According a report from Forrester, an independent technology and market research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology, within five years we will get our real work done in the virtual worlds.
"Virtual worlds like Second Life, There.com, and more business-focused offerings are on the brink of becoming valuable work tools. Major companies and public-sector organizations — such as BP, IBM, Intel, and the US Army — are investing heavily in virtual world technologies. But it's still early, pioneering days. You've practically got to be a gamer to use most of these tools — set-up can be arduous, navigating in a 3-D environment takes practice, and processing and bandwidth requirements remain high. But within five years, the 3-D Internet will be as important for work as the Web is today. Information and knowledge management professionals should begin to investigate and experiment with virtual worlds. Use them to try to replicate the experience of working physically alongside others; allow people to work with and share digital 3-D models of physical or theoretical objects; and make remote training and counselling more realistic by incorporating non-verbal communication into same-time, different-place interactions"
We all know that more and more companies are making their appearances into Second life. When we see, with the last virtual world conference in mind, that the big players are interested and investing in the virtual worlds, it is a certainty, that within a period of time we all would have the benefits in our real life of the virtual ones.
Can you imagine what would be possible in a virtual world like Second Life?
- As I am working in the automotive industry, an advantage would be the 3D prototyping , which would allow us rapid building, alternation possibilities, and avoid costly real world design mistakes, not even speaking about the loss of time in real world by making these rapid prototypes.
- The different communication advantages, throughout training, real-time chat and voice.
- We are all already aware of the marketing and media interests in Second life, and it is still growing.
- More and more will rich media and 3-D search solutions become important, as virtual world worlds expand their web-presence.
Don't be surprised that in a couple of years, the virtual worlds will become more and more integrated in our real life, just as the World Wide Web did some years ago. What would you do these days without the Internet?
Info from Forrester and Business Communicators of Second life
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