Why is Cisco investing so much time and energy in Second Life? CEO John Chambers recently appeared in-world to discuss that topic and more, and UGOTrade's Tish Shute (Tara5 Oh in SL) was there to take notes. Here he is, for example, talking about the future of virtual worlds, which some have argued is on the wane:
I would compare it to the first stages of the internet. If you look back to the predictions made by Cisco and others in the early 90s and mid-90s almost all of them not only came true but ended up being even lower then we expected in terms of under estimating the market opportunity. So I think when you think about interfacing to your customers, interfacing to your family, interfacing to your piers and the communities of interest we will have both in our business world and our personal life, I think we are at the very, very beginning stages of what is possible.
Read it all here. And if you happen to be available at Noon today, another Cisco alum will provide an alternate point of view: Christian Renaud, until very recently Cisco's metaverse evangelist, will be today's guest on the Metanomics show, talking about his plans since leaving, and why he believes "Second Life and its walled/closed ilk will fade into the sunset in the next 24-36 months," supplanted by web-based applications of 3D/virtual worlds. Event details here.
I bet Chambers is just reading my series ;)
Posted by: csven | Monday, June 30, 2008 at 11:24 AM