China will be launching a project to create a huge virtual world officially today. In the western world there is still a debate going on about the merits of virtual worlds. Every week someone declares this whole category of applications 'over-hyped', 'useless' or even 'dangerous'. Reports like the one by the Yankee Group from a few weeks ago even use completely faulty data to argue that nobody is actually using virtual worlds and companies should focus their efforts on currently en vogue platforms like Facebook and MySpace.
Actually, I don't think it is bad idea to check out the new marketing possibilities of Facebook. Innovating is something else, though, than just following the horde. It seems that even in the self declared 'creative' and 'innovative' industries and departments (advertising, pr, product development ...) people dare to try out a really new paradigm only, when most of their peers and the trade press agrees, that it is 'creative' and 'innovative' - which might be a little late. It took all those innovative guys some 2 years to understand that these online communities are really a new paradigm for (some of) people's relationships, professional and private networking needs and that they offer new opportunities for effective marketing.
Turn back the dial some 18 months and you will see, that those very same guys which are announcing now, that their companies will be doing BIG business in online communities (real soon now), were ridiculing the users of these online communities. Some of them even tried out MySpace, Facebook or started a small blog only to 'find out' that there were only antisocial, pimpled teenagers doing this stuff and adult consumers within their target groups would NEVER find the time for such frivolous activities. Times, they are a-changing ...
Technorati Tags: 3d web, virtual worlds, web 3.d
Same with virtual worlds. When I am giving presentations on the topic it is common these days that some 25% - 30% of attendees have tried to create an SL account, a few spend some minutes or even an hour inworld but after an hour (!) nearly none of them could imagine 'what this virtual world stuff is useful for'. And next they dismiss it according to the simple rule "I don't like/need it = nobody will use this"
So, while the western innovators are waiting for the trade press to declare 'the next big thing', the Chinese government is quietely moving ahead. Earlier this year, they announced an initiative to build an infrastructure (based on the MMO gaming platform Entropia) that is able do support more than 10 Million concurrent users in a virtual world. Just for comparison: Second Life, which has some 1 Million active users, is able to support a little more than 50.000 concurrent users. No other 3D virtual world - even the big online games - is currently able to handle more than a low 6 figure number of concurrent users on a single server cluster. What the Chinese are planning is a whole order of magnitude above the current state of the art.
I am not sure about the results to be expected from this project. I believe that user generated content is a very important growth driver for virtual worlds - which doesn't fit well with an authoritarian regime. I am a little doubtful if the Entropia platform (chosen for this project) and the metaphor of different 'planets', which will house all these users, is such a good idea. But no matter what. This is an ambitious project and it shows that those guys are willing to invest on a truly innovative infrastructure, which they believe will be beneficial for the competitiveness of their economy.
There is an interesting article on AP about the project. Not many details are public but it seems clear that this won't be a virtual world just for personal entertainment but for business. The main purpose seems to be to connect customers all over the world with companies in China. Maybe this will be the first huge v-Commerce platform.
This might be a very personal and subjective assessment but I consider the 'digital infrastructure' now nearly as important for a modern state - and economy - as streets and railway lines. I think it is no coincident that nations like South Korea and Singapore are world leaders in digital infrastructure and are home to some of the most successful companies and projects in the high tech and communications industry.
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