Second Life and its potential uses

InformationWeek, Nov 10, 2006 pNA

IBM Gets A Second Life; IBM is set to invest $10 million to increase its presence in the market for technologies that enable so-called virtual worlds such as Second Life.


IBM is set to invest $10 million over the next twelve months to increase its presence in the market for technologies that enable so-called virtual worlds such as Second Life, a 3-D Web environment in which people from various walks doff their everyday identities to assume online alter egos, a company spokesman said Friday.

As part of the effort, IBM will expand its use of Second Life, which now has more than one million users, for virtual meetings with employees and business partners. Next week, company CEO Sam Palmisano will go "in world" to hold a virtual town hall on IBM's Second Life island. The company recently held a similar gathering with the press and analysts, and has hosted a virtual party for IBM alumni inside the online world. It's also building a 3-D replica of China's famed Palace Museum inside Second Life, which will be open to cyber tourists.

IBM's virtual reality ambitions go far beyond Second Life, however, a spokesman says.

"Just as AOL and other early Internet services were early entry ways into the largely undeveloped World Wide Web, Second Life, other virtual worlds, and massive, multi-player game environments are the precursor to a 3-D Internet," says the spokesman. IBM wants to create 3-D business environments that mirror Second Life's interactivity and sense of immersion. The company envisions scenarios under which, say, a team of healthcare researchers from around the world could enter a virtual meeting room to tackle a disease outbreak.

Although it's a virtual world, Second Life is having a big impact on real world commerce and business. News agency Reuters has opened an in-world Second Life news bureau, Amazon.com's product database is available to book merchants operating within Second Life through an open API, and several pop stars have given concerts within the virtual environment. "There are all sorts of new applications for this technology," says IBM's spokesman.




There are tons and tons of potential uses for this technology. Government agencies are planning on using it for training in the event of biological attacks. Training can take place in virtual classrooms. Also, Second Life has gotten the attention of Harvard as a means for virtual lectures for distance learning. Second Life also has the potential to rid the need for office space when you think about it. People could work from their homes and meet with the people they work with in virtual meeting rooms to discuss business.

It's fascinating because one of the big things about this generation of the Internet is user-generated content. Because individual people are creating content, all of a sudden a shitload of content appears on the Internet from apparently nowhere in a very short amount of time. Take Wikipedia for example. There's a shit ton of information on there and it's only six years old.

Now we have networks like Second Life which put the Internet into 3D, where people are creating their own content. One woman Jennifer Grinell learned to make a living in Second Life by selling her content to consumers from within Second Life.

People from all over are going to be creating cities in Second Life and creating replications of structures from real life as in the example of the first article--the 3-D replica of China's famed Palace Museum. And they're going to be charging the cyber tourists money, no doubt in order to see a virtual depiction of this real-life structure. That's just friggin genius.

So many ways to use this technology, so many ways to make money.

This is a big idea that will not go away. It is the future, I'm sure of it.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

It's interesting, but it's a little frustrating. I've been having a play around with it.

The possibilities are amazing and just flying around a bit looking at different houses people have made is fun. I ended up in a strip club though

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Warning: Image contains *Coffee* (Nudity)
http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/6633/secondliferl2.jpg

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I started a business in SL over a year ago. I made $650 profit, took my money, and ran. It's pretty much free money.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

What kind of business?

I have an idea for a business:

Making it easy/providing a template for other real life businesses to enter and make a presence in Second Life.