Alan Belniak (RL)/Aybee Quinnell (SL)F Gerard Murphy (RL)/FranG Thursday (SL)

Toshi Motoyama (RL)/BabsonMBA Thursday (SL)

SNS connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them Businesses use SNS for marketing and

recruiting Users can easily cross geographical and other

bordersUltimately, this could pose a threat to incumbents like MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo — virtual worlds offer slicker, more immersive experiences, which are attractive to the Millennials.

-Paul Jackson

MySpace Emphasis in music/video sharing Owned by News Corp. – $580M July, 2005

Facebook Popular among college students - networking Automatically generates friendship

invitations Microsoft buys 1.6% share for $280M (valued

at $15B) LinkedIn

Great for recruiters and job search Professional uses

Others

Live avatar is clear advantage over legacy chat

Friend-making has areas of improvement Friend-of-a-friend (FOAF) Real-world analogies: networking events,

exchanging business cards Similar concept of groups

Who bears the cost of the group land? Second Life Grid seems great for group

collaboration Personalized Space

Incumbent SNS provides a personalized page

Facebook MySpace LinkedIn

Creation of a virtual ‘den’

User starts by creating a public display of limited, non-specific information that relays general identity

Once visitors are inside den, they see user’s content based on groups to which visitor has been added or granted access Visitors would not see other content in den This permits ‘selective personality exposure’ to

visitors, based on user’s preferences

Appearance of Second Life avatar could change Multiple avatars could be created and rendered

differently to other avatars, dependent upon their user group or other contextual information

Example: one user could have a different avatar (and therefore appearance) for people in their Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn groups

Could reduce or prevent inadvertent character judging during critical first impression phase

Companies working on this project include: IBM, Cisco, Google, Linden Lab, Sony, Intel, Multiverse,

Microsoft, Motorola, Philips Formed Architecture Working Group

Issues include allowing third party providers to provide: web services, identity, security and usability

Standards Debate▪ Google Open Social/ Web3d.org/ SL / ECMA / The

Metaverse Project ▪ Advertising Standards

▪ Web 1.0 banner, leaderboard, skyscraper

Now, for every world I touch I have to build an avatar. It’s an obstacle to the development and spread of virtual worlds, both in the consumer and corporate space.

Colin Parris

IBM VP of Virtual World Technology

IBM views itself as a “transformation leader”Experience with other Open Source Environments

Red Hat/Linux▪First major partner with Linux

Systems and Services▪$6 Billion+ in revenues from OS▪Selling “storage service” in SL

Believes in open standardsOnce more we have the very strong feeling that this will have a huge impact on business, society and our personal lives, although none of us can quite predict what that impact will be.  It will be fascinating to see where this ride takes us in the future. 

-Irving Wladawsky-BergerVice president, Technical Strategy and Innovation, IBM

Fragmentation or consolidation Best to keep worlds separate? Or will standards

dominate? “Reality mining” vs. "Consensual

hallucinations"▪ Killer maps: genocide maps, NASA World Winds, romantic

spots, geo-tagged flickr, traffic, house hunting, JFK assassination

▪ “Mobile Augmented Reality“: World of Warcraft, xBox Live▪ Can Second Life be both?

Fulfils the basic needs of friendship in new ways

Questions?