William Linden posts today about Viewer 2.0 and the SLE product in what I can only assume is a piece intended as light relief. Our announcement last week of the Second Life Viewer 2 Beta marks a significant evolutionary step on many fronts he gushes in the opening sentence before going on to give us some real corkers.
Like many other technologies, the value of Second Life derived from within the organization increases with adoption, for many reasons: shared learning, reduced setup times, more productive time spent on the tasks at hand, resulting in more in-depth, creative and productive uses of the product.
No shit, Sherlock. One might also say that the value of a Nintendo Wii or an XBox 360 “increases with adoption, for many reasons: shared learn, reduced setup times…” and so on. However, that doesn’t mean either the Wii or the XBox 360 are going to be valid corporate tools. This goes for Second Life as well.
However, stating the bleedin’ obvious is still only the tip of the iceberg as William pulls up an impressive table of Things You Can Do With Second Life… document sharing! Whiteboard collaboration! *gasp* video sharing! Document collaboration! OMG!!: web conferencing!!!
Wow! Amazing! Brilliant! Fabulo….err, hang on a minute….aren’t these all things most self-respecting corporate entities can already do through that thing, oh what is it called? Oh, yes the, umm “corporate Intranet” via something called the “web browser”, as well as other tools they already have at their fingertips? And, umm… can’t they already do these these things without having to fork out $55K a pop to support up to 100 staff, all of whom will need to have their moderate business desktops replaced with pretty high-end graphics / gaming machines?
No….William must be pulling our collective leg. Kingdon et al at LL must be playing an early April fool on us.
I mean, it’s obvious they’re not serious, isn’t it? Just look at this from William: Further, because some of the most valuable media content is secure behind your firewall, SLE will be the go-to solution for easily sharing this secure data in private workspaces. This includes things like company Intranet pages, internal wikis, SharePoint pages, project planning output, and any number of common web-based workgroup mediums.
This really has to be a joke, doesn’t it?
I mean, no-one in their right mind would sit down and suggest to a corporate executive that they should encourage their staff to stop viewing the corporate Internet, internal wiki pages or SharePoint site directly on their desktop / laptop browser and should instead:
- Log into to some upmarket game-like thing
- Create something called a “prim”
- Play around it to size it etc.
- Then go to their web browser, pull up what they want to see and copy the URL before closing their browser
- Then paste said URL into the properties of this “prim” thing
- Then view the information they were seeking?
Surely William isn’t seriously suggesting companies throw out the means to let those engaged in meetings or collaborative efforts fart around in a game to shar what can be shared quickly and easily, desktop-to-desktop, meeting room to meeting room directly via a web browser…..?
No – it has to be one big joke, doesn’t it!
Doesn’t it……?
Sadly, no. And that’s where the comedy turns to tragedy.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
I’ve spent all of my professional IT career working for major corporations – blue chips in financial, automative, oil, IT, etc., I’ve also worked with smaller European-based and US clients. So I think I’m in a position to comment here.
And my comment is “HA!”
You hit the nail on the head where large corporations and tech-savvy companies are concerned: they just do not need the SLE product – and the idea that it will become the “go-to solution” for WEB BASED collaborative working isn’t just a joke – it’s a sign that Linden Lab is reaching a point of marketing desperation.
While there might be a market among smaller companies for something like the SLE tool, I really don’t see it really taking off. Any company that has $55,000 lying around can put it to far more worthy and efficient collaborative work tools than this. I also seriously doubt smaller companies will need things like virtual meeting spaces to anything near the degree Linden Lab believes.
I’m not qualified to comment on the effectiveness of SL (and SLE) as a prototyping environment; I have little doubt there IS potential there, but again, is the software really robust / accurate enough compared to purpose-built tools and applications?
Sure, there are some markets where the SLE platform could perform – and offer a unique solution – advertising, media, etc. But again, whether these markets have a deep enough interest in SL – even after any aggressive marketing campaign Linden Lab may use – is really pretty questionable.
The other big question is that to compete effectively in business, a company needs a “serious” reputation. I really don’t know that Linden Lab have this in the corporate marketplace – or whether they can actually generate such a reputation.
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Hmmm. Interesting points.
By “prototyping”, I assume you mean in-world model building, scripting, etc? Do things like meshes make this more achievable in SL – assuming meshes (beyond avatar meshes) do come along?
I *do* see a potential market for the SLE tool – but I think it is going to be more because technical people push their employers into “giving it a go” far more than I see businesses running out to buy it as a (to use your word) “serious” business tool / enabler.
As to the professionalism aspect and LL, it seems to me that marketing is a whole new adventure for them!
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These days we’ve got better viewer/computer compatibility that’s for sure – 3D looks like a possible concept at last – both the delivery and reception of it. And, there are many new graphics, editing and building features that are available in the new viewers. Having said that, for LL to put many of these new features exclusively into 2.0, and warn that it may well be the only style of viewer available in the future, represents too great a departure from previous viewers not to raise serious questions about LL’s original plan. Was LL ever committed to any kind of 3D immersion world similar to that which it advertised over the years? 2.0, by its very nature and description, defies the concept of total immersion, and ultimately, defies the concept of ‘world.’
The 2.0 viewer represents some kind of amalgam of RL and SL that defies any sense of immersion in a game. You can interface SL with Facebook and Twitter, while at the same time, using your carefully constructed role playing avatar, you’re terraforming a mountain or a seashore, or, if you’re lucky, meeting with another role playing avatar to engage in the use of sex animations. iI you’re even luckier, your role playing avatar can meet with a friend’s role playing avatar in SL using Facebook, so as to plan a meeting in RL later for sex. Or you can pick up the phone or text for sex, but maybe the more technology used to enable the meeting the better the chances for sex. I cite examples of sex only because I have a hard time imagining groups of businessmen donning role playing avatars just to use other interactive media, as I believe you pointed out. Young people, full of the spirit of foolish fun, might go to more trouble.
By using 1.23 I’m clinging to the ‘total immersion’ aspect of the game. That viewer was also easy for me because I use a Mac. I’ve always said the 1.23 style viewer is as elegant and sophisticated as the Mac screen itself.
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