Immersive Internet
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Immersive software can deliver a similar level of engagement as a physical meeting or high-end telepresence session, without the requirement to travel. Enterprise immersive software vendors have suffered something of a catch-22 as they built products that show off the potential of immersive technology. They added tightly integrated communication and collaboration features, even though these features are redundant with existing information worker infrastructure. Immersive software features that are also part of more established information worker software include voice services, messaging (real-time and asynchronous), presence awareness, team workspaces, video streaming and sharing, and document and screen sharing. As more organizations adopt immersive software, the time will come to tackle one of the second-stage barriers we’ve discussed before : integrating these new capabilities into their existing software investments?
Immersive software for meetings will expand the information work
Enterprise immersive software trends for 2010 | ThinkBalm
Enterprise immersive software is a collection of collaboration, communication, and productivity tools unified via a 3D or pseudo-3D visual environment. In this computer-generated environment, one or more people can engage in work activities such as training, rehearsing business activities, delivering or attending presentations, collaborating on documents, brainstorming, visualizing data, building or testing prototypes, and attending conferences and trade shows. The software provides a shared, interactive, multichannel experience through presence awareness, voice chat, active speaker indication, text chat, and many other features, often including avatars. The software can be installed behind the firewall, delivered on a hardware appliance, or accessed via a software as a service (SaaS) offering.
Are Forterra and Metaplace Just the First Two Dominos to Fall?
Over the next few weeks you're going to see a lot of analysis, punditry and speculation related to the massive layoffs at Forterra Systems and the January 1st closure of Metaplace's virtual world building site. So I thought I'd add my two cents before all the digital hot air steams up the place. For starters, I'm surprised more virtual world start-ups haven't already bitten the dust.
Virtual world designer Metaplace to shutter | Geek Gestalt - CNE
"Today we have unfortunate news to share with the Metaplace community," the company wrote in the e-mail. "We will be closing down our service on January 1, 2010 at 11:59 pm Pacific...We will be having a goodbye celebration party on January 1st at noon Pacific Time. "Over the last several years, we here at Metaplace have been working very hard to create an open platform allowing anyone to come to a Web site and create a virtual world of their own. Unfortunately, over the last few months it has become apparent that Metaplace as a consumer (user-generated content) service is not gaining enough traction to be a viable product, requiring a strategic shift for our company."
Money for nothing? Virtual goods market takes off ( - Internet -
Social networking and multiplayer online games are fueling dramatic growth in hard cash earned from goods that exist only in the world of online make-believe, according to companies in that market gathered at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. For mainstream consumer electronics vendors, last year may have been "a year none of us would wish to repeat," as Consumer Electronics Association President and CEO Gary Shapiro put it in a speech opening CES Thursday. Industry revenue dropped 7 percent in 2009, he said. But for the group assembled Wednesday at a CES panel discussion on the business of virtual goods and online gaming, 2009 was a very good year indeed.