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Like most virtual worlds natives, we hate adding overmuch to the hype surrounding these profound technologies. And we're especially sensitive about claiming "firsts" — something corporations have been over-eager to do in virtual world spaces. That said, last night, Saturday, July 12 at 8 PM EST, we hosted Second Life Looks at Lively, a panel of major media virtual worlds watchers doing a week-one "first impressions" vamp on Google's introduction of their Lively virtual world service, this past Monday. It was truly (in a small way) a historic event. We hosted on our still-mostly-closed-to-the-public World2Worlds sim in Second Life, here on the web, and in Lively itself, with panelists both in Lively and SL; tying it all together with streamed audio and video, and chatbridge. And it all worked! This was (I think, anyway) the first time Second Life and Lively have been connected in this way. I daresay it was the first time Lively has been used for a business-class event. And the panel discussion (illuminated by inworld chit-chat on both sides) was superior. Panelists included: - Rhonda Lowry, VP Emerging and Social Media, Turner Broadcasting
- Eric Krengel, Special SL Correspondent, Reuters
- Mitch Wagner, Executive Editor, InformationWeek
- John Jainschigg, Director, Internet & Community Laboratory, ZiffDavisEnterprise (moderator)
Exec summary: it's early times for Lively. But this is not an insignificant development. Lively is certainly not just a "chat room with some visuals." For now, it's very different from SL, not least in that regular users can't create content. But it's not an unworkable environment -- even now -- for a great many interesting applications. The fact that it lives in the browser is huge -- among other points, the panelists agreed that, even full-screened, the Lively experience is more multitasking-friendly than SL, which is a far more immersive and even, to some extent, hermetic medium. If you're interested in the future co-evolution of SL and Lively, stick around. We'll shortly (fingers crossed) be bringing some of the Lively team inworld, and explore some of the history and vision behind this fascinating new tool. Here is a much better version of the (.flv, streamed) video than was posted the other day. Here's the (1:18) mp3. And here's the chat transcript from web and SL. 
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I used an SL snapshot of the fabulous Life 2.0 - Tuna Oddfellow dance event in my presentation at NSF last week. Keep up the great work--I'm sure you will.
Cheers,
Chimera Cosmos
You are wonderful and thank you so much. We work very hard to bring a great program to our audiences, peers, and friends. As I write this, the proper video is uploading and will be available shortly. It's VERY good and enables you to see the backchat that occurred in our Lively space during the panel discussion.
Take care!
The Second Life(R) economy is only a good as the people who are running SL(TM) businesses. As one of the commentators said in the discussion, "starting a business in Second Life is just as hard as in real life," and I believe people forget this. And I would also propose that marketing in SL is different from RL. One reason RL businesses fail in SL is that they don't have a virtual world sales model.
So, the three B's; Building, Buying, and Bonking are what Lively need to be considering if they want to succeed; and improving access to the 3B's is what Linden Lab(R) need to succeed.
Business failure in virtual worlds: In regard to business failure, businesses always need sales models to be successful in any environment, whether that business is purely virtual or an extension of a physical world entity. Businesses entering a virtual environment should adjust their sales model to integrate the implementation of a virtual world presence across all public relations, marketing, and sales channels. I noted some time ago during one of our events that many of the early corporate adopters entering virtual worlds had not integrated their virtual world presence with their physical world model, resulting in a mixed set of results.
Sigmund’s 3Bs for Virtual World Platform Success: In regard to your 3Bs, I have to differ with you on the "bonking" part for _most_ businesses, unless that's what they're selling. Given that business and commerce are composed of a multitude of professions, products, and services ranging from education to the design and construction of buildings, a broader success model has to apply to virtual worlds that have been, or are being developed for general use.
The other two B's you've listed -- building and buying -- are options that result from an individual's choice—enabling those options are vital. Second Life(R) has made the tools available to develop your own content--but you have to decide if you want to use them and others have to decide if they want to buy your product or service. I know many people who do not build, and some (not many) that choose not to buy.
Lively does offer the building tools--if you sign up as a developer. I believe most virtual worlds have some sort of program in place providing tools for building if you choose to go through their process. Perhaps keeping the tools separate minimizes the complexity of the user interface for those entering virtual worlds.
Virtual world platform success ingredients that should be incorporated into their business, sales and marketing plans include:
1. Ease of entry/access (I’d include lower barriers related to firewall issues here as well as the user experience)
2. Content development tools for its clients (building)
3. Reliability
4. Standardization - supports common applications such as HTML, document sharing, streaming media (add to this list!)
5. Security
6. Two-way user communication tools (web to virtual world and back for voice, text chatting)
7. Ability to support hundreds of digital people in the same space with no loss of environment
Rissa
Thanks for the comments Rissa, and as I said, the whole discussion contained so many ideas worth focusing on that I felt almost guilty making a blanket statement like "Building, Buying, and Bonking" - but I guess I did it anyway ;)
My point on the Bonking ("Boinking" for our US readers) component might have been better made if I had been a little more precise with a definition. From a technological perspective, it is one of the internet's "dirty little secrets" that the desire to access and market porn has pushed forward web-based software. Pop-ups, redirects, compression algorithms, streaming video - all of these have been used and developed by porn merchants quite effectively. Peter Johnson made this point back in 1996 in an article for the Federal Communications Law Journal [1] and a 2003 article available online from the UK's Guardian newspaper [2] makes the point that the largest revenue-generating sector of the web is the porn industry.
This is, as you point out, the element of "unless that's what they're selling." And the cliché "Sex Sells" is as applicable to virtual worlds as real life. As an example, the recent Second Life case of what has been termed the "Sex Bed case," where a SK designer successfully reached a settlement with another SL designer who had "stolen" his sex bed design. The fact that a RL action was taken for a SL infringement suggests that real dollars were are stake - enough to make hiring an attorney a good investment! So I use Bonking as a blanket (another B, sorry) to include issues such as how the sex industry can drive developments of software and hardware (no pun intended), and account for the transaction of real dollars as part of a virtual sex services industry (c.f. "Second Life Sex Industry Jobs: An insider’s view on making a real life income" in "SLentrepreneur Magazine" [3])
A last point - as I am aware this reply is becoming a polemic! - is that I also use "Bonking" to cover the need to human relationships at a level deeper than business transactions. In Second Life there are many people who are there because of their partners. Odd as it may seem, they have homes, jobs, and even babies, which are part of the virtual experience. Any virtual world that neglects providing the opportunity to so this is, I suggest, missing a vital component. This may or may not include cybersex, but even sex is just a component of intimate human relationships - virtual or otherwise. Phew! Maybe if I change "bonking" to "bonding" I can keep the three B's and be a little more precise ;)
[1] Peter Johnson, Pornography Drives Technology: Why Not to Censor the Internet, 49 Fed. Comm. L.J. 217, 217 (1996). http://www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/ pubs/v49/no1/johnson.html
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2002/mar/03/internetnews.observerfocus [3] http://www.slentre.com/ second-life-sex-industry-jobs-an-insiders-view-on-making-a-real-life-income/