Posted by Rowland Hobbs on December 2 at 7:25 PM
Last week Google announced its intention to
close Lively, their virtual world platform. Having collobrated on "
The Virtual Brand Footprint: The Marketing Opportunity in Second Life" (downlaod
here) with
Boris Kizelshteyn, we thought we should ask him and his his firm, Popcha!, what the future of virtual worlds looks like now. In our Q&A, we discover what happened at Google, what this might mean for Google Earth, and where you might be holding your next company conference.
DMD: Google shut down Lively, their virtual world, last week. Why was this? What did Lively uniquely offer?
While I think there is a deeper story here, it is clear to me that at its core it was a financial decision that wouldn't have been made so swiftly had economic times been better. To whit, at launch in July '08 Mel Guymon, Google's Head of 3D Operations was quoted as saying Lively had an "an unlimited budget" (
http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/07/google-announce.html). As part of the Lively Content Developer program I was privy to some of the internal technical issues Google was facing; namely, problems in scaling the Gamebryo platform to support a large amount of third party content. So, in short, facing a suddenly tougher economic climate, a technology platform that required significant additional investment to mature and an unproven business model, Google folded their Lively hand. In terms of what Lively had that was truly unique, it was Google's distribution model. As I've said elsewhere, you can't get better penetration than everyone with a Gmail account. Unfortunatly, just having access to a virtual world doesn't mean people will use it. I think this speaks volumes to the challenges in successfully attracting a community to your virtual world and that those who have done it should be recognized and studied closely.
DMD: How will this effect other virtual worlds like Second Life?
Popcha!: People interested in virtual worlds should take a close look at what SL has been up to for the last 5+ years. For all its short comings it is the most fully realized metaverse we have to date and its creators, third party developers, and residents should be recognized as having achieved something very special and unique, something more than the sum of the money and intelligence invested into it.
Of course SL is a different animal, to get into SL requires a much larger commitment of both intellectual and computer resources than Lively. People in SL are there because there is an experience there for them that they can't get elsewhere and they have come to discover that content because they came from a gaming background and found the commitment level natural, were brought in by a community (work, school, entertainment, friendship), or came looking for it after having become bored with the current graphical/text chat options, Lively represented a sophisticated example of a graphical chat.
DMD: Google only gave the launch fourth months before pulling the plug. Does Google's change in course for virtual worlds send a signal to the rest of the industry?
Popcha!: It certainly proves that creating a virtual world or virtual-worlds-based business is difficult and its far from sown up by any one player, no matter the resources they have to hand. The Google sized opportunity is still out there!
DMD: What are the key opportunities for corporations looking to use virtual worlds post-Lively?
Popcha!: Virtual worlds represent an enormous resource for corporations looking to effectively integrate a culturally diverse workforce (like Samsung and IBM do), as an alternative to costly and polluting business travel (as CISCO and Sedhxo do), and as the most potent and simultaneously economical experiencial training tool (KU conducts Nurses training in SL).
There are branding opportunities around creating machinima, spreading it virally and then allowing users to enter the world inside the film. We are also doing some interesting work around connecting brands with virtual world artists, thereby cross-pollinating marketing with fine art.
DMD: What is the role for advertisers in virtual worlds? Is this a viable business model?
Popcha!: This is a topic worthy of a book, maybe a few, but to answer it in short, the basics identified over the last few years are still the biggest unrealized opportunities: attracting a community that will help you co-evolve your product, creating a visually compelling "creation myth" around your brand, new opportunities to inexpensively deliver better targeted support and customer service. These and many others will be multi-billion dollar businesses one day; we're still learning to crawl here.
DMD: Unique content was a key part of Lively's business model, but seemed to never develop. Do you think there are opportunities for professional third party developers in virtual worlds?
Popcha!: My understanding was that this never materialized largely as a result of technical limitations with the Gambryo technology platform. Of course platforms evolve, bugs get fixed, it was just a matter of time that they didn't have. There are still many questions unanswered about what third party content development would look like in a fully realized mainstream virtual world. It is clear that there is a business model there. Just look at where all the 2.0 players are investing, developer communities are a measure of many products' success these days. For white label or opensource worlds its a much simpler equation. If you want to use say, OpenSim, to create DMD's world, you would hire a development team to do it. This is the classic system integrator business model that has existed for decades. Linden Lab, creator of Second Life, is moving in the direction of offering their server as a white label-able product and we are on track to be a beta developer in the first quarter of '09.
DMD: What do you think will happen to Lively now?
