Notes from 1st Panel at Virtual Worlds 2007
First Question from Daniel Terdiman: What stage is the industry at?
Sibley: Very early stage — companies are making exploratory moves but its not core to their business
Chris Collins: Growth is amazing
Prentice: Same as Internet in mid 90’s but inability to move from one world to another is the major inhibitor to growth.
Joe Lazlo, Jupiter Research: PR benefit is a big driver now
Terdiman: 6 months ago the PR was a lot easier because the 1st’s were more prominent. What’s the pitch today?
Sibley: Pitch is same as always was. How do you pursue your goals using virtual worlds? Today its longer-term and that’s sobering and encouraging to pursue long-term value?
Bovington: Second Life is moving out of brand equity building and towards mass collaboration. 80% of communication is happening outside of Second Life on the web etc.
Chris Collins: Echoes Philip’s quote that companies are eager to unite people in concert with the web.
Bovington: SL is a great place to originate content.
Verbeck: Entertainment is a primary business driver.
Prentice: VW’s are great for creating colloboration and community within and across organizations.
Terdiman:  What is the ROI?
Sibley:¬† MLB example we allowed people to watch games together.¬† We’ve had events that were as high as 1200 people.
Lazlo:¬† Just like early days of web but that’snot a lot of people.
Bovington:¬† Linear scale (90 minutes) presents a scaling problem — longer term is a lot easier 6000 over a week with the BBC. We sold 27,000 pairs of Adidas shoes.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Virtual Worlds 2007 - We Need Better Interoperability…
First Question from Daniel Terdiman: What stage is the industry at?Sibley: Very early stage — companies are making exploratory moves but its not core to their business
Chris Collins: Growth is amazing
Prentice: Same as Internet in mid 90‚Äôs but ina…
April 2nd, 2007 at 5:54 pm
This world of virtual spaces and interactions is very new to me, my interest lies in application to education and instruction. However, I still contend as I did at the conference that if this technology is going to have or is having an impact on society at the levels alluded to by those in the industry, I believe that the conversation needs to be driven not from a marketing angle, but one of societal value. What impact will this have on communication? On learning? On decision making? Relationships? Is it responsible to harness the potential to market soda or sneakers? I have way more questions than I do answers, and there are many people who know more about this than I. It stood out to me that education, government, and social institutions did not have a prominent voice in the discussion where perhaps it should.