, zu kommunizieren und zu arbeiten, ist für diesen Anwendungsbereich hochinteressant. Schließlich arbeiten in allen großen Unternehmen die Teams inzwischen standortübergreifend zusammen und Reisekosten und -Zeiten sind ein entsprechend großer Kostenblock. Nein, das ist nicht allein die Ansicht eines "Virtuelle-Welten-Fans. IBM,  Gartner, Forrester und McKinsey stimmen zu.

Wir müssen vielleicht noch ein paar Jahre auf das Werden des globalen Metaversums warten. Bis dahin wird es aber sicher eine ganze Reihe "Intrawelten" geben. Wobei ich Intrawelten wie folgt formulieren würde:

Intrawelten stehen zu virtuellen Welten, wie Intranets zum World Wide Web. Eine Intrawelt ist eine virtuelle Welt, die nur den Mitarbeitern eines Unternehmens offen steht. Der Server einer solchen Plattform steht meist im Rechenzentrum der Firma und die Anwender erreichen diese Welt nur über das firmeneigene LAN (oder über eine VPN-Verbindung), Weiterhin ist eine Intrawelt optimiert für einige der wichtigsten eines Intranets. Kommunikation,  Informationsaustaushc und Zusammenarbeit im Unternehmen. Typischen Applikationen sind Meetings, Konferenzen, Präsentatione, Diskussionen und manchmal auch Trainings.

Analog dazu könnte man natürlich auch 'Extrawelten' definieren.

Die ersten richtigen Produkte für diesen Markt sind Sun's Project Wonderland und Qwaq (der gleichnamigen Firma). Beide sind dafür gedacht, Unternehmen beim Aufsetzen eigenen Intrawelten zu unterstützen. Qwaq ist schon mehr ein fertiges Lösungsangebot (siehe auch hier), während Wonderland ein echtes "Tool Kit" ist. Man kann eine Intrawelt damit bauen aber nicht einfach in eine bestehende einloggen. Allerings hat Sun Project Wonderland schon dazu genutzt, eine Intrawelt für das eigene Unternehmen zu bauen, MPK20.

Ich werde mir beide Produkte in den kommenden Wochen mal etwas genauer ansehen.

Technorati Tags: 3d web, second life, virtual training, virtual worlds, web 3.d, intraworld

Usability in Virtual Worlds - its all about the business plan

After visiting some more current corporate projects in virtual worlds in the last week, I had to recap my presentation about usability at Metavers08 (see the slides here) I wrote about the topic nearly one year ago, but the situation hasn't improved much: Usability is still an aspect that is considered low priority with many projects in virtual worlds - if it is considered at all. The situation is a bit similar to that on the web in the mid 90s: developers and their clients are much more excited about the new possibilities (if they are still excited) or about spectacular design.

When I am writing this, I don't mean the user experience of the virtual world platforms. Granted, especially Second Life IS a usability nightmare and the new user experience is so "well thought out", that many users who would like to give this virtual world a try, simple run away screaming - or at least shaking their heads. The company behind Second Life seems to have realized this lately, though. While I don't know what they will actually do to improve this sad situation, they at least announced a newly found focus on user experience. And other virtual worlds are much more usable right from the start - sometimes because the platforms are a lot less feature-rich, of course. The little "worldlets", for example, the 3D scenes you can embed into web pages, are very simple, rather limited and you don't need to know (or learn) a lot, to be able to use them.

Better usability is good for your business
Sometimes, the new virtual worlds are significantly more user-friendly, though, because their designers realized that it makes sense to offer an easy entrance, early on. The reason is usually not an altruistic one but simple greed: when you want to create a business with/in a virtual world, you better not make it unnecessarily hard for your (potential) customers!

Many companies "trying out the potential of virtual worlds" these days, still don't seem to think this way. If you look at some of the projects from very well know brands in Second Life for example, it is still not uncommon to appear on their sites and not find the slightest clue about what to expect here and where to find it. Some other projects often are not "designed for the avatar" (avatars don't move and don't "see" like humans). The example to the right comes from an early phase of one of our own projects .

This is not limited to Second Life (and Second Life's basic shortcomings are responsible for these faults). And this can't be excused with "we are just experimenting with marketing/sales/training/conferencing in virtual worlds". Simply because a badly designed experiment is not very useful for evaluating the "potential usefulness" of virtual worlds. ...

Interesting enough ... it isn't too hard to do better. Some 25 years with software design (plus some additional 12 years with web design) have told us, how ...

Technorati Tags: 3d web, second life, ucd, usability, virtual worlds, web 3.d