A Second Look At Second LifeA Second Look At Second Life

Back in March I posted a piece on Second Life entitled “A Second Life For Collaboration." Since then, I’ve come across a number of new developments around using Second Life as a collaboration environment that I wanted to share with readers of this blog.

The first is from a startup company called i3d which delivers a Second Life collaboration suite.  i3d takes advantage of Silver Stream, a collection of virtual servers that enables developers to deliver applications that can be accessed by sims living in Second Life.  Real-world users can interact with Silver Stream applications through virtual reality devices such as heads-up displays to enable access to rich-media collaborative applications such as white boarding, presentations, other collaborative applications.  i3d’s approach enables security controls to keep unwanted sims out of meetings. 

I haven’t yet had the chance to see a real-life demo, and my time in Second Life has been limited thus far to strolling around the welcome area trying to figure out what to do, but I wonder if the cost model for virtual-reality-enabled meetings using HUDs coupled with Second Life as a collaborative platform may make all these investments in high-end video conferencing and telepresence obsolete before long.

Another interesting aspect of Second Life is the growing awareness of it as both a collaboration and e-commerce platform.  A quick scan of Google News shows any number of articles related to brick and mortar organizations investigating the possibilities of leveraging Second Life to improve their operations.  One interesting example was recently noted in the Wall Street Journal detailing the widespread usage of Second Life within IBM, and how IBM’s internal users are becoming evangelists to its customers and business partners.  However, IBM’s first-life rules seem to have intruded on its Second Life experimentation, as the company recently issued guidelines for employee use covering such facets as sharing of information and personal interaction.  But IBM’s rules may serve in effect to codify acceptance of Second Life as a collaboration platform, moving it beyond something people might have formerly looked at some sort of creepy alternative world.

As I noted in March, I think Second Life is intriguing and is certainly something worth watching for those responsible for improving the way people within an organization collaborate both internally and externally.  I’m still not convinced there’s a business case for widespread adoption and use, but Second Life is certainly thus-far been a fascinating experiment in the creation of a new virtual society.