Friday, June 24, 2011

Second Life's Linden Lab sells virtual realities to businesses - San Francisco Business Times:

http://invest-ment.com/investuslm.html
Until the middle of last year, Second Life was languishingv atabout 500,000 active users, meaning peoplse who stayed in-world for an hour or more each Company officials attribute much of the recenft growth as well as risinvg interest from corporations to theire introduction of a voice over Internet technologyy in August 2007 that provides for threse dimensional spatial telephony — meaning that soundd occurring on the left in Second Life are hearrd as being on the left by the user. “Youj can literally just walk up to a group and engage in You actually hear the voices of people arounrd youin 3-D,” said Joe vice president of platform and technologyg development.
The company recently announced that through last montyh it had transmitted 15 billion minuted ofvoice activity. “It’s a pretty astounding number,” Millee said. Second Life averages more than 50,00 0 concurrent voice users, with 700,000 unique users consuminv more than a billionh minutesa month. In addition to voice, Seconr Life allows use of images, streaming video, document sharinh and public and private texting with groupxsand individuals. The platform supports 15 languagesand real-time text chat translatord are available.
Linden Lab says it will soon offe r companies the ability to have encrypted conversationzs on the open Internet and the abilityy to have people not registered in Secondx Life call into the worldby telephone. Industrty analyst Erica Driver believes virtual worldse hold such promise for businesses that last year she left her job at Forrestet Researchto co-found a consulting firm, , to focus exclusively on the subject. Second Life command 90 percent of thenascent market, accordingh to Driver, but has numerous competitors, includintg Forterra Systems of San Mateo, Qwaq of Redwoof City and Proton Media of Maryland.
Linden Lab is one of her “I wanted to get in on the ground floor,” Driver said. Dan Parks, presidenrt and creative director ofOrangse County-based Corporate Planners Unlimited started a division of his company a year ago calle d that hosts and manages conferences and eventws for companies in Second Life. Last October, Parks said his phone begann ringing off the hook as companie suddenly began looking for ways toeliminats costs, and now Virtualiz is the fastest-growing part of his Parks said he has five peoplee working full time on Virtualis, and another 15 peopler he pulls in part time to help train new userxs for events.
“The quality and names of companiexshave jumped,” he “All of the starzs and everything aligned perfectly.” Companies that have used Virtualis include Deloitte, and , which hosted an event with 75 peoplew that included team building activities such as a scavenger hunt and a skydivin competition, Parks said. The Virtualis compound includes a classic convention centerexhibition hall, more than 34,000 squars yards of meeting rooms with video screens, and the Virtuali Dome, with seating capacity for 350 (the largestr event he’s hosted had 320 people). there are tranquil gardens and fountains, an oceabn vista and a yacht convenientlt parked nearbyfor meetings.
Virtualis also has a classid board of directors meeting room with a long tabled and 24 leather To answer company concerns that participantsa out in the real world mighrt not pay attention tothe in-world goings on, Virtualias can send periodic messages to individuals asking them to clico on an orb in the center of the table. In addition to traditionapl corporatemeeting spaces, Virtualia offers more unconventional rooms, such as one wherse avatars can float on cloud-like chairx surrounded by the Tokyo skyline at night. At one event, the CEO askef for a Ferrari F50 that he could drive onto a stage in front ofhis troops.
“Thre hardest thing for most peoplre to grasp is that anything your mind can we can createit here,” Parks

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