Nerd 3.0

There’s an excellent thesis put forward on 20 trends in virtual worlds over the past year. The ones of particular relevance were:

1. “Shedloads of virtual worlds will be launched in 2008″ - I think that’s a fair bet though how many actually make launch is doubtful.

2. “Teen-focused virtual worlds are huge” - Not surprising really - they’re the consumers who have an intrinsic understanding of the whole virtual world concept. That said Teen Second Life is a pale imitation of the adult version and most other options cater to the pre-teen market. Are there actually many virtual worlds who’ve achieved a solid teen audience? Corporations like Sony are certainly trying.

3. “Brands still get it wrong” - Oh yes they certainly do - it tends to be the native virtual world brands that have the greater success at this stage.

4. “There’s a problem with communication” - The author means the issue of communicating what virtual worlds are to those who have no concept of them. I believe this is the pivotal issue that needs to be addressed for the forecasted exponential growth in virtual world use to actually occur.

5. “There will be big growth in corporate use of virtual worlds” - Yes, but until real value propositions can be put forward to business, their investment in virtual worlds will remain firmly planted in the research and development are.

6. “Virtual items will be a big moneyspinner” - Nothing new there - people are happy to pay for virtual possessions and the more striking they are the bigger the business to be had.

7. “Governments are waking up to virtual worlds” - They’d better be because governments are already lagging badly in this regard. It may take a significant corporate legal action to prompt some serious legislative scrutiny, with the real risk of the main benefits of virtual worlds being crushed in the stampede to regulate.

8. “Virtual worlds need to become easier to use” - Another obvious one here - I’m yet to use any complex computer application that doesn’t require a steep learning curve. The company or person that cracks that one will be one wealthy entity.

The full post is worth a read.

In a similar vein, Clickable Culture reports on the issue of ad-creep in kid-oriented virtual worlds. There’s a sure-fire trend that’s likely to continue.

Thanks to Massively for the heads-up on the trends piece.

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Linden Lab have announced the launch of SecondLifeGrid.net, dedicated to businesses and other organisations wanting to find out about the opportunities Second Life may present. Notice I said opportunities and not threats. I spent five minutes looking around the site and couldn’t see any information alluding to the challenges and threats of doing business in SL, though to be fair there are lots of links to external resources which will contain some of the downside.

The intro blurb pretty much sums up the pitch Linden Lab are putting to business:

“The Second Life Grid is a full-featured service platform of revolutionary technologies that support the globally renowned virtual world experience, Second Life. The Grid offers a comprehensive system of infrastructure, consumer features, tools, and services that allows any organization to provide its own unique immersive experience in the world’s largest interconnected virtual world.”

The formalisation of support programs for groups of non-English speaking new users is a welcome addition. A lot of other services already provided such as the ability for a company to offer their own registration and orientation portals, have been brought across to the new site.

In retrospect, this is an obvious thing for Linden Lab to have done and it’ll be interesting to see the impact it has on conversion rates for business - you’d think a more integrated approach for business would remove one of the barriers to jumping into the SL experience.

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Veteran Second Life blogger Wagner James Au has written a concise piece on the myths surrounding doing business / marketing in Second Life.

He makes a key point at the end - that Second Life is not for every business. Anyone that tells you otherwise is looking after their own interests only.

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“Virtual Worlds, Real Leaders” is a discussion on business leadership from Seriosity and IBM.

In an Australian context, Lee Hopkins has released Social Media White paper.

Both are well worth a read if you’re interested in leadership and business in a virtual world context.

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This week just past, Playboy launched their Second Life presence with an island shaped like a bunny.

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The Australian Information Industry Association is a peak body representing the Australian Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry. In their own words:

“AIIA sets the strategic direction of the ICT industry, influences public policy, engages industry stakeholders and provides member companies with business productivity tools, advisory services and market intelligence to accelerate their business growth.”

Their in-world presence provides a kiosk and presentation area - expect a number of events in coming months on SL and its relationship to the Australian ICT industry.

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Smart Internet, a joint venture between a range of universities, State Governments and industry, has released a report called ‘Business in Second Life: An Introduction’. Authored by Swinburne University-based Senior Researcher Mandy Salomon, it provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of play in SL for Australian business.

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Linden Labs has once again provided an update on SL metrics. In the past month, Australia has continued its growth to 2.59% of the overall SL population (up from 2.41%), which makes it the 11th largest country represented:

1. As at 30th April there were 3,768,092 unique residents (up more than half a million on last month)
2. Ten percent of that is 376,809. (the ten percent rule is the rough guide on active users)
3. 2.43% of THAT is 9759.

We expect the growth to continue, albeit at a much slower rate after the large jump in March. Our prediction for coming months is continued growth but at a slower rate.

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CNN Money has an interesting snippet on business opportunities in Second Life. Information Week has a more in-depth look at virtual worlds as a B2B tool

What either article fails to mention (and not surprisingly so given they’re both US publications!) is the degree to which Australian businesses are punching well above their weight. Additionally, return on investment is not necessarily related to in-world commerce alone.

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Although now quite a few months old, the video below gives an excellent overview of some of the opportunities of Second Life for business and education:

Of course, such overviews tend to depict a fairly rosy outlook - there are of course a number of pitfalls that need to be taken into account.

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