Popcha!: According to them it may pop up again in another product offering and that the content company they spun off, X-Ray Kid, will continue to work on other projects. This is all dubious to me. I think that Google has a massively successful mirror-world product called Google Earth that they will shortly add an MMO layer to that will knock everyone's socks off. I think the only things stopping them is the immense legal issues around who owns the Brooklyn Bridge in Google Earth and the fact that making the technology work is expensive.
Something else that came out of all this that is interesting is the "Livelyzens" movement to "Keep Lively Alive." Stuff like this shows there are real people with real passion behind any online community and that it is the responsibilty of the community creators to do everything they can to offer continuence to their users. What is really interesting is that people find thier "voice" in the darndest of places and mediums and it is always a loss when they are silenced.
DMD: What can we expect over the next year in virtual worlds and their development?
Popcha!: The killer app for business will be an in browser or small download "conference" center that doesn't need IT to punch holes in firewalls for particpants to engage in meetings, not far from what Lively could have been. Everyone recognizes the green and cultural benefits of an entropic co-present virtual environment, but the implementation has been illusive. Folks will continue to build communities, especially around education, training, prototyping and fine art in Second Life. Depending on how people re-act to the economy watch for innovation in whitelable and opensource worlds, especially OpenSim. Kids and tween worlds will continue to be the hottest and most lucrative entertainment properties. Check out Disney Pixie Hollow if you haven't, its great!
What excites me the most personally about 2009 is that it will be the year that Augmented Environments will start to get media attention; that is the overlay of virtual worlds over the physical world, especially via mobile devices.
I would refer peeps to the very excellent metaverse roadmap project for people studying what's next:
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10 Comments so far...
"I think that Google has a massively successful mirror-world product called Google Earth that they will shortly add an MMO layer to that will knock everyone's socks off."
This is very smart. The ability to tie together so many of our experiences that create data will soon be managable by the individual rather than scooped by marketers.Who better to provide it than the company organizing the worlds information?
Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Vice President, Technical Strategy and Innovation, IBM http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/innovationstorystudio/bif3_iwberger.php talks about the value of virtual meetings.
Posted by Chris on December 3 at 7:39 AMvery interesting conversation. I too am looking forward to the year of augmented environments.
Posted by jeanette on December 3 at 2:59 PMI'm also curious about how Google will integrate Sketchup into its hypothetical (inevitable) return to a Lively-type project. Earth/Lively/scaled-down Sketchup as an integrated experience?
Posted by Paul on December 5 at 12:42 AMI thought this presentation on Google's strategy would be of interest to some readers of this interview: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/12/05/understanding-googles-strategy/
Posted by Boris Kizelshteyn on December 5 at 12:00 PMI agree RE: sketchup. I think the connection here to architecture, interior space, and live environments has huge applications. Once virtual worlds connect with Building Information Management, you start connecting more between abstract, frozen, architectural realities to real lived, expereince, realities.
Posted by Rowland Hobbs on December 6 at 7:24 AMThought I’d add this interview of Mark Kingdon by Andy Greenberg at Fotune.com.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/05/kingdon-second-life-tech-personal-cxag1205kingdon.html
Kingdon states that “their [Google’s] pulling out doesn’t invalidate the market. There's enormous opportunity in the virtual world space.”
As one of the co-authors of “The Brand Footprint” my thinking has changed drastically regarding usability and platform interoperability. Training and innovation in the user experience are vital because the opportunity cost associated with learning the software is too great for the average user as it currently stands. And yes, open protocols and open source leverages the resources of thousands, potentially tens of thousands of developers. SL has already takes steps towards this goal and we’re in for a really interesting ride as the next wave of innovation takes place.
Posted by Dimitri Darras on December 9 at 10:11 AMThanks Dimitri! I agree on the UI here, I wonder what will be the catalyst for the common consumer to understand the interfaces better?
Posted by Rowland Hobbs on December 11 at 8:41 AM76% of Enterprise Executives Predict Rise in Virtual Events for 2009
http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2009/01/76-of-enterprise-executives-predict-rise-in-virtual-events-for-2009.html
Posted by Boris Kizelshteyn on February 3 at 12:57 PMI thought I'd follow up with my post and your question...seven months after!
The Meerkat Viewer, put out by the Open Metaverse Foundation is one of several viewers including RealXtend that make significant headway in terms of usability and accessing Second Life and related virtual worlds based on OpenSim. These open source viewers make both incremental and large-scale improvements for users and developers alike. Stuff is easier to find; individuals and companies can back up their content and extend content creation tools.
http://www.meerkatviewer.org/
To answer your question directly Rowland about the catalyst for the common consumer - I'll say that a different medium necessitates a different UI paradigm, whether it's a cell phone, home installation, network of sensors, or some combination thereof. The mouse and keyboard just won't cut it anymore.
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