virtual worlds forum

I have got the presentation Paul Jackson from Forrester research held on the Virtual Worlds Forum last week in London.

It's good summarization of categorization and users in virtual worlds.

short summary of the presentation someone from  riversrunred made:

• creating collaboration,
• design your communication environment
• think as vw as networks --> this is the added value
• go in slowly, understand it, casy study yourself
• control your brand

I just had an interesting session about the integration of mobile devices in virtual worlds.

Have a look at vodafone in SL. There you can take a mobile and phone and send SMS into real world and vice versa.

ironstar from Helsinki created MoiPal, something like a tamagocchi for playing in virtual worlds. Target group are kids.

Nice idea

conclusion first day:

virtual worlds will change our way of communication and work

• virtual worlds are mainly used for social interaction
• need of interfaces, standards to integrate business applications, secure payment systems and mobile devices
• universal avatars would be great
• tendency to closed worlds for communication networks in companies, open source solutions are preferred
• additional marketing tool for companies
• people use their avatars as a toy
• an avatar is always a substitute of the real human being behind and shows - wanted or not - wishes and unconscious behaviour

All in all a confirmation what I already know, but not to bad.

social impacts:
social networking, flatter hierarchies, self organized critically

--> changing the structure of work, changes roles
--> use of virtual spaces and social communities
--> are we able to do use these tools?

politic-economic impacts:
globalisation
global law and economy vs. national law and economy

--> global communities

technological impacts:

--> immersive worlds
--> easy accessability and interoperability

virtual worlds are an additional tool for education and vocational training:
cross agencies trainings, in-world simulations are gesteuert bei real people = create real experience -->

augemented reality / immersive worlds
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/eli_outcomes.htm

so less time:

http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/info/categories.shtml

In between we have a discussion about different virtual worlds and how they change our behaviour, social interaction and work.

I am just arrived and Steve Prentice is talking about the topic above.

His points to think about before start an investment:

• Do not go in because everyone else is doing that
• a lot of closed vw, especially in US are big social networks, with strict rules, cooperation projects, meeting points - this is immersive in ususal TV behaviour
• have a clear plan how to use this media
• be aware of the type of participants
• play the game to get in contact with participants
• integrate the vw into your marketing tools
• to whom belongs the things you create in vw
• who controlls the data?

It's a long haul!

It's all about community and collaboration -build your own intranet!

Look for open source solution to do that.

I am going to attend the Virtual Worlds Forum for the next two days.

Tomorrow, on the workshop day I hope to get an overview about what enterprises can do in virtual worlds (conferences, access, tools, security issues, access controlling,...) even though I know a bit of all from our own projects in Second life. The real conference starts on Wednesday where I am especially interested in to get some information about further development of interfaces for business applications, SSL including, transferable avatars,...

I'll blog about during the days, free WLAN is available