I really wanted a snazzy title for this pretence at intelligence on my part, but alas, not a witty thought or suitably rude word has popped into my bonce.  So you’ll just have to have it vanilla…

The huge multi-national company that I work for is currently exploring ‘Second Life’, and virtual worlds.  You kind of take it for granted that companies in the IT industry  will want to exploit new technology and virtual happenings as soon as they become viable (and fashionable) but in reality it isn’t as easy as it sounds.  You would think that SL would be a perfect virtual environment to exploit by big business, and in theory it is, but it’s actually a problematic one. There are so many things to consider for a start.  Security is of paramount importance for a start.  If you have a big business then you’ll have a big network, with an equally big firewall to boot,  and they are a huge problem to get around and a costly one at that.  Additionally, what is a business presence in SL suited for? Well, it has a great publicity value and there’s the novelty of being in a virtual world ( how cool is it to drop by an office in world and deposit your CV into a virtual mailbox?)..BUT..once that novelty wears thin, is there any practical benefit? I’ll be honest- I don’t think there is YET  and I think RL businesses may be getting wise to this too.  After all, we’ve recently  seen  Pontiac leave SL behind.
You could argue that SL can enable people to attend meetings from wherever they are in world.  Ok, that’s a good idea, and in principal of course it’s entirely possible but can it  genuinely meet business needs such as  facilitating powerpoint presentations?  No, not really, what if the lag monster got you stuck on a slide or your meeting was  suddenly interrupted by thousands of bouncing Mario’s courtesy of your friendly neighbourhood griefers.   (There is a virtual answer better suited to business-Qwaq, but it has none of the bells and whistles that makes Second Life so visually attractive)So let’s look at it from the green perspective- obviously you can see that it would have it’s advantages there.  No daily commute so therefore no petrol emissions for a start, but hang on a minute, don’t forget that  your avatar has a carbon footprint as well! (Oh yes it does,  you run your PC on electricity, and think of all those servers running Second life) That doesn’t even include the operator behind the av, who needs heat and light and boils the kettle and flushes the loo on a regular basis as well. Is this virtual life a greener alternative?   You can offset your avatar, as I’ve previously blogged, but is it really correct to  that virtual worlds will revolutionise business in the real world in the very near future?  My honest opinion is that I don’t think it will straight away…BUT  we’re well on the way to getting there so it IS important for global brands to at least take tentative steps to get their feet through the virtual door.  With that in mind I think that 2008 is going to see even more big names in our world getting ready for when virtual living can revolutionise the way we work. Until then, I’m going to enjoy it as a way to rest and play.  Besides it’s a much less calorific alternative to Mars bars….