What will our role be in Virtual Worlds?

Japanese scientists have created new technology that allows paralysed people to move around freely in a virtual world – as shown in the clip at the end of this article.

I played this clip at the 2010 Squiz International User Conference, but did not have time to provide the context of the clip, or why I think the Squiz community might want to keep an eye on the development of 3D virtual worlds. On more than one occasion my wife has gently reminded me that I say too little and imply too much (she’s probably right), so here are my thoughts about the future of virtual worlds and leading-edge content management systems:

This is not a comprehensive guide to virtual worlds of course: that would require a much longer document.

What are virtual worlds?

They are community-based, simulated environments, usually in 3D, through which users interact with one another as avatars.

See Wikipedia for a more detailed explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_world

While Second Life, World of Warcraft, The Sims, and IMVU are some of the best known virtual worlds, there are many others.

These sites list some of them:

http://www.girlgamezone.com/virtual-worlds.html

http://data.govloop.com/dataset/List-of-Virtual-Worlds/d7tp-2pbh

http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/info/categories.shtml

http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Grid_List

Virtual worlds are coming of age

Virtual worlds may not have been all that sophisticated a few years ago, but they are getting much, much better, to the point that some of them are starting to catch up with big-budget online games.

Gaming enthusiasts build their own virtual worlds and play rich stories, created by themselves, in genres that range from old-fashioned shoot-em-up to racing (the bikes are particularly awesome, and so are the Steampunk air ships) to the fantastical (fairies, furries, feathers and fangs), or even the darker world of the undead.

While the quality of avatar animation varies, and is often not up to gaming standard yet, the quality of home-grown virtual worlds (for gaming or otherwise) can be astounding.

This clip shows Nemo, a Steampunk world in Second Life:

You will find virtual economies too. Although virtual worlds enable you to create your own clothing, furniture, buildings or whatever else you might want, most people simply buy what they need from virtual world merchants who create and build virtual objects and clothing, including avatar shapes, skins and hair.

It’s not just fun and games either: the corporates have been experimenting with virtual worlds from the beginning. Some of them (most notably IBM) are right into it, as shown in this clip about virtual offices and the environmentally-friendly potential of these environments.

Linden Labs (the makers of Second Life) seems to be going down the corporate road so aggressively, that some casual users and smaller companies started to feel marginalised and immigrated to other virtual worlds (such as Reaction Grid).

While some virtual worlds are propriety, Open Source projects produce both sims (the virtual world servers) such as OpenSim,  and viewers (the user clients), which means that anyone can set up a private virtual world. Providing your geek-score is high enough of course.

Mashups are coming to virtual worlds

Virtual worlds are connected to the Web. You can, for instance, browse through an online shop and buy clothing for your avatar, which then appears in your inventory once you sign into that particular virtual world.

It works the other way round too: you can listen to online music and watch videos, take snapshots of what you see and upload it into your Flickr account, and tweet about it all, without needing to leave your virtual world to fire up a web browser.

Future virtual mashups are going to be awesome, and that is for sure. Imagine visiting the virtual representation of your favourite restaurant district. Imagine meeting your friends’ avatars to take a look around, browse the menus, read the reviews, check the weather and even see how crowded the place is. This kind of integration will allow you to check out the general ambiance of your destination before you leave you real-world home.

Virtual restaurant scouting may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I think you get the picture.

All of this can be achieved by integrating common online channels that are already out there. But what will be needed in the future? Will virtual worlds require information that goes beyond the social web? What data will Government and Academia want to have available? (Yes, they are in there, and have been for a while.) What will the big corporates want to do? And just importantly, what will small businesses come up with?

They won’t want to duplicate their content I think. Surely they will require the information that currently lives in their websites to be injected into their virtual worlds?

The future

The mobile web finally arrived over the last year or two. While the former sceptics of the mobile web are rushing out to buy the latest and greatest smart phones, a new breed of visionaries are quietly preparing us for another gentle revolution.

The question is: what will OUR role be? Will we be doing something to make a difference to people who are not as privileged as we are?

Here is the promised clip about Japanese scientist working to make a difference:

I hope that we, too, will start to think about our role in a world where real and virtual life blends seamlessly: a world that will create challenges, but also fantastic opportunities.