| Q&A |
 Ian
Hughes
IBM Metaverse
December 2006 |
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"You
buy and customise Reebok trainers in Second Life. You
then wear those trainers on your avatar. So its clothing,
seen to be clothing and you develop brand affinity.
In the future there is no reason not to be able to purchase
the real ones. So this is the same model as a 2d website,
but with more relevance in a virtual world where avatar
expression is part of the culture."
<
SecondLife, Metaverse IBM
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| Q1 |
After
the death of major VRML communities, why IBM invest on such
technologies? |
| A1 |
Whilst
certain types of technology and standards may be considered
dead they are really reborn. We often see cycles of adoption
that return when other factors converge. We have seen a massive
adoption of broadband, wireless computing, relatively cheap
computing with good graphics and compute power. The original
VRML promise was correct but before its time. The other important
factor we have seen is a social one. People are used to working
together on the web, contributing to blogs, wikis, photo sharing
sites as well as buying goods over the internet. We are also
seeing many more people arrive in the workplace who have grown
up on games technology. So just as when I joined IBM 16 years
ago I was used to windowing systems in education, I came into
a green screen environment but was keen to accelerate the
change to a better way of working. We now have people entering
the workforce with experience in operating on the web, expressing
themselves, being active in open source projects, trading
on ebay and being used to 3d game technology. So it not just
investment in technology; this is part of a social and economic
change. The technology works much better now, and it’s
acceptable. |
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| Q2 |
What
make ideas such Second Life interesting regarding previous experimentations
on 3D communities? |
| A2 |
Second
Life appears to have started a wave of interest possibly because
it is more like a 3d wiki and less like a 3d game. Communities
exist in 3d worlds and are often centered around game concepts,
clans, etc. Second Life has changed by having simple content
creation tools and a real economy with a real US Linden$ exchange
rate that allows exchange of currency both ways. So in many
ways it’s more of a country, with a freedom to create
social groups, manufacture and sell virtual goods or just be
an interested observer and consumer. Building well does take
talent, just as writing a good piece on wikipedia.org requires
some skill or authoring a popular blog. However, there is no
game style leveling up, it is almost instantly accessible and
has a low install footprint more like a browser. |
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| Q3 |
Are 3D environments appropriate for collaborative work? |
| A3 |
 Yes.
The entire reason 3d environments or metaverses as they are
commonly known work is the presence of others. A web page is
you and the page.
Awareness of others sharing that information is generally weak.
In a metaverse I can attend an event, see the others at the
event and they can see me. The nature of the event can change.
A pure consumer experience such as a concert is enhanced by
the personal appearance in the virtual world of the 'star' so
they can react to the crowd. In a more corporate meeting we
have seen that the added presence of the avatar and proximity
to others helps add to the flow of a meeting. e.g. people gather
a few minutes before the meeting, as in real life. Then they
form into the meeting, e.g. they all sit down whilst the meeting
leader stands and runs the meeting. When the meeting finishes
people tend to not just leave instantly but drift away over
a few minutes. During those few minutes they interact in social
groups (which again are very visual as you tend to go over and
stand near the people you are talking too. This is analogous
to a real world meeting where conversations happen on the way
out. Standard phone meetings or even video conferences tend
to end in a more instant and dead way. Finally being able to
point, demonstrate, direct and help people in a more human fashion
leads to the ability to have 'staff' in your 'shop' so that
when a customer comes in they can browse, or they can ask for
help and have an enhanced shopping experience. Where the shop
can be anything, virtual clothing to real world services like
insurance, which is less possible in a regular website interaction. |
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| Q4 |
What
about embedded devices: are they ready to display virtual 3D
scenes? |
| A4 |
Just
as we have seen PC's get more powerful we are seeing smaller
devices become 3d ready e.g. handheld games consoles and some
phones. However you do not have to have the full 3d experience
replicated on a device that cannot cope, but merely extend
the connection to that device. e.g. information about who
is online and visiting your metaverse space and being able
to message into the virtual environment to provide some level
of interaction may work. |
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| Q5 |
A
lot of technologies exist for displaying 3D contents on the
web (Shockwave3D, VRML, Virtools, Java, 3D XML, PDF 3D...).
Does IBM want to create a new standard? |
| A5 |
There
are a great many competing and complementing ways to deliver
rich media. Standards are the way forward, just as they have
been in what is now traditional e-business. It is not just the
3D element that requires standards. How do I move between 3D
environments? How do I maintain my reputation across many different
worlds? How do I scale in a virtual world? Does it make sense
to have 5,000 people in a small space? So whilst there was and
is a 3D business, there is now a metaverse business with all
the extra pieces putting the people back in the technology.
Many of the standards have yet to even be considered in depth.
As a company we look towards open standards and interoperability
in all areas. |
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| Q6 |
Few
sites use 3D contents for displaying their product of their
online store; does it means that 3D is not the right media ? |
| A6 |
 One
of the things about 3D is that you can still do 2D. So some
things are better done flat. However the option to use 3D, and
the presence of others in that 3D where appropriate gives the
flexibility needed. A prime example is one by River Run Red
and Reebok. You buy and customise Reebok trainers in Second
Life. You then wear those trainers on your avatar. So its clothing,
seen to be clothing and you develop brand affinity. In the future
there is no reason not to be able to purchase the real ones.
So this is the same model as a 2d website, but with more relevance
in a virtual world where avatar expression is part of the culture. |
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| Q7 |
What
is the future of 3D considering enterprise needs? |
| A7 |
It
is not just the 3D as I have mentioned before. Enterprise needs
scalability, robustness, security and open standards. We need
to be able to integrate with any other system (which to some
extent we already do). Already customers are asking about what
a presence in something like Second Life will mean to them and
their business. So the business requires people like us to have
both the social and technical skills to consult, build, test
and run either within the environment or the environment itself. |
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