Is There An Untapped Market For "Immersive Workspaces" In Second Life?

If you're at the Virtual Worlds Conference in London this week, take a look at the "Immersive Workspaces" just announced by Linden Lab in conjunction with UK studio Rivers Run Red.  The official site is here, and judging from the videos, it's essentially a version of Second Life re-tooled for enterprise use-- avatar-driven business meetings, document sharing, and so on.  (It was actually shown off and announced at the LA Virtual Worlds Conference last month.)  At the moment, the site is rather vague on details, so without a first-hand demo, it's difficult to determine if it's a good idea. 

From what I can see, however, there's not much being offered that you could accomplish for free with Google Docs and Skype.  Though it's Second Life, I see nothing about dynamic 3D content creation, merely the importation of existing 2D content like Powerpoint files.  Of course, the power of a shared immersive space is a unique advantage, but then, that's already being offered by Sun's Project Wonderland and Qwak, among others.  For that matter, there are third party Second Life developers already offering similar services in-world, so this seems to put Linden Lab in direct competition with some of its own customers.

A larger question looms: with general adoption rates still so low as yet, is there even an untapped market for enterprise use of Second Life?

There's definitely numerous companies who do use SL for that purpose, like Cisco, Microsoft, and IBM, but my impression is that this activity is largely driven by employees who are already active virtual world users, and have gotten past Second Life's steep learning curve.  Without them as internal advocates and guides, it's hard to see corporations embracing this technology out of the box, so to speak.  Then again, it might be easier for them to convince the boss to try it out, if they can point to a gleaming, Linden-sanctioned site.  That may be the company's primary goal.

So that's my initial take, quite possibly an unfair one, subject to amendment after I get a closer look.  Meantime, what's your sense?

Image: immersivespaces.com.

Comments

[Seraphine]

If Second Life can't make this work, now, in this economy where companies are deep-cutting their travel budgets, it's not going to work.
It has to be done professionally, or at least in the personalized style of the host campany or companies.
I do hope SL can make this work, I want it to be a great success.

[Nexus Burbclave]

They state on the site that they won't disclose pricing information on the Web. In the software world this is typically a company's way of saying "if you have to ask, you can't afford it".

As someone with an interest in this space, that is good news to me. It says to me that they are focusing on enterprises, and there is still plenty of room for other players to offer services entrepreneurs and smaller organizations, which seems like a substantial market.

As to whether the enterprise market exists, I can really only offer a couple of thoughts and a definite maybe. As you point out, the majority of enterprises utilizing Second Life have a great deal of their own tech know-how. With companies of this type, there are many trade-offs in the "buy or build" decision. It is basically up to Linden Lab and Rivers Run Red to sell those companies on buy. If they can add enough value with offerings like training, there might be a good market for this.

[Balthasar Bookmite]

What is wrong with just 2D stuff like videos and presentation. Yeah you could argue that 3D innovation is important in SL(tm), but look at the amount of that happening outside the business sector of SL(tm). I am thinking that the market has been almost tapped out at least for the business sector. There isn't much you can do in 3D besides proto-typing and conferencing. Sure you could do marketing, but I think that is slowly making its way out because of the lack of major success rates.

Also this isn't something that everyone that has a business needs unlike a website. Businesses who have nothing to do with computers aren't going to be rushing to this new platform because the services or products make no sense in SL(tm) Also Second Life is just becoming mainstream, I think it will be a few more years before businesses will see this as a good thing, espcially if the media keeps pushing the porn angle.

One last thing. Like you said above SL(tm) has a steep learning curve. Most people like something quick and easy to use, especially since the internet, for the most part is becoming easier and easier to use, people don't want to learn a whole new skill set, right after they have just mastered one, quickly on a platform that may or may not give them the traffic they want.

Balt

PS Can you post some more fluffy articles? Balance is nice.

[Pavig Lok]

2D is the missing element of 3D worlds. Most of the information and media we create and consume is in 2D and it's comparatively easy to produce and information rich. If there's a market for 3D worlds at all then 2D media should be a major part of it. Considering the comparative triviality of displaying 2D content it's madness that we've had to wait this long to start getting functional solutions :)

Personally I'd use 2D image solutions pretty much every day if they were available and elegant - it's just quicker and more direct to convey an idea with a picture. Bring on 2D I say, and liberate it from that kludgey parcel media straightjacket :)

[Sean FitzGerald]

So this is their business model? Partnering with third-party developers to present secure, private, integrated 3D world and enterprise tools for business?

Good luck with that, I say.

As you point out there are other companies already doing the same thing, and I bet their platforms are more stable.

With Microsoft integrating their productivity apps with OpenSim and IBM integrating Lotus SameTime with OpenSim I don't think it's hard to see which model is going to win out in the long run. (Hint - a FREE open source platform that allows enterprise to integrate their own productivity and business apps into 3D environments that they can run and host on their own servers behind their firewalls.)

[Two Worlds]

Huh, imagine that, Linden Labs finally figured out businesspeople don't want to have to deal with an impossible learning curve, horrible software, and underage lolis and furries barging in every couple of minutes to "yiff".

Yup, wave of the freakin' future, right there.

[rightasrain]

they showed this at the Virtual Worlds London conference (actually M Linden stopped his keynote address and let Rivers do a product pitch in the middle). Video and idea looked ok. The chatter at the Linden Labs booth sounded like the price is like $USD 40k and up. I think this was also attached to M's announcement about the "behind the firewall" solution. Main feature I guess is the embedded desktop sharing (ala webex) and a sorta team home page (ala basecamp, lotus notes).

Offering actually seems ok, but not sure it would pass any kind of security scrutiny by an enterprise IT type. For me the avatars are still too stiff/toonish to add value to a business meeting that is not related to virtual world directly